Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

TL;DR

This study explores motivations, enablers, and barriers for core developers in FLOSS projects through a survey of 52 recent core contributors, highlighting factors influencing sustained engagement.

Contribution

It provides new insights into core developer motivations and challenges, comparing these with other types of open source contributors.

Findings

Core developers are motivated by project usefulness and community support.

Friendly communities facilitate engagement of core developers.

Time constraints of project leaders are significant barriers.

Abstract

The maintenance and evolution of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects demand the constant attraction of core developers. In this paper, we report the results of a survey with 52 developers, who recently became core contributors of popular GitHub projects. We reveal their motivations to assume a key role in FLOSS projects (e.g., improving the projects because they are also using it), the project characteristics that most helped in their engagement process (e.g., a friendly community), and the barriers faced by the surveyed core developers (e.g., lack of time of the project leaders). We also compare our results with related studies about others kinds of open source contributors (casual, one-time, and newcomers).