Due to the increasing number of attacks targeting open source library ecosystems, assisting maintainers has become a top priority. This is especially important since maintainers are usually overworked. Although the motivation of Open Source developers has been widely studied, the extent to which maintainers assist libraries that they depend on is unknown. Surveying NPM developers, our early results indicate a difference in motivation between maintaining their own library (i.e., more person driven), as opposed to professional factors (i.e., focus on skills and expertise) when contributing to the software ecosystem. Finally, our thematic analysis shows different motivations and barriers developers face when contributing to the ecosystem. These results show that developers have different motivations and barriers depending on the role they play when making contributions to the ecosystem.

翻译：针对针对开源库生态系统的日益增多的攻击，协助维护人员已成为当务之急，特别是因为他们通常工作过度。虽然开源开发人员的动机已经被广泛研究，但维护人员在帮助依赖他们的库方面的程度尚不可知。通过对 NPM 开发人员进行调查，我们的初步结果表明，在维护自己的库方面动机略有不同（即更加个人驱动），而在为软件生态系统做出贡献时，则更关注专业因素（即专注于技能和专业知识）。最后，我们的主题分析显示开发人员在为生态系统做出贡献时面临不同的动机和障碍。这些结果表明，开发人员在为生态系统做出贡献时，不同的角色扮演造成了不同的动机和障碍。