Comment by sovietmudkipz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sovietmudkipz | Hacker News Reader

I struggle with contributing to open source but in a different context. In my opinion, the video games industry is information sparse on high quality software engineering practices, for whatever reason (NDAs, language/culture, etc). I am already authoring content that basically imports DevOps practices and experiences I have from my day job into a video games context. I believe practitioners have an edge over non-practitioners. Yet I hesitate to release it.

I hesitate because ultimately I cannot fully silence my ego. I want to release my content and have a positive impact on game creators. I know my ideas and hard work will be taken and rebroadcast by other teacher content creators without credit. In abstract that my ideas will spread to a wider audience will maximize its impact. ...But I want my hard work to be recognized and credited which is hamstringing my willingness to release.

My ego wants me to keep this information private and work in a closed source way. "Ha, I am so smart that I grok this stuff and can apply it," I imagine my mindset saying. "Look at how these fools struggle, ignorant of a better way." However; I have benefited from others making the brave choice to work in an open source way.

How do people who give away their work (MIT or CC license) think about it? I feel like a jerk for benefiting from a culture of open source and yet I have this inner conflict?

I have written some (obscure) open-source software and have contributed to open-source code-bases. I can say that if you are doing it for some kind of recognition, then you are doing it for the wrong reason. I _do_ think that you (and many others) would be worthy of recognition and appreciation, but most people are far too busy optimizing their careers and chasing the dollar to actually invest the time and effort needed to share some of the spotlight with you. Also, so much of our (humanity's) software stack is open source that we would need to share the spotlight with hundreds of people out there.

Most people write open-source for material reasons -- it lets them bring some of their own code into a new workplace, with minimal employer resistance. Also, many people will try to open-source the tooling they built at work so that they can then take that tooling with them to a new employer (avoiding the duplication of effort and potential legal issues).

All of the open-source code that I wrote for non-material reasons, I wrote it because I thought it was fun to write, and I open sourced it because others might find it interesting or useful. But I never expected any kind of recognition (let alone compensation).

In feudal Japan, poets would write poetry anonymously (not pseudonymously), and many historians and scholars debate which known poet wrote which poem. The fact that these works of art are not attached to any author's ego or name, does not diminish their beauty after all these centuries -- arguably this characteristic amplifies and elevates the work beyond the history of people, to the history of ideas and concepts. At the end of the day, we are just transient conduits for concepts. The notion that a person deserves to have "more" for their ideas and concepts and artistry, is as shameful as the notion that artists deserve to starve for not slavishly serving the whims of the market.

I didn’t know about the Japanese poet thing. Hmm. I know I need to silence my ego and take the plunge. It will be better if I help the community even if it’s just a sliver of incremental progress.

I figure I will be forgotten entirely within a generation or three, but maybe my minor contributions to open source software will help folks now and in the future solve problems. That coupled with the fact that I am standing on the shoulders of giants (whose names I mostly don't know) makes the choice to release my code freely easy.

As a bonus, the more eyes there are on my code the more likely it is that I get good feedback, feedback I use to improve my skills.

That last part is real. There are jerks out there and there are people out there who help contribute their power of consideration. I have reminded myself that taking the leap of faith will probably result in others exposing me to ways of thinking that I may not consider in my silo/bubble.

I think it's important to realize this struggle. You can take a myriad of approaches to life, to what and how you contribute to other people's lives. I think that ultimately you'll be taken advantage of a million times, because you can't really affect how other people act, but that shouldn't keep you from acting, if that serves you expressing yourself. So what you should be concerned about is how much it's actually hurting you or keeping you from realizing yourself.

To make this a bit more tangible, you could examine this stuggle from different viewpoints.

For example, does it hurt you that some people benefit a lot from your work, if you otherwise lead a comfortable life?

Or, would your idea/knowledge be popular if you kept it "closed source"? Maybe it's popular now and many people benefit, and if those were paying users, boy, would you be rich. But the alternative could be that the fantastic knowledge of yours wouldn't get traction in the first place, leaving you with a worse outcome, but of course you're not taken advantage of either.

I think what you should examine is what would make you feel like it's worth it to release the knowledge. Does applause sound nice? You could look into presentation. Do you like digital feedback like HN karma or youtube subscriber count? Look into content creation. I think that if you're honest with yourself about what would make you happy, then that should show the way.

I like this insight. It lets me put aside the external consequences and let’s me ask what I want. Expression. Realization.

I'm not a open source contributor in a major way. Just wanted to chime in.

No doubt at least part of your know-how, however small, was built upon others' experiences (also hard to give credit for everything). If you do release your content, this is just giving back to the community.

Also to play with your ego side, let's say some other person beats you to releasing the content that you wanted to release. And that person markets well and takes a lot of credit that you wanted. Would your ego push you to publish sooner?

Haha, I love the concept of leaning into my ego to try to bring out the same desired outcome. It reminds me how RadioLab did a podcast on the idea of altruism as a selfish trait.

I think in a way we are all pilots of this big elephant like meat machine. It has its wants, it has its needs, and as pilots we are trying to steer ourselves with the understanding that the elephant is ultimately doing what it wants. I suppose the trick is to understand the elephant (ourselves) to know how to steer into the direction we want.

Arguably being more permissive could lead to more recognition. Lovecraft's mythos probably wouldn't have taken off the way it did had he been the only one writing it, but he was very permissive about letting others write their own stories in it (although I'm still unclear as to how he kept his name so closely associated with it when there were plenty of other writers riffing on it).

In the tech context, if something you make gets a lot of uptake because a lot of people find it useful, then the spread of the useful thing could mean more recognition for you. But taking hold of that recognition will still require extra effort, like going to conferences to talk about the thing so people can put a face to the name.

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