I've benefited tremendously from open source software and have used an open source library in virtually every project I've done. Totally grateful to the community for enabling me to build faster.
However, I've always been curious - what motivates people to continue to maintain open source software?
Why put up with rude people and improve a package for them, for free? Is the issue because monetizing it is too difficult? Or is there some other reward for doing this that I'm not seeing?
My initial motivation for my (small) projects was always to scratch my own itch. Beyond that, it feels really good when someone else uses the code. For my current side-project, I keep up maintenance because it's interesting work and because I can plausibly benefit from bug fixes. It's neat to see how other people adapt the code and open up new use-cases. For that reason, I love high-quality bug reports and treat them with some urgency.
For projects I lose interest in, I unsubscribe from everything and either mark the project as maintenance mode or try to find a maintainer. To find maintainers, I've had good success granting write access to anyone who lands a few good PRs and telling them they have free reign over the code.
Rude people are rare. If your project is big, most users of it never even interact with the issue tracker. A desire to help those and provide something in return for OSS tools you use yourself.
However, I've always been curious - what motivates people to continue to maintain open source software?
Why put up with rude people and improve a package for them, for free? Is the issue because monetizing it is too difficult? Or is there some other reward for doing this that I'm not seeing?