Nadia Eghbal's modern look at open-source ecosystems, developer burnout, and community economics. Understand how open source actually works, who maintains it, and why sustainability matters.

Working in Public changed how I think about open source. Eghbal's research into who actually maintains popular projects—often solo maintainers juggling day jobs—explains why so many critical dependencies have one person keeping them alive. The chapter on burnout hit close to home: I've watched maintainers I respect step away from projects because the emotional labor of managing issues and feature requests became unsustainable. Her framework for understanding different types of open source projects—clubs, federations, stadiums, toys—helped me see why some projects thrive while others collapse under their own success. The economics section is eye-opening: most maintainers aren't making money, and the infrastructure that runs the internet depends on volunteer labor. My only critique is that some sections feel like they're building to policy recommendations that never fully materialize, but the diagnosis is sharp. If you maintain open source or depend on it heavily, this book will make you think differently about both.

Nadia Eghbal's research into open-source ecosystems, developer burnout, and community economics. Understand who maintains projects.

Working in Public: The Making of Open Source Software

Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

An open source suite of low-bit-rate digital voice modes for HF that lets you run high-quality digital voice over any SSB-capable amateur radio.

FreeDV takes the idea of digital voice on HF and makes it truly amateur-friendly: open source, experimentable, and designed by hams for hams. It uses the low-bit-rate, patent-free Codec 2 vocoder to squeeze clean speech into much less bandwidth than analog SSB, which can help reduce fatigue and QRM on crowded bands. You can run it as a cross-platform GUI app with a basic sound card interface and a regular SSB radio, or dive deeper with projects like ezDV and SDR integrations. If you care about advancing the state of the art on HF without locking yourself into proprietary codecs, FreeDV is absolutely worth putting on the air and experimenting with.

FreeDV is an open source HF digital voice suite using Codec 2 to deliver efficient, narrow-bandwidth speech over standard SSB amateur radio equipment.

FreeDV Review – Open Source HF Digital Voice | Nerd Approved

FreeDV – Open Source HF Digital Voice for Amateur Radio

Battle-tested open source software for streaming, screen recording, and production-ready overlays without watermarks or paywalls.

OBS Studio is the default answer to "how do I record my screen properly?" for a reason. It handles multi-scene setups, overlays, audio routing, and streaming to basically anywhere without branding your output or nagging for an upgrade. For devs, it's perfect for recording coding sessions, walkthroughs, and demo videos in high quality. Configure it once, save a couple of profiles, and you've got a studio in a single app.

OBS Studio is the gold-standard open source tool for high-quality screen recording and streaming, ideal for dev demos and technical tutorials.

OBS Studio Review – Screen Recording Tool | Nerd Approved

OBS Studio – Screen Recording & Streaming Workhorse

A powerful, open source slicer from Prusa Research with smart profiles, supports, and tuning options for getting reliable, high-quality 3D prints.

PrusaSlicer hits a sweet spot between "just hit print" and "tune every last parameter." The built-in profiles for common materials and printers are genuinely good, supports are smart, and the UI makes it easy to grow from basic prints into multi-material, variable-layer-height, and support-tuned jobs. Even if you're not running a Prusa printer, it's a strong slicer with a healthy development pace and a community that actually tests features. For anyone serious about consistent, high-quality 3D prints, this is the slicer I'd start from and stick with.

PrusaSlicer is a powerful open source slicer from Prusa Research with strong default profiles and advanced tuning options for reliable 3D prints.

PrusaSlicer Review – Open Source 3D Slicer | Nerd Approved

PrusaSlicer – Open Source 3D Printing Slicer

Hand-picked open source tools and resources we actually use in production. Each item tested by developers, for developers.

Open Source Products

Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

FreeDV – Open Source HF Digital Voice for Amateur Radio

OBS Studio – Screen Recording & Streaming Workhorse

PrusaSlicer – Open Source 3D Printing Slicer