[intev]

This is a somewhat idealistic/naive view. If your project is even mildly successful and you get motivated to keep contributing to it more and more and form a strong community soon the leechers arrive. They start demanding more and more for literally nothing in return under the pretence that it's in the best interest of the project to add the features they want and to accelerate development.

It soon becomes exhausting to deal with them on a regular basis while still feeling good about contributing. People are faster to demand rather than appreciate and you start wondering what the point of all this is.

So yes, if you end up painting something that's like a high school project, sure, it's easy to leave it on the wall and not care. But if your painting starts getting displayed in galleries and there's a little "demand" for it, everything becomes a headache.

[0manrho]

> in return under the pretence that it's in the best interest of the project to add the features they want and to accelerate development.

Which is why you shouldn't work under false pretenses. You willing to turn that project into a day job? No? Then tell them no. You owe them nothing. You've already done more than your "fair share" giving to the community by publishing open source code, no matter how good (or not) it is, or how many "galleries" it hangs in (or not). They have a problem? Well, by definition it's their problem, not yours. Let them own it, fork it, and solve it, if it's such a big deal.

"No" is how you set expectations and maintain integrity. You only have so many resources in a day. Don't become a load bearing internet person for free.

[PhilipRoman]

I have to admit, it's one of my guilty pleasures to tell people "no" when they ask for unreasonable things from me. Haven't had the luck of managing a large open source project, but the prospect of saying "no" to an overwhelming stream of demands excites me.