What project or projects do you maintain and what was your motivation for creating those projects and releasing them as open source software?

I maintain two types of projects: tools which I needed at some point and projects aimed at the community.

I like doing things that make life easier for me and for the community. My most used tool is git-secret. It was a solution to the deployment problem, we used to waste a lot of time on managing private data. Now it is simplified and automated. I have a whole collection of such utils in various languages, mainly Python, Elixir and Javascript. For example, the project recaptcha allows using Captcha in Elixir apps. Or the django-split-setting library which allows organizing Django settings in different files.

My projects for the society are more valuable for me. The awesome-cryptography project attracts cryptography lovers: we collect and share links and resources, communicate via Twitter and mailing-lists. My company organizes Elixir meetups in Moscow. We are actively contributing to creating an awesome professional elixir community in Russia. My biggest motivation is communicating with people who are passionate about the same things that I am.

If you created any of those projects, were they meant to solve a specific problem you faced, or were they born out of a larger opportunity you saw?

A little bit of everything. My libraries were written as a solution to problems I was facing. While my social projects are usually the first step to building a quality community.

How has the project evolved since you first got involved or first released it?

The most exciting example would be Elixir meetups. The fist few meetups were in our office. Now several big companies showed their interest both in the language and in our community. They are adopting Elixir and are inviting us to hold meetups at their locations.

How do you spend your time on those projects? (i.e. Developing, managing the community, triaging issues, etc.)

First of all, I write code for each of the projects. Big projects such as git-secret require planning and thinking over such questions as how is the tool going to evolve? What features should be added? Which bugs should be fixed first? I try to plan when the new version will come out as well. Unfortunately, I can’t always meet them due to the primary work.

Second, I devote a lot of time to developing a community around social projects. I invite speakers to meetups, do mailing lists, talk to people online and offline.

How would you describe the community around projects you participate in? What are your favorite and least favorite aspects?

Community can be described very briefly: smart and interested people, talking to them is pure pleasure. I haven’t encountered any unpleasant aspects yet.

What keeps you involved in those projects? Do you have long-term plans for maintaining your involvement?

There two key aspects: tools and people. I use my tools on everyday basis, which makes them easier to maintain. While people motivate me to work more by their interest and participation.

It is hard to talk about long-term plans, but I see a number of reasons, why me and my company should be involved heavily in developing open source. I can mention creating company’s image and involving more people into building quality tools.

What is the most important thing someone submitting an issue or patch should know?

I know that new-comers find it hard sending their first pull-request or opening an issue. I would like to reassure them that it is simple. You found a bug? Submit it! More people working together makes life easier.

Moreover, you should respect the authors by following their guidelines before creating an issue, and checking that the problem hadn’t been discussed before. Otherwise, popular projects will be overwhelmed by issue discussions.

What’s your development environment right now?

I like using SublimeText3, zsh and oh-my-zsh with config and plugins for all possible occasions. I like brew and things like nvm and kiex.

What was your first development environment? Do you miss anything from it?

My first language was C#, therefore Windows и VisualStudio. I have no regrets.

Where do you see the open source software community headed?

I feel that now a lot of big and even avarege sized companies have started developing various projects directly in open source. I personally know a couple of such cases and I love this approach. A company gets the chance to see instant user feedback and check wether they are going in the right direction. Such feedback can seriously cut costs and improve the development process.

I also like such initiatives as http://yourfirstpr.github.io, which look to attract new people to the open source community.