Depends. I sort-of understand where he is coming from. Releasing FOSS is generally at least partially ego-driven: we want to write something that people use and love and talk about.
Sure, that's not healthy, but it's also somewhat human nature: we want to be wanted.
And yes, when we are not (either by people not using our libraries, not being able to find a romantic partner, etc.) it hurts. And yes, it could cause burn-out.
So, I disagree that it's "entitlement", or even if it is, I feel it's something a lot of us can understand even outside of programming.
We all want to be wanted. Those that don't are usually quite impressive people.
> we want to write something that people use and love and talk about.
Then start off with something people are already using and improve that rather than to re-invent the wheel in some interesting way and then to be disappointed when nobody uses your particular wheel.
If all people did that, nothing new would get done ever. It's a risk. Developers who embark on wheel-creation know it's a risk. Nevertheless, rejection still hurts. Being ignored doesn't just mean you invested all those hours for nothing, it also means the audience rejects your take on the subject, and by extension your value system.
But telling people to just stick to established open source projects and be content with small contributions is not the solution either: first this would probably not be an interesting activity for those people and second participating in a successful OS project is by no means a protection from this kind of rejection or other kinds of grief. The "solution" here is clearly to "suck it up and move on", but I see how that can be difficult.
I'm afraid the only real advice to give here would be for developers not to get too invested in their pet projects because, like startups, most of them will never be of any interest to anyone. To all the people who are currently doing such projects, I'd say: keep doing it as long as it's fun, but not a second longer. Learn to let go.
Agreed that "contribute to existing projects" is not a real solution. If you want to solve a particular problem, or set of problems, there will be a finite set of solutions close to what you need. It's entirely possible that all of them suck at some level from architecture to implementation. Additionally, the current maintainers might resist the change of direction that you need, and maintaining your own fork of a large alien codebase might truly be more work than maintaining your own smaller and more familiar codebase. Many would argue that this was the case with distributed filesystems (my own specialty) from approximately 1995-2005, and perhaps even today. Saying that everybody should work on somebody else's project is like saying that everybody should work for somebody else's company. Nope. Somebody has to start the new thing before others can join.
The trick, as you say, is learning to let go. Accept that you'll have other ideas, and maybe one of them will gain more traction. In the course of a long career, maybe even one of those old projects will come back to life because of a shifting context or because working on other things inspired that one extra twist that makes it ten times more valuable. Setting something aside is not the same as throwing it away, and every good developer I know has dozens of ideas that they've set aside. You never know which one will be useful again some day.
One problem with this variety of burn-out is that it appears to be for the most part self inflicted. People that are locked in to some job and that are providing that way for their family have a hard situation to fix. If you're contributing to open source and you're burning out on that then you need to recognize that this is a voluntary situation and that simply quitting is the solution. So I think the author got it right by quitting but I think burn-out is a bit too severe a term for this situation.
In that case I'd say it's similar to the fact that people get depressed regardless from their objective situations and how happy they should be relatively to others.
Put another way, I'd say that even a spoiled rich valley girl who tries too hard to be the light of the party at too many social events can suffer from a valid burnout.
I don't have as much sympathy for her as I would for the guy that burns himself out trying to earn enough money to fund his daughter's cancer treatment, but that's another matter entirely ;)
Speaking as the author of a tremendous amount of software noone uses, I found this ridiculous.
Sometimes it does hurt- mainly when you explain why what you're doing is better (or at least attempt to in objective terms) and someone still uses "the big thing". As an ops guy for a big startup, even though I get that it still kinda sucks.
But if it's causing you to feel burnt out you're taking this too seriously.
> Releasing FOSS is generally at least partially ego-driven: we want to write something that people use and love and talk about.
I think this is self regulating. Those projects rarely take off, because there's not enough motivation to be awesome.
The projects that get traction are the ones the author HAS to build to see if it'll even work.
Entitlement to recognition? Everybody should be entitled to that. IDK if you are in the FOSS community but I talk to people who just want to write software that is used for nothing other than some minor recognition from some geeks that matter to them, who want to suicide.
Everybody is entitled to be recognized and respected.
Your comment made me angry that you missed so clearly the likelihood of this person being in a fragile situation. Hey, I have Aspergers too you know, there is no excuse to tell other people how they think they feel. It makes them feel ignored and under recognized. Basic human dignity: you recognize the efforts of others.
I'd say recognition for minor things is the lifeblood of society without money. Everybody is entitled to recognition.
Don't you start whining too. It is entitlement, not a desire for recognition. No one is disrespecting this guy (so far as we know) they are just ignoring him, just like everyone else in the world spends most of their lives after early childhood, being ignored. If no one uses this guy's software it may be that it is just of no use to them.
And if you write FOSS just to hear the roar of the appreciative crowd then that is your problem all long. Remember the adage to "scratch an itch" whether OR NOT anyone else finds it useful.
Sometimes it's not even about minor recognition. Sometimes it's about believing that there's really something fundamentally better about the way your app/library solves the problem at hand. It's frustrating to see people continue doing things the "broken" way when a better way has actually been demonstrated and made easily available.
Is everyone who believes that correct? Certainly not, but that's not the point. The point is that sometimes it's about idealism, not ego. People like Jacques might deny others the privilege of reinventing the wheel (even as they gained their own notoriety by exercising that privilege themselves) but that's really how every superior alternative has to start. Linux, HTML/HTTP, every database (SQL or otherwise) of the last twenty years, Hadoop - all are or contain reinvented wheels, and IMO at least one of those suffers by comparison to "reinvented" alternatives. The literal wheel itself has been reinvented a couple of times, from rolling logs to axles and bearings and differentials and aerodynamic shapes designed in wind tunnels.
One man's reinvention is another's creative destruction, and it often has nothing to do with ego. It's not entitlement to feel pain from banging your mind against some mad buggers' walls.
I'm fine with people re-inventing the wheel. I just don't get why the world should be expected to use your wheel. I've re-invented the wheel more often than not (all but once or so), yet if the world doesn't use whatever I make that doesn't upset me because I recognize that was my own choice rather than that the world now owes me.
Why should the world be expected to use your wheel?
Because it's better. That belief might be incorrect the vast majority of the time and/or in this specific case, but I for one am reluctant to quash that kind of enthusiasm. It's the fuel of progress, even if some (most?) of it is wasted. The disappointment and frustration of seeing "inferior" alternatives prevail are inseparable from the drive to create a better one. It's not about "owing" anything. For many people, it's about wanting to make the (technical) world a better place, being thwarted, and seeing the community as a whole diminished as a result.
Maybe some people don't feel that kind of passion themselves. Maybe they think emotion and idealism have no place in computing, though if that were the case I doubt we'd see so many flame wars. Maybe they've never had an idea worth getting that attached to, though I doubt that's a common factor in a forum for entrepreneurs. Maybe some people are in it for the ego boost themselves, and can't imagine others being in it for another reason. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that some people do get invested in an idea for reasons besides ego, and it's good for them to do so.
Easier beats better, cheaper beats better, sharper looking beats better and so on. Better only matters if all other things are equal and if the perception of all other things is (at least) equal. It's pretty rare to see better be the major reason for adoption for some chunk of open source.
Community, documentation are other metrics that matter a lot when choosing an open source solution.
If it weren't for that then everybody would be using Haskell or Clojure, those are so much better (at least, so I keep hearing) and yet the reality is different.
"Easier beats better, cheaper beats better, sharper looking beats better and so on."
Beside the point. If your goal is to "beat" others (revealing choice of words) and either make more money or gain more recognition then sure, but not every piece of software is motivated by those goals. Somebody has to make the "better" even if they're not the ones to benefit, and many are fine with that. That's particularly true in open source.
Assuming a particular motivation for the OP, and then insulting them based on that assumption, is just wrong. In fact, I think some might even see it as hitting someone when they're down - i.e. bullying. People who've gained some prominence in the community should try to do better.
I sympathize with the OP and don't mean to be derisive, but really there is so much open source software to be done, so many niches and gaps and itches to scratch (I currently am writing three projects for which I see little to no "competitors"). And yet his major projects are a plugin system and a static blog generator. I might be coming from node.js here, don't know the status quo in Python, but even as JS is a much younger cohesive community, there are a TON of people doing their own versions of what the poster is doing, in fact they might be among the most reinvented applications out there. And there are clearly many winners already. I love doing developer tools too, many of my itches revolve around them, being a developer, yet I see many problems that aren't seeing as much competition. A good execution on an area open source lacks would not go unappreciated.
You're absolutely right. If being an entrepreneur is creating a product for a need, being a good open source contributor isn't any different (only you're working strictly for the notoriety).
I would suggest to OP to try to find a job where he is encouraged to release things he builds for that product FOSS, so that even if he doesn't find success in the popularity of it, hell, at least it means a lot at his day job and he has some skrill to show for it.
"And some days, when a weekend passes and I played at the park with my son, helped him in his first programming project on the RaspberryPi, enjoyed a movie at home with my wife and a bright spring Saturday morning at the farmers’ market… but I end that weekend just kicking myself for the code I didn’t finish?"
Did you not just pretty much describe the perfect weekend?
I'm not sure you're burning out, I think you're realising what life is really about.
I certainly understand to some extent, I'd always like to make more progress on personal projects and side projects and the like, but I don't feel sad when life gets in the way. Hopefully he won't either after a while.
To me being burnt out is feeling like you've been increasingly doing more and more for the same reward. I feel like I am burning out slowly as well, I'll eventually probably have a nervous breakdown but I have no choice but to keep on going to provide an income to my family, I can't stop what I am doing. I have to keep working, keep taking on freelance projects, keep spending time on the computer not because I want too, but because not having money and a crappy life isn't something I want for my family.
We live in an economy where if you're not putting in those extra unpaid hours you're not considered an asset to your employer and you will be disposed of. An economy where 17 old kids can not only flip burgers, they can code and code for a hell of a lot cheaper/are more willing to sleep at work to meet a deadline.
Burning out is when you go to work, come home to freelance, go to work 7 days of the week with inconsistent hours, not getting to spend time with your family, not getting to go to the farmers markets or watch movies with your wife. It's going to bed at 2am working and waking at 6am to go to work, it's feeling like you're constantly working, constantly checking emails all for the same salary.
If your work is comprised of open source, you at least have a way out. Me? I have no way out. I work on my personal projects in between freelancing and my actual job hoping that maybe, just maybe, all of this stress, finishing work at 10pm, having to come in for weekends without being paid extra and work will mean something one day. Hoping that all of this effort will mean that one day I too, can hire multiple people to do the work currently I as one person am doing.
You don't sound burnt out, you sound bitter that nobody is using your work, that's entitlement, not feeling like you're so deep in work you have no way out which is being burnt out. I am sorry to sound so aggressive and angry, but I am burning out and there's nothing I can do about it.
There's that old saying: "If you don't value your time, nobody will"
Stop working unpaid overtime. If that gets you fired, so be it, but it's better than working yourself to death.
Your family would rather be poor than not be able to spend time with you
Assuming you're a decent developer you can get another job easily. If you seriously can't afford to not work 18 hours a day for a few weeks, then consider bankruptcy.
You know, I remembered an old saying while reading your comment too: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride". :)
I don't contest what you say, but getting out of these life situations isn't as easy as you put it either. There's more to it than meets the eye, it's a little more involved than "people should get off their seats and make life changes" and so, the best thing would be to show some human empathy to these people.
I can relate to this. Although there is only my fiancee and myself,I still have to provide an income to pay our rent, our bills and do my best to give her the nice things she wants. I'm working a 9-6 job, come home, sit back down and freelance to get more money than my salary brings in, just to pay off our bills. We don't even have anything on finance between us, we live on basics yet we struggle.
She works as a carer, 6 out of 7 days a week she's up at 5AM and home by 10PM. It's rare we get to spend time together anyway, but when we do, I'd like to make it a nice day and give her something nice.
There is a shloka in Hinduism that might be relevant to this post. As stated in Mahabharata, when Arjun wonders about the futility of his efforts on the battlefields of Kurukshetra, this is what Lord Krishna says to him:
"कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥"
(You have the right to perform your actions, but you are not entitled to the fruits of the actions. Do not let the fruit be the purpose of your actions, and therefore you won’t be attached to not doing your duty.)
Well if you feel burnt out now, you'd have had a really bad time some years ago, when open-source was nothing about web development and more about the GNU/Linux environment.
Nowadays we have github, anyone can link to your Yet-Another-Something library written in javascript and boom, at least you have one user. But in the past there was nothing like that. We'd have to pray for someone to find the download link in our sourceforge project, get to download and compile it.
At the end of the day, however, you have a job, a wife and a son. Unknown people using your open-source software should be the least of your concerns.
I've been through those times, and I think you gave an excellent data counterpoint. :)
>> At the end of the day, however, you have a job, a wife and a son. Unknown people using your open-source software should be the least of your concerns.
I feel burnt out. I don't write open source software. I just make sites for select clients. I try to make their wacky ideas a reality. But there's no appreciation in it. End of the day you're just another drone. Between this and trying to keep up with the changing tech environment, battling depression and trying to finish my university degree, I've grown to despise computers and related products.
Deciding to leave my computer at work and spend a few days without a computer at home, I've started reading again. I look forward to those free hours where I can be away from a computer and reading a book in bed.
Sometimes it's good to just take a break from the glowing box. I've got a general rule: If I have time to chat on irc, I have time to read a book and relax away from a computer.
Computers have been my hobby and career for almost 3 decades. Sometimes you need to take a break and do something different.
So here's a small list of activities that have kept me semi-sane through the years: Body building, hiking, reading, gardening, ren fairs, martial arts, shooting sports, cooking, ham radio, traveling, writing, robotics, public service, building, boating and dinner parties.
When I originally saw this posting linked from on another site, I reached out to the author with a constructive comment that he work with other people. Now the comments are not visible.
So is the author wallowing in pity or depression?
As a long time coder, most of my work is no longer in use. Many of my current internal projects at work are only in use by me or a small group of people, enough though they could help hundreds of others (clients, coworkers).
And code is never done. I have dozens of projects in various states of completeness. Even the code in production isn't "truly finished", but it works well enough and has passed review.
I'm going to work on a few other OSS projects that may never be seen by a handful of folks. That's fine. I don't want fame, I like solving problems and helping others.
If you are a long time programmer the really depressing thing is that your life's work will probably comfortably fit on a single DVD or even a micro sd card.
Ignoring the self-involvement inherent in the article, if you want to contribute to something big (There's nothing wrong with wanting that sense of "I helped build this"); go contribute to a big FOSS project!
Fix a bug in rails[1] or django[2] (Pretty sure I saw you're a python guy).
Fix some of the hilarious problems with Bower[3] (Saw some js too).
There's an entire world of awesome problems to solve. Go solve them.
I see your point (and in my view- screw contributing if it means interacting with trac), but reading over that issue it does look like his patch wasn't backwards compatible.
The issue was reopened 5 weeks ago so hopefully it resolves well :/
rearrange life, priorities things you like to do. Fuck the other stuff. Say no to people, say no to "must do" things.
Stop coding, building whatever. Help your son, go traveling, read a fantasy book, whatever.
And this is how you avoid burning out and improve your life quality.
Some relatives of mine, in Europe, have taken sick days, up to six months from work stress. They were on verge of burning out. They still got income. Also, employee don't need to know, why are you sick. It is private matter between you and your doctor.
A different context may prove to be more satisfying to you. Rather than working harder and harder on providing software to what you currently see as the ideal group to use your efforts, try targeting a completely different group. There are those who would appreciate your talent and even be amazed at what you can do. Consider helping them rather than pushing your current boulder up yet another hill.
Just remember, there is always a worse code base than the one you are working on, and on the flip side no matter how good you make your code base, someone will encounter it, and think it's a "poorly written mass of code".
Value propositions battling it out here. I don't know if the OP is an entrepreneur or not, but bartering time and skills for an ego payoff is not healthy. I could never fully appreciate this about talented folks sacrificing their time with families to do open source projects (if it was not for the learning experience). I can see how an ego trip reason quickly turns into the sort of burnout he talks of.
If he's an entrepreneur then it's even more dire than burnout. His business is most likely in trouble too.
Entrepreneurs have to walk a fine line between being local optimisers or opportunity creators. Unfortunately, many technical entrepreneurs find it comforting to hunker down and code within strict given parameters - often ignoring the bigger picture with questions like "is it worth it?". As long as geeks are given a problem to solve, they remain focused. This is deadly if you're the geek running your own business.
Heck, even if you're not an entrepreneur, it's always good to ask the "is it worth it" questions regularly.
When it comes to being popular in our community, it's a race to the bottom, where the bottom is living alone with nothing depending on you for its survival.
Once I realized that, I stopped worrying and just decided to build stuff for me. And if anyone else wanted it, neat.
Go get help. If you're in a European country take a few days sick leave and go talk with a doctor.
Burn-out is what happens when
a) you keep pushing yourself, you've approached your limits but want more so keep pushing further
b) you've been operating at your limit for a long time and something happens that multiplies the amount of effort required to get those results (downsizing, personal illness, illness in the family, hostile work atmosphere.)
In general it's about having reached your limits and not accepting them.
If you're afraid about your long term prospects ... it'll actually teach you to work smarter, not harder, possible making you orders of magnitude more efficient.
With the fear of stepping on the toes of someone important (and I'm sorry if this is rude, but I'm going to say it), I think it's a disgrace that the top comment to this story is a dismissive remark about how the author is just "feeling entitled" while this excellent piece of health advice is far down the page.
I was burned out/severely depressed at one point, and it's obvious that the author needs to talk to a professional about the way he's coping with stress and expectations. If you're feeling like the author of this blog post, you need to take a good look at your goals in life. I've experienced this myself, and it's a tough situation to be in. Seems like a lot of hacker types are blind to this.
[Edit: Bonus point about your remark about working smarter. I get better results now than when I pushed myself to the beaking point, while using what feels like half the effort. It took some years to get there, though].
Perhaps he is doing all of this work with the wrong goal in mind.
If you start out building something for other people, you're always going to gamble that other people may not need it.
But if you're building tools for yourself, and documenting for yourself, because you have an actual need for these things, then regardless of what others do with them, you'll be happy because you have tools that make your life easier.
Do the bare minimum for yourself that makes your life easier. If other people want to use it, then start building from there.
But don't kill yourself trying to build stuff you think will stroke your ego.
Programming is probably the worst tool you could use to solve that problem ;)
It comes down to why you code. There are more website/journal platforms that I can count (Sesame Street didn't prepare me for large numbers). There are even more libraries for various languages. There are more open source projects out there than there are coding fingers. There are more hurt feelings related to those projects than there are content ones. If you're coding so that people will use it, get ready for disappointment. Even if your's is the best tool of its kind, adoption has a very high luck/right place/right time factor to it.
While it might be nice to be the next wordpress or jquery, if the sole reason you develop is for the 'glory' of course you're going to end up where you are. If you don't find it as a nice way to relax and solve the puzzle, then what's the point?
Like the other comment mentioned, go be with your family and find a hobby that you actually want to do and not worry about what some other random person does or does not do.
Damn, you sure have some ego boy, I write lots of crap but I wouldn't consider all of it to be worth it of being used by the crowd, some of it may get to the masses but that is a delicate process of FOSS-Darwinian selection, you can't rush it.
Creating reusable code is hard and there's no shame in if not everyone needs the same tools you do. Why not put more energy into building content with your development skills? Maybe you'll have more success there
> I’m hurt you didn’t use my journal tool.
> I’m hurt (so few of) you use my plugin loading library.
This is entitlement, not burn-out.