The Piñata effect is when "a word can become bloated. Over-burdened with meaning to the point where it becomes meaningless or at least hard to use in a meaningful manner."

To rephrase this in open source, The Piñata effect is a state in which open source projects are created and maintained by a small number of maintainers, while the majority of users reap the benefits without contributing back.

In this talk Ashwin will talk how to break The Piñata effect while contributing open source:

1. For a maintainer: Making your community/project self-sustainable. For high consumption, low contribution.
2. For a contributor: Finding the right community/project from the sea of open source
3. For a student: Understanding why Open Source will be the key to student internships and Jobs
4. For a newbie: Identifying the Piñata effect in your initial/transitional career phase.

The audience will walk away with retrospective ideas to identify the Piñata effect in the different phases of their careers when involved with open source.