The give and take of open source

Brett Cannon explains why, in order for open source projects to function long-term, a symbiotic relationship between user and project maintainer needs to exist. When users receive a useful piece of software and project maintainers receive useful help in maintaining the project, everyone is happy.

Unfortunately, this balance between user and maintainer is difficult to maintain, leading to users and maintainers leaving the project when the symbiosis is lost. Brett explores the reasons this relationship tends to become unbalanced and why establishing healthy expectations from both sides helps to bring things back into harmonious balance.