One day back in 2000, Joda maintainer Stephen Colebourne decided to contribute to the Apache Commons Project. His goal? He wanted to help improve the Java language, so he decided to start up some open source projects of his own.
Enter the Joda suite: Joda is the brand name Stephen uses for his projects, including Joda-Time, Joda-Money, Joda-Bean, and Joda-Collect.
Stephen said the most difficult aspect of being an open source maintainer is finding the time and energy. “Someone comes along with some problem that’s not your problem, how do you find the desire to go invest in that?” he said.
Luckily, adding a little money to the mix can help motivate maintainers to keep on going with upkeep and bugs. “Maintenance in general is not the most exciting thing in software,” Stephen said. “[Money] provides the extra incentive that’s very useful.”
We had the opportunity to chat with Stephen at our first lifter event this year. You can learn more about Stephen and his work on the Java Joda projects in the video below.
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