Follow the personal musings of Rob Mensching, FireGiant CEO and WiX Toolset benevolent dictator.
I saw Hadestown in the movie theater this weekend. I saw it for the first time live in NYC. Just a few months ago. I have so many thoughts. But this is the summer of work. So much to do. So much to finish. Until then I've only tried to stay on top of OSMF news. More soon.
When I introduced the OSMF, many people told me it would not work unless some sort of license enforcement mechanism was in place. I disagreed and instead focused on education. It turns out we were both right.
Eight months ago WiX had 99 sponsors. Today it has 304. The Open Source Maintenance Fee is working and ready.
I have mixed feelings about Cloudflare acquiring VoidZero. I like Cloudflare but I hoped to see Vite be "enough" to fund its own development. I felt the same with Astro.
Today I turn 49. A lot has improved in the last year. So, as is tradition, let's take this time on my birthday to review it.
Since it's release almost a year ago now, I've been collecting feedback on the Open Source Maintenance Fee. Earlier this week, I integrated a piece of feedback that deserved to bump the version number. Let's talk about the change that produced OSMF v1.1.
We don't use Tailwind CSS at FireGiant, but I can't stop thinking about it. As a CEO responsible for keeping the lights on, and as a long-time Open Source maintainer, the situation is uncomfortably familiar. What does it mean that Tailwind is so popular and still unsustainable?
Wow, inbox zero again. I guess it is time to go write an email...
It's been a bit over a month since the Open Source Maintenance Fee was introduced into the WiX Toolset. So, let's take a moment to check in and see how things are going.
A few of you have asked so I'm very excited to share that the Deployment Dojo is coming back for Season 2. In fact, the show was so successful, it was picked up by FireGiant and is moving to the FireGiant channel. Let's talk about it.
Today I'm launching an idea three years in the making. The Open Source Maintenance Fee tackles the sustainablity problem by charging a small fee for use of an Open Source Project. What? Why? How? All answered in more detail below.
I didn't know it but the last couple of years have been buliding up to this point. Today is my birthday, so it is time to review last year and because if the next few days go well, the rest of this year will not be the same.
We are living in the Second Generation of Open Source. Think about it. Open Source was coined in 1998. Generations are 20-30 years long. I don't know exactly when it started but we are definitely in Open Source's Second Generation... and I think that explains a lot.
My brain is on fire. I'm juggling two major projects and a runaway thought process is plowing through the middle of it all. I almost need to take a vacation to capture everything about this new idea. But there is no time. Nevermind my Open Source project.
I disabled the WiX Toolset GitHub Discussions to stop a spam attack. I've reported the issue to GitHub. After they delete the ~750300 spam messages, I'll re-enable Discussions. Update 2024/05/27: Spam removed and GitHub Discussions have been restored.
I posted the bulk of my reflections on the WiX Toolset's 20th Anniversary on the FireGiant blog. I just have a couple tidbits to include here.
It's a cliche to talk about the importance of relationships in business. Now businesses need to think about their relationship with Open Source projects and the maintainers that care for them.
Originally a thread on Twitter about the xz/liblzma vulnerability, when I finished typing it, I realized I had a real world slice of Open Source interaction that deserved more attention.
After a couple hours of experimentation, I think I figured out how to create a single NuGet package (.nupkg) to deliver both an assembly for managed projects (like .csproj) and a .lib for native projects (like .vcxproj). This allows me to deliver an API to MSBuild-based projects with a single nupkg.
I just created the label oop-ba-unsquashed before squashing the last two months of coding into a single working commit. For the record, I was a fool for believing I could get this done in a week or two. Next stop wix5-rc.1.
Today I turn the page on another year. There were a couple of consequential events that as I look back, feel more like stepping stones than pedastals. Necessary but not sufficient. Let us reflect.
Albert Rusnak The Movie. This is really cool from the Sounders. The whole production. I hope they do more like it.
Casey calls it "the future interface for all computing" but I can't get over how isolating it looks. Pieces of glass in the palm of our hand are already pretty bad. Great video though.
Listening to Trent Reznor talk with Rick Rubin, it strikes me how much Trent reminds me of my best friend (and first student of the dojo), David Eidson.
On the first day of 2024, I re-launched my new personal website. I've redesigned it to be a better home for my stuff on the internet. You'll now be able to go to this single site to keep up to date on all things Rob Mensching.