Someone just installed your library.

1,204,381downloads this month

You have one finite resource.

Tonight

3 hours 12 minutes

7:48 pm

40 min

30 min

your job tomorrow8:00 am

0 minutes left.

downloads this month

The software is still free.
Your time wasn't.

The value leaves the building. The cost stays in one person's evenings.

What would make this sustainable?

Not gratitude. Gratitude has no units. A number, per year, for one library that a million people installed this month. Pick one and see what it buys.

Maintainers who can afford to keep maintaining.

Not maintainers who are thanked. Not maintainers who are celebrated once a year in a keynote. Maintainers whose evenings are their own because the thing the rest of us depend on is paid for.