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source https://nesbitt.io/2026/02/13/respectful-open-source.html
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… fix from a stranger still carries cognitive load beyond just merging: triage, review, checking for regressions, responding,
- managing expectations …
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… once you merge someone’s code, you’re maintaining it
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… fix exists on my fork. …
- nobody will because fork discovery is effectively broken.
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Git was pull-based
- GitLab is at least honest about it by calling them merge requests.
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If the default were flipped so that fixes exist publicly …
- contributor’s job would be done when the fix is public …
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Fork discovery is broken
- GitHub made forking easy and fork discovery nearly impossible.
- … people use the fork button as a bookmark, … bots, … generate forks that are nothing but noise.
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… issue #347 and being able to see “three forks have patches touching this code” without anyone having submitted anything,
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… maintainer didn’t ask for the audit, didn’t agree to the compliance framework, and is now expected to respond on someone else’s timeline.
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… Private vulnerability disclosure … has its own AI spam crisis as anyone following curl’s experience with HackerOne
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Miranda Heath’s report on burnout in open source names six causes
- workload is only one of them:
- toxic community behaviour,
- hyper-responsibility,
- pressure to keep proving yourself
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- built on years of shared context and ambient trust that
- can’t be rebuilt once the people holding them together burn out.
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Unsolicited PRs, drive-by issues, and automated audits are all withdrawals from a finite account.
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AI coding agents …
- … volume of low-quality inbound to popular projects has exploded.
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… experienced maintainers who tried graduated responses and ended up at the nuclear option because nothing else worked.
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AI pressure is going to force that switch on more … repos …
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GitHub made forking a one-click operation … without ever investing in making the resulting graph navigable …