Book Review - Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal
By @edent
· Book Review github Open Source oss software · 1 comment · 300 words
Over the last 20 years, open source software has undergone a significant shift—from providing an optimistic model for public collaboration to undergoing constant maintenance by the often unseen solo operators who write and publish the code that millions of users rely on every day. In Working in Public, Nadia Eghbal takes an inside look at modern open source software development, its evolution over the last two decades, and its ramifications for an internet reorienting itself around individual creators. By delineating the structure of open source projects, she explores, for the first time, the maintenance costs of production that software incurs for its developers. Drawing on hundreds of developer interviews and analyses of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and YouTube, Eghbal argues that examining who produces things on the internet, and not just what they produce, helps us understand the value of online content today.
This is an excellent book. If you're an experienced open source developer, it'll bring clarity to a bunch of concepts you're familiar with but couldn't name. If you're managing teams who work with - or produce - open source, it'll give you a greater understanding of the scene and its limitations.
Given the current furore with Log4J developers basically being volunteers, the book presents several ways that critical open source can be funded.
But, for me, the best thing about it is the way that it reflects our culture at this moment in time. Sure, it covers the history of F/OSS and it looks to the future - but it is mostly about what working on Open Source is like right now.
If you're interested in software as a cultural movement - and its intersection with commerce and government - this is the book for you.
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- Buy the eBook on Amazon Kindle
- Author's homepage
- Publisher's details
- Borrow from your local library
- ISBN: 978-0-578-67586-2
I'm surprised you liked it so much! You're reminding me to get my own review up sooner rather than later, but in short, I was dismayed at how her analysis completely missed or ignored several major aspects of how open source works, which led her to implausible conclusions. The fact that she didn't acknowledge any forms of open source contributions other than commits, combined with how she explicitly ignored the role of institutions (such as GitHub itself or venture capital), means that even when she describes a particular aspect of maintainership today, she misses how and why it's happening.