How do I contribute a maintainer story to Awesome Maintainers?

Check the CONTRIBUTING.md file for guidelines; you can submit a pull request with a link and description. The project is open to community suggestions, but entries are curated by the maintainer, so approval isn't guaranteed.

What's the difference between Awesome Maintainers and Open Source Guides?

Awesome Maintainers focuses on personal narratives and experiences from individual maintainers, like those from @hzoo or @janl, while Open Source Guides offers structured best practices and tutorials for project management. Both complement each other but serve different learning needs.

Who curates Awesome Maintainers and how often is it updated?

It's maintained by Nayafia (@nayafia) and relies on community contributions, so updates are irregular and depend on submissions. There's no fixed schedule, but it's designed as a living resource that grows over time.

Can I use Awesome Maintainers content for my blog or research?

Yes, it's under CC0 license, meaning you can use it freely without attribution for any purpose. However, since it links to external sources, you should verify permissions for the original content separately.

How to find stories about open source funding on Awesome Maintainers?

Browse entries for maintainers like @feross or @fijal, who discuss funding experiments and economics. The list isn't categorized, so you'll need to manually scan through the Markdown file or use browser search for keywords.

Is Awesome Maintainers useful for new maintainers or just experienced ones?

It's valuable for both, with stories covering early struggles and advanced challenges, such as @boneskull on burnout or @vjeux on success. However, it's more about inspiration and lessons than step-by-step guides, so beginners might need supplemental resources.

Open-Awesome

Open Source Maintainers

CC0-1.0

A curated collection of talks, blog posts, and interviews about the experience of being an open source maintainer.

GitHub

1.2k stars60 forks0 contributors

What is Open Source Maintainers?

Awesome Maintainers is a curated collection of resources that documents the experiences of open source maintainers. It compiles talks, blog posts, and interviews from developers who maintain popular projects, providing insights into the challenges and realities of sustaining open source software. The project serves as a knowledge base for understanding the human aspects of open source maintenance.

Target Audience

Current and aspiring open source maintainers, community managers, and developers interested in the sustainability of open source projects. It's particularly valuable for those leading or contributing to open source communities.

Value Proposition

Unlike technical documentation, Awesome Maintainers focuses exclusively on the human experience of maintainership, offering authentic stories and practical wisdom. It provides a centralized, community-curated resource that helps maintainers feel less isolated and learn from others' experiences.

Overview

Talks, blog posts, and interviews about the experience of being an open source maintainer

Use Cases

Best For

Learning about the challenges of open source project maintenance
Finding inspiration from maintainer stories and interviews
Understanding burnout and sustainability in open source
Researching community management strategies
Preparing for the responsibilities of becoming a maintainer
Discovering resources on open source economics and funding

Not Ideal For

Developers seeking step-by-step technical tutorials or coding guides
Teams needing structured, actionable frameworks for open source governance or monetization
Researchers looking for quantitative data or statistical analysis on maintainer burnout
Organizations wanting immediate, pre-packaged strategies without narrative context

Pros & Cons

Pros

Authentic First-Person Accounts

Features direct interviews and stories from maintainers of major projects like Redis and React, providing genuine insights into challenges such as burnout and community management, as highlighted in entries for @antirez and @gaearon.

Multi-Format Accessibility

Includes videos, blog posts, slides, and podcasts, as seen in resources for @brettcannon and @yyx990803, catering to various learning preferences and making the content more engaging.

Community-Driven Curation

Open to suggestions and maintained as a living resource, with a CONTRIBUTING.md file for guidelines, ensuring it evolves with new perspectives from the open source ecosystem.

Wide Domain Coverage

Covers maintainers from diverse projects like Homebrew, Django, and Kubernetes, offering lessons applicable across different programming languages and technical fields.

Cons

Static List Format

The resource is a simple Markdown file without search, categorization, or interactive features, making it difficult to navigate or filter topics like funding or burnout efficiently.

Inconsistent Depth and Quality

Content varies from deep personal essays to brief interviews, with no vetting for accuracy or relevance beyond curation, so users must sift through entries for substantial insights.

No Programmatic Access

Lacks an API or structured data export, preventing integration into tools for analysis or automation, which limits its utility for developers building on this resource.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Projects

Awesome

😎 Awesome lists about all kinds of interesting topics

Stars467,151

Forks35,029

Last commit11 days ago

Self Hosted

A list of Free Software network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers

Stars292,922

Forks13,559

Last commit10 hours ago

Free for Developers

A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev

Stars122,402

Forks12,842

Last commit1 day ago

Beginner-Friendly Projects

A list of awesome beginners-friendly projects.

Stars85,658

Forks7,870

Last commit26 days ago

Community-curated · Updated weekly · 100% open source

Found a gem we're missing?

Open-Awesome is built by the community, for the community. Submit a project, suggest an awesome list, or help improve the catalog on GitHub.

Submit a project Star on GitHub