Various people have prodded me to explain my recent involvement in Drupal, or rather the lack of it. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to do so in a way that is constructive and tactful, especially not when it comes to other contributors. Like Soylent Green, Open Source is made of people, and it's these people who are at the basis of a mountain of frustration that has driven me off. At the end of the day, I feel that the vast majority of contributors is not willing or not able to apply the level of diligence that I apply to my own Drupal work. This is both in terms of technical background and research, as well as in the actual execution and quality assurance. I find that too little effort is spent on polishing things so they really shine, e.g. in the actual development (back-end and UI), but equally in, say, outreach and marketing. It also seems that any exceptional efforts that go beyond this typical fare are often wasted, because the author invariably has to fight a prolonged (and sometimes never-ending) battle to keep the polish from being obliterated by someone else's refactoring.

This is further aggravated by the fact that a certain group of people always seems ready to chime in their two cents (or more) in long, repetitive e-mail threads or project issues, while not actually contributing to the end result or even bringing solid, technical arguments to the table. Said persons seem more interested in maintaining the business revenue that Drupal provides to them, rather than producing a better CMS.

This leads to a culture where actual expertise becomes a burden rather than a benefit, because whoever does something first is often expected to keep doing it indefinitely, for the benefit of everyone else. Rather than contributors having a symbiotic relationship with each other, it becomes more and more parasitic and unidirectional.

After many years in this environment, I find myself utterly drained and unmotivated to participate in that sort of charade anymore.