Hey Ben so we're trying a new recording set up here so apologies if this sounds dreadful but hopefully this will be less work for us in the future which means maybe more frequent podcasts who knows but maybe not this is.
Hey Matt. Um, yeah I'm not promised. You can promise that I'm not promising that.
Okay, no, the whole point of this podcast is it was like 0 to or low effort right? That was what we've always promised each other that this would not become yet another secondary job for either of us to do even though tertiary? Yes, oh my gosh. Yes, that's true that is so very true.
Right? Um, tertiary job. We're both parents. So yeah.
Ah, so you know anything but anything to make our life easier I'm down with so we're giving a different setup a go here and so there's ah every chance that this recording won't work at all and you and I are just talking to each other just like a normal conversation and no one else will ever hear it. But um I had a topic idea.
Man. Are okay.
So I've been doing Compiler Explorer now for a long ah while it is outgrown me like I have a lot of help lot of open source contributors and um, some team members who are also the keys of the sorry hold the keys to the admin account on.
Her hair.
Awws so they can log in andministrate and all that kind of good stuff which is great because there's only 1 me, um, and you know I've gone out of my way over the years for trying to make it I said wouldn't gone out of my way I have tried to make it as self-service possible for things like. Adding new libraries adding new compilers adding um, different languages. There's readmes about how to do it so a lot of my job. These days is approving other people's Prs merging them in and then doing sort of the devops c style stuff where I push to the cloud check the staging instance works. All the test pass and by all the testament I click around in the id a little bit and the sorry the ui a little bit and nothing seems to obviously go wrong and then I pushed to production and I shut down the staging instances and I send a little email out and then I go to bed as it's usually very late by that point and it occurs to me that this is not.
Professor.
We've kind of reached a new scalability issue which is like I only have a finite amount of time and I'm having difficulty keeping up even with that and the buck stops with me because it's me It's my personal Aws Account it's my personal project I mean it's in its own github repo but it's it is. Me ah, there is no Compiler Explorer limited There is no foundation. There is no anything but my Goodwill and the the continued support of the community and I'm wondering one day. Not soon. But one day I might have had enough of it all or maybe even for the health of the community before it gets so bad that people get upset with it I should think about how to. Engage the community and in a bit more of an active way to to help run and administrate and make decisions about the site.
It's using you have 4 jobs then.
Ah, oh my gosh. So I've just been pouring my heart out about like my worries about this and even' sat there going I can make a joke at the end of this, you're a bad person I know you are my friend.
I'm also listening but I'm also waiting because comedy is timing.
You're not wrong there but that is it is another job right? and I've I've kind of almost thought of it that way and you know I'm very very fortunate that I have a lot of sponsors both commercial and Patreon patrons and whatever. But. Um, with that comes a kind of responsibility to do something with the funds that I get access to you know that I've I'm that that I get um and I've always kept in mind the fact that this isn't really about sponsoring me. Patreons are not sponsoring me. They're sponsoring Compiler Explorer which is me but I want to keep a clear separation between those things I have a separate bank account for everything I scrupulously account everything every month to make sure that like the stuff that I have on Aws for me is accounted separately for all of the stuff that happens for.
Compiler Explorer and you know all this kind of good stuff because I think at the back of my mind I think I've been preparing for this kind of point where I will say hey maybe we need something else. Um, and I don't know how to take this next step.
Aha haha. Aha.
Really and this is why we can make this recording in this fashion because if you go I don't know how to help you then this is the end of the recording and we're done or else. We just talk about it and it's ah yeah, it's a bit of ah, a vulnerable thing for me to say but it is you know it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult for me both from it letting go. Standpoint if I choose to and also the fact that most people don't call it Compiler Explorer they call it something else which is kind of me. Ah so having heard all of that. What are you thinking.
Aha Aha. I Mean it's I Wish there was easy answers to these questions. There are never easy answers to this question these questions I think it's very normal for people to outgrow things right? Even great things. Even awesome things. Fun things.
Um, there's that sort of like you know perspective that I try to share with a lot of people when they look back at their mistakes say you know how was he so stupid to to think that that was a good idea. It's like well imagine if you were standing here today and you didn't think it was a bad idea.
M.
Like you've grown. You've you've you've changed and that is also true for things that you know were like passion projects or things that you were very excited in like you sort of like you. You ate the fruit you you sucked all the nourishment and joy out of it.
Yep yep.
And now you've just got a little peach pit and you don't need it anymore right? throw it in the trash. Let it grow into a new tree somewhere. So the the like you know. I would do everything that I can first of all to assuage anything that even smells like guilt eating with 2 other people are not your children right? That is not what's happening here right? Um, so first.
How how how well you read this. Right.
So that thing first. Um in terms of the mechanics of how you actually do this and how you do it in a way that is going to ensure the longevity of this thing that is valuable to so many people and something that you're You're very rightly very proud of I'm sure. Ah, that's a trickier. Question that maybe involves lawyers or accountants or ah other folks of whom I am certainly not um, but ah I think that um the sort of direction that you're heading is.
M. Yeah, that's the worry I have yeah.
Ah, good one and one that I would be surprised if you never took you know what I mean like at some point you're going to outgrow this thing.
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, or or moreover I owe it to the community to have more of a say in the way that their tool because it is more theirs than it is mine these days right? that is steered. You know there's.
Yeah, right.
50 odd languages on there and there's only like 2 of them that I could even remotely put a hand up and say well. Yeah I would use that and I understand why it's useful and I understand the needs of that community and um, yeah, it it would be hubristic in the extreme to think that I'm the.
Best person to champion this I'm just the one who happened to have come up with the idea at the beginning and kind of followed through and now here I am going Oh who how come I'm in who let me charge of this right? and so it might be more you know and I suppose the way that I'm trying to think about this is what is what are the principles that are important to me.
Um. Um, have. Right? right? right.
Whatever happens next I would like to maintain and you know and just think it out loud. One of those is like it's never been about money. It's never been trying to make money I'm delighted that it is effectively above water I'm glad to say.
My heart.
Um, as in like with the sponsorship and the patreons that I get and the Paypal whateverever is is is more than we actually it costs us which is which is great but you know that goes into a bank account and is accounted for. It's not like my ah my outlandishenditure expenditure on myself as a result is is is ah yeah, there is no so no such thing anyway.
Um.
Um, but ah so I don't never wanted to be commercial I never want folks to feel that they have to pay or I have to subscribe or have to register or have to sit through ads or all that kind of stuff I've done quite a good job I think of having the sort of the Chrome of the the sponsors be very.
Out of the way. so so so much so actually that it was really kind of annoying when ad blockers started blocking even our tiny little thing at the top right? That said you know thanks to our sponsors Google and you know at Intel or whatever and they're like yeah we blocked your ad it really, you're gonna.
Ah. And. Check.
But this site is completely free and if it wasn't for their goodwill. We wouldn't be yeah anyway. Um so that's 1 thing is the financial part of it and you know the the common thing in open source is to go sort of the freemium route route I mean he said route then good grief I'm so confused I don't know where I live anymore I mean it's been thirteen years give me some.
Some fairness but root and the the route of of making it so that um you know everyone gets some Baseline set of features and then if you want the core stuff you have to pay that has never really been. It is kind of obvious to see how you could do it I could justify it even you could say you know I have.
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5 machines that do the world's compilations and then if you subscribe you get a dedicated instance or some subset of it's the thing about that is it smells like um, we're trying to make money and I don't see it as a business I don't want to see it as a business. Um.
Ah. Um, see aforementioned Fourth job.
Correct correct and you know there is a world. You know there is a world in which I could fully accept it as an actual job and say no um goodbye my day job. It's been. Thank you for all of the the help thus far. But I'm going to go off and do something on my own.
And I could try and turn this into ah into a real job but a I don't think there's enough money in it to support me and my family let alone the other folks who are involved in it and be like anything. It's only fun when you don't have to do it.
Hack. Great.
And that I think is the real key here and even now when you know I spent a couple of years not doing so much. AhC plus plus programming it became more of a burden to like work on the site because I'm writing typescript and javascript and I'm doing like bash and I'm doing myself at a no point is it actually useful to use the site myself at no point was I dog-fooding it.
Ah, yeah. Our yeah.
Was there any you know it. It could have gone down that I probably wouldn't have noticed at least these days I'm doing a bunch of c plus plus and so I get to use it and I kind of got it. This is cool but I use like precisely 2% of the functionality of the site and the rest of the 98% is other people's stuff so you know anyway. Ah.
Ah.
That would only only get worse if all I was doing was working on it all day tempting though it is from ah certain points of view. So I don't think it's ah, a business and that means that really I think it has to be a community project run by the community for the community and then your question obviously is who.
Ah. Right? right? Well yeah I mean this is definitely not a an unprecedented problem so you look at folks like ah linus torvald and um, you know? Ah, yeah, exactly you know.
Who even are the community. Giddo Van rossen perhaps you know the python. Yeah.
Benevolent dictator for life. Um, you know any anytime you sort of have these ah things that are built By. You know, one sort of motivated individual and then sort of get picked up by a broader Community. Ah. You almost certainly have a moment where there needs to be a separation between those 2 things for the good of everyone. Um, and you know that can go well and it can go poorly. Um, but ah, but you know I think I think at a certain level of of growth. It becomes.
Inevitable. Um, so you know maybe now. So maybe now's that time.
Ah, right. Yeah, maybe so maybe so I mean I don't know you know anyone who's listening to this if indeed we ever put this out. Um, you know I'm not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. But you know I'm I'm getting to the later stages of my career and at some point maybe won't want to be doing this all the time and it would be nice to have had a planned and slow and.
Um. Sure.
A handover process where I was actively involved for a long time before I so I actually wave out wave off goodbye you know it's it's all and having just said this now I'm having a sort of flush of embarrassment even thinking that we've just essentially tacitly compared what I've done with Linus and and Gido Van rossa which I died you know. They're thematically similar but on the scale. It's very very different but you know there are things to learn from those those those things and yeah I would like to um, leave it in a decent state and then there's just that that thing of like who is the community because the obvious thing would be to to reach out to the Compiler folks.
Of the world and most the ones who can actually support. It are the commercial ones so you know Intel and ah Microsoft and you know I don't know red hat perhaps would be behind Gcc I don't know who would be the right people behind that and there are some you know there are some not-for-profits as well. But like I'm a little skeptical and this is perhaps you know.
Okay. And.
Not the kind of thing I should say and put in in quote public. But you know I I worry about the motives of folks when ah, it's it's their commercial interest. Ah you know they are for for good reason they have ah you know they've got a different spin on this and it's always.
Um, right.
Compilers where has always been about the users and not about any pushing any particular agenda at all so I would be a little concerned about ah handing over and sort of control or so even a bit of control to these folks. But then I also don't know whom else might be a good.
Um, yeah, right.
Steward or like you know like a board of folks you know, ah maybe a half dozen people that would be like yeah we make the decisions about this here's the bank account here's the Aws stuff all right? What are we going to do? How are we going to use our our resources how we going to engage.
With the community how we going to you know, decide prioritization of things that do get fixed versus the thousands and thousands of things that get filed and nothing ever happens about you know that kind of stuff and so maybe maybe if our listener is is even present in given the stuff fact this may not go out. Um.
Hannah. Have have.
Then ideas would be welcomed and I think in order to get my own head together. This is part of that process. But I think also I need to write down some kind of like guiding principles myself about what it is that makes the Compiler explore the success that it's been and then that can be sort of at least a starting point for the next steps. But it's.
Ah.
It's a this is a weird conversation to have and the second and possibly the weirdest part is obviously um, it's Compiler Explorer but everyone refers to it as godbolt and it's on my personal domain and I have other things on that domain and like if I were to actually do a full separation then I have to start worrying about.
Ah. Um, I know.
Well do I lose my domain you know do I lose my email address do I lose my other funny little projects that end at godbot.org I'm sure that again as you you said there are you know legal people there are accountant people who can probably come up with the the correct and creative solutions to this kind of stuff or.
Ah. Right.
Do I say no actually this is the point where Compiler Explorer becomes really Compiler Explorer and I reclaim my name and I I redirect obviously so that we don't lose it but like ultimately the canonical name becomes Compiler Explorer but it's a a lot longer and b.
Aha.
It's not as memorable and I hate that I hate That's true.
Yeah I mean I So I I wouldn't change I wouldn't change the domain name for you something that just struck me and this is a little bit of a tangent but I wonder I wonder if if actually um, there's a huge. Tax windfall that you have that you may not necessarily be aware of which is that if you created a actual charitable organization and you gave the domain to that charitable organization. You could probably get someone to.
No, this is good anything to deflect from this. Yep.
Value that domain for you and you'd be able to take a tax deduction because of it because it's a charitable contract. It's just like giving them a car like here's a car that's worth $20000 you get to take a tax tax deduction for that here's a domain name that's worth $20000 I don't know what it's worth, but let's just say but like if you actually gave it to them.
No I don't know what is worth I had over? Yeah no, it's interesting. It's an interesting point. That's an interesting point.
That organization that's a charitable contribution I don't know see this is where you need the accountants because I I am not an accountant I am just someone that nerds out about taxes. But um.
Yeah,, that's where I need accounted I Need to know I to work out whether or not no indeed you do much to my chagrin when I you take you to start talking about all this stuff on the train on the way home and then I'm like I've never even considered this. Oh Gosh I'm so naive when it comes to this stuff which actually is another thing right? like at the moment this is it is it all. The whole thing is me so you know I get all this these funds in and I pay tax on the funds and then I pay them out and I mean I think my accountant does some clever things. But I don't know for sure.
M. Yeah, right, right? right? right? Well yeah I mean anytime you have money involved in these kinds of things that starts to get a little messy and you get it. You know I think sounds like you've done a very admirable job of keeping them separate which is critical but it's like at a certain point you you need some professional help.
Yeah I Oh right right? I Thought you meant something else, but that's also true. Yeah, that's right I mean heard there's not yeah, that is definitely I've never done this thing I right right.
Ah, in in keeping in keeping track of all this stuff and maybe also the mental kind but that's that comes later that comes 3 years from now when you're like I made a huge mistake I should never have done this.
I mean it is true I mean yeah, so that's the other thing I was speaking with ah another friend of ours about this kind of thing down down the pub the other day and he he said you know like there's a lot of things to think about and some of these things came up in this that conversation and 1 of them was like well in 5 years ' time if the name has gone. Colloquial name has gone with it and then it goes bad then you can't distance yourself from it. You can't undo that so that's worth considering and worth thinking about I don't imagine that it would and probably by the time I've stepped away far enough from it that I I'm not able to correct anything that I feel is bad then maybe it won't matter as much and.
Um, yeah. Ah.
Also turns out other people have this name too. You know I know it's not that common but I'm not the only one I mean 1 of them is making a loud noise in the background with the same name. Um, ah.
Right? right. Ah, right, right? right? right? Um, yeah, Well yeah I mean on that topic I Have to say I think your instincts about not ah, having a board. Let's say that's made up of compiler manufacturers is that the right word. Writers creators Yes vendors vendors um is the right move here because you know, However, ah, you know, um, well-intentioned their intentions might be Yes, yes.
Vendors I suppose. Yeah. And they are they would they would be and they are and I'm working with them now. But.
They're just fundamentally not going to be aligned with all of the things that I heard you say in the lead up to this. That's just not where their attention is going to be that's not where their their focus is going to be so you know again having thought about this one one hundred thousandth as much as you have.
Yeah. But well you do pretty well for somebody who's been put on the spot with no no prep.
Um. Ah, yeah, um I I would say that that you know having some leadership for for whatever type of organization ends up controlling this that is purely focused on the community. Ah. Is good. The the trick there of course is going to be find people that don't lose interest right? because 1 thing you would not have to worry about with Microsoft or someone else is that they would lose interest. They have a whole company of people who can be paid to be interested right? yes.
Right. Um, right that.
Um, that's yes, that's that's a very very you know valid point I mean so the flip side of that that I was that occurred to me when I was a thought experimenting this whole thing is that like by getting folks who are from have sorry who are. From a commercially interested party As you said they're paid to be interested that also means that there's excuse me, there's potential for those folks to be able to do it weave it into their day job more than say I can right? You know with the best will in the world. This is not something I can do during my working hours because it doesn't really affect my our day job and quite reasonably. They're like yeah well we'll turn a blind eye if something is on via but you know you can't be hacking on it during the day. That's not what we you're here for and that's fine. But if ah Microsoft of this world was like well we've got I mean just to be clear my friends at Microsoft are already dedicating quite a lot of time and effort to keeping. Microsoft compilers up and running on their own sort of sister site to ours which we shell out to so we already are taking getting the benefit of um of that kind of commercial help and there are some other vendors who help out too so there are we're already kind of in that situation. But yeah, they're not steering the show I still ultimately get to say. Yeah we're not doing that for certain things which is kind of important to me right now. Um, yeah, and then discovering the right set of people obviously the existing folks who are most ah involved with running and running the site right now are.
Um, ah ahha. Ah yeah.
Very obvious candidates to to to be on a board but trying to get like ah a rounded breadth of folks that that represent not just ah, the people who are ah um, very C plus plus focus like we are um, but Also. Ah, languages and other use cases. Yeah, it's It's an interesting and and difficult question and certainly I'm not trying to come up with answers here. But I am really interested in hearing what you had to say about this and so that's still got me thinking now and live on air for some definition of live.
And some some definition of life. Yeah yeah I mean you know I don't envy you this is this is these are these are hard things to sort out and finding the people. That you trust to take this kind of stuff over is not going to be I mean as you say you already have a group of people that are probably your pool of candidates. Um, but you also have to make sure not to put those people in a situation where they don't have the help and resources that they need to.
Bright.
Maintain things and you know this is I think this is why you generally form a board for these types of organizations is to have people who don't necessarily spend a lot of time on it but are able to provide resources Provide guidance. Ah, to just sometimes like raise a flag and be like Whoa. You're going to do what? um that you know someone who has a little bit ah more low level focus just isn't going to be able to do or see or take care of right.
Right? yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, as you say this is yeah this is why you have like presidents of boards that are like very almost separate from from them and from the day-to-day running of it. It's more about steering and that kind of stuff. Yeah, so yeah I'm gonna have to go and get myself some fairly expensive.
Right? right.
Ah, consultancy with with as you say look legal people and and um, see what my options are as well because obviously being in the US gives me certain access to things. It's an international project I don't know if that changes anything if we wanted to have board members that were outside the us and you know it is there.
Any difference between all the various random 5 o one c whatever three and 6 and 12 and Levi five or ones whatever the things are I don't know I don't know anything about this I've like done that's right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ah, ah, ah. Compiler Explorer a Cayman a ah islands corporation is that.
Well I mean if nothing else this has been a very very helpful and cathartic way to get this out of my mouth and into the airwaves and um the only other person really as I say there was a person down the pub that I went to spoke a little bit about this the other week and I've been chatting a lot with ah.
Ah.
Google Bard or whatever. It's called these days. They've just changed it to something else to try and understand this is but my first genuine use case that wasn't just toy is asking various questions and trying to get some feedback from from Ai so Ai you know is helpful. Um, but um.
Okay, yeah. Aha.
No well thank you for letting me talk this through and um, this is probably if if this goes out this will be 1 of the most weird episodes we've ever made. Ah, it's more of a kind of monologue.
Absolutely anytime. Ah, we're weirder than the one where we just did Dns configuration for 2 episodes I think that's I think that's probably the tops. Yeah.
Ah, maybe not maybe that's that that is probably the weirdest one. Yeah, you're not wrong, all right? Well um I guess we all call it here and cut.
Sounds good.
And I will click stop.