Comment by ahepp

I've never read any resources on what constitutes proper open source. It seems like there are a lot of different and incompatible goals in the world of open source. For example, if I wanted to get paid I definitely wouldn't be reading something by Stallman.

Sure, reviewing and maintaining PRs is work too. If I wasn't willing to do it for free, I'd be clear and upfront, and say

> Unfortunately we don't have the time to review PRs without funding. If you are interested in having a PR reviewed, you can sponsor the project or contract a maintainer. In the past, it's taken a couple hours to review PRs. Keep in mind that even after your PR is merged, it will need to be maintained. If there are no volunteer maintainers able to keep your code in a decent state, it may be removed in future releases.

There's a very real chance someone won't use your project if you say this. They might use a competing project with maintainers that will work for free, or they might even fork your project. That's certainly their right.

I don't think I've ever seen a shitstorm arise from clear and open boundary-setting by maintainers. I'm sure I don't have an extensive catalog of every internet shitstorm, but the ones I can recall off the top of my head are usually situations that I'm sure felt like rug-pulls or shakedowns to users. I'm also having trouble thinking of a shitstorm over a minor incident that truly ruined someone's reputation, but I might just not run in the right circles to know about that kind of thing.