Clearing the Trail: Motivations for Maintenance Work in Open Source
Katrina Wilson · 2023
Introducing new maintainers to established projects is critical to the long-term sustainability of open-source projects. Yet, we have little understanding of what motivates developers to join and maintain already established projects. Previous research on volunteering motivations emphasizes that individuals are motivated by a unique set of factors to volunteer in a specific area, suggesting that the motivations behind open-source contributions also depend on the nature of the work. We aim to determine correlations between types of open-source contributions and their specific motivators through surveys of open-source contributors.