Nicholas Zakas Illustrates ‘Free as In Puppy’
Published:
This is a true story that isn’t about open source but makes sense in the context of open source. I repeat, this is a 100% true story that isn’t about open source but gives a good idea about what it’s like to maintain an open source project. Ready? Here we go.
There’s the concept of “free as in puppy”[^1] which boils down to how open source isn’t necessarily cheap to maintain contributed code since much like a puppy, you need to take care of it. Personally, both of my dogs had massive health issues that were incredibly expensive to fix.
Here Nicholas illustrates the concept with a personal example.
Sticking of puppy, here’s my dog Trix:
