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Caitlin Bixby
Caitlin Bixby

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at blog.tidelift.com

Maintainer burnout is real. Almost 60% of maintainers have quit or considered quitting maintaining one of their projects

In late 2022, Tidelift fielded its second survey of open source maintainers. Hundreds of maintainers responded with thoughts about getting paid for their work, the security and maintenance practices they have in place for their projects, and where they need help most, along with a host of other interesting insights.

Against a backdrop of increasing demands on open source maintainers from industry and government, we wanted to use this year’s survey to see how they are hanging in there. In the eighth of eleven insights of this year’s survey, we asked maintainers if they have quit or considered quitting maintaining a project.

A majority of maintainers have at least considered quitting one of their projects

Fifty-eight percent of maintainers have either quit (22%) or considered quitting (36%) their maintenance work on a project, which is almost identical to what we found in our previous survey. A minority of maintainers (43%), have not quit or considered quitting maintaining their projects.

To read more insights from our eighth headline, visit our blog, and to read maintainer responses to all eleven insights, you can download the full survey report right now.

Want the TL;DR? We hosted a live webinar where Tidelift’s resident data nerd Chris Grams shared the most interesting bits. Watch now.

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