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> an update should not lose user bookmarks, playlists, documents, etc. I'm waiting for your patch. I'm very happy for your volunteering.

by jbk 9y ago

dane-pgp 9y ago
You may not like what the parent is (politely) saying, but your response is toxic.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  No actually, jbk is being honest and realistic. The cost to fix the bug is currently too great for them to devote resources to fixing it correctly, so s/he is merely trying to economize scarce resources here. This is an open source project we are talking about here, not a paid product. If the gp thinks they have time on their hands, then by all means, the project will gladly accept patches.
  - dane-pgp 9y ago
    jbk was not being honest or realistic, though. The gp was not volunteering, and jbk is not waiting for their patch. It's fine to say "We don't have the resources to fix this", but jbk's sarcastic remark is not the best way to convey this. Of course, jbk is welcome to phrase their comments however they want, but I don't think that the way they chose was the most effective way to invite patches (and the gp presumably already knew that a valid patch would be accepted).
    - sah2ed 9y ago
      I think you and I mostly agree but I will try to address the possible source of your disagreement with his phrasing. @jbk's original phrasing was: I'm waiting for your patch. I'm very happy for your volunteering. You probably think his first sentence is sarcasm but it is not for two reasons: 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." 2. I've been online long enough to know that his phrasing is a bit odd, a hint that the commenter is likely not a native speaker. For a bit more context regarding #2, my suspicion is not unfounded. I remember the @jbk nickname from this highly upvoted post [0] last year, where he did something in the interest of the VLC project that a lot of people would find incredibly difficult to do under similar circumstances. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048
      - jancsika 9y ago
        > 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." "Gentler" seems like a euphemism to me. I read it instead as passive aggression which is generally considered rude and not a productive way of communicating with people. Normal communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y counters X's unreasonable demand with simple-to-follow reasoning: "I understand where you are coming from, but there are important technical reasons why we cannot do Z. Unless you have the time to dive into the code to understand those technical details (and perhaps even become a developer yourself in the process), you're just going to have to trust us on this point." Benefits: clarity, positive example, trollproof. Costs: several sentences, restraint. Passive Aggressive Communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y tries to "teach" X not to make unreasonable demands by making a similarly unreasonable demand. If devs should always do Z, and if current devs are too busy to do Z, then it should be so obvious that X must become a dev that Y will imply it in the response: "Thanks for volunteering!" Benefit: brevity Cost: confusion, consequent anger/humiliation in X that makes it harder for them to learn the ostensible lesson, troll food, negative example for future devs to follow, scary to potential devs, etc. Edit: typo
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >No actually, jbk is being honest and realistic. Nope, he was being sarcastic. What he essentially said is: "We put in the actual work, so we can put out whatever crap, and you either chime in, or put up with it". Which would be good, if they didn't also promote their project as good to people.
    - Shikadi 9y ago
      Actually, he wasn't being sarcastic. I see how you may have thought that, but his response was genuine, and the commenter took it as so.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  No it isn't. As with any open source volunteer project you are not a customer, you are a user, and no one has any obligation to do or correct anything for you or anyone else. No one in such a project is beholden in any way whatsoever to meet the needs of any particular user or set of users. This particular point often causes spluttering disbelief and knee jerk reaction. Understand it carefully. Yes, not meeting the needs of the largest set of users can cause the project to lose users or fail to grow. So what? Many open volunteer projects aren't out for glory and greatness, or millions of users. They're out just to build something _they_ need or are passionate about. All the better if others want to come along for the ride and benefit too. There is nothing bad about telling users 'no we're not doing it' and by extension 'if you want that, build it yourself and we'll welcome it'. It is quite staggering how many times 'users' will make demands or say 'do it this way' but feel offended when told 'do it yourself'. Users feel utterly entitled to make demands of project members and are utterly incredulous when such demands are turn back on them.
  - dane-pgp 9y ago
    To be clear, I would not have objected to jdk saying "if you want that, build it yourself and we'll welcome it". I completely accept that developers of open source volunteer projects have no obligation to fulfil any development request from any user, but the gp did not demand or even request any change. They gave their opinion about how software should work, and they asked a rhetorical question about data loss. I just think that jdk could have made their point in a much more welcoming way, if they had been as polite and positive as the gp.
- jbk 9y ago
  > your response is toxic. Oh come on. The parent is basically telling us what we should do and how we should do it. Maybe he's more skilled than us, maybe he has the time to fix, then a patch would be welcome. VLC is a very small team, with around 10 developers, that maintain an open source B2C project, for free, on more platforms than so many (including huge teams or professional) projects, for > 10 years... Maybe, just maybe, we know how to evaluate the cost of a fix. Amazon is being unrealistic by asking us to do a full migration of custom playlists, an option very seldomly used on Android TV (it's very hard to do in the UI of version they blocked us on, a contrario from the version we want to upgrade to), which we could not fix quickly without making sqlite crash. But the point is: yes, there is a bug and we will get a bad vote from the people who rely on this. Sure. But that means that 99,9% of the millions of users will keep having the rest of the bugs, and there are a ton.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    This is how I read it too (I said same thing in sibling response). Your response was fine! :)
- needToSay 9y ago
  Lol fuck off diversity hire
logicallee 9y ago
(You can ignore the other responses, your response to me is a challenge - you throw down the glove - but I found it fine and motivating and it made me resolve to check out the source code when I get home. I was only going to email you if I ended up being able to figure it out, and I expect maybe it really is too hard for me, if a format change or something else makes it really tricky, but your challenge had the effect I imagine it intended.)
- jbk 9y ago
  Join us on IRC or by email.
coldtea 9y ago
Just because something is free/volunteer doesn't mean it doesn't have any responsibilities to its audience. If an organization volunteers to give free food to people, they can't just give them any crap, or stale food, etc, and shun it with "hey, it's free".
- Shikadi 9y ago
  That's because it would be a health issue. If I wrote a book for fun, and said you could have a free copy, it wouldn't be my responsibility to make sure you enjoy it. The VLC team does an amazing job at making their software solid anyway, so it's not even a good metaphor.

> an update should not lose user bookmarks, playlists, documents, etc. I'm waiting for your patch. I'm very happy for your volunteering.

by jbk 9y ago

> an update should not lose user bookmarks, playlists, documents, etc. I'm waiting for your patch. I'm very happy for your volunteering.

dane-pgp 9y ago

You may not like what the parent is (politely) saying, but your response is toxic.

sah2ed 9y ago
No actually, jbk is being honest and realistic. The cost to fix the bug is currently too great for them to devote resources to fixing it correctly, so s/he is merely trying to economize scarce resources here. This is an open source project we are talking about here, not a paid product. If the gp thinks they have time on their hands, then by all means, the project will gladly accept patches.
- dane-pgp 9y ago
  jbk was not being honest or realistic, though. The gp was not volunteering, and jbk is not waiting for their patch. It's fine to say "We don't have the resources to fix this", but jbk's sarcastic remark is not the best way to convey this. Of course, jbk is welcome to phrase their comments however they want, but I don't think that the way they chose was the most effective way to invite patches (and the gp presumably already knew that a valid patch would be accepted).
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    I think you and I mostly agree but I will try to address the possible source of your disagreement with his phrasing. @jbk's original phrasing was: I'm waiting for your patch. I'm very happy for your volunteering. You probably think his first sentence is sarcasm but it is not for two reasons: 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." 2. I've been online long enough to know that his phrasing is a bit odd, a hint that the commenter is likely not a native speaker. For a bit more context regarding #2, my suspicion is not unfounded. I remember the @jbk nickname from this highly upvoted post [0] last year, where he did something in the interest of the VLC project that a lot of people would find incredibly difficult to do under similar circumstances. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048
    - jancsika 9y ago
      > 1. He followed it up with a gentler "I'm very happy for your volunteering." "Gentler" seems like a euphemism to me. I read it instead as passive aggression which is generally considered rude and not a productive way of communicating with people. Normal communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y counters X's unreasonable demand with simple-to-follow reasoning: "I understand where you are coming from, but there are important technical reasons why we cannot do Z. Unless you have the time to dive into the code to understand those technical details (and perhaps even become a developer yourself in the process), you're just going to have to trust us on this point." Benefits: clarity, positive example, trollproof. Costs: several sentences, restraint. Passive Aggressive Communication: 1. X makes an unreasonable demand of developer Y. "Users expect Z, you devs should always do Z." 2. Developer Y tries to "teach" X not to make unreasonable demands by making a similarly unreasonable demand. If devs should always do Z, and if current devs are too busy to do Z, then it should be so obvious that X must become a dev that Y will imply it in the response: "Thanks for volunteering!" Benefit: brevity Cost: confusion, consequent anger/humiliation in X that makes it harder for them to learn the ostensible lesson, troll food, negative example for future devs to follow, scary to potential devs, etc. Edit: typo
- coldtea 9y ago
  >No actually, jbk is being honest and realistic. Nope, he was being sarcastic. What he essentially said is: "We put in the actual work, so we can put out whatever crap, and you either chime in, or put up with it". Which would be good, if they didn't also promote their project as good to people.
  - Shikadi 9y ago
    Actually, he wasn't being sarcastic. I see how you may have thought that, but his response was genuine, and the commenter took it as so.
PuffinBlue 9y ago
No it isn't. As with any open source volunteer project you are not a customer, you are a user, and no one has any obligation to do or correct anything for you or anyone else. No one in such a project is beholden in any way whatsoever to meet the needs of any particular user or set of users. This particular point often causes spluttering disbelief and knee jerk reaction. Understand it carefully. Yes, not meeting the needs of the largest set of users can cause the project to lose users or fail to grow. So what? Many open volunteer projects aren't out for glory and greatness, or millions of users. They're out just to build something _they_ need or are passionate about. All the better if others want to come along for the ride and benefit too. There is nothing bad about telling users 'no we're not doing it' and by extension 'if you want that, build it yourself and we'll welcome it'. It is quite staggering how many times 'users' will make demands or say 'do it this way' but feel offended when told 'do it yourself'. Users feel utterly entitled to make demands of project members and are utterly incredulous when such demands are turn back on them.
- dane-pgp 9y ago
  To be clear, I would not have objected to jdk saying "if you want that, build it yourself and we'll welcome it". I completely accept that developers of open source volunteer projects have no obligation to fulfil any development request from any user, but the gp did not demand or even request any change. They gave their opinion about how software should work, and they asked a rhetorical question about data loss. I just think that jdk could have made their point in a much more welcoming way, if they had been as polite and positive as the gp.
jbk 9y ago
> your response is toxic. Oh come on. The parent is basically telling us what we should do and how we should do it. Maybe he's more skilled than us, maybe he has the time to fix, then a patch would be welcome. VLC is a very small team, with around 10 developers, that maintain an open source B2C project, for free, on more platforms than so many (including huge teams or professional) projects, for > 10 years... Maybe, just maybe, we know how to evaluate the cost of a fix. Amazon is being unrealistic by asking us to do a full migration of custom playlists, an option very seldomly used on Android TV (it's very hard to do in the UI of version they blocked us on, a contrario from the version we want to upgrade to), which we could not fix quickly without making sqlite crash. But the point is: yes, there is a bug and we will get a bad vote from the people who rely on this. Sure. But that means that 99,9% of the millions of users will keep having the rest of the bugs, and there are a ton.
- logicallee 9y ago
  This is how I read it too (I said same thing in sibling response). Your response was fine! :)
needToSay 9y ago
Lol fuck off diversity hire

logicallee 9y ago

(You can ignore the other responses, your response to me is a challenge - you throw down the glove - but I found it fine and motivating and it made me resolve to check out the source code when I get home. I was only going to email you if I ended up being able to figure it out, and I expect maybe it really is too hard for me, if a format change or something else makes it really tricky, but your challenge had the effect I imagine it intended.)

jbk 9y ago
Join us on IRC or by email.

coldtea 9y ago

Just because something is free/volunteer doesn't mean it doesn't have any responsibilities to its audience. If an organization volunteers to give free food to people, they can't just give them any crap, or stale food, etc, and shun it with "hey, it's free".

Shikadi 9y ago
That's because it would be a health issue. If I wrote a book for fun, and said you could have a free copy, it wouldn't be my responsibility to make sure you enjoy it. The VLC team does an amazing job at making their software solid anyway, so it's not even a good metaphor.