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Your favorite apps run on code maintained by exhausted volunteers. The databases powering your company? Built by developers working double shifts. Those JavaScript frameworks everyone depends on? Often shepherded by a single person, unpaid, drowning in demands.

A new report reveals just how bad things have gotten. Sentry funded this research through their Open Source Pledge initiative. Miranda Heath, a psychologist and PhD student at The University of Edinburgh, conducted the study.

She reviewed academic literature, analyzed 57 community materials, and talked to seven OSS developers directly. Some had burned out. Others managed to avoid it. Some walked away entirely.

Her findings track with open source infrastructure breaking down. The pressure points are nearly identical.

Before we dive in, you have to know there is one major limitation with this report. Most analyzed materials came from white male developers. Miranda notes that marginalized groups likely experience additional burnout factors the research missed.

Burnout in Open Source: A Structural Problem We Can Fix Together | Open Source Pledge

Burnout is affecting the entire Open Source ecosystem. Here’s what we could do to make things better.

Open Source Pledge

The Three Faces of Burnout

Firstly, you have to understand that burnout isn't just being tired. It has three distinct characteristics that feed off each other.

The motivational component hits first. Developers lose the ability to push through tasks. What once felt manageable becomes impossible to start. They avoid work entirely.

Then comes the affective breakdown. Emotional regulation fails. Developers become easily frustrated, irritated, and overwhelmed. They snap at users. They withdraw from communities.

The cognitive shift follows. People mentally distance themselves from their work. They express negativity and cynicism towards it. Dark humor becomes a coping mechanism. "Fix it, fork it, f*ck off" becomes the phrase of choice.

The numbers are brutal. A 2023 survey found 73% out of 26,348 developers experienced burnout at some point. Another survey showed 60% of OSS maintainers considered leaving entirely.

Burnout is a predictor of quitting. When developers burn out, they walk away.

Burnout is Slow Death

Miranda found six interconnected factors driving maintainers to the edge.

Difficulty Getting Paid: Sixty percent of OSS maintainers receive no payment whatsoever (according to the Tidelift survey). They work full-time jobs, then maintain critical infrastructure for free. The double shift wrecks their mental and physical health and steals time from friends/family. Loneliness follows.

Crushing Workload: Popular package maintainers drown in requests. They are often solo. Finding quality contributors is nearly impossible. Email overload alone can trigger burnout.

Maintenance Feels Unrewarding: Developers love creating. They hate the repetitive, mind-numbing maintenance work. It takes time away from what they actually enjoy (coding). There is no creativity, no learning, just repetitive work.

Toxic Community Behavior: Users demand features like customers. They shame maintainers publicly when bugs appear. Good work goes unrecognized. Mistakes get amplified. The entitlement exhausts them.

Toxicity exists between developers too. The majority of OSS collaboration happens remotely. No face-to-face contact. No conflict resolution training. No formal support structures or governance unless teams build them.

This makes team toxicity both more likely and harder to fix, and the isolation aspect only makes everything worse.

Hyper-responsibility: Developers feel crushing obligation to their communities. They can't say no, and stepping back feels like betrayal. The guilt compounds the stress.

Pressure to Prove Oneself: Developers need portfolios for jobs. They constantly prove themselves to the community and potential employers. The performance pressure never stops. Fear of losing reputation keeps them working past healthy limits.

GitHub makes it worse. Achievements, badges, contribution graphs. It gamifies the work. Developers feel compelled to maintain streaks and numbers. The metrics become the measure of worth.

These factors reinforce each other. No pay for OSS means working a full-time job on top of it. The double shift means longer hours. Longer hours kill patience. Less patience breeds toxicity. Toxicity drives contributors away. Fewer contributors means more work.

What Needs to Change

The report offers four clear recommendations.

Pay OSS developers reliably. Not donations or tips. Predictable income through decentralized funding that preserves maintainer autonomy. Foster recognition and respect too.

Community leaders must encourage better behavior, and platforms like GitHub should educate users about the humans behind the code.

Grow the community through better education and mentorship programs. Make it easier for newcomers to contribute quality work. Financial support helps here too.

And finally, advocate for maintainers. OSS powers critical infrastructure. Burnout puts that at risk. Advocacy bodies need to make governments aware. That awareness can bring funding and real solutions.

And, I will be honest, this hits close to home. I fully understand what's happening. Burnout literally robs you of any motivation or energy to do the things you love. It doesn't just slow you down. It kills the joy entirely.

The fix isn't complicated. Treat maintainers like the humans they are, not free infrastructure. Companies profiting from open source need to contribute financially (at the very least).

Employers should give developers dedicated time for OSS work. Users must remember there is a person on the other end of that issue thread. Fellow developers need to call out toxicity when they see it.

Burnout prevention starts with basic human decency.

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