[notacoward]

> Open source developers need not be burning themselves out

What about responsibility to one's users, and the computing community in general? As we very recently saw with the event-stream fiasco, there are consequences when the author of a popular piece of software tries to retire from maintaining it, because of burnout or any other reason. What if they can't find a suitable successor? What do you suggest should happen then? Just freeze it, letting it break as things it depends on continue to change?

[joaomacp]

Yes. And then if it breaks and users want a replacement, they'll move to a fork

[notacoward]

If it breaks visibly (which tends not to include security issues), and if people who didn't come forward to be maintainers of the original suddenly get motivated to be maintainers of an active fork. That's not really a very good succession plan, and the people who actually write software know that. It's why those who have some sense of responsibility and professional pride risk burnout maintaining software they'd rather be rid of, but those who lack those qualities will never understand.