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> But 'screw you'? Not classy. To be fair that's exactly the tone I read the gist in as well. It seems a bit overly hostile to users who may have questions or

> But 'screw you'? Not classy. To be fair that's exactly the tone I read the gist in as well. It seems a bit overly hostile to users who may have questions or suggestions but either don't or cannot contribute code for whatever reason. Emotional comments beget emotional comments.

robotresearcher 9y ago
That's very true. But the relationship between developer and user is not symmetrical. I'll give the grumpy developer a pass that grumpy end user didn't earn. Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Once you have a few thousand users your inbox is a source of frequent misery.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  > But the relationship between developer and user is not symmetrical. I disagree. I see them as identical. Yes you're offering a free product but it's still a product, even if you don't want to call it one. The developers are your users. They are the ones using it. But even a developer may not know how your code works well enough to submit a PR. > Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Once you have a few thousand users your inbox is a source of frequent misery. For sure but I don't know how you avoid this without also isolating yourself from likely valuable feedback / information. Similar to fielding customer requests for a product a good 96% of the ideas / things customers want are going to be a terrible idea. If I've learned anything from running products it's this: make it as stupid easy as possible for your customers to give you feedback / get ahold of you. When you do that you're going to get an absolute ton of noise but the bits of signal hidden in there can be amazing and you'll be able to directly help those along the way. From there it's learning how to manage the flow of information coming to you and trying not to take the bad personally (which is very hard to do when it's your baby / code).
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    You are completely right. No argument. It's still nasty to be rude to a developer instead of offering politely worded advice.
    - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
      Fair enough
- scrollaway 9y ago
  > Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Work smart, not hard. If you're getting a lot of support requests (entitled or not), add a paid support option. If you have so much traction already that you constantly have to deal with "hundreds of issues", you're well past the point where you should have done that.

robotresearcher 9y ago

That's very true. But the relationship between developer and user is not symmetrical. I'll give the grumpy developer a pass that grumpy end user didn't earn. Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Once you have a few thousand users your inbox is a source of frequent misery.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> But the relationship between developer and user is not symmetrical. I disagree. I see them as identical. Yes you're offering a free product but it's still a product, even if you don't want to call it one. The developers are your users. They are the ones using it. But even a developer may not know how your code works well enough to submit a PR. > Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Once you have a few thousand users your inbox is a source of frequent misery. For sure but I don't know how you avoid this without also isolating yourself from likely valuable feedback / information. Similar to fielding customer requests for a product a good 96% of the ideas / things customers want are going to be a terrible idea. If I've learned anything from running products it's this: make it as stupid easy as possible for your customers to give you feedback / get ahold of you. When you do that you're going to get an absolute ton of noise but the bits of signal hidden in there can be amazing and you'll be able to directly help those along the way. From there it's learning how to manage the flow of information coming to you and trying not to take the bad personally (which is very hard to do when it's your baby / code).
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  You are completely right. No argument. It's still nasty to be rude to a developer instead of offering politely worded advice.
  - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    Fair enough
scrollaway 9y ago
> Fielding a few hundred rude and entitled support requests for your free software can make anyone grumpy. Work smart, not hard. If you're getting a lot of support requests (entitled or not), add a paid support option. If you have so much traction already that you constantly have to deal with "hundreds of issues", you're well past the point where you should have done that.