Sharing the source code (under an OSS license) with its users is one's only obligation from an ethical standpoint.

If its only user is the developer themselves, then they're already doing more than they're ethically required to by sharing the code.

People must come around to this view and the 'volunteer open-source maintainer/developer' role must be left only to people who enjoy doing it. Require payment for your services otherwise.

Great article. Like many other people, I largely stopped contributing to open source years ago because people don’t respect boundaries. If you point out that they are not respecting boundaries, many will try to argue that they are entitled to this behavior because reasons. Long term, this dynamic is what is going to kill most OSS by people doing it for the love of it.

Unless you are making a lot of money by doing it, the act of sharing source code often has a negative return.

I've written two articles on this topic over the last few years:

https://medium.com/neuml/grow-your-open-source-project-5b439...

https://medium.com/neuml/grow-your-open-source-project-2-0-5...

In 2024, it's hard to get anyone to know you even exist. You can work all you want on GitHub but it likely will be a couple star project unless it trends on a site like this.

With how many developers oversell what they've built, everyone is generally skeptical with any new project. People are even more skeptical if a project mentions "AI".

Then you have VC-backed companies who have their ways to get their projects noticed. They'll get stars, articles and publicity but there is no direct correlation with project quality and funding. People use these projects, they're terrible and the cycle of disillusionment continues.

Given all that, it takes a certain resolve, belief in what you're doing and commitment to keep pushing forward. There will be little carrots along the way to re-energize you. Perhaps that is good enough, perhaps it's not. It's not for the faint of heart.

I fully agree that when an open-source maintainer doesn't want to do it anymore, it's like anything else in life. We have free will and the right to decide to move on to other endeavors. Just like one does with any other job.

> “only I can do” Sorry, friends, but this is incorrect. You are not the only one capable of maintaining this project.

Technically true and a good thing to tell people who are burning out, but like always, different people need different pieces of advice at different times.

In my case, I mostly stopped my (sporadic) contributions to free software partly because I felt a sort of bystander effect where I assumed that other people would step forward and implement the features and bug fixes that I wanted.

However, in most cases this has not been the case and I think we've all seen issues that affect us that have been reported but unsolved for over a decade, if not forever.

So, in my case it is far more motivating to think that I have to step forward and do the work, because otherwise nobody else will.

Again, this is specifically for people in the opposite extreme of the open source contributor (de)motivation pipeline, so I'm not even disagreeing with OP, just hoping that other people do not get demotivated with this bystander effect.

> It’s entirely acceptable for someone to use your MIT-licensed projects to make money without even acknowledging your name.

Well, actually...

> The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

-- https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/

Re "i'm the only one that can do it"

I think we in the open source communities have trouble accepting that sometimes projects fail.

In the business world, companies fail all the time, in the open source world a project never really dies until the last person stops using it.

As a maintainer it can be really hard to accept that something you put your heart and soul into didn't work out. However sometimes that is what happens, and you need to allow yourself to move on to new and better things. Taking the lessons learned and applying them to some other project.

I agree with this article entirely, except I have one counterpoint that should be more emphasized: open source programmers and maintainers should be more explicit and clear that the product can be discontinued, have problems, or just stop working with any updates beyond saying it in the license. Because otherwise normal people will have some ambiguity and have the mistaken idea that there is some social contract, however slight, that what you are offering has some promise of functioning.

After I left a job I wrote a library to accomplish something we really struggled with at my previous company.

I realized that if I open sourced and maintained it and my old company used it, then I’d basically be working my old job with no pay.

It completely changed the way I view open source.

Does GitHub have an option to turn off most interactions on a repo unless you’ve had pr’s accepted? In effect, a public repo that is read only (no comments/issues/etc) unless you’ve contributed?

I’d imagine it can be done through various settings but I wonder if there is a term for such an arrangement?

Thank you so much OP for writing this, and I hope it resonates not just with maintainers (or potential maintainers) but to users of FOSS too. You needed to write this - specifically, the "Baseline" section, which I agree with vigorously - because too many users of FOSS consider themselves entitled to continued maintenance, support, feature development, community fostering, etc. etc.

We (maintainers) owe you NONE OF THAT. We gave you our code. That. Is. Enough.

I agree that maintainers shouldn't need to feel committed or obligated to keep working on a project.

And yet:

- it's also not reasonable to expect that anyone should use your project if it's not clear it's going to maintained etc

- OSS contributors should not over-state the capabilities of their project, or make untruthful comparisons to paid alternatives

Yes, it's unhealthy and unsustainable to feel like you're on the hook for the health of a project, which may not sit easily alongside your day job, school, life, and your own changing interests. Yes, it can feel like a community of users has high or unending expectations. But also, projects often invite and encourage users to use their cool new thing, develop processes or workflows that depend on the project, make claims that their project does everything that existing commercial project X does but cheaper/faster/with greater data privacy, etc. Announcements are made that "the much requested feature X is underway and is planned to be included in release y.z". These all contribute quite understandably to the expectations of the community.

The view that every contribution is a one-time gift and the world isn't entitled to your future time and attention only works if we're all clear and honest about that up front.

Open source is just a license. Anyone who makes it more than that is looking for some sort of religion or something IMO.

Here's your obligations: if you're the author, none. If you're a user, whatever the license spells out. Nothing more, nothing less.

Open source works because individual incentives can be mutually beneficial.

Ascribing too much personal meaning to OSS is what causes burnout, just touch grass and if you need money, start a real business or get a job.

I think there is a bit wrong with this, IMHO:

“only I can do” Sorry, friends, but this is incorrect.

No, not incorrect - if you have the vision for a FOSS project then you are probably the only one that can steer it. That's not to say you should reject contributions out of hand, but no need to accept them, either.

> The project lacks enough users, which might suggest it doesn’t provide sufficient value to the community.

What "community" would that be?

> I also feel angry when I see maintainers abandon a great project without providing any explanation.

Doesn't the rest of article contradict this? What right do you have to feel angry?

> “I’m changing the world” Accept my respects, friend. Please remember to revisit my post whenever you feel tired.

What?

> Now, you are tired, busy, and hurt, so you finally decide to leave

This is all just nonsense.

>Ensure your projects can continue to operate smoothly even after your leaving.

You are under no obligation to do that.

Just give the commit rights to Jia Tan

It's always nice to see things on the internet with which I agree unequivocally.

See also: "Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing"

https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-noth...