What Nadia Asparouhova thinks about open source
Writer and researcher on open source, author of "Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software" and, as Nadia Eghbal, of the 2016 Ford Foundation report "Roads and Bridges" on the digital infrastructure the economy runs on. She worked on community programmes at GitHub from 2016 to 2018 and writes at nadia.xyz.
Nadia Asparouhova did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
7 dated positions, 2018 to 2019, in their own words. Our reading of what Nadia Asparouhova has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Our reading · no longer heldCompany sponsorships, not individual ones, are where open source funding has to come from.
Recalls holdingI’ve seen recurring comments to the effect of “This is great, but individuals aren’t where the money’s at, it’s companies”, which is a position I’ve also previously taken.
SaidMy hypothesis: rather than individual sponsorships being a path to company sponsorships, the motivations of individuals are different from companies, and therefore should be treated as two separate use cases, and two separate products.
↗The Twitch argument for GitHub Sponsorsnadia.xyz 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsWith companies, open source developers are selling a product. With individuals, they’re selling themselves.
↗The Twitch argument for GitHub Sponsorsnadia.xyz 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
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Their wordsWhile everyone is focused on putting up tollbooths, opportunities to “price” maintainer attention, and access to maintainers, remain undervalued.
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Their wordsMost users don’t actually impose costs back to maintainers: they download the code and never interact with the project.
- 8 months earlier
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Their wordsThe right to fork is still critical as an implied threat to keep the system in check. But major political forks aren’t as common, and certainly not as top-of-mind, anymore.
↗Do financial incentives increase the threat of forks?nadia.xyz
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsOpen source projects on GitHub represent billions of dollars in value creation, but none of that is captured on GitHub.
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Their wordsSuccessful open source developers get “acquihired” by a company who values their reputation and skills, which has the perverse effect of making them less noisy about how to make a living off of open source.