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Caitlin Bixby
Caitlin Bixby

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Open source maintenance can be stressful, lonely, and financially unrewarding

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.

In the seventh of eleven insights of this year’s survey, as in our previous survey, we once again asked maintainers what they dislike about being an open source maintainer.

Stress and not being paid are the top things maintainers dislike

An increasing percentage of respondents (54% this year vs. 45% previously) responded that open source maintenance adds to their personal stress, and this took over the number one position by a hair. Yet unsurprisingly, the second most popular answer was “not financially compensated enough / at all for my work,” also up slightly, from 49% to 52%.

To read more insights from our seventh 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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