FOSDEM 2025 Getting involved with open source projects is a great way to build experience in development, documentation, internationalization, and more – but it’s not as easy as it should be.
Last year, our own Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote that the graying open source community needs fresh blood. That prompted Swedish developer Jesper Olsson to get in touch, and we met up with him at the FOSDEM conference in Brussels. Olsson is a member of the team reviving the SchemaSpy project after nearly a decade.
What do you feel are some of the issues getting involved with FOSS development for younger people?
The barriers to entry are not always visible, but they are there and they can be significant.
Can you give us an example?
Well, for instance, if you’re contributing your own code, there is a high bar to clear. It often feels as if you need to surpass whatever the existing functionality is. Just to get accepted, you have to offer something better than some existing product that may have been around for decades.
Also, if you’re both a newbie and quite young, then getting a youngster to share their code for the whole world to see is a very intimidating prospect. Many first-time contributors are students. University courses are long, and they go into great depth about programming languages and writing code, but the problem is, they often don’t cover material that’s essential for contributing. For instance, using tools like Git, and indeed, not just Git itself, but also supporting infrastructure such as GitHub. And this applies equally to GitLab and other alternatives.
Some would-be contributors are very familiar with programming, reading, and writing code, but they may never have opened an issue or sent a pull request. This is a scary first step. Others may have the necessary tech skills, but not the creativity. Where should they you begin? Also, if someone is scared, that can result in impostor syndrome. The fear that people all over the world will see your bad code is a powerful factor reducing the urge to share it.
Another aspect is a general technology issue that’s not unique to IT or computing. For instance, cars. It was much easier to fix your own vehicle in the 1980s than it is now. Not only are devices much more complex now, they are also less open to hobbyists. What do you want to try to do, and where do you start – and indeed, why do you start? We create the code and the tools, but we don’t create incentives to get in there and start exploring, investigating, and changing it.
What about motivations?
Yes, that’s right. Why do FOSS at all? What’s the incentive to write something and make it open source? Why not spend your time and effort on starting a company and trying to get rich? As most contributors report, working in FOSS can often lead to a terrible life/work balace.
Does this affect you?
Well, yes, in fact, I just recently got married. But one of my co-maintainers on SchemaSpy has a wife and two kids. That leads to conflicting impulses. How do you find the time to work on code, when you also want to spend more time with your family?
Famously, funding FOSS is a constant problem.
Funding matters, but it’s not the only problem. You can’t really fund time.
Fixing these things is not a technological problem. These are issues that are better addressed with marketing, communications, and, yes, with funding. Communications is a big issue here. For instance, the Linux kernel itself.
We know that kernel developer burnout is a problem.
It’s not just that. The kernel is very visible, but the team is small. But some of these things are not just in the tech sector. For instance, there are a lot of folks doing mods for video games. This can be a very creative activity, there is lots of room for innovation, as well as outlets such as streaming to reach an audience. It applies to all sorts of games, such as Pokémon, Elder Scrolls, and Minecraft. Game modding is a great way in. It could even be a way to set up a company, or to make a living. But it’s not considered as FOSS. For novices getting interested, it could even be attracting people away from getting into FOSS development.
There are so many different things pulling people away, from social media to tech giant companies vacuuming everyone up. Even for university students, there are other things drawing people away. For those who do genuinely want to get involved, who want to help find problems in FOSS – and more to the point, help find solutions – it’s not easy.
We want to contribute to society – but society doesn’t tell us what it needs! ®
