$30 off During Our Annual Pro Sale. View Details »
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Open Source Economics (is not what you think)
Search
Mike McQuaid
October 27, 2021
Technology
0
220
Open Source Economics (is not what you think)
What open source economics aren't, are and the solutions for open source economic problems.
Mike McQuaid
October 27, 2021
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Mike McQuaid
See All by Mike McQuaid
Ruby on (Guard)Rails
mikemcquaid
0
150
Workbrew - Homebrew for Mac Admins
mikemcquaid
1
200
Using "modern" Ruby to build a better, faster Homebrew
mikemcquaid
3
5k
Homebrew's Evolution
mikemcquaid
0
210
Open Source: boundaries, burnout, business
mikemcquaid
0
550
Homebrew’s Great Migration: moving to GitHub Packages with zero downtime
mikemcquaid
0
540
Building effective relationships
mikemcquaid
0
220
Homebrew - What's Happened and What's Next?
mikemcquaid
0
200
The Best Project
mikemcquaid
0
200
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
A Compass of Thought: Guiding the Future of Test Automation ( #jassttokai25 , #jassttokai )
teyamagu
PRO
1
240
グレートファイアウォールを自宅に建てよう
ctes091x
0
140
安いGPUレンタルサービスについて
aratako
2
2.6k
LLM-Readyなデータ基盤を高速に構築するためのアジャイルデータモデリングの実例
kashira
0
210
AWS re:Invent 2025で見たGrafana最新機能の紹介
hamadakoji
0
120
日本Rubyの会の構造と実行とあと何か / hokurikurk01
takahashim
4
920
計算機科学をRubyと歩む 〜DFA型正規表現エンジンをつくる~
ydah
3
190
Agentic AI Patterns and Anti-Patterns
glaforge
1
200
手動から自動へ、そしてその先へ
moritamasami
0
280
乗りこなせAI駆動開発の波
eltociear
1
980
AI駆動開発における設計思想 認知負荷を下げるフロントエンドアーキテクチャ/ 20251211 Teppei Hanai
shift_evolve
PRO
2
150
寫了幾年 Code,然後呢?軟體工程師必須重新認識的 DevOps
cheng_wei_chen
1
730
Featured
See All Featured
GitHub's CSS Performance
jonrohan
1032
470k
Fantastic passwords and where to find them - at NoRuKo
philnash
52
3.5k
Facilitating Awesome Meetings
lara
57
6.7k
4 Signs Your Business is Dying
shpigford
186
22k
Being A Developer After 40
akosma
91
590k
RailsConf & Balkan Ruby 2019: The Past, Present, and Future of Rails at GitHub
eileencodes
141
34k
Code Review Best Practice
trishagee
74
19k
Imperfection Machines: The Place of Print at Facebook
scottboms
269
13k
Raft: Consensus for Rubyists
vanstee
141
7.2k
Designing Dashboards & Data Visualisations in Web Apps
destraynor
231
54k
Scaling GitHub
holman
464
140k
Embracing the Ebb and Flow
colly
88
4.9k
Transcript
Open Source Economics (is not what you think) 💷👩💻🌍🧘🥳 @MikeMcQuaid
Staff Engineer in Communities (GitHub Engineer 2013 – Present)
Project Leader on Homebrew (Homebrew Maintainer 2009 – Present)
👎 What aren’t Open Source Economics 👍 What are Open
Source Economics? 👩🔧 What are some solutions?
What aren’t 👎 Open Source Economics?
Economics: how 💵💶💷💴 flows around an economy?
OSS Economics: how 💵💶💷💴 flows between projects?
GitHub Sponsors
OSS problems: Solution: 💵💶💷💴 fixes all problems?
What are 👍 Open Source Economics?
Economic problem: Allocation of limited resources (💵💶💷💴)?
OSS Economic problem: Allocation of limited maintainers (👩💻👪🧑💻)
The Open Source Contributor Funnel https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/08/14/the-open-source-contributor-funnel/
Maintainer allocation: Help 🌍 or help 🙋?
Nadia Eghbal, Working in Public A tragedy of the commons
occurs not from consumers over- appropriating the content itself, but from consumers over- appropriating a creator’s attention.
Maintainer time: More 💵💶💷💴 means more ⏰ ?
Maintainer income: How much 💵💶💷💴 to work full-time?
What are 👩🔧 some solutions?
How to Focus 🧘 🧘
GitHub Actions
actions/stale
GitHub Discussions
Issue Forms
Maintainer focus: Enjoyment! 😍🥰🤪🥳
How to Spend Money 💵 💶 💷 💴
Pay maintainers: GitHub Sponsors == 💵💶💷💴 for their work
Outreachy
OSS Economics: 🧘 🧘 + 💵💶💷💴 == 😍🥰🤪🥳 https://mikemcquaid.com/2021/10/27/open-source-economics/