I agree with you. That being said, I also suspect there are a lot of rude and entitled people who treat maintainers poorly. Here are my thoughts: 1) Be polit

I agree with you. That being said, I also suspect there are a lot of rude and entitled people who treat maintainers poorly. Here are my thoughts: 1) Be polite - Open Source developers and maintainers are incredibly generous, and they should be treated with respect. 2) Treat maintainers with respect - For example, instead of asking if something is dead, try writing something like "Are you still working on this project? Would types of issues will you fix? Security bugs? Serious bugs? What else?" 3) Give back - If you depend on a project, ask the maintainer if there is anything you can do to help? 4) Consider giving money to the maintainer as a thank you. If you really like a project or really depend on it, you should probably give the maintainer some money. There are two reasons for this. First, it shows you appreciate their work. Second, it encourages them to keep on supporting the project. 5) Let maintainers know that you appreciate their work. Also, let them know what you like about it. One thing I think a lot of people are not thinking about is real people work on open source software and these people have limitations, desires, likes, etc. They are not meat bags which create software because users demand it or feel they are entitled to it.