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They enjoy it. They need to for their own needs. It provides them with some other benefit.
by AndrewDucker 5y ago
They enjoy it.
They need to for their own needs.
It provides them with some other benefit.
- piaste 5y agoUnfalsifiable. 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 agoone 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 agoThe 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 agoOver 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.