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1. Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2018 14:01:51 EST Nolan

   In short, I wish more people had empathy for open-source maintainers and tried to understand things from their point of view. I wrote this post to try to articulate my own feelings as I began to spiral towards my own burnout: https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/

   After I wrote that post, I was contacted by dozens of open-source maintainers who told me I captured exactly how they felt. So hopefully it stands as a good insight for anyone trying to understand the mind of an open-source maintainer.

   1. Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2018 14:02:11 EST Nolan

      in reply to

      I also got some follow-up posts from other folks in the community, trying to give me advice on how not to burn out:

      - https://medium.com/@mikeal/time-to-leave-a68294ccb2af
      - http://writing.jan.io/2017/03/06/sustainable-open-source-the-maintainers-perspective-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-caring-and-love-open-source.html

      Ultimately, I followed Mikeal's advice and left the project. I was too burned out by that point.

      1. Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2018 14:02:29 EST Nolan

         in reply to

         Here are some other great talks/posts on the subject of open-source guilt and maintainer burnout:

         - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDb6VBO9os
         - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqcuzSwySR4
         - https://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/blog/why-i-havent-fixed-your-issue-yet/
         - http://thejameskyle.com/dear-javascript.html

         1. Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2018 14:02:58 EST Nolan

            in reply to

            To conclude this thread: please don't treat open-source maintainers as the goose who laid the golden egg. They don't owe you anything. If they tell you it's too much work to maintain some piece of functionality, either offer to maintain it yourself or support them in their decision.

            1. Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2018 14:03:19 EST Nolan

               in reply to

               Open-source software can be a huge mental burden on those who write it, but it also adds some incredible beauty and value to the world. It's a rare kind of software that tends to be an expression of someone's passion rather than the goals of some corporation or organization. Let's make sure there's more of it in the world.

   2. Downes 🍁 (downes@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jan-2018 14:17:32 EST Downes 🍁

      in reply to

      @nolan interesting article. Well worth the read. I don't think this is an issue unique to open source. Volunteer burn-out is a problem across domains. So I think the feelings you have will resonate outside the oss community.