Episode 83: Dominic Nguyen on Chromatic, Storybook.js, and building self-sustaining OSS projects

Guest Dominic Nguyen Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman |
Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The
podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long
haul. We are very excited about our guest today, Dominic Nguyen,
founder of Chromatic, the company behind Storybook.js. Storybook.js
is an open source tool for building UI components and pages in
isolation. On this episode, Dominic fills us in on Chromatic, how
Storybook evolved, the story behind Meteor, which is the first
full-stack JavaScript framework, and who their venture backers are.
We also learn the difference between Declarative and Imperative UI,
and Dominic tells us what it means for him to be an open source
project. Download this episode now to find out much more!
[00:01:21] Dominic tells us about Storybook and how it evolved.
[00:06:26] We learn the difference between Declarative and
Imperative UI. [00:08:22] Find out what other projects have come
out of Meteor. [00:09:07] Richard wonders what the financial
situation is for Storybook, how much money is needed, and where
does it go. [00:11:00] Dominic announces Chromatic is hiring
engineers to do open source development, and he tells us who his
seed funders are that believe in his mission. [00:14:24] Dominic
talks about open source companies launching these open source
business models. [00:16:04] Eric wonders if there’s a direction
with Storybook to work with or integrate with non-JavaScript based
frameworks. [00:18:26] Richard wonders how Dominic is avoiding
becoming a “kitchen sink” and making sure that he doesn’t just fill
all the needs for everyone and then do it badly. Dominic explains
why they exist as the guiding light. [00:21:43] Richard asks
Dominic what it means for him to be an open source project and how
does he mentally manage the divide between the Storybook community
as a whole needing to be sustained. [00:25:04] Eric asks Richard
why would the funds that are generated to develop and maintain this
project, why should they be distributed outside of the team that’s
the primary maintainers of it. Eric and Justin chime in and share
their perspectives on this topic as well. [00:32:39] Find out where
you follow Dominic online. Quotes [00:02:57] “Meteor was, for the
audience who might not be familiar or who is just jumping into
JavaScript now, was one of the first, or if not the first
full-stack JavaScript framework.” [00:05:38] “If you look at the
kind of long history of what components and why components exist,
you can think about them as standardized parts.” [00:09:22] “The
way we do it at Meteor is two ways: One, we have this idea of we’re
a community led open source project. We have an open collective
that donates, like folks in the community donate money and then
it’s used effectively for marketing, marketing purposes, swag,
doing stuff like CI, bills, like kind of incidentals.” [00:09:49]
“Because when you think about it, it hasn’t been enough to really
pay someone a salary without asking for donations all the time and
I think that’s what’s happening in Babel right now.” [00:10:10]
“So, what we do on the Chromatic is the company behind Meteor, we
have maintainers, official maintainers whose full-time job is to
push that project forward, build the features that people want and
maintain that kind of core API, and that is in partnership with our
community.” [00:14:37] “If you look at the long answer in the
context of other open source companies that are coming out right
now and are launching, it seems like this is the model that
everyone has landed on that separates you from these older style
like open source, I would say classic open source business models.”
[00:15:02] “It seems like the modern kind of like open source
business models, build an open source project, sell some type of
service that compliments it.” [00:17:57] “So for instance,
isomorphic was like the hot word five years ago.” [00:22:28] “We
put money back into the open source project and in doing so the
development experience is better for everyone and it’s that cycle
that we’re trying to maintain and continue.” [00:27:34] “Yeah, for
me, the issue is like people who contribute to it, they’re
self-serving, it’s a self-serving action. They are contributing to
it for their own benefit.” [00:28:11] “And when that is the case, I
agree with you a hundred percent. When that’s not the case, when
it’s a tool that’s being used by anybody, to me honestly, that is
the beauty of open source.” [00:29:52] “So, the hard part about
open source is maintaining it for a really long time.” [00:30:28]
“Just staying afloat is like a full-time job.” [00:30:33] “And what
we hope to offer the community from Chromatic, as like the
maintainers, is a stable release cadence that keeps up with the
rest of the ecosystem and includes some new, helpful, handy
features.” Spotlight [00:33:26] Eric’s spotlight is s tutorial,
“Dockerize your Rails app” by Nate Hopkins. [00:34:25] Justin’s
spotlight is Wormhole by Feross. [00:34:49] Richard’s spotlight is
Brian T. Ford. [00:35:19] Dominic’s spotlights are open source
projects such as State of JS by Sacha Greif, Wordpress, Mock
Service Worker (MSW), and Mirage JS. Links Dominic Nguyen Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-nguyen-25aa4821) Dominic
Nguyen Twitter (https://twitter.com/domyen) Chromatic
(https://www.chromatic.com/) Storybook (https://storybook.js.org/)
Meteor (https://www.meteor.com/) “Dockerize your Rails app” by Nate
Hopkins
(https://gist.github.com/hopsoft/c27da1a9fda405169994a004957597b4)
Nate Hopkins Twitter (https://twitter.com/hopsoft) Wormhole
(https://wormhole.app/) Brian T. Ford
(https://twitter.com/briantford) State of JS
(https://stateofjs.com/) Sacha Greif (https://sachagreif.com/)
Wordpress
(https://wordpress.com/create/?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=google_wpcom_search_brand_desktop_us_en&utm_medium=paid_search&keyword=wordpress&creative=476205831529&campaignid=998785131&adgroupid=53026924047&matchtype=e&device=c&network=g&targetid=aud-1244516595356:kwd-295456403946&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkZiFBhD9ARIsAGxFX8AtjkQqNxxpBf4uxWORYLafGtBppOm4Ko5Ga4haPy076aHpBmA6_NIaAhbYEALw_wcB)
Mock Service Worker (https://mswjs.io/) Mirage JS
(https://miragejs.com/) 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 at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Dominic Nguyen.