The last year has been very challenging for me with regards to my OpenSource projects for me which I have been writing about a little bit(Emotional Programming). Ithowever came to my realization how much people are actually dependent onsoftware I wrote that there needs to be a more stable and predictableprocess around them. I have been bitten myself by unmaintained softwarebefore so I don’t want my libraries to fall victim to this.
So here is my attempt to fix this issue.
So here is the problem. There are actual users of Flask out there thatrun their businesses on it. As cool as it is, it’s also a scary thoughtbecause it means that there is a certain level of quality that is expectedand to consistently deliver to this is tricky. I think this went well inthe first years of Flask and my libraries but it no longer scales becauseI am too protective in many regards.
There are ridiculous amounts of pull requests open and there are notenough releases. I also have too many projects going at the same timenext to work which is not helping either.
Essentially I need help. The good news is that help is constantly beingoffered. The bad news is that I did not manage to accept the help becausethere was no process for it. That goes for very simple things such asthere not being a good communication channel for contributors across thedifferent projects as well as there being too much reliance on things thatneed me (no server access, no PyPI access for projects, no oversight thatcontributors do not disappear, that everything goes well etc).
I do not want to make some sort of Flask Software Foundation because Iwould not even know how to achieve that, but a small form of that will bewhat I’m aiming for. Essentially Metaflask will be a meta project ongithub which will be used for communication across the different Flaskprojects and volunteers.
The idea is that there is one clear place of communication and canonicalinformation for maintainers of Flask and extensions. Ideally allimportant projects can codify the state of development there and documentwhere help is needed and appreciated. If people want to participate inthis I cannot judge yet, but at least for my own Flask projects I will putall the information there.
The second part is money related. In the past I was a bit hesitant toaccept monetary contributions for my projects because my track record offixing problems has been spotty or unreliable. The truth of it is thateven if you work in a company that gives you 20% time (which SplashDamage / Fireteam do) that does not go enough for maintaining software.
So instead I am changing things around now that I can clearer separatethings. The biggest change is that I work now remotely and will ensure Ican set a fixed amount of time each week apart for my libraries.
Once I have ensured that works properly I would like to explore theconcept of some structured bounty system for individual bugs and featurerequests as a way to "buy support" for Flask if there is demand for it.It would allow companies to feel more comfortable about using thelibraries and benefit the whole community. I’m still exploring thedetails of that.
If you are using Flask and interested in helping out in any way, startmonitoring the metaflaskproject on github.
