Working in Public

This was a real disappointment after Eghbal’s excellent ‘roads and bridges’ report. the author seems to have bent right in the direction of macho developer culture that overvalues engineering wizardry and underinvests in maintenance and community. Rather than seek to learn how to sustain investment in maintenance and community, Working in Public turns against its own namesake value and instead calls for acceleration of the heroic individualism that has left the internet a wretched husk of what we imagined it would be.

I recently finished reading Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal, thanks to a book club organized by Chris Traganos at Stripe. While I can't say this is a book I would have found my way to own my own, I found myself ripping through it far more quickly than I would have guessed. I'd fully recommend giving it a read.

Lacking structure but a decent introduction to the world of open-source software and the background work that goes into maintaining them.