Rob Mensching

For all the Open Source Maintainers, a message to the world.

Introducing the Open Source Maintenance Fee for Polly thepollyproject.org/2026/07/14/p...

Eduforcement robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

This is such a great episode! All #opensource devs should listen to this! #dotnet

Open source users often want a simple way to give back. RobMensching.com explains how the Open Source Maintenance Fee creates a sustainable funding model for projects like WiX Toolset—while keeping the source available on GitHub. Listen: www.dotnetrocks.com/details/2010 #OpenSource #Sustainability

@martin.social it seems like Issue Fields and Project Fields are not the same thing. Is that right? If so, can they be made the same? I'd like to see the same field value (like Start Date) on both the Issue and the Project.

WiX Toolset surpasses 300 sponsors robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

I have mixed feelings about Cloudflare acquiring VoidZero. I like Cloudflare but I hoped to see Vite be "enough" to fund its own development. I felt the same with Astro. robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

When I introduced the OSMF, people told me that enforcement would be my biggest problem. It wasn't and isn't. Procurement remains the biggest pain point. The challenge is that there is little I can do to fix the root issue. Instead, the OSMF serves as a simple forcing function.

Absolutely love this. Sean has understood the situation for a long time. Very cool to see his org was on board as well. It _is_ supposed to be this easy.

Forty Nine robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

Open Source Maintenance Fee v1.1 robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

@gregsdennis.bsky.social I have a few small changes planned for the OSMF EULA to address feedback from the last year. I see you're planning to adopt the OSMF, Feb 2. If you wanted to sync up, I'd be happy to show you the changes planned for OSMF v1.1.

Tailwind CSS has 30M weekly downloads and still had to lay off most of its dev team. Popularity != sustainability in Open Source. I wrote about what this says about OSS funding, sponsorships, and why maintenance needs to be treated like a real business cost. robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

How can Tailwind CSS be so popular yet still struggle with sustainability? robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

This is the best episode of Deployment Dojo's MSBuild In Depth series yet. It's a capstone of the last 7 episodes. It's also a great example how the Deployment Dojo learning process works. Join me watching it right now! www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyIU...

WiX Online Meeting 302 Live Now We'll be reviewing WiX v7's final list of issues. There's only a bit over a month until WiX v7-rc.1. See you there!

Starting now - Deployment Dojo S2:E8 | MSBuild in Depth www.youtube.com/@firegiantco...

Watch episode 7 of Deployment Dojo with me today at 10:30 AM PST. Let's chat about the serendipitous mistakes I encountered while exploring MSBuild inputs and outputs. youtu.be/R_OoswIrT9E

Deployment Dojo Season 2 - Episode 6 replay premeir starts in less than a minute: youtu.be/4W4PmJQzTSY?...

Premier of Deployment Dojo | Season 2 Episode 5 - Metadata Did you know I watch these when they go up live? You can chat with me about the episode while it's first showing. Well, you can. Join me now and we'll watch it together. youtu.be/Gw9tTrahStU

Of the last seven days, I've spent the better part of five of them fixing broken build pipelines due to various external changes. It's an enormous amount of time spent to go nowhere. Am I alone in this? If not, what do you do to battle bit rot?

Here's a crazy thing I just noticed. Vite currently has 52 sponsors on GitHub. WiX has 99. Not an apples-apples comparison, but I never imagined my (insignificant) setup dev tool could be in the ballpark of a (wildly successful) JS dev tool. Yes, it's because of the OSMF.

Deployment Dojo S2E6 Live now! www.youtube.com/@firegiantco

I'm doing a bit of ad hoc testing this morning on a product we've been developing for a long-time customer. I don't get to simply use our products very often. This thing is so cool.

Kids are back to school, and the Deployment Dojo is back on schedule. Today at 10:30 AM PDT S2:E5 - All about Item Metadata. www.youtube.com/@firegiantco...

Surprise! Deployment Dojo S2:E4 live show starts in just a few minutes to make up the show missed earlier this month. Can you make it at the last minute? www.youtube.com/@firegiantco

@jeremiah.sounderatheart.com I saw mention of SKC as a potential trap game. Is it possible that "playing the kids" is an antidote to that? Get a hungry team on the field that is less likely to slip into complacency? :)

Every replay of the Deployment Dojo live show premiers on YouTube and you can watch with me. This last month's replay has just completed. Maybe I'll see you next month on August 6th for the live show or the replay's premier on August 27th.

Does anyone know of any _total beginner_ programming content? I'm mostly finding garbage or content that isn't beginner enough. I don't really have the time to start another YouTube channel myself.

We're only two episodes in, and I feel like we're already back in the groove with season 2 of the Deployment Dojo! Learn tons about MSBuild targets in this episode. Oh, and the FireGiant Cinematic Universe expanded, too.

@james-jackson-south.me how has Paddle been as a MoR? Good, bad, indifferent?

Deployment Dojo Season 2 Episode 2 is tomorrow at 10:30 AM PDT on the FireGiant YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/@firegiantco If you missed Episode 1, here is a 20s summary. Watch the full reply on our channel.

Deployment Dojo S2E1: MSBuild Basics the Property, Item, Target www.firegiant.com/blog/2025/5/...

Open Source Maintenance Fee Two Months In robmensching.com/blog/posts/2...

I had a great conversation with Carl and Richard about the Open Source Maintenance Fee: opensourcemaintenancefee.org. I really appreciate how supportive and genuinely interested they are in getting more Open Source sustainability ideas out into the world. I'll write up more when I get some time.

Reminder: The Deployment Dojo Season 2 starts next Wednesday, 2025/05/07 at 10:30 AM PDT on the FireGiant YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/@firegiantco

Deployment Dojo Season 2 Moves to FireGiant

We are so back. 🏯 Season 2, baby.

WiX v6.0.0 is now available. Update your .wixproj files, load up the WiX CLI package on your favorite build machine, and update the .NET tool installation if you have one. And if you make money using WiX, take note of the new Open Source Maintenance Fee. www.firegiant.com/blog/2025/4/...

The .NET Foundation failed to renew the WiX Toolset's certificate. This broke our first attempt at the official release of WiX v6.0.0. We are now switching to FireGiant's certificate infrastructure to no longer depend on the .NET Foundation for this and future builds of WiX.

Finally. This is what I was asking a week or so ago about RSS. Why didn't Mastodon and Bluesky just do something like this?