Working in Public

The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

hardcover, 256 pages

Published Aug. 4, 2020 by Stripe Press.

ISBN:
978-0-578-67586-2
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3 stars (16 reviews)

An inside look at modern open source software development and its influence on our online social world.

Open source software, in which developers publish code that anyone can use, has long served as a bellwether for other online behavior. In the late 1990s, it provided an optimistic model for public collaboration, but in the last 20 years it’s shifted to solo operators who write and publish code that's consumed by millions.

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. Eghbal, who interviewed hundreds of developers while working to improve their experience at GitHub, argues that modern open source offers us a model through which to understand the challenges faced by online creators. She examines the trajectory of open source projects, including:

The GitHub platform …

3 editions

Review

3 stars

The author gives an overview of how open source software is written and maintained today, focusing on issues of funding and how to ensure that projects get maintained after the initial production of the code. I found useful the distinction between code as consumption (which is free at marginal cost) and code as production (which is really a quite scarce commodity). I appreciated the collection of ideas on how to improve the situation – in particular the thought of intentionally adding friction, or example by moving away from GitHub to more niche platforms, and requiring payment to open pull requests and issues. Overall, the book was disappointing though. It felt like the focus was unduly on software that is used by other developers as opposed to end users and seemed to really draw on less than twenty people or projects. Political issues, both around the ideology of free software and …

Review of 'Working in Public' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I've been excited to read this for months. What a disappointment.

This is a good example of what happens when a person hones their long-form writing skills on Twitter threads. This book is a printed Twitter thread.

The first half of the book is an acceptable contemporary survey of the history of Free and Open Source Software. Many important historical details are missed, but Eghbal can be forgiven for this; she isn't a software developer or an industry expert.

The rest of the book, however, is a poorly-researched advertisement for GitHub. Until we reach the final chapter, entitled "Conclusion" despite the fact that no conclusion is reached or even approached, erroneous and misleading statements soak almost every page.

On page 129, Eghbal declares that "Facebook doesn't have a customer support line you can call because they have more than 2 billion monthly active users." Facebook does have a customer support …

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