Open source, not open contribution (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

This week we’re talking with Ben Johnson. Ben is known for his work on BoltDB, his work in open source, and as a freelance Go developer. Late January when Ben open sourced his newest project Litestream in the readme he shared how the project was open source, but not open for contribution. His reason was to protect his mental health and the long term viability of the project. On this episode we talk with Ben about what that means, his thoughts on mental health and burnout in open source, choosing a license, and the details behind Litestream - a standalone streaming replication tool for SQLite.

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Featuring:

• Ben Johnson – Website, GitHub, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Go Beyond
• Open source, but closed to contributions
• Litestream.io & benbjohnson/litestream
• Litestream getting started
• The Changelog #201: Why SQLite succeeded as a database with Richard Hipp, creator of SQLite
• SQLite copyright
• SQLite - Professional Support & Extension Products
• boltdb/bolt
• Kubernetes Failure Stories
• The Changelog #170: BoltDB, InfluxDB, Key-Value Databases with Ben Johnson
• Cockroach Labs

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!