►
Description
In this series, I interview open source project maintainers to open the window of open source and why it's so important to the things that we do.
Dave Glick
Dave is a .NET and open source enthusiast who maintains open source projects like the Statiq static site generator (https://statiq.dev), the Discover .NET community resource (https://discover.net), Buildalyzer, and the @dotnetissues Twitter account among others. When not working on one of those, he can be found contributing, blogging, or speaking about .NET open source projects and technologies.
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/daveaglick
- Statiq: https://statiq.dev
A
As
someone
looking
at
getting
into
open
source,
you
know,
maintainers
are
just
like
you
and
you're,
just
like
maintainers
we're,
not
special.
We
don't
have
superpowers,
we're
not
even
really,
probably
spending
all
that
additional
time
over
what
you're
able
to
spend
really
the
only
difference
between
someone,
who's,
maintaining
a
project,
someone
who's,
contributing
your
project
and
someone
who's
just
exploring,
is
experience,
and
so
that
anyone
can
gain
with
a
little
bit
of
time.
A
My
name
is
dave.
Glick
I've
been
professionally
developing
software
for
close
to
20
years
now
I
started
as
a
high
schooler,
I'm
working
for
a
local
internet
service
provider
building
out
websites
for
their
clients.
No
one
else
at
the
place
knew
anything
about
this
newfangled
website
stuff.
You
know
they
had
been
working
with
dial-up
modems
and
getting
people's
emails
up
and
running.
A
So
they
found
me
as
a
you
know:
a
young
high
schooler
down
the
street,
who
knew
something
and
had
people
asking
for
them
to
build
them
websites,
and
so
I
kind
of
hooked
up
with
that
and
fell
in
love.
So
I've
been
doing
that
ever
since
in
one
form
or
another
yeah,
I
I
was
around
for
the
first.com
boom
in
the
90s.
A
As
to
why
people
do
that,
and
you
know
a
lot
of
folks-
do
it
for
the
pleasure
right.
It's
like
a
game.
Some
people
like
to
play
video
games
to
others.
Writing
source
code
is
like
playing
a
video
game
right.
There's
a
there's,
an
aspect
of
creativity
involved.
There's
problem
solving!
So
that's
you
know
it's
enjoyable!
It's
like
reading
a
book
for
other
people.
So
there's
you
know.
That's
certainly
one
motivation,
but
then
you've
got
this
whole
spectrum
of
other
motivations.
A
But
if
your
motivation
is
not
financial,
then
maybe
your
support
looks
different
right.
Maybe
there's
some
kind
of
support
structure.
That's
based
around
acknowledgement.
That
would
be
more
beneficial
appreciated
by
those
folks.
So
you
know,
I
think,
that's
a
discussion.
That's
kind
of
ongoing
within
the
open
source
community
writ
large
right
now.
A
For
the
last,
maybe
five
or
six
years,
my
focus
has
been
almost
entirely
on
a
static
site,
generator
called
static
with
a
with
a
q.
At
the
end,
I
like
to
say,
the
q
stands
for
quality,
so
I
I've
been
in
that
space
for
a
while.
That's
actually
the
predecessor
to
a
previous
project
called
ym
that
was
kind
of
similar,
and
I
maintained
some
other
projects
too.
A
One
is
called
buildalizer
which
is
used
in
interactive
kind
of
under
the
hood
and
some
other
tools,
but
generally
I've
come
to
think
of
the
projects
I
work
on
as
comprising
my
it
a
portfolio
that
between
static,
which
is
kind
of
my
big.
You
know
tens
of
thousands
of
lines
of
code
at
this
point
and
and
all
the
supporting
projects
around
it,
they
all
sort
of
fit
under
this
umbrella
of
developer,
tooling,
to
generate
sites
or
pages
or
other
artifacts.
A
A
I've
seen
a
variety
of
different
contribution
models
in
open
source.
I've
been
involved
with
the
cake
project
pretty
heavily
and,
and
they
kind
of,
in
my
opinion,
have
it
down.
I
learned
most
of
what
I
understand
about
how
to
be
a
good
maintainer
and
foster
a
good
community
from
the
folks
on
that
project,
and
so
taking
those
lessons
into
my
own
sort
of
large-scale
open
source
project.
A
Static
as
a
piece
of
software
is
fairly
complex,
and
so
I
don't
get
a
ton
of
contributors
coming
in
writing.
Large
features
for
it
kind
of
under
the
hood
in
that
sense,
because
that
would
be
hard
for
them
to
ramp
up
and
the
the
time
they
spend
on
that
may
not
be.
You
know
the
most
valuable
time
they
could
be
spending.
A
So
you
know,
I,
I
think
the
the
lesson
learned
there
and
the
emphasis
for
anyone
looking
at
projects
that
they
want
to
kind
of
help
out
with
is
contributing
to
a
project
doesn't
mean
writing
a
big
pr
or
writing
any
code
at
all,
really
contributing
to
the
docs
contributing
ideas,
helping
the
maintainers
just
work
through
brainstorming
sessions
being
a
rubber
ducky
as
they
call
it.
All
of
those
are
extremely
valuable
to
maintainers
into
a
project
at
large.
A
I'm
going
to
get
into
kind
of
a
little
bit
of
opinionated
territory
here.
I
know
a
lot
of
maintainers
one
of
their
main
goals,
and
this
is
probably
partly
driven
by
some
of
this
motivational
stuff.
I
spoke
about
where,
if
the
motivation
for
doing
open
source
is
rooted
in,
say
credibility
or
notoriety,
and
those
are
perfectly
valid
great
reasons
to
be
doing
open
source,
I
don't
want
to
say
or
make
it
sound
like.
That's,
not
a
good
reason
to
be
doing
this.
A
It's
a
great
reason
to
be
doing
this,
but
if
those
are
the
motivations,
then
increasing
user
numbers
increasing
adoption
becomes
a
sort
of
a
metric
by
which
you
measure
your
success
against
those
motivators.
For
me,
personally,
I've
come
to
the
opinion
that
adoption,
maybe
is
not
the
best
metric
of
success,
and
so
I
actually
don't-
and
I
kind
of
consciously
don't
do
a
lot
to
seek
out
or
new
users
or
like
do
a
lot
of
external
marketing.
A
That
kind
of
thing,
I
think
it's
important
to
support
the
users
who
found
the
tool
and
find
it
valuable,
so
documentation
examples
helping
people
in
discussions-
all
those
are
extremely
important
to
me,
but
getting
those
user
counts
up
and
those
download
counts
up.
I
I
don't
really
chase
and
I
feel
like
that's
a
mistake-
that
a
lot
of
open
source
projects
can
make
especially
early
on,
because
maintainers
often
don't
scale
with
adoption
right.
You've
got
this
sort
of
curve
happening
where
I
think
every
maintainer
who's
ever
worked
on
a
project.
A
That's
starting
to
get
a
little
bit
popular.
You
start
to
become
terrified
that
it's
going
to
get
even
more
popular
right.
The
issues
start
rolling
in
you
can't
keep
up.
You've
got
all
these
bug
reports
all
these
prs
and
it's
like,
as
that
snowball
kind
of
starts
rolling
down
the
hill.
You
had
wanted
the
snowball
to
start
right.
You
kind
of
kicked
it
off.
You
wanted
this
avalanche,
but
then
it
starts
and
you're
standing
under
the
avalanche,
and
it's
like
oh
crap.
A
What
have
I
done
so
you
know
there's
this
kind
of
delicate
balance
where
you
obviously
want
people
to
find
and
appreciate
the
work
that
you're
doing.
That's
that's
an
important
aspect
for
anyone
doing
this.
Otherwise
it
wouldn't
be.
You
wouldn't
open
it
in
the
first
place,
but
but
for
me
I
feel
like
I
don't
really
want
to
be
under
the
avalanche.
I'm
happy
growing,
organically
and
slowly
to
keep
pace
with.
What
I'm
able
to
you
know
do
in
my
time
as
a
maintainer.
A
Now
that
kind
of
falls
under
two
umbrellas
there's
copyright,
which
is
essentially,
you,
can
take
this
code
and
change
it.
But
then
you
have
to
contribute
back
your
changes
or
contribute
back
the
thing
that
you
linked
it
to
and
then
there's
copy
left,
which
is
more
permissible.
Things
like
mit
licenses,
where
you
can
take
this
and
do
whatever
you
want
with
it,
but
the
code
itself
is
like
open
for
your
use.
Now.
A
It's
still
got
this
kind
of
open
source
feel
to
it,
if
not
adhering
to
the
strict
understanding
that
a
lot
of
people
hold
on
to
of
what
open
source
as
a
term
means.
So
I
felt
like
there's
this
need
for
a
another
term.
That's
a
little
bit
broader!
You
know,
because
we
want
to
honor
that
legacy
right
I
mean.
There's
some
debate
as
to
whether
maybe
the
term
itself
should
be
evolving
but
yeah.
A
If,
if
we
keep
talking
about
what
does
open
source
mean
as
a
term,
so
to
me,
it's
easier
to
just
sidestep
that
debate
entirely
use
a
broader
term
like
openly
developed
software,
and
then
we
can
get
on
with
the
business
of
discussing
things
like
alternate
licensing
schemes,
and
does
it
really
need
to
be
osi
approved?
What,
if
you
you
know
what,
if
you
want
funding
for
non-commercial
entities
as
opposed
to
commercial,
or
you
know
that
kind
of
thing.
A
We've
all
been
kind
of
dealing
with,
you
know
a
drastic
change
to
our
personal
lives
and
and
how
we
manage
our
time
and
all
that,
so
you
know
I
started
really
getting
heavy
into
open
source
about
six
years
ago.
I
think,
and
at
the
time
my
life
was
different.
I
you
know
I
I
had
one
fewer
kid.
I
you
know
I
I
just
I
was
in
a
different
place
and
so
spending
a
huge
amount
of
personal
free
time.
A
That
was
a
luxury
that
I
had
at
that
stage
in
my
life
you
know
my
kids
weren't
involved
in
as
many
activities.
I
wasn't
volunteering
as
much
with
the
stuff
that
they're
doing
there
was
just
more
available
time,
and
so,
as
I've
gotten
older,
the
way
in
which
I
can
a
lot
my
time
and
contribute
to
open
source
and
open,
develop
software
has
evolved
and
changed,
and
so
I'm
kind
of
in
this
stage
right
now,
where
I've
been
trying
to
figure
out
what
that
looks
like
for
the
next
10
years.
A
You
know
I
I'm
I'm
finding
other
interests
too.
I
I
find
that
on
the
weekends
my
motivation
for
opening
up
code
is,
is
a
lot
lower
than
it
used
to
be,
and
you
know
I
think
that
happens
to
everyone
of
what
I'm
exploring
and
I
think
settling
on.
Is
this
balance
between
doing
enough
that
the
projects
I
work
on
continue
to
evolve
and
continue
to
stay
interesting,
but
not
overdoing
it
to
the
point
that
I
reach
burnout
or
that
it
stops
being
fun
right.
A
I
mean
even
the
people
who
are
motivated
by
say
financial
gain
in
open
source
and
that's
totally
fine.
If
that's,
if
that's
your
thing,
everyone
loves
money.
That's
there's
nothing
wrong
with
that,
but
even
those
folks,
you
know
you
you
get
to
a
point
where
the
time
you're
putting
in
just
doesn't
return
the
value.
So
you
have
to
have
yeah.
It's
got
to
be,
there's
got
to
be
something
you're
getting
out
of
it.
You
have
to
be
fulfilling
those
motivations
right.
It's
a
little
bit
like
that
whole
hierarchy
of
needs
exercise.
A
A
That's
when
you
lose
people
out
of
the
community,
so
I'm
trying
to
find
that
right
balance
that
I
can
continue
to
do
it
for
another
decade
without
reaching
the
point
where
I
want
to
just
step
back
entirely
and
say:
I
you
know
I've,
I'm
done
never
in
my
course
yeah
and-
and
I
feel
like
that's
important
something
we
have.
I
think
everyone
has
to
kind
of
explore
as
they
mature
along
their
path
and
and
work
on
open
source
for
a
while.
A
I
love
the.net
foundation.
I
love
what
they're
trying
to
accomplish.
You
know
it's
had
some
growing
pains,
which
is
all
positive
right.
It's
like
when
you
yeah
so
kind
of
changing
gears
here
for
just
a
second
with
the
dotnet
foundation
and
what's
been
going
on
there
over
the
last
year.
You
know
when
we
build
software
and
we
have
people
test
it.
We
want
them
to
find
problems
so
that
we
can
fix
the
problems
to
make
the
software
better.
A
I
feel
like
that's
the
stage
we're
at
with
the
foundation
right
now,
so
all
that
is
to
say
I
I
really
appreciate
the
mission
of
the
foundation
and
the
folks
who
are
working
really
hard
to
bring
that
to
fruition
and
for
the
projects
that
that
have
you
know,
gained
from
being
a
part
of
that
umbrella.
That's
fantastic!
I'm
glad
that
that
option
exists,
but
at
the
same
time
you
can
like
and
appreciate
something
and
be
involved
in
it
and
support
it
without
saying
that
it
has
to
apply
to
everything
I
mean.
A
The
time
we
have
to
give
is
zero
sum,
and
I
don't,
even
if
you've
got
the
the
project
on
get
with
the
most
sponsors
and
and
whatever,
unless
you're
one
of
the
rare
ones
that
that
becomes
your
full-time
job
and
that's
like
so
super
rare.
It's
like
winning
the
lottery
yeah.
Our
time
is
zero
sum
right
and
even
then
there's
only
so
many
hours
in
the
day,
so
everything
you
do
with
that
project.