When you publish the code, the chances of someone getting it to run increases from 0% to a much much higher number. Maybe 50% of those who really try can get it

When you publish the code, the chances of someone getting it to run increases from 0% to a much much higher number. Maybe 50% of those who really try can get it done. That it is hard to get to 100% does not at all invalidate this value. It is fine to not do much support and bugfixing on such a codebase - but one should make sure to state it clearly in the documentation. I try out published research code (in machine learning) all the time. Almost every time I have to debug and fix things. But in a couple of hours or days I can usually get it fixed, normally without any help. That is a shorter time than it take (in the best case) to even ask for access to code from a researcher. Reduce barriers to entry. Make it easy for others to build on your work. Your chances of impact and value created from your work will be higher.