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：鉴于针对开源库生态系统的攻击日益增多，协助维护者已成为首要任务。这一点尤为重要，因为维护者通常工作负担过重。尽管开源开发者的动机已被广泛研究，但维护者对其所依赖的库提供协助的程度尚不明确。通过对NPM开发者的调查，我们的初步结果表明，在维护自身库（即更多个人驱动）与贡献软件生态系统（即侧重于技能和专业知识）时的职业因素之间存在动机差异。最后，我们的主题分析揭示了开发者在为生态系统做出贡献时所面临的不同动机与障碍。这些结果表明，开发者在生态系统中扮演不同角色时，其动机与障碍也会随之变化。