Episode 126: GitHub Maintainer Month with Mike McQuaid of Homebrew and Nina Breznik of DatDot

Guest Mike McQuaid | Nina Breznik Panelists Richard Littauer Show
Notes Hello and welcome to a special episode of Sustain, where we
interview Maintainers as part of GitHub Maintainer Month! On this
episode, Richard is interviewing a few open source maintainers to
talk about what it’s like to be a maintainer, how awesome they are,
and what issues they may have being a maintainer. My first guest is
Mike McQuaid, who works for GitHub and is one of the maintainers of
Homebrew. Mike tells us all about Homebrew, how you can contribute,
and the most fun thing about being a maintainer there. Also joining
me is Nina Breznik, another awesome maintainer, Founder of
RefugeesWork, Partner and Open Source Developer at Playproject,
Community Organizer at Wizard Amigos, and she works on a DatDot
project with serapath. Nina shares how it is for her being a
maintainer, how she helps other people see it as art, not just
science and math, but a more creative thing, and she tells us the
project she had the most fun working on. Go ahead and download this
episode now to learn more! Mike: [00:00:48] Mike explains what
Homebrew is, the size of the community, and the usage. [00:01:46]
How did Mike come to maintain Homebrew and the other twenty people
and how did he pivot and make the switch elegantly? [00:04:08]
Richard asks if Mike has any resources he can suggest to other
maintainers. [00:05:04] Mike talks about burnout and when he works
on Homebrew. [00:07:19] Mike shares advice to a first time open
source person, and he tells us what advice he wishes someone had
given him back in the day. [00:09:00] We learn from Mike the most
fun thing about being a maintainer at Homebrew. [00:09:47] Find out
how you can contribute to Mike’s project and where you can follow
him on the web. Nina: [00:11:48] We have Nina joining us now and
Richard shares her bio with us. We also hear what Nina is
maintaining these days and what her code looks like. [00:14:41]
Nina tells us about the number of projects she maintains in the
sense of commit access and the size of the community that she’s
working with. [00:17:30] Find out the hardest part for Nina when it
comes to maintaining code. [00:18:47] Nina shares more about the
RefugeesWork project she started which was the most magical
experience for her. [00:21:36] What is Nina most looking forward to
over the next five to ten years as a maintainer and what does she
want to see happen with her work? [00:22:57] Nina shares what she
wishes people had told her to make it easier for her when she first
started coding. [00:24:27] We learn what Nina does in her community
to ensure that designers or tech writers, etc., feel involved in
the projects she works on. [00:27:15] Find out where you can follow
Nina and her projects on the web. Quotes [00:01:59] “The best way
to get involved with open source was solving a problem I had for
myself.” [00:04:23] “Everything we do breaks down to human
relationships and managing those and trying to have an environment
where people are happy with each other.” [00:07:19] “What advice
would you give to a first-time open source person? I think just
strict boundaries.” [00:20:34] “I transitioned from social sciences
and arts into coding because I wanted to get a skill. I wanted to
be able to build something on my own and this was the first time I
felt the power that I built something.” [00:21:45] “I would love to
see more people learning to code, which is one of the reasons why I
started Wizards Amigos Project because I feel that this really is
literacy of the future.” [00:23:06] “They should have told me this
is not all about math, but more like art.” Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) Richard
Littauer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Mike McQuaid Twitter (https://twitter.com/mikemcquaid?lang=en) Mike
McQuaid Website (https://mikemcquaid.com/) Homebrew
(https://brew.sh/) Sustain Podcast-Episode 117: Mike McQuaid of
Homebrew on Sustainability Working on OSS Projects
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/117) Nina Breznik Twitter
(https://twitter.com/ninabreznik?lang=en) serapath Twitter
(https://twitter.com/serapath) Google Summer of Code 2022 Program
Announced (https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/) Rails Girls
(http://railsgirls.com/) Wizard Amigos (https://wizardamigos.com/)
DatDot (https://datdot.org/) Dat Ecosystem
(https://dat-ecosystem.org/) Mathias Buus
(https://github.com/mafintosh) Ok Distribute Blog
(https://okdistribute.xyz/) Dat Foundation Governance
(https://dat.foundation/about/people/) Credits Produced by Richard
Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: Mike McQuaid and Nina Breznik.