Lyn Muldrow
TL;DR: our new open source maintainer survey is LIVE and we'd love your input!
Take the survey!
At Tidelift, we’re passionate about making open source better — for everyone. We imagine a world where both organizations can maximize the health and security of the open source used in their applications and open source creators can thrive with full recognition and compensation for the value they create.
We’re constantly innovating in the way we holistically support the open source maintainer ecosystem. We conducted the first maintainer-only survey in 2021 to provide insights about the lived experiences of open source maintainers. Here are the top 3 most notable findings from the past survey:
Almost half of maintainers don’t get paid anything to work on their projects.
Maintainers spend less than ¼ of their project time writing code.
More than half of maintainers have quit or considered quitting.
We’re curious how things have changed since then. Are more maintainers earning money? And if so, how much more? Are the same things still driving maintainers to keep maintaining? What holds maintainers back from doing their best work?
Our newest survey includes questions we’ve never asked before that will help us capture the best picture of what it’s like to be an open source maintainer today. The results will help us amplify maintainer voices and get them the resources needed to be successful in maintaining a healthy open source project.
If you’re an open source maintainer, we invite you to share your thoughts and be a part of the conversation. If you are already working as a lifter for Tidelift (or apply to lift a project and are accepted as a new lifter), we'll send you a limited edition Tidelift backpack (learn more about how lifting a project works here). If you are an open source maintainer not working with Tidelift, we'd still like to hear from you! Fill out the survey and get our latest Pay the Maintainers t-shirt.
Your submissions to this survey are covered by the Tidelift privacy policy. If you are interested in the custom Tidelift backpack or Pay the Maintainers t-shirt, make sure to share your mailing address at the end of the survey.
