x x x

Who?

Github: outsideris

Project: Mocha

Date: December 2019

Why?

Jeonghoon Byun expressed the three reasons he believed led his peers to disengage from open source. He explains how these factors also impacted him and harmed his mental wellbeing at certain points, but his connection to his project, Mocha kept him from leaving. This eventually left Jeonghoon as the sole core maintainer for Mocha. One main factor was the amount of time and focus open source projects, like Mocha required.

“I realize that’s it’s way more hectic. It’s too busy. I get the feeling that I really have to pay attention and focus on working on open source.” (6:33)

Jeonghoon found himself and his peers easily overwhelmed and noted how they started to lack a work life balance. He explained that although he wasn’t obligated to work on open source at home, he developed a sense of obligation that led him to prioritize Mocha over other factors in his life.

“These notifications come, then I’ll miss the notifications and they will pile up. It will pile up everyday, and I will have to take a look at all of them after work. So, at the end of the day I think I should work on Mocha, and go in and press the notifications.” (7:20)

His third reason was the one that affected him and his peers the most. He cited the hostility from outside reporters and users to be the reason most of his peers decided it was time to pause or leave open source.

“It was debated after other issues and side effects that this was a ‘Completely wrong PR’’ get it backed out that was the verdict. … There was another one like this,which made me discouraged. Because every time I uploaded a PR in Mocha, it got backed out, and that just made me intimidated” (14:48)

He explained that any PR, regardless of who published it would be viewed or made in a negative light, either by the reporters or users. Any time the contributors wanted to publicize their project, something just went terribly wrong.

For reference:

Interventions

Jeonghoon recommends maintainers to resolve any toxicity within the community as early as possible by stepping in to talk about any issues. He emphasizes the need for everyone in the community to feel relaxed or at the very least learn how to “escape feelings of pressure” (13:40). Most of all, Jeonghoon encourages everyone to view open source as a team rather than just a product that one can use and throw away.