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. This can again be said in different dimensions for contributor, student or someone making a career transition with open source.

In this talk Ashwin will talk how to break The Piñata effect when dealing with 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.