🆕 Chapter 7 Open Source Sustainability (23 min read)
You cannot take care of someone else if you aren't taking care of yourself. This is sustainability on a personal and systemic level. Let's frame our work against broader timescales, and remember why this matters.
🆕 Chapter 6 Open Source in the Workplace (20 min read)
You don't need permission to do your job. Engaging with open source is already the norm, because you consume it. Energize yourself, your team, & your company to give more of a damn. I am not kidding, & I offer practical advice to make it happen.
🆕 Chapter 5 Community Investment (40 min read)
Overwhelmed yet? That's how it can be. We cover ways you can invest further in your project as an investment in yourself and others. Time is our critical resource, so we cover impactful decisions and automation. Be wary as you steer your community.
🆕 Chapter 4 The Four Files of Any Open Source Project (38 min read)
We frame every open source project against four files. I won't keep you in suspense. I prioritize the README, LICENSE, CHANGELOG, and CODE_OF_CONDUCT files. We cover an array of conceptual and technical topics, and get real real.
Chapter 3 Consuming Open Source Software (36 min read)
Dependencies as a double-edged sword. We cannot help but use them, & therefore they must be wielded with care. How can we evaluate the need for a dependency beyond GitHub stars & download counts. And what if we don't need a dependency at all?
Chapter 2 The Spectrum of Engagement (35 min read)
An exploration of all the ways we can engage with open source projects. This ain't a mountain to climb though, we can each bring our unique skillsets and interests to any project. I promise, you have something unique to offer.
So what's in the book?
A Foreword by Brad Frost
Chapter 1 Principles and Promise (19 min read)
A conceptual understanding of open source's origins and strictest definitions. Can it be more? We glance at the interconnectedness of our communities, and hint at the parts we can play in them.
Last year I quietly celebrated the one year annivesary of launch, and logged three plane flights to support two book signings at @allthingsopen.bsky.social and @jsconf.bsky.social , in addition to four podcasts. I cannot thank the community enough for the response and connections made.
📣 Two Announcements!
1️⃣ Approachable Open Source is now free to read online!
2️⃣ US fulfillment is now $7 flat, anywhere. You basically pay shipping.
`TLDR' - It's time to fully give the community to book.
Completely. Totally. Like, go read it now!
approachableopensource.com/read/
the frontpage of the washington post with the masthead repeated twice
Tell me you've had layoffs without telling me you've had layoffs
Introducing 🦍Gorilla!
A YouTube wrapper that give parents the ultimate control over what their kids watch. I built this for my kids, and they love it. Moreover, they watch LESS NOW.
Check out out at gorilla.tube
www.linkedin.com/pulse/introd...
#parenting #ipadkids #youtube #indiedev
kidding aside, some research says I might be able to actively re-habilitate this domain, if it's worth it, via google search console work. need to crunch some numbers
I could do something pretty funny with those requests, but I don't wanna be a dick.
Bought a domain and pushed some content to it. Early analytics turned up WAY too many hits. Wayback says it hosted porn about 5 years ago. I guess availability is no longer the only concern on domain searches - you might be inheriting a WHOLE LOT of unwanted traffic.
The title slide of the talk, Finite Source Machines: Contribution for Busy Humans. It depicts a study drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci for his unfinished painting, The Adoration of the Magi.
Finally released my long-form version of Finite Source Machines: Contribution for Busy Humans from All Things Open this October.
Read it at approachableopensource.com/blog/2025-op...
Thanks again to @allthingsopen.bsky.social for the opportunity.
#opensource #lessonsfrom500yearsago
It'd be nice to be able to generate an SBOM as an artifact on the Releases page too.
It's Friday night, so of course I spent it opening a bug report to GitHub on their SBOM generation feature. SBOMs reference a branch, with no correlation to the sha of the current commit on the default branch. Very simple win to introduce true traceability.
#FridayNightCoding #GitHub #SBOM
This is true of all team members actually. The trick is to have more >1 days than less
All the interesting stuff to me is in the deltas. But that YoY insight can be flawed too or easy to associate too much, with new data collection techniques or outreach.
❤️
Anyway, enjoy, report bugs, etc. I wrote it REALLY fast, like.... delete the CSS and go! But each iteration gets better markup, and the tech (11ty) still holds up years later. Finally switched this to pnpm too.
This also just begs for a playable tetris game. I need worked to polish this initial cut of AI slop into a Web Component that can handle many tetris blocks, or give me just one, etc. Seems like a fun thing to iterate on. Only renders on wider screens.
People want to classify you as one thing or another. Life is far more complicated than that and I choose to celebrate it.
the new homepage for brianmuenzenmeyer.com me, at All Things Open, with a dithered effect and procedurely generated tetris blocks overlayed
Gave brianmuenzenmeyer.com a facelift this week. I've leaned into this notion that I don't fit into a neat box anymore. I'm a multifaceted leader and human, at work, in life, in my relationship, etc. I keep seeing this reality in my travels, and sometimes it even hinders me.
💸 Lastly, I've prices of the book to get it into more hands. For those outside of shipping zone, there are some print on demand options now on the site too. If you are interested in supporting me and my work, check it out.
approachableopensource.com/shop/
(I learned today that some of the backtick formatting was lost on epub to HTML conversion, so I'll be working to fix that!)
🆓 To celebrate this new post, I've also released Chapter 3: Consuming Open Source Software. This remains a good coffee read and resource nonetheless. Find this in the comments, as well as the source code.
✨ This post complements Chapter 1 of Approachable Open Source - providing thematic oomph as you start your reading journey. I've "illuminated" the text with a link directly too it. A first iteration of transforming the text into a truly perennial resource that will outlast any print run.
🎙️ This idea percolated from a short conversation with Marty Henderson, into a @nodejs.org blog post, to a cozy @minnestar.org talk, to a great JavaScriptMN meetup night, and finally a full-stage @jsconf.bsky.social talk last month. It was only proper to give this the long-form treatment it deserves.