But I stopped open sourcing some of my work when I got aggressive users demanding I support them for free. I realised I was pouring hours into triaging bugs, explaining why PR's weren't good enough, fixing other people's corner cases, and settling disputes, without really getting much back. Sure, my projects were getting a following and there were lots of happy users, but the actual benefit to me of that happening was negative.
One middle ground I used for a while was releasing my projects as a tar file only, not a git repo. Someone else can then make a git repo and maintain the project. Looks like Bellard did the same for some projects.
I recently came across Curio (https://github.com/dabeaz/curio) & really appreciated their FAQ section on contributing. I plan to use it in any future open source projects:
Q: Can I contribute?
A: Curio is not a community-based project seeking developers or maintainers. However, having it work reliably is important. If you've found a bug or have an idea for making it better, please file an issue.
Code is a tool. Often you build a tool to complete a task.
Open Sourcing the tools lets others do their tasks. But you run the risk of becoming an unpaid toolmaker and unpaid tool maintainer, and getting none of your own tasks done.
In a way, github's biggest opensource committers are in a way the 'gig economy' workers of the tech world. Paid in just the occasional few bucks of donation for work which would otherwise be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars done with a salary.
