Episode 117: Mike McQuaid of Homebrew on Sustainably Working on OSS Projects

Guest Mike McQuaid Panelists Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and
welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about software
sustainability for the long haul. Today, I’m very excited to have
as my guest from Edinburgh, Mike McQuaid, who’s a Principal
Engineer at GitHub and the Project Leader of Homebrew. Mike fills
us in on Homebrew, how he became the Project Lead, and the Homebrew
journey towards software sustainability. We also find out how Mike
applies Brené Brown’s acronym “BRAVING” to his work on open source,
and about his involvement with GitHub Sponsors. Go ahead and
download this episode now to find out much more! [00:01:26] Mike
explains what Homebrew is, who originally created it, and how he
became one of the lead maintainers. [00:05:41] Since Mike is the
Homebrew Project Leader at GitHub, Richard wonders why they need an
OSX related package manager and Mike explains how that happened.
[00:07:06] We learn how Mike worked on Homebrew as open source on
company time and the importance of choosing priorities. [00:11:57]
Mike goes in depth about the Homebrew sustainability journey,
mentoring other maintainers, and the value of feature flagging in
Homebrew. [00:16:45] Richard wonders how Mike talks to people about
whether or not they’re a good candidate to be a mentor. [00:20:12]
We hear about the meaning of the “BRAVING” acronym from Brené
Brown’s podcast and book, and how it applies to Mike’s work on open
source. [00:25:36] Where is there room in Mike’s open source
boundary setting for grace? [00:31:07] Mike was on the GitHub
Sponsors team and we find out how he got involved with it, and why
it has been such a valuable contribution to the open source
ecosystem. [00:37:05] We learn what Mike thinks the next step of
sustainability might be in terms of helping open source maintainers
from a non-individualistic approach. [00:42:15] Find out where you
can follow Mike on the web. Quote [00:22:12] “I think boundaries
are the most important part of open source sustainability, at the
end of the day you should be only working on the stuff that you
want to be working on.” Spotlight [00:43:16] Richard’s spotlight is
Forest Café in Edinburgh. [00:43:57] Mike’s spotlight is a search
tool called, ripgrep. 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/) Mike
McQuaid Twitter (https://twitter.com/mikemcquaid?lang=en) Mike
McQuaid Website (https://mikemcquaid.com/) Mike McQuaid GitHub
(https://github.com/MikeMcQuaid) Homebrew (https://brew.sh/) The
Silver Searcher (https://geoff.greer.fm/ag/) Max Howell Website
(https://mxcl.dev/) tea (https://tea.xyz/) The Mentorship Diamond
by Mike McQuaid
(https://mikemcquaid.com/2021/09/09/the-mentorship-diamond/) Stop
Mentoring First-Time Contributors by Mike McQuaid
(https://mikemcquaid.com/2019/02/16/stop-mentoring-first-time-contributors/)
Saying No by Mike McQuaid
(https://mikemcquaid.com/2022/01/20/saying-no/) Sacred Earth Sacred
Soul by John Philip Newell
(https://www.earthandsoul.org/sacred-earth-sacred-soul) Feature
flags
(https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-glossary/feature-flags/)
GitHub Sponsors (https://github.com/sponsors) Open Source Economics
(is not what you think). by Mike McQuaid
(https://mikemcquaid.com/2021/10/27/open-source-economics/) Open
Collective Homebrew (https://opencollective.com/homebrew) Brené
Brown Dare to Lead: The BRAVING Inventory
(https://brenebrown.com/resources/the-braving-inventory/) Forest
Café (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Caf%C3%A9)
ripgrep-GitHub (https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep) 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 Guest: Mike McQuaid.