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What I am writing about today is something Tom Callaway once referred to in an AWS podcast as “The Pony Effect:” i.e. what would happen to a project if the people involved simply “rode off into the sunset, on a pony?” He described it as a vulnerability chiefly impacting projects with just one contributor/maintainer. However I would tend to argue that it can affect projects with fairly robust participation as well.

It is a significant concern for nearly all grassroots community projects, or for that matter any FOSS project doing its best to scale.

Here’s the issue.

Open source contributors and maintainers — particularly those of us who are female, trans, people of color, students, unemployed, disabled, or underemployed — are at risk of dropping out of projects.

How are we at risk? Three ways:

1.)  Political Repression. (This is the least likely of the three — unless you are not a U.S. citizen, or, like myself, have openly questioned the actions of ICE.) Please note that repression does not necessarily mean incarceration or detainment. It may simply involve a “gag order,” being placed under house arrest, or having your calls and email messages blocked or censored.

2.) Abduction / Human Trafficking. You may find this impossible to believe, but it is a significant threat for those of us whose gender is not male, as well as for people who hold significant amounts of coin. Back in 2018, Gavin Andresen, one of the individuals responsible for popularizing Bitcoin early on, confirmed to me by email that the risk was real and unavoidable. Since then, the world has certainly not gotten safer! I fear that trans people in their teens and early twenties may assume a level of safety that is in fact illusory. They have never been socialized to see themselves as targets. Violent hate crimes may also be on the rise.

3.) Bad Luck. I am talking about serious health issues and major life disruptions causing people to “drop off the grid.” Something as simple as the theft of a phone, job loss, a car that won’t start, or the end of a relationship can spiral into homelessness and poverty. This seems to happen quite frequently in Oregon, and elsewhere on the West Coast.

In a workplace setting, some manager or HR professional almost always has emergency contact information. Not so on volunteer open source projects — regardless of whether some or any maintainers are paid. To date, best practices and Codes of Conduct have largely centered on the behavior of participants themselves. We are naive to assume that the world outside our communities is benevolent and friendly. Of course, privacy is a huge concern but I don’t think most people realize how vulnerable the human aspects of our networks are.

I was hoping to bring up these concerns at an open source conference I attended this summer.

Unfortunately, I had a two-hour drive to return home on the final day, so I could not stay as long that afternoon as I had hoped.

Had there been a space available and had people willing to listen that Sunday, I would have shown the participants a silver ring that I was wearing. It has two stones: one is turquoise. The other is coral. A close friend gave it to me many years ago. She was a talented programmer (taught herself C in high school) but dropped out of college. I tried to get back in touch with her a few years ago, to no avail. She may have changed her name or gender. It could also have been suicide. I reached out to her mother (her dad had passed away) but did not receive any reply. This is a personal loss for me, but it’s also a loss to our talent pool.

FOSS communities are unique because they have both a social and a work dimension. If we don’t address this issue, we may lose too many people and not even realize it until much later.

Rose C.
August 22, 2026

Keep your vulnerabilities hidden.

The thing about probiotics is that they are very popular right now, and also very heavily marketed. You see them on the labels of everything from soft drinks to cereal. I kid you not!

I do have some concerns that not all probiotics are as safe as people are led to believe. Everyone has a different immune system and a different digestive profile. It’s impossible to know how food allergies play out on the microbial scale.

More to the point, a little known fact is that probiotics can affect appetite and weight. I’m not saying that they are a substitute for the new anti-weight loss drugs–and please don’t use them that way–but I have noticed some effects. To many these would be welcome, but I happen to have a positive body image so I found it more than a bit perturbing. More to the point, there might in fact be some danger here. Especially for people who don’t have a lot of food in the house, whether due to food security issues — despite all the jokes about fat Americans, hunger is far more prevalent in this country than people realize — or because when you are sick, it is difficult and expensive to shop for yourself.

As far as what I came down with at the beginning of the year, I’m still not sure that my current diagnosis (chronic sinusitis) conveys the full picture. I don’t think it’s bird flu, although it does fit the symptom list. It is almost certainly a bacterial infection. I say this because getting prescribed antibiotics at the beginning of April made a huge difference in my health. I still had to be on them for over a month. The good news is that as of my last doctor’s visit, I was told that I did not need to quarantine or social distance. That is a huge and welcome change.

I have been trying for several months to figure out the best way to describe and treat what has been ailing me. My official diagnosis is chronic sinusitis, but I also have had a severe cough (at times choking), seizure-like events, and some symptoms reminiscent of meningitis, such as sensitivity to bright light and problems with coordination. Antibiotics help, but they are not a panacea.

What I know for certain is that I am not the only person to have this cough. Also, it is not COVID. It is very prevalent in the Pacific Northwest, in particular in Portland, Oregon. Last time I was there, nearly everyone I interacted with was coughing!

If you come down with this thing, I have to warn you: it is serious and hard to get rid of. Expect to curtail major physical activities. If you are training for a marathon, set that aside. Also, cancel all but essential travel. I made the decision — right or wrong — to make my way from the PNW to a warmer, sunnier place. This seemed like a rational decision, given that it is mid-February. I checked with my doctor first. He did not tell me not to go.

There are a lot of theories out there as to where this came from, and how it propagated. It seems to thrive in cold, damp environments —  such as the Oregon Coast, where I would be under all normal conditions. There, the white fog rolls in during the daytime and the night and it is sometimes difficult to even see across the street. I should also say that this illness is quite aggressive. Drink even a sip of contaminated water, or have someone sneeze in your general vicinity, and you will come down with it.

The threat of avian flu has been out there for years. Believe it or not, my ex-husband and I prepared for this eventuality — all the way back in 2006. We filled a large cardboard box with canned goods, snacks, medical supplies (including a thermometer, cough medicine, etc) and other useful items. Then we sealed it and put in the back of our storage closet. The idea was that if conditions got really bad, we could just stay inside for days or weeks.

Please note — I’m not sure that level of caution or quarantine is necessary. Also, it is possible to get over this thing. I am doing much better today than two days ago! But if you have even the suggestion of a cough, try to avoid close contact. If you are around seniors or children, take special care. I am not a medical doctor, so I am not going to give further advice here.

I am a populist libertarian. If you want to find out what I thought about the last election, scroll down two or three blog entries. Spoiler Alert: I voted for Kamala Harris.