Update, June 2020: Some details of this post were accurate at the time it was written, but aren’t accurate right now. Writing code is sometimes my primary job again (depending on the role). However, the main message still holds true.

I work on open-source projects as a hobby. Writing code used to be my primary job but it hasn’t been for a few years now.

I make my hobby projects’ source code open by default. Mainly because I think that possibly someone will benefit from having it available. Primarily I write code for myself, but if someone else happens to find it beneficial, cool! I know I’ve benefited a lot from the open source projects of others in the past, so why not return the favour?

But here’s the thing. Because I’ve relegated coding to just a hobby, I’m actually terrified of something I’ve written becoming very popular. I don’t like the thought of one of my projects hitting 10000+ GitHub stars (or however else you want to measure popularity) — then getting a heap of issues and pull requests as a result. In fact, that thought scares the shit out of me. I don’t want that responsibility.

I have so many project ideas that arrive in my head far faster than I can build them. I write them all down, and watch the list grow ever larger. At some point I had to learn to accept that a huge majority of them would never even be started, let alone finished. I had to prioritise them. Over time, I realised that certain types of ideas keep getting relegated to the bottom of the list. Not the ones that would require the most work to create, but the ones that would have the largest amount of ongoing maintenance.

Thus I realised that my model for coding is not FOSS, it’s LOSS — Lazy Open-Source Software. I’m happy to write something new and try out different ideas, but coming back to maintain old projects is painful. Some people say that’s just ignoring problems, but I don’t particularly care.

My coding time is pretty much just restricted to train rides to/from the office where I work, and maybe a bit of time of an evening. Therefore I try to maximise the enjoyment I get out of that time. I fuck around with some code for a bit and make something that I like. But most of the time I like to focus on other things at home — family, non-coding hobbies, and just generally switching off.

What I’m trying to say is… actually, I have no idea what I’m trying to say. I just thought of the LOSS acronym and ran with it. I guess the underlying point I’m making is, if you’re relying on me to fix up some old open source code, I’m sorry. It’s on the list somewhere.