I don't know if I've had my head under a rock, but Github's README[0] is the bigger news to me -- Are we going to finally see the end of technical posting on Medium in ~5 years? I never even knew README existed until seeing this post.
It doesn't look like an alternative to Medium to me – its a collection of posts by nominated open source developers, as opposed to a technical blogging platform
I just started posting to HashNode this week as an alternative to Medium. So far so good. Can write posts in markdown and even sync them to a git repo.
Same! It'll be interesting to follow this and see what happens. But in the long run I think we need something distributed but also connected (like diaspora or mastodon maybe, concept wise). And as always, it'd be probably hard to establish.
A great article - and lines like this really resonate with me "More than project management skills or technical expertise, empathy is the most important skill in open source."
However, the article doesn't address the most obvious question, how does Henry fund this activity?
> I currently host two podcasts studio_microphone: Hope in Source and Maintainers Anonymous.
This isn't very typical of open source creators, but for people who want to live off donations, it's a big help, because it helps building a fanbase of people, of which a subset then donates to you. Basically the same model as of a youtuber, who also creates content and uses patreon because youtube's unilateral and weird decisions to demonetize people or change their compensation on a whim.
Furthermore, it really depends on which area you work in. It seems that in the js ecosystem, it's possible to live off donations, but the js ecosystem is gigantic, and many people make money building js stuff.
IDK the people who can live off donations are an extremely tiny subset of all open source maintainers. For most people it's as unattainable as living from your proceedings of being a youtube star, and even then lots of people want to become youtube stars.
That being said, for the 99%, being in open source is still beneficial, as it opens doors into the jobs world, helps building a portfolio as well as a network, both useful for getting a job.
Exactly, I was wondering the same. In fact, about half way in I started to fast forward to find where he gives details but I never found them. This is sad, as many others considering the leap would need this cruicial information. And just talking how greatly this decision connects him to people can't really compensate..
What was also missing was if he is a 1-man WFH show, or whether they are a team with an office. I don't know Babel really, maybe it's obvious to others. But it would provide context.
I also wondered why NYC. If you are low on funds, or at least your economic base for your project is fragile, why choose such an expensive place to live? If you are WFH anyway (is he?) then some cheap place in the midwest would instantly multiply the buying power of the availabe funds. How to explain to donors that half of their donations go straight into the pockets of the landlord for an overprized tiny apartment?
The main problem with emojis (usage of them aside) is that while they are characters, they do not work in the same way as other characters. Smileys are composed of symbols right at your fingertips. Native emoji keyboards are severely lacking - typing them is a lot different than text. The worst part is that while fonts exist since forever, the emoji generation forgot all the engineering put into it and no font tooling works with emojis. Whatever font setup you have, it goes down the drain once emojis are in the text, because emoji glyphs come not from your font setup, but from within the rendering application.
Here's a question I've vaguely wondered but never mustered the effort to actually look up: how does IRC work? Like, if two people want to talk to each other over IRC, do they need to be connected to the same same IRC server at the same time?
If so, does that mean that IRC is basically like instant messaging along the lines of AOL Instant Messanger, or Google chat? Or is there something that makes IRC very different?
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|5 years ago|reply
[0]: https://github.com/readme
[+] [-] vin047|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobeat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevsim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thtmnisamnstr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _def|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ColinEberhardt|5 years ago|reply
However, the article doesn't address the most obvious question, how does Henry fund this activity?
[+] [-] est31|5 years ago|reply
> I currently host two podcasts studio_microphone: Hope in Source and Maintainers Anonymous.
This isn't very typical of open source creators, but for people who want to live off donations, it's a big help, because it helps building a fanbase of people, of which a subset then donates to you. Basically the same model as of a youtuber, who also creates content and uses patreon because youtube's unilateral and weird decisions to demonetize people or change their compensation on a whim.
Furthermore, it really depends on which area you work in. It seems that in the js ecosystem, it's possible to live off donations, but the js ecosystem is gigantic, and many people make money building js stuff.
IDK the people who can live off donations are an extremely tiny subset of all open source maintainers. For most people it's as unattainable as living from your proceedings of being a youtube star, and even then lots of people want to become youtube stars.
That being said, for the 99%, being in open source is still beneficial, as it opens doors into the jobs world, helps building a portfolio as well as a network, both useful for getting a job.
[+] [-] ganafagol|5 years ago|reply
What was also missing was if he is a 1-man WFH show, or whether they are a team with an office. I don't know Babel really, maybe it's obvious to others. But it would provide context.
I also wondered why NYC. If you are low on funds, or at least your economic base for your project is fragile, why choose such an expensive place to live? If you are WFH anyway (is he?) then some cheap place in the midwest would instantly multiply the buying power of the availabe funds. How to explain to donors that half of their donations go straight into the pockets of the landlord for an overprized tiny apartment?
[+] [-] jgilias|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christiansakai|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smabie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friendzis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marvy|5 years ago|reply
If so, does that mean that IRC is basically like instant messaging along the lines of AOL Instant Messanger, or Google chat? Or is there something that makes IRC very different?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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