Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Maintainers Support Group

[Shuah <shuah@kernel.org>]

On 9/20/23 16:54, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 01:52:19PM -0600, Shuah wrote:
>> On 9/19/23 17:21, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>>> On Tue, 19 Sep 2023 16:55:29 -0600 Shuah wrote:
>>>
>>>> As I replied to Ted and Randy, I think the proposal James pointed to is
>>>> where we could start and evolve that discussion to the actions such as
>>>> support group, instead of starting with a solution without looking at
>>>> the bigger picture.
>>>>
>>>> https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit/ab9cfd857e32635f626a906410ad95877a22f0db.camel@HansenPartnership.com/
>>>
>>> I saw this when James first posted it. I may have been the lone figure to
>>> do so as I had to point it out when the topic came up a second time ;-)
>>>
>>>     https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230817104622.511c61b4@gandalf.local.home/
>>>
>>> I'm all for having this discussion under James topic, but this idea of a
>>> Support Group is something I've been discussing with other maintainers for
>>> some time. I believe I even mentioned it to you while on the bus in Dublin.
>>
>> Thank you. Yes. We talked about this last year at Dublin. Work of being an
>> Open source developer and especially a maintainer demands emotional labor.
>> This is definitely a risk factor for burnout.
>>
>> I happened to com across an article today about burnout risk factors and some
>> of those are faced by maintainers and developers. If you are interested, I can
>> send the link.
> 
> Collecting interesting (and hopefully useful) resources is a fairly low
> effort exercise, so I'll start:
> 
> "Negotiating the Nonnegotiable", by Daniel Shapiro
> https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314284/negotiating-the-nonnegotiable-by-daniel-shapiro/

Adding one I read this morning:
A Burnout Risk Checklist
Know your risk so you can prevent burnout.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lessons-from-a-burnt-out-psychologist/202309/a-burnout-risk-checklist
> 

>> I would recommend discussion this prior to the Maintainer summit in an open
>> session to get input from developers and maintainers who aren't invited to
>> the maintainers summit myself included.
> 
> I wonder if I'm stating the obvious, but trying to figure out ways to
> handle psychological problems in a group made of software developers
> seems like we will be fairly short on essential skills for this kind of
> exercise. Given the size of the affected community, I think we could
> find ways to get professional help.
> 

This discussion would be for coming up with a few solutions including
the one you suggested - "find ways to get professional help".

thanks,
-- Shuah