Slides

# Adventures in Open Source Development

## The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Gina Häußge // [foosel.net](https://foosel.net)

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    FrOSCon 2026
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## Gina "foosel"  Häußge

- Software Engineer
- Maker & Boulderer
- PSF Fellow & GitHub Star
- 100% Nerd
- Creator & full-time maintainer of **OctoPrint**

Notes:

- Gina Häußge aka foosel
- 43 years old Software Enginner
- also a maker & boulderer, PSF fellow and GitHub Star and 100% Nerd
- most importantly for here: full time Open Source maintainer on my project OctoPrint

---

## OctoPrint?

- "The snappy web interface for your 3D printer!"
- Open Source, AGPLv3
- ~50k confirmed users
- Python, HTML, CSS & JS
- 👉 [octoprint.org](https://octoprint.org)

Notes:

- the snappy web interface for your 3d printer
- locally installed, 100% self hosted
- plugin interface allows extension
- open source, AGPLv3
- around 50k confirmed users
- backend implemented in Python, frontend in HTML, CSS & JS

---

## Almost 14 years of maintenance

... and still going on

Notes:

- started back in december of 2012
- gone through quite a bunch of releases as you can see
- currently doing a big release roughly every year with multiple bugfixes in between
- gone from part time to full time through a single sponsor to full time through crowd funding
- kept very busy throughout as you can see
- lots of time to learn a lot about being a maintainer
- seen a lot of good, bad and quite ugly things 
- want to share some of those

---

## The Good

Notes:

- let's start with the good

---

### Working with passion

- **Your** project, **your** vision!
- No politics driven architecture
- No working on something you'd never use yourself

Notes:

- first of all, working with passion
- your project, your vision!
- no politics driven architecture
  - used to see this a lot in my old life as a software consultant
  - systems had to build in a specific way so all involved departments where happy
  - tech stack decided by department politics
- no working on something you'd never use yourself
  - I have had to implement some horrible bits and pieces during my former life
  - still remember the months spent on implementing the horoscope widget on one of Germany's largest websites
  - with OctoPrint I'm actually still scratching my own itch
  - using it myself
  - also the best way to make sure you don't build something no one wants to even use

---

### Helping people

- You help people solve their problems
- You are an **enabler**

Notes:

- You help people solve their problems
- You are an **enabler**
- And sometimes they even say **thank you**!
- have a small collection of thank you messages I've received over the years
  - physical prints hanging on my white board
  - helps remember why I do all of this when things get rough

---

### Learning tons of stuff!

- Software development
- Project management
- Community management
- Release management
- Brand development & marketing
- ... and more!

Notes:

- also: learning SO MUCH
- Software development
- Project management
- Community management
- Release management
- The value of release candidates
  - and how tricky it can be to get people to actually **run** release candidates...
- Brand development
- Test automation
  - also for hardware
- also: tax stuff (if self employed)
- ... and more!

---

### Making new friends!

- from your community
- through conferences & meetups with other maintainers
- shared pain is less pain 😉

Notes:

- last but not least: making new friends!
  - from your community
  - through conferences & meetups
- Fun fact:
  - this is my second FrOSCon
  - my first one was back in 2008
  - that's where I met with other maintainers for the first time
  - Shoutout to Andreas Gohr, maintainer of DokuWiki, still in touch!
- Last year and this year at PyCon Italia I met a contributor
  - Shoutout to Jacopo Tediosi, started with security reports, now he's a regular contributor
- also have done virtual game nights with other maintainers
- also a factor: shared pain is less pain, talking about things helps

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## The Bad

Notes:

- sadly, where there's light, there's also shadow

---

### Work Life Balance

- a project can eat you whole
- hard to shut off & recharge

Be **very** protective of your time off!

Notes:

- probably not a huge surprise
- a project can eat you whole
  - Especially if side project or large project
- Hard to shut off and recharge
- You need to be **very** protective of your private time
- don't make your project rule over your social life
- you need time off, don't spend all your weekends, after hours and vacation on your project

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### Pay

- Donations?
- Corporate Sponsorships?

Make it easy! **Diversify**!

Notes:

- funding situation of open source projects is not a secret
- Asking for donations
  - tough
  - often doesn't scale
- Partnering with companies turns to out to be an even bigger challenge
- Make it easy for people to give you tiny but recurring tips
- diversify across platforms: Patreon, GitHub Sponsors, Ko-Fi, Liberapay, Donorbox, ...
- meet people where they are, don't expect them to join a platform just for you
- also: platforms enshittify
- never put all eggs into one basket
- have been funding my work on OctoPrint for 10 years now
  - majority from donations
  - I can't tell you why it works, but I'm sure happy that it does
  - feels weird though

---

### Solitude

- Feature requests come fast
- Help doesn't
- Don't maintain what you can't test

Notes:

- People are fast to request features, but slow to help make them a reality
- Especially at the start you'll do it alone
- Beware of having to maintain things you don't or can't use
  - reason for OctoPrint's plugin interface == random weird hardware
  - allows others to maintain that which I can't (or don't want to)
  - example: ominous additional hardware, lights, sensors etc
  - don't have to have that in core
  - people who want to add this can install the related plugins
  - less maintanence overhead for me, more options for the users: win-win

---

### AI SLOP

- Drive-by PRs coughed up by genAI
- Security reports created by chatbots
- Misinformation spread in your community

Protect the **human connection**!

Notes:
- it's 2026, of course I have to mention genAI
- the past year now I've been facing an increasing amount of
  - Drive-by PRs coughed up by genAI
  - security reports generated by chatbots
    - with ridiculous scoring
    - with ridiculous attack vectors
  - misinformation spread by the community
    - "Claude told me" - please don't do that!
- it's become one of the most frustrating parts of my job as a maintainer
- not sure if a single new OctoPrint that was requested to be added to the repo this year was untouched
- takes the fun out of things
  - I don't want to talk with chatbots, I can do that myself
  - I want to collaborate with and help people
  - I want the human connection
  - codified into an AI policy
  - ruling is still out on whether that helps

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## The Ugly

Notes:

- sadly there are even some really ugly things too

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### Entitlement & attacks

> I need to do X, implement that!

> Why isn't this obscure bug fixed already?!

> F*** YOU!!!

Notes:

- entitlement up to outright attacks
- paraphrased here, but you get the drift
- users often forget there's a human on the other end
- they forget that they are not the only user
  - their priorities might not align with the project's
  - you might not have the time to handle everything right away
- they consider themselves customers who are always right
- sometimes, they are frustrated by a bug and incapable of handling their emotions
- in any case, this side sucks hard
- I have a punching bag in my office
- if you want to learn more about to handle attacks: How to deal with toxic people

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### Bad commercial players

- Companies love using OSS...
  - ...but rarely contribute back
  - ...and might outright steal
- Companies might manipulate for profit
  - you
  - your telemetry

Notes:

- Companies love using OSS
  - They don't love contributing back to OSS
  - ... if the even admit they are using OSS
- Companies might manipulate for profit
  - Story Time!
  - You:
    - once had a commercial player get in touch
    - dangling a potential sponsorship agreement
    - only had to clear it with the manager
    - in the meantime, one question? ... 2nd question ... 3rd question ...
    - at which point I said, contract first -> crickets
  - your telemetry:
    - OctoPrint's plugin repository had stats
    - top 10 on the page
    - two competing companies decided to manipulate my telemetry with fake instances
    - plan: to become number 1 on the top 10 vs the other plugin
    - found out when my data looked wrong
    - several days of investigation & cleanup
    - confronting both parties, once blamed the community, the other came clear
    - lost friendships and sponsorships over this

---

### Burnout

You don't owe anyone anything!

You need to take care of yourself!

**Learn to say "*No*"!**

Notes:

- You don't owe anyone anything
- You need to take care of yourself
  - no one else will
  - no one else can!
- Learn to say no
- there are times when I need to take an emergency break
  - take off one or two weeks
  - not a vacation
  - a necessary break to not go down the drain
  - something that needs to be done to keep things sustainable
  - have had people on social go "I'm envious"
  - never be envious of a maintainer that has to take an emergency break please
  - the reason for that sucks

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## Would I do it again?

Notes:

- there was a time when I'd have said "Yes" in a heartbeat
- I'm honestly not completely sure any more
- the past 13+ years have been a lot
- plenty of stress, plenty of attacks, plenty of worries
- and now all this slop on top
- plenty of quite awesome moments too
- I'm proud of what I consider my life's work
- every time I hear a "thank you" it makes it worth it
- I still want to say "yes" today
- but maybe one day it will turn into a no

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## Thank you for your attention!

📖 [foosel.github.io/froscon2026](https://foosel.github.io/froscon2026)

🌐 [foosel.net](https://foosel.net)

🦣 [@foosel@chaos.social](https://chaos.social/@foosel)

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  Image credits: @linussandvide, @goian, @heftiba, @jeshoots, @hautier, @seteph, @rayhennessy, @kellysikkema and @anniespratt on Unsplash & @sophie@chaos.social on the Fediverse. Huge Thanks for sharing!
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