Episode 77: Jordan Harband: Being a Sustainable Maintainer of Hundreds of Projects

Guest Jordan Harband Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! We are all very excited to have as our guest today, Jordan Harband, referred to as “Mr. Perfect” by the panelists! He is a longtime open source enthusiast, maintainer, coder, works at Coinbase, a TC39 Delegate, and heavily involved with Node for years. Today, Jordan gives us his perspective of being a maintainer of repositories and code. We find out how he is so successful at being a maintainer of so many open source projects, how he deals with ethics, how to ethically license your stuff, and how he handles hundreds of repos which he helps maintain. Jordan tells us what he’s doing to help other people out and shares some tips to a path if you’re interested in becoming more experienced. Download this episode now to find out much more and to get some fresh inspiration! [00:01:39] Jordan tells us how he got started with Node. [00:03:42] Justin wonders how Jordan maintains all of his notifications that he has and how does he deal with it. Also, he tells us if sponsorship plays a part of him having that passion and not getting overwhelmed which is why he’s so successful. [00:09:23] Jordan explains how he is nowhere close enough in terms of revenue stream from sponsorships to be able to consider quitting a job and working full-time on open source. [00:11:34] Richard brings up a book called, Drive by Daniel Pink, and wonders how Jordan chooses which open source projects to invest in and how does he feel like they’re actually giving him value because you’re making something that’s meaningful to you. [00:14:06] Justin asks Jordan if IE6 will ever die. [00:16:32] Jordan explains how to deal with ethics and open source, and how to ethically license your stuff. Richard wonders what he thinks the ethical obligations are of the maintainer who has a package. [00:20:29] Richard wonders since Jordan has hundreds of repos which he helps maintain, and how he deals with deciding to take on more