问HN：如何吸引用户参与开源项目，以及何时该停止？
我已经在一个操作系统项目上工作了几年，时断时续，最近几个月又重新开始，并且在人工智能的帮助下取得了一些进展。这个项目在量化金融领域有一个非常小众的用户群体。
我非常享受这个项目的开发过程，尽管我时不时会收到一些使用它或对其感兴趣的人的联系，他们都是非常有趣的用户，但我总觉得自己在浪费时间。至今我已经坚持了8年。
我想问的问题是：这值得吗？我知道这个问题有两个明显的方向，个人的和实际的，但我都想听听。如何判断何时该停止？如果我的潜在用户大约在全球两千人左右，我该如何验证这个想法？我在Reddit和HN上发布过多次，尝试过LinkedIn，这让我接触到了一些非常有趣的联系人，但我不知道这是否足够让我继续下去。
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I have been working on an OS project for years now, on and off, taking it back up for the last few months and giving it a good boost lately with AI. It has a super niche user base in quantitative finance.<p>I really enjoy working on it, and although I get contacted every now and then by people who are using it or are interested in using it, and those are really interesting users, I always think I am wasting my time. It has been 8 years now since I started.<p>I guess my questions are: is it worth it? And I know this question has two clear paths, the personal and the practical one, but I would like to hear from both. How can I know when to stop? If my audience is maybe in the order of two thousand potential users worldwide, how do I validate the idea? I have posted on Reddit and HN multiple times, tried LinkedIn, and that leads me to a handful of super interesting contacts, but I don't know if it is enough to keep going.