Credit is the primary currency of the free software world. Whatever people may say about their motivations for participating in a project, I don’t know any developers who would be happy doing all their work anonymously, or under someone else’s name. There are tangible reasons for this: one’s reputation in a project roughly governs how much influence one has, and participation in an open source project can also indirectly have monetary value, because some employers now look for it on resumés. There are also intangible reasons, perhaps even more powerful: people simply want to be appreciated, and instinctively look for signs that their work was recognized by others. The promise of credit is therefore one of best motivators the project has. When small contributions are acknowledged, people come back to do more.

— Karl Fogel, Producing Open Source Software