The Case for OpenTelemetry Maintainership

OpenTelemetry’s main constraint is not a shortage of ideas, code contributions, or adoption, but too few maintainers to keep the project moving. Maintainers handle ongoing work that is less visible than writing code: releasing software, triaging issues, reviewing changes, addressing security advisories, mentoring contributors, and sustaining user trust. They connect individual contributions to usable, shipped software; when their capacity falls behind, reviews slow and other contributions can stall.

An analysis of pull requests and reviews across OpenTelemetry repositories found that incoming work is growing faster than the pool of engaged reviewers, used as an imperfect proxy for maintainer capacity. From September 2024 to September 2026, incoming pull requests rose 153.5%, from 1,390 to 3,523, while engaged reviewers increased 62.1%, from 103 to 167. The number of incoming pull requests per reviewer climbed 56.3%, from 13.5 to 21.1. The author cautions that the data is difficult to interpret: automated submissions and reviews distort counts, maintainer workload is unevenly distributed, and consistent historical data is lacking. The figures nevertheless point to a widening capacity gap and explain why contributors may wait weeks for reviews.