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Honestly, maintainer burnout sucks. People volunteer their time, become pillars of modern tech. Then they look around, and everything's just boring. Nobody want

Honestly, maintainer burnout sucks. People volunteer their time, become pillars of modern tech. Then they look around, and everything's just boring. Nobody wants to pay them, and nobody really wants to take on the work for themselves, which is understandable :-/

nickjj 6y ago
This is why I think directly tying money into open source code* isn't a good idea. It breeds burn out. Instead of creating something with the purest intent of doing it for sheer joy or scratching your own itch, suddenly everything becomes about money and now every second you spend on the project gets evaluated as a way to maximize monetary gains and if things don't work out to your internal expectations you're constantly comparing yourself to others or thinking negatively about how much time you've put into something and how little compensation you're getting from it, which is a horrible feeling. * The code aspect is very important. I'm all for figuring out ways to generate income around open source projects, but if the code is the core of everything and your core is only moving forward because you want money, you're setting yourself up for failure, burn out or worse.
- ChrisSD 6y ago
  > the purest intent of doing it for sheer joy or scratching your own itch... ...is great for as long as the joy or itch lasts. But the same problem still occurs, at some point a single maintainer is going to lose enthusiasm or have other itches they want to scratch. This becomes especially true when maintenance starts to feel more like a chore. And in open source projects it can get even worse. Github users can be especially demanding and there are often those who express their demands in very "confrontational" ways. Faced with that it can be difficult to remain invested.
  - rikroots 6y ago
    The good thing about open source (and GitHub) is that I can walk away from it when I lose interest in the project. I did this in 2015, went back to scratch the itch in 2017 and only returned properly to it (to rewrite it from scratch) in early 2019. Of course I was in a good position to do this because the project (at the time) had few stars and nobody was raising issues.
- GordonS 6y ago
  I think the burnout is kind of related to money, but more about expectations - and demands - of your users as it grows. Once a free or OSS project becomes really popular, you suddenly start getting a lot more people asking suppor questions, asking for new features, calling your project crap because it doesn't do X, etc. I think that's the point where burnout starts to be an issue, because you have to spend so much time to satisfy your users, and because you invariably have to put up with crap from very rude users. At this point, you might start to think about monetising your project - after all, you're spending a lot of time on it. And of course, it's extremely likely you will fail here.
  - rvnx 6y ago
    Ah, ah, the "choosing beggars" are sometimes golden. Fortunately most users are very friendly and it balances out. One bigger issue is that usually open-source projects are fighting against well-funded for-profit projects who will not hesitate to do everything they can to destroy your project. It's not a money issue in this case, in front of you you have very determined people who will do anything legal or illegal to protect their cash-cow. For example, OpenOffice if not shielded by Oracle would have been killed long time ago by Microsoft's pressure.
- rsa25519 6y ago
  I dunno. I think I'd start maintaining again several of my popular-but-not-maintained projects even if they paid only $1/month each. There's something about being rewarded, materially, for your work that's personally motivating. I'd love to be able to say "people appreciated all the work I did the past year, so they paid me $12 for this awesome annual meal"
  - pronoiac 6y ago
    There are a couple of points of view on that. * yay! That's definitely a sign of appreciation. * going by hourly rates, how much of your time should $12 get?

nickjj 6y ago

This is why I think directly tying money into open source code* isn't a good idea. It breeds burn out. Instead of creating something with the purest intent of doing it for sheer joy or scratching your own itch, suddenly everything becomes about money and now every second you spend on the project gets evaluated as a way to maximize monetary gains and if things don't work out to your internal expectations you're constantly comparing yourself to others or thinking negatively about how much time you've put into something and how little compensation you're getting from it, which is a horrible feeling. * The code aspect is very important. I'm all for figuring out ways to generate income around open source projects, but if the code is the core of everything and your core is only moving forward because you want money, you're setting yourself up for failure, burn out or worse.

ChrisSD 6y ago
> the purest intent of doing it for sheer joy or scratching your own itch... ...is great for as long as the joy or itch lasts. But the same problem still occurs, at some point a single maintainer is going to lose enthusiasm or have other itches they want to scratch. This becomes especially true when maintenance starts to feel more like a chore. And in open source projects it can get even worse. Github users can be especially demanding and there are often those who express their demands in very "confrontational" ways. Faced with that it can be difficult to remain invested.
- rikroots 6y ago
  The good thing about open source (and GitHub) is that I can walk away from it when I lose interest in the project. I did this in 2015, went back to scratch the itch in 2017 and only returned properly to it (to rewrite it from scratch) in early 2019. Of course I was in a good position to do this because the project (at the time) had few stars and nobody was raising issues.
GordonS 6y ago
I think the burnout is kind of related to money, but more about expectations - and demands - of your users as it grows. Once a free or OSS project becomes really popular, you suddenly start getting a lot more people asking suppor questions, asking for new features, calling your project crap because it doesn't do X, etc. I think that's the point where burnout starts to be an issue, because you have to spend so much time to satisfy your users, and because you invariably have to put up with crap from very rude users. At this point, you might start to think about monetising your project - after all, you're spending a lot of time on it. And of course, it's extremely likely you will fail here.
- rvnx 6y ago
  Ah, ah, the "choosing beggars" are sometimes golden. Fortunately most users are very friendly and it balances out. One bigger issue is that usually open-source projects are fighting against well-funded for-profit projects who will not hesitate to do everything they can to destroy your project. It's not a money issue in this case, in front of you you have very determined people who will do anything legal or illegal to protect their cash-cow. For example, OpenOffice if not shielded by Oracle would have been killed long time ago by Microsoft's pressure.
rsa25519 6y ago
I dunno. I think I'd start maintaining again several of my popular-but-not-maintained projects even if they paid only $1/month each. There's something about being rewarded, materially, for your work that's personally motivating. I'd love to be able to say "people appreciated all the work I did the past year, so they paid me $12 for this awesome annual meal"
- pronoiac 6y ago
  There are a couple of points of view on that. * yay! That's definitely a sign of appreciation. * going by hourly rates, how much of your time should $12 get?