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← People and their mental models

Filippo Valsorda's mental models

4 claims Filippo Valsorda made fit 4 mental models. Most often: Everything decays without maintenance, Lock-in and switching costs, Trade-offs. Everything they said here.

Models they name

Their own words name the idea.

Everything decays without maintenance

Institutions, code, cities and knowledge run down by default; keeping something alive is work that has to be paid for.

Used by 27 others

Funding should pay for maintenance, not features, because every new feature adds to the burden the money was meant to relieve.

  1. Filippo Valsorda Cryptographer, formerly of the Go team at Google Finally, the health of the project depends on issue triage, bug fixes, refactors, and design work more than on new features. In fact, new features increase the maintenance burden. How to pay professional maintainerswords.filippo.io · 17 Mar 2022All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsFinally, the health of the project depends on issue triage, bug fixes, refactors, and design work more than on new features. In fact, new features increase the maintenance burden.

    ↗How to pay professional maintainerswords.filippo.io

    17 Mar 2022

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Lock-in and switching costs

People stay with what they would not choose again because leaving costs more than staying; watch who sets that cost.

Used by 17 others

A dependency you would need engineer-months to replace or fork is a critical one, and retaining its maintainer is straightforward business sense.

  1. Filippo Valsorda Cryptographer, formerly of the Go team at Google This is how I frame it: if the effort required to replace or fork a dependency should it go unmaintained is measured in engineer-months, that’s a critical dependency and retaining its maintainers probably makes good business sense. I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainerwords.filippo.io · 2 Feb 2023All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsThis is how I frame it: if the effort required to replace or fork a dependency should it go unmaintained is measured in engineer-months, that’s a critical dependency and retaining its maintainers probably makes good business sense.

    ↗I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainerwords.filippo.io

    2 Feb 2023

Trade-offs

Every choice gives something up, so name the cost; and check, because some trade-offs everyone assumes are not real.

Used by 60 others

A contribution is a cost to the maintainer, not a gift: it is taking part, not merely using the code, that consumes a project’s scarcest resource.

  1. Filippo Valsorda Cryptographer, formerly of the Go team at Google I often read advice along the lines of “if you want to help a project send PRs” and I never understood it. Reviewing and iterating or pushing back on PRs is work! Often more than writing the code itself. How to pay professional maintainerswords.filippo.io · 17 Mar 2022All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsI often read advice along the lines of “if you want to help a project send PRs” and I never understood it. Reviewing and iterating or pushing back on PRs is work! Often more than writing the code itself.

    ↗How to pay professional maintainerswords.filippo.io

    17 Mar 2022

Value moves to what stays scarce

When something becomes cheap and plentiful, the value moves to whatever is still rare next to it.

Used by 59 others

The thing open source can actually sell is not the code but access to its maintainers’ attention and expertise.

  1. Filippo Valsorda Cryptographer, formerly of the Go team at Google Clients still pay a fixed monthly retainer to ensure the professional maintenance of the whole portfolio, and to get access to the expertise of all of Geomys’ maintainers. Geomys, a blueprint for a sustainable open source maintenance firmwords.filippo.io · 8 Jul 2024All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsClients still pay a fixed monthly retainer to ensure the professional maintenance of the whole portfolio, and to get access to the expertise of all of Geomys’ maintainers.

    ↗Geomys, a blueprint for a sustainable open source maintenance firmwords.filippo.io

    8 Jul 2024