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I can understand that, I certainly would have been stoked about a bug report being fixed on the same day; I hadn't reported the bug though. I was working on pro

I can understand that, I certainly would have been stoked about a bug report being fixed on the same day; I hadn't reported the bug though. I was working on providing a bug report with a patch alongside it and (perhaps foolishly) mentioned the bug informally as context as to why I was doing this.

Zancarius 11y ago
Without being privy to the entire context, what I think might've happened is that your discussion caught the interest of a core developer who then picked it up and ran with it. I doubt they intended to step on your toes as a consequence of fixing the problem. Hackers tend to be intrigued by problems, including small ones, and especially ones that cause software behavior to deviate from expectations. The other side of the coin is that without a patch, the developers have no idea what your motives or capabilities are. They can't read minds, so if you pique their interest sufficiently, they're very likely to take it upon themselves to do the legwork. No malice intended. I should hope you'll change your mind about contributing to FOSS projects after reading this thread, because I think it's counterproductive to take this sort of thing personally (I don't know if you are, but it appears to me that you're unhappy about this at the very least). That said, there aren't many projects that post credits or thanks to people who have discovered bugs or whose line of questioning has lead to fixing application behavior. While it's extra work and isn't always feasible, it can encourage users to pitch in if they know their name might appear in some credits (even if it's only per-release). Then there's the question of how big the problem needs to be to credit someone...
- MatthewWilkes 11y ago
  I'm a long-term FLOSS contributor, but I've also served on the boards of 501(c)(3)s, I've been a mentor for Google Summer of Code for most of the times the programme has run and I've run workshops at my local university about getting involved in open source. I know what is involved in making a community welcoming to new contributors. If a project is putting an explicit call for contributions in updates that implies they're not getting as many as they'd like, which fits my experiences. What you say about hackers getting nerd-sniped is true, but "that's just how coders are" certainly isn't. If you're a core developer for a project and you want the community to grow rather than diminish it's your responsibility to make it socially welcoming as well as having a low technical barrier to entry. I personally have spent many hours responding to emails about problems I could have fixed trivially, but if I'd done that the potential new contributor may not have grown into someone that's regularly fixing bugs I can't fix trivially. I'm not taking the unwelcoming attitude personally, I'm acting accordingly. If I can't get the information from a community I need to participate but I can get them to do the work by just throwing it over the fence I'd be crazy to continue to try and help them unless I have a very strong reason to outside of requiring fixes. As to your point about reading minds, this is specifically mentioned in my initial comment. I asked about a problem running tests, and when I provided the context that I was asked for (I'm trying to put together a patch for this bug) there should have been no question as to motivation.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I hadn't reported the bug though. I don't think its reasonable to expect a projects core developers, when they become aware of a bug through mechanisms other than formal bug reports, to deliberately stall confirming and resolving the problem because the person raising the issue is entitled to a crack at fixing it.
- eropple 11y ago
  You can do something correct and still be discouraging to people who would like to contribute.

Zancarius 11y ago

Without being privy to the entire context, what I think might've happened is that your discussion caught the interest of a core developer who then picked it up and ran with it. I doubt they intended to step on your toes as a consequence of fixing the problem. Hackers tend to be intrigued by problems, including small ones, and especially ones that cause software behavior to deviate from expectations. The other side of the coin is that without a patch, the developers have no idea what your motives or capabilities are. They can't read minds, so if you pique their interest sufficiently, they're very likely to take it upon themselves to do the legwork. No malice intended. I should hope you'll change your mind about contributing to FOSS projects after reading this thread, because I think it's counterproductive to take this sort of thing personally (I don't know if you are, but it appears to me that you're unhappy about this at the very least). That said, there aren't many projects that post credits or thanks to people who have discovered bugs or whose line of questioning has lead to fixing application behavior. While it's extra work and isn't always feasible, it can encourage users to pitch in if they know their name might appear in some credits (even if it's only per-release). Then there's the question of how big the problem needs to be to credit someone...

MatthewWilkes 11y ago
I'm a long-term FLOSS contributor, but I've also served on the boards of 501(c)(3)s, I've been a mentor for Google Summer of Code for most of the times the programme has run and I've run workshops at my local university about getting involved in open source. I know what is involved in making a community welcoming to new contributors. If a project is putting an explicit call for contributions in updates that implies they're not getting as many as they'd like, which fits my experiences. What you say about hackers getting nerd-sniped is true, but "that's just how coders are" certainly isn't. If you're a core developer for a project and you want the community to grow rather than diminish it's your responsibility to make it socially welcoming as well as having a low technical barrier to entry. I personally have spent many hours responding to emails about problems I could have fixed trivially, but if I'd done that the potential new contributor may not have grown into someone that's regularly fixing bugs I can't fix trivially. I'm not taking the unwelcoming attitude personally, I'm acting accordingly. If I can't get the information from a community I need to participate but I can get them to do the work by just throwing it over the fence I'd be crazy to continue to try and help them unless I have a very strong reason to outside of requiring fixes. As to your point about reading minds, this is specifically mentioned in my initial comment. I asked about a problem running tests, and when I provided the context that I was asked for (I'm trying to put together a patch for this bug) there should have been no question as to motivation.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> I hadn't reported the bug though. I don't think its reasonable to expect a projects core developers, when they become aware of a bug through mechanisms other than formal bug reports, to deliberately stall confirming and resolving the problem because the person raising the issue is entitled to a crack at fixing it.

eropple 11y ago
You can do something correct and still be discouraging to people who would like to contribute.