the rust project has a burnout problem

I wish I were more aware of what level of burnout there is in other large open source projects. Is Rust unique? Better? Worse? How do other projects manage this (if in fact they do)?

Projects like GCC and the Linux kernel do almost all their development in the open, via mailing lists, so maybe it would be possible to analyze that data to determine, say, the rate at which contributors drop out of the project. But I'm not aware of anyone having actually done an analysis like this.

Thanks for the post!

I'm obviously not the target audience, but I really like the idea of treating maintaining a FOSS project as a job. Fix how much time you'll spend on it, set expectations, etc, and remember that you can quit and rejoin at any time (just notify the rest of the team that you need a break).

I appreciate all the hard work Rust maintainers put in, and I wish I was in a position to help out (I'd just get in the way). Please take the time off you need, the Rust project is in a good spot right now and new things can wait.

I used to work at a company that held to the concept of "don't be a hero." Basically, if you were having to step up, work overtime, and always go out of your normal routine to "fix" stuff, then you're actually enabling bad processes.

I think the same concept applies here. If you can't let any code be submitted without personally reviewing it, then there is something wrong with either the review system, the onboarding system for new devs, or the continuous integration system that should be catching mistakes. Same goes for triaging: if no one is triaging because it's too exhausting and leads to burnout, then some other system may need to be devised for handling outstanding issues.

Obviously this is much harder to deal with in an organization where most contributors are volunteers. But if we want the project to survive and not be taken over by corporations who can afford to pay people to deal with this stuff full time, I think it should be addressed in a different way.