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The original reason may not be invalidated. But as a continuous activity, over years, what exactly is in it for maintainers to get up in the morning and trade

The original reason may not be invalidated. But as a continuous activity, over years, what exactly is in it for maintainers to get up in the morning and trade their remaining lease on life for value to be consumed by rich leeches?

AndrewDucker 5y ago
They enjoy it. They need to for their own needs. It provides them with some other benefit.
- piaste 5y ago
  Unfalsifiable. You're basically saying "they're adults, so if they do it they must necessarily get value from it". Myth of the rational maintainer, if you will. In real life, people get (mentally) stuck into suboptimal situations where leaving would make them happier all the friggin' time. Bad jobs they should have quit. Bad partners they should have broken up with. Why not bad open-source projects they should have stopped maintaining?
  - chii 5y ago
    one would just assume that people doing it are making a rational choice, and don't need someone else to second guess it. What's so wrong with this line of thinking?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      The entire post your responding to is explaining what is wrong "this line of thinking" and while you may disagree you don't really argue, you just assert.
- fivelessminutes 5y ago
  Over the years, the itch they were scratching tends to get fully scratched, people move on from their needs to other things. What was enjoyable, becomes grunt work, like making the full set of unit tests for features users want, but you don't actually use yourself. Whatever this handwavy 'other benefit' was, stops being beneficial. But they're still paying the opportunity cost, sitting down as the older, greyer, burnt out maintainer while others get the benefit from their work.
kortilla 5y ago
The value isn’t “consumed”. I get as much value out of my open source projects regardless of who is using them. The fact that you consider users to be “leeches” means you’re missing the point of open source.
- fivelessminutes 5y ago
  'Leech' is the correct term for this relationship. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech_(computing) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech_(computing) Contributors are not leeching the work. Users who don't contribute are though, especially when they suck down developer time with issues. You're not in a position to judge my understanding of FOSS because the word 'leech' makes you uncomfortable.
  - snth 5y ago
    Eh... regardless of how it's generally used, I think "leech" implies a parasite that is actively harming a host. Generally users who don't contribute aren't directly _benefitting_ the author, but they generally aren't harming the author either.

AndrewDucker 5y ago

They enjoy it. They need to for their own needs. It provides them with some other benefit.

piaste 5y ago
Unfalsifiable. You're basically saying "they're adults, so if they do it they must necessarily get value from it". Myth of the rational maintainer, if you will. In real life, people get (mentally) stuck into suboptimal situations where leaving would make them happier all the friggin' time. Bad jobs they should have quit. Bad partners they should have broken up with. Why not bad open-source projects they should have stopped maintaining?
- chii 5y ago
  one would just assume that people doing it are making a rational choice, and don't need someone else to second guess it. What's so wrong with this line of thinking?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    The entire post your responding to is explaining what is wrong "this line of thinking" and while you may disagree you don't really argue, you just assert.
fivelessminutes 5y ago
Over the years, the itch they were scratching tends to get fully scratched, people move on from their needs to other things. What was enjoyable, becomes grunt work, like making the full set of unit tests for features users want, but you don't actually use yourself. Whatever this handwavy 'other benefit' was, stops being beneficial. But they're still paying the opportunity cost, sitting down as the older, greyer, burnt out maintainer while others get the benefit from their work.

kortilla 5y ago

The value isn’t “consumed”. I get as much value out of my open source projects regardless of who is using them. The fact that you consider users to be “leeches” means you’re missing the point of open source.

fivelessminutes 5y ago
'Leech' is the correct term for this relationship. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech_(computing) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech_(computing) Contributors are not leeching the work. Users who don't contribute are though, especially when they suck down developer time with issues. You're not in a position to judge my understanding of FOSS because the word 'leech' makes you uncomfortable.
- snth 5y ago
  Eh... regardless of how it's generally used, I think "leech" implies a parasite that is actively harming a host. Generally users who don't contribute aren't directly _benefitting_ the author, but they generally aren't harming the author either.