Meteor Software Ending Github Sponsorship

[harry97]

Hello guys, I was just chatting with @zodern and I learnt that he’ll start focusing a good portion of his efforts on some private matters of his own instead of contributing to Meteor for the upcoming months due to Meteor Software ending their sponsorship. I understand the reasons why Meteor Software would wanna switch over to bounty system as there’re lots of problems with community packages or stale issues that needs attention but their man power will never be enough. So, it’s understandable. But, cutting support from key contributors like @zodern, @Storyteller means a lot less time for Meteor/OSS and keep in mind certain things they do/did wasn’t clear cut problems that you can assign a bounty to and the community would solve.

For instance, in the last couple of months @zodern worked on typescript support via zodern:relay, faster minification via swc and finally he listed few of the problems he intends on tackling in the upcoming while.

@Storyteller aside from his usual evangelism, he worked on MCP packages like oplog and roles. He also started working on Meteor Dispatch alongside @alimgafar and @jkuester. Him too is starting to switch focus to private endeavors to garner support for his companies and make income.

So, to put my ideas into clear points:

1. Cutting support from key Meteor contributors leads them to put less time in Meteor and more into private endeavors hurting Meteor eventually and causing the opposite of what Meteor Software team and the community as a whole intend.
2. OSS work is a creative work, you can’t boss an artist and expect extraordinary work like @zodern was putting out. But you may provide financial support and leave him to do his own thing without interfering. For the sake of this bad analogy. Sure, you may commission an artist for a piece and you’d get pretty good results but I’m not interested in solid/mid tier pieces. I’m interested in spontaneous phenomenal pieces only. And this model, of supporting contributors was working out pretty well. So, why tamper with it?
3. Meteor Software reasons for trying out bounty system are justified but their execution is not. Yes, adding a bounty to help out with all the extra work is a good idea but to cut support from other people isn’t. Why not do the same together? To be even more frank, the only reason you’d do this move if supporting community contributors was such a great financial restrain that you had no way to roll your bounty program without cutting support first which is something I highly doubt. You made lots of new hires to work on your ahem ahem cough shitty platform like Thiago Reis, Vitor Souza, André Luis. You even hired a Developer Relations Manager, who started her Meteor forums account less an 90 days ago!!! WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE KNOW ABOUT METEOR??? HOW ABOUT GIVING THAT MONEY TO PEOPLE LIKE @storyteller @jkuester @alimgafar WHO STARTED A GODDMAN PODCAST ABOUT METEOR??? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?? I’m truly perplexed by the amount of ignorance the people making these decisions have. There’re some other problems but I’ll refrain from mentioning them here so as not to take the spotlight from the problem this thread is for.

Please support your creators and roll your bounty program alongside it, thanks!

[harry97]

To add to my artist analogy @radekmie is putting out tremendous work with his latest project, changestream to redis. He’s also the single person working on making Blaze async. So, why mess with his mojo??? Give him the support and leave him to do his own thing.

[rjdavid]

@harry97

cutting support from key contributors like @zodern, @Storyteller means a lot less time for Meteor/OSS

Given that I don’t have enough information leading to this decision, this looks like a very bad idea based on what’s public here in the forum and on github.

[guncebektas]

Wow. It’s one of worst thing happened in the community. It will definitely broke trust of other developers. What is Tiny’s alternative or solution? Is someone heard about it?

[TatiBarros]

Certainly, @harry97. I want to make sure you know that I understand your concerns and they are genuine. But before we continue, please let me introduce myself: My name is Tatiana Barros, and I am fully qualified for the position I hold. And believe me, I’ve been immersed in Meteor for the past 3 months. Regarding the issue of contributions, our focus is shifting more towards community engagement. The key individuals you’ve mentioned will not be overlooked; they are integral to our upcoming programs, which also aim to establish partnerships. I want to clarify that our ultimate objective is to reevaluate certain agreements and relaunch significant initiatives. This includes the University program and a contribution policy aimed at developing the framework and the technical and interpersonal skills of each person who contributes. Among these and other initiatives, we are committed to maintaining a space that allows freedom of suggestion, respect, diversity, and inclusion. So, I am open and available to listen if you want to talk.

[harry97]

I’ve been immersed in Meteor for the past 3 months.

I don’t mean to belittle you or undermine your efforts but if you can’t see a problem with this statement then sorry it’s of no use to talk to you.

[TatiBarros]

@harry97 Let’s have a chill chat! I’m already in touch with these critical folks who are super important to the community. I’m confident we’ll level up everyone’s skills, get more conversations going, reconnect everyone, and not let the ecosystem slide. Give me your trust, and you won’t regret it, ok?

[radekmie]

Let me share how it looks from my end.

More than a year ago, Meteor partnered with a couple of companies (including Vazco) and people (including @zodern; AFAIK, he had some deal before). It was publicly announced in New faces collaborating on Meteor.js. @piotrpospiech and I are employed at Vazco, and we were given a certain hourly budget and worked on a multitude of topics as a part of our jobs (i.e., paid). If you want to know what we did exactly, you can check the PRs (here’s meteor/meteor, but there were more). I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say anything, but I think I can say that this partnership with Vazco has ended.

Besides that, Vazco has an Open Source Group that I’ve been leading for years, and while it’s been focused on uniforms or universe:i18n, we can freely distribute our hourly budget also on Meteor (again, as a part of our jobs, so paid). That’s where https://github.com/meteor/meteor/pull/8893 came from, for example.

I’m working on some projects in my free time. In the past, it was the MiniMongoExplorer (which I’m still using because I’m used to it); now it’s changestream-to-redis. There are also other non-Meteor things, e.g., ranges-set. And while I do them to make my work easier (MiniMongoExplorer), by open-sourcing part of my work (ranges-set), or by building alternatives I’m using on projects (changestream-to-redis). I’m more than fine with doing that “for free”, although I won’t fix every single issue this way (especially if it doesn’t affect me or my work).

Not entirely for free because some people sponsor me on GitHub. I’m getting paid really well, and I don’t need this money to survive. I treat it more like a token of appreciation and kind of a “thank you” – that’s it. To be perfectly transparent, I got 3332.78 PLN (777.83 USD at the time of writing) in total since November 2019 and I’m grateful for every single cent. Also for every star on GitHub, heart here on forum, “You have a typo in your latest blog post!” DM, and whatnot.

Having said all of it, I don’t think it’s unusual among the ecosystem – people come and go, and most open source work is not paid or is done by some company directly benefitting from it. I’m not sure if I like it or not, but I got used to it.

The only thing I’m truly sad for is this year’s Meteor Impact. I contacted @storyteller about it, and he’s simply too busy to organize it. I’m surprised that Meteor Software didn’t do anything about it, but it is what it is. I assume it’s partly because of how much effort goes into Meteor 3.0, but still.

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@harry97

To add to my artist analogy @radekmie is putting out tremendous work with his latest project, changestream to redis. He’s also the single person working on making Blaze async. So, why mess with his mojo??? Give him the support and leave him to do his own thing.

While I am working on making Blaze async alone, I wanted to give a huge shoutout to @DanielDornhardt (I hope it’s @DanielDornhardt’s forum profile!), as he’s putting a lot of effort into nagging me to work on that and make it even better testing every single piece of it and providing valuable feedback. Really, if not for his questions, we wouldn’t have a half of it.

---

@TatiBarros

@harry97 Let’s have a chill chat! I’m already in touch with these critical folks who are super important to the community.

I guess I’m not critical (All good, I’m just being picky.)

[TatiBarros]

Hi @rjdavid and @guncebektas! We understand your concerns, and thank you for sharing your opinions. We want to assure you that we are committed to making decisions that benefit everyone in the ecosystem. As we mentioned to Harry, we are simply adjusting the programs to make them even better. The community has many issues that we need to pay attention to, not just contributions to open-source, even though that is our primary and essential focus. We’re broadening our view!
We are here to listen and work together to make our ecosystem more welcoming and productive. If you have any more questions or suggestions, please feel free to share

[TatiBarros]

Hi @radekmie! Since I got involved with the Meteor community, Vazco and its collaborators have held a special place in my heart. I’ve heard so much about your significant contributions and the pivotal role you and your team play in our ecosystem. It’s an honour to be in a community that features people as committed to open-source as you are.
Your transparency and honesty in your recent paragraph exemplify your personal integrity and serve as a model for all of us striving for a balance between passion and pragmatism in our work.
As Development Manager, I am deeply involved in the strategy and organization of various facets of the Meteor community, whether it’s user experience, community actions, or even more academic analyses. We have been attentive to multiple fronts, including our critical documentation, technical content, and partnerships. Some of our initiatives had to be paused for reassessment, new formats, and repositioning. We have had many constructive conversations on these subjects.
One point that is definitely on my radar is the Meteor Impact event. I understand the concerns about the cost and support for organizing this event. Still, we are considering focusing our efforts on something big to launch the new Meteor version. It would be fantastic to discuss this further with you.
I was extremely pleased that you voiced your opinion, and I’m looking forward to working together to build an even more robust and welcoming ecosystem

[fredmaiaarantes]

I think the main question here is “Why did Meteor Software end Github sponsorships?”

The analogy of artists and their creativity is great. When we sponsor developers, they are free to work on what inspires them, regardless of priorities, and we want to invest money and direct efforts toward Meteor.js’ priorities.

We are working hard and trying to put all our efforts into Meteor 3.0. We’ve been working on this for over a year now, and we’ve happily partnered with Quave, Vazco, and Zodern on this endeavor. At one point we had 8 people working on it. We finally got an alpha version running on Node.js 18, but there’s still a lot of work to do, and we want to prioritize it. Redirecting the sponsorship budget to bounties is one way to try to achieve this.

We tested Algora and are looking at other options. Once we find a good way to do this, we want to open bounties for missing Meteor 3.0 pieces, package updates, open issues, and even content creation around all the changes made. We expect that most previously sponsored developers can earn more money than they earned from sponsorships.

So, to answer your points:

1. Of course, this is not our expectation and intention. We want to get more contributions from more developers. We will open Meteor.js bounties to be done by whoever is able to contribute.
2. My perspective is that it wasn’t working very well. That’s what I explained at the beginning of my answer. It’s great to see new packages coming from inspiration, but not so much when Node.js 14 is not supported anymore, and we couldn’t update Meteor.js in time to ensure we didn’t lose all security and critical fixes from the Node.js team itself.
3. I’m sorry @harry97, but I can’t hear you when you yell like that. You criticize every time we hire someone. Our job positions are open to everyone, as answered in the other topic.

We are open to sponsoring great initiatives like the new podcast created by @alimgafar, @storyteller, and @jkuester. We started a conversation about that, and hopefully, we can find some good ways to support that.

Regarding @radekmie, and the Vazco partnership. We are dealing with this on a project basis. And we’ll probably reach out to them again to work with us on some demands very soon.

About Meteor Impact is a community-created event run by @storyteller. It was passed to Meteor Software last year, but as requested by @storyteller, we’ve agreed to return it to him. Sadly, he won’t be able to run it this year. But we plan to hold another new Meteor event by the end of the year.

[guncebektas]

I don’t know how, but these people need to be rewarded. Although sponsorship seems nice, motivating them with better methods will benefit our community.

Money is undoubtedly a motivating tool, but I believe that the people mentioned should be more respected. If we can learn about the changes made in such decisions directly from you, communication will be healthier.

[harry97]

I’m very grateful for your response @radekmie, it’s so intriguing to finally hear from one of the OSS contributors where they share their side of the story. Thanks a lot for such an insightful details. As useful and informative as these pieces of information are you don’t talk much about how you feel about the current changes and the atmosphere as a whole except for this part:

Not entirely for free because some people sponsor me on GitHub . I’m getting paid really well, and I don’t need this money to survive. I treat it more like a token of appreciation and kind of a “thank you” – that’s it. To be perfectly transparent, I got 3332.78 PLN (777.83 USD at the time of writing) in total since November 2019 and I’m grateful for every single cent. Also for every star on GitHub, heart here on forum, “You have a typo in your latest blog post!” DM, and whatnot.

Having said all of it, I don’t think it’s unusual among the ecosystem – people come and go, and most open source work is not paid or is done by some company directly benefitting from it. I’m not sure if I like it or not, but I got used to it.

Yeah, people come and go. OSS is being taken for granted nowadays without appreciating the people behind it. And, while you may be in a good financial position thanks to Vazco paying you for your open source work, good on them btw. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for better environment.

While I don’t support you financially on GH, let me tell you I’m fully appreciative of your efforts and I’d certainly hope you continue putting out such amazing work.

The only thing I’m truly sad for is this year’s Meteor Impact. I contacted @storyteller about it, and he’s simply too busy to organize it. I’m surprised that Meteor Software didn’t do anything about it, but it is what it is. I assume it’s partly because of how much effort goes into Meteor 3.0, but still.

Meteor Impact is an community led initiative by @storyteller, it’s not Meteor Software fault nor responsibility at all that it wasn’t held this year. Meteor Software tried to take over it but then relinquished it back to @storyteller as he requested which is a very good thing as Meteor Software was putting their needs first and you may ask @storyteller if I’m lying.

While I am working on making Blaze async alone, I wanted to give a huge shoutout to @DanielDornhardt (I hope it’s @DanielDornhardt’s forum profile!), as he’s putting a lot of effort into nagging me to work on that and make it even better testing every single piece of it and providing valuable feedback. Really, if not for his questions, we wouldn’t have a half of it.

Absolutely agree, @DanielDornhardt is the unsung hero of this story. Thanks a lot for your efforts. I’m too was interested in the Blaze changes but was busy conducting the military service which is why I was away from the scene. So, I’m definitely grateful that somebody else was holding it down. Again, thank you Daniel.

@TatiBarros Let’s have a chill chat! I’m already in touch with these critical folks who are super important to the community.

I really despise relaying information which was shared to me in a private conversation but you keep playing us for fools thinking words don’t travel. Newsflash they do! So apparently @zodern isn’t one of these critical people too

[harry97]

1. Of course, this is not our expectation and intention. We want to get more contributions from more developers. We will open Meteor.js bounties to be done by whoever is able to contribute.
2. My perspective is that it wasn’t working very well. That’s what I explained at the beginning of my answer. It’s great to see new packages coming from inspiration, but not so much when Node.js 14 is not supported anymore, and we couldn’t update Meteor.js in time to ensure we didn’t lose all security and critical fixes from the Node.js team itself.

You seem to agree with me about this whole thing not going the direction you intended and may need a little correction. So, thank you for that.

3. I’m sorry @harry97, but I can’t hear you when you yell like that. You criticize every time we hire someone. Our job positions are open to everyone, as answered in the other topic.

Uhhhh, not if’s uncalled for lol. Did all you discern from my words that they’re just some angry yells?? Maybe my style put you on the defensive side so I’ll try a different method this time to get my point across where I’ll refrain from making sarcastic comments or using improper language.

You made lots of new hires to work on your ahem ahem cough shitty platform like Thiago Reis, Vitor Souza, André Luis. You even hired a Developer Relations Manager, who started her Meteor forums account less an 90 days ago!!! WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE KNOW ABOUT METEOR??? HOW ABOUT GIVING THAT MONEY TO PEOPLE LIKE @storyteller @jkuester @alimgafar WHO STARTED A GODDMAN PODCAST ABOUT METEOR??? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?? I’m truly perplexed by the amount of ignorance the people making these decisions have.

Hiring @TatiBarros was’t the best decision as a Developer Relations Manager, here’s why:

• She doesn’t know a thing about Meteor which she admits to and is trying to work on by immersing herself in the community. Good on her but that just doesn’t cut it. Imagine your boss brings over an HR person to review your code. Angered by the move, you tell your boss how he doesn’t know a thing about Node.js. To only hear back that the HR person is working diligently on improving his code skills for nearly three months!!! WOW THREE WHOLE MONTH?? I’m seriously trying not to be sarcastic nor write in caps. How’d you feel about this situation? Infuriated, frustrated, underappreciated. How do you think the community feels? You get the idea so please take a moment to think about deeply about it.

• You under utilize local talent and end up driving them away. It’s a slap to the face to the community, so instead of getting local talent onboard you cut them off and bring over someone else? So much for the so called ambassadors when they’re merely kept for parading and showing off. This leads to a feeling of mistrust and add to the general miscommunication image which MS needs badly to change. Frankly, it pisses me off that you completely overlook someone like @storyteller or any other community member and try to hire someone else.

• Efficiency / Cost effectiveness. By directing your efforts to help out community endeavors like Meteor Dispatch podcast for example, you end with a two birds one stone type of situation. 1) You win the support of the community and make them feel appreciated. 2) Nobody is better suited to talk/represent your product than the guys who build/use it on daily basis. 3) It’s much more economical to donate 100$ to the podcast than paying thousand to a single person to handle all of the developer relations efforts. If I were the one making decisions at MS, I’d take the salary of @TatiBarros and donate it all community members putting actual work and believe me that’d be a lot more beneficial. Sorry, but it’s my honest opinion.

I understand that you commented that you’re willing to help out with the podcast which is nice but I hope now that you get why I wasn’t so thrilled with the new hire. As for @TatiBarros, it’s not personal. I’ve no grudge against you but I want the best for Meteor. It’s be beneficial for starters if you wanna build trust to tone down on the corporate jargon.

Your transparency and honesty in your recent paragraph exemplify your personal integrity and serve as a model for all of us striving for a balance between passion and pragmatism in our work.
As Development Manager, I am deeply involved in the strategy and organization of various facets of the Meteor community, whether it’s user experience, community actions, or even more academic analyses. We have been attentive to multiple fronts, including our critical documentation, technical content, and partnerships. Some of our initiatives had to be paused for reassessment, new formats, and repositioning. We have had many constructive conversations on these subjects.

[alawi]

Probably the most important thing now for Meteor and the community is get 3.0 out, unblock node 18 update, and then work on updating commonly used packages. Any other discussion/effort is a distraction in my opinion and it seems @fredmaiaarantes is focused on that, so he has my vote.

But I understand where @harry97 is coming from and his concern about alienting open source developers however it seems to me @fredmaiaarante wants to have more control over where the money is being spent and on what activities, which is also understandable from project management perspective.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I’m personally very excited about Meteor 3.0, it is really commendable effort.

[storyteller]

@radekmie

I contacted @storyteller about it, and he’s simply too busy to organize it.

It is multiple things. After Pathable closed their doors earlier this year that made Impact exponentially difficult to pull of (pretty much starting from scratch). This difficulty also meant that I would have to expand a lot more money up front (Pathable’s sponsorship really saved us there) and I’m currently not in a position to do that. But that might still change depending on how the rest of the month and maybe the next one goes. Another thing that I’m exploring is to switch to in-person event.

@fredmaiaarantes

But we plan to hold another new Meteor event by the end of the year.

That is some news. Well do let me know so that we don’t needlessly overlap on dates and things.

[harry97]

Another thing that I’m exploring is to switch to in-person event.

[a4xrbj1]

@harry97

Efficiency / Cost effectiveness. By directing your efforts to help out community endeavors like Meteor Dispatch podcast for example, you end with a two birds one stone type of situation. 1) You win the support of the community and make them feel appreciated. 2) Nobody is better suited to talk/represent your product than the guys who build/use it on daily basis. 3) It’s much more economical to donate 100$ to the podcast than paying thousand to a single person to handle all of the developer relations efforts. If I were the one making decisions at MS, I’d take the salary of @TatiBarros and donate it all community members putting actual work and believe me that’d be a lot more beneficial. Sorry, but it’s my honest opinion.

My two cents on this. I personally didn’t know that this role/person is onboard and I can’t really fully understand the benefit obviously from my view as an enduser. However, I’d appreciate if that salary is rather spend on paying developers, either in-house at the Meteor team or by allowing the aforementioned external devs on improving packages like meteor-desktop or blaze.

@harry97

It’s be beneficial for starters if you wanna build trust to tone down on the corporate jargon.

Again, I haven’t interacted with @TatiBarros before and I can only judge from her answers in this trust. But if I read that corp lingo, I too think that this isn’t appreciated by the intended audience. That’s not how we talk amongst Devs.

[TatiBarros]

Harry… Interestingly, you bring up the confusion between DevRel and HR, as these are distinct fields with different responsibilities.
DevRel, especially in an open-source environment like Meteor, encompasses a wide range of tasks that go beyond pure code. It’s a role that addresses the ecosystem in which the code is created and used, including the community that supports it.
I’m also surprised that the conversation has yet to evolve into a more solution-focused dialogue concerning hard skills and specific technical challenges. I strongly believe in practical, targeted actions that solve concrete problems rather than philosophical debates, which, though interesting, may not lead to effective changes.
Given your enthusiasm and interest in the community, I look forward to seeing you actively participate in the various initiatives we’re planning. This includes mentorships with a particular focus on contribution onboarding for new members and the creation of technical documentation and articles. Actions like these are what build a strong community and a better product.

We are currently focusing on building a robust technical ecosystem based on respect and contributions in all aspects of an open-source community. Because of this, I don’t intend to spend any more time on this topic. We’ve already established a good dialogue, and if you have technical ideas that could solve problems and improve the Meteor ecosystem, I’m eager to hear them.

Once again, thank you for your feedback. It’s only through open conversations like this that we can improve.

[TatiBarros]

Hi! Thank you for your valuable feedback. My previous tone might have come across as overly formal. However, my direct approach during the first few months was intentional and necessary for me to entirely focus on understanding the Meteor ecosystem. This includes everything from its history and community to its technical content and practices.
I want to add that I have experience in other open-source communities, where I’ve organized groups focused on various contribution aspects. This extends beyond just code and includes the promotion of diversity and inclusion, establishing healthy codes of conduct, and encouraging practices that developers can apply in their careers beyond the open-source context. One of my greatest passions is helping people effectively share knowledge.
As for DevRel, it’s a multifaceted role. It’s not just about coding; it’s also about building a healthy community, organizing educational resources, and providing technical guidance. My strategic focus has been on strengthening the educational aspects and creating room for contributions beyond just code.
If you have any specific ideas or suggestions, I would be happy to hear them. I appreciate your feedback once again. Conversations like this allow us to grow and improve; I’m always open to that.