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Obviously, no FOSS developer can deal with all user's issues, especially when they don't pay. They have to drastically limit scope. That means saying "no" to so

Obviously, no FOSS developer can deal with all user's issues, especially when they don't pay. They have to drastically limit scope. That means saying "no" to some users and their issues. FOSS developers nevertheless should be able to evangelize their software to users in general. Nobody expects a "thank you" when you don't actually use the software.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
In a reasonable world what would happen is the developer would say "hey, try my software", and the user would say "sorry, I don't like it/can't use it because of X", and the developer would either say "you're right, I should fix that" or "ok, fair enough". In my experience, this is not what happens. What happens is they tell you that your use case is invalid, your workflow is wrong, you're too stupid to get it, or a bunch of other lame excuses and then still think you should use their software or even fix it for them.
- zeroname 8y ago
  If you criticize somebody's work, they'll get defensive. That's a totally normal human reaction. Users rarely say things like "sorry I don't like it", it's more likely they file their pet peeve as a major grievance that supposedly affects untold numbers of other users, like the guy who wrote this blog post. Frankly, a lot of users really do have bad workflows, questionable use-cases and they are relatively uninformed and often unwilling to learn why things work the way they do. If they don't pay, what else should they do besides fixing it themselves? Generally though, "patches welcome" or "fix it yourself" is just a more polite way of saying "this is getting annoying, please leave now". I don't think those developers actually care that you (don't) use their software. You can tell when somebody actively wants to keep you as a user by them not acting in that way. Like saying "we'll consider it" and then proceeding to do nothing, for example.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Likely any grievance one user has is shared by many other users who are silent about it, because those others didn't even care enough about your software to bother posting an issue. Worse, you often see this same grievance aired time and time again over years and it is still dismissed out of hand. >Frankly, a lot of users really do have bad workflows, questionable use-cases and they are relatively uninformed and often unwilling to learn why things work the way they do. Yes, everyone thinks this about everyone else's workflow. Part of being a good developer, I think, is that just because you can't understand why someone wants to do a certain thing doesn't mean that their use case is invalid. That's childish and, frankly, entirely expected of Open Source Dev culture, which has a nasty habit of being condescending to users.
    - zeroname 8y ago
      > Part of being a good developer, I think, is that just because you can't understand why someone wants to do a certain thing doesn't mean that their use case is invalid. For all intents and purposes, if you fail to make a convincing argument for a use-case to a developer, it is invalid. It's not actionable. An argument could be made for any program to do anything in any possible way, for any number of reasons. Developers need to narrow that possibility space down radically. It would be nice if developers could spend the time really understanding every opinion offered to them, but it's not going to happen. > That's childish and, frankly, entirely expected of Open Source Dev culture, which has a nasty habit of being condescending to users. Doing "customer support" for free to the general public can wear on you. In fairness, can we agree that there are "difficult users" as well?
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        > For all intents and purposes, if you fail to make a convincing argument for a use-case to a developer, it is invalid. There's a difference between failing to make a convincing argument and the developer willfully refusing to understand the usecase because they do things differently and are arrogant enough to believe that their way must be "the one true right way". That's the problem that plagues open source devs. > Doing "customer support" for free to the general public can wear on you. In fairness, can we agree that there are "difficult users" as well? Of course there are difficult users, that's not what I'm talking about. The use-case asked for by the OP is not even remotely unreasonable, yet nothing was done for 5 years even though it should be trivial. It's just remapping buttons FFS. Instead they were dismissed as an "edge case" and the functionality as something only "power users" would want, and therefore they didn't have to lift a finger. I wish I could say I was surprised, but that's what I've come to expect from modern developers. Users are cattle, best not to anthropomorphize them.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

In a reasonable world what would happen is the developer would say "hey, try my software", and the user would say "sorry, I don't like it/can't use it because of X", and the developer would either say "you're right, I should fix that" or "ok, fair enough". In my experience, this is not what happens. What happens is they tell you that your use case is invalid, your workflow is wrong, you're too stupid to get it, or a bunch of other lame excuses and then still think you should use their software or even fix it for them.

zeroname 8y ago
If you criticize somebody's work, they'll get defensive. That's a totally normal human reaction. Users rarely say things like "sorry I don't like it", it's more likely they file their pet peeve as a major grievance that supposedly affects untold numbers of other users, like the guy who wrote this blog post. Frankly, a lot of users really do have bad workflows, questionable use-cases and they are relatively uninformed and often unwilling to learn why things work the way they do. If they don't pay, what else should they do besides fixing it themselves? Generally though, "patches welcome" or "fix it yourself" is just a more polite way of saying "this is getting annoying, please leave now". I don't think those developers actually care that you (don't) use their software. You can tell when somebody actively wants to keep you as a user by them not acting in that way. Like saying "we'll consider it" and then proceeding to do nothing, for example.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Likely any grievance one user has is shared by many other users who are silent about it, because those others didn't even care enough about your software to bother posting an issue. Worse, you often see this same grievance aired time and time again over years and it is still dismissed out of hand. >Frankly, a lot of users really do have bad workflows, questionable use-cases and they are relatively uninformed and often unwilling to learn why things work the way they do. Yes, everyone thinks this about everyone else's workflow. Part of being a good developer, I think, is that just because you can't understand why someone wants to do a certain thing doesn't mean that their use case is invalid. That's childish and, frankly, entirely expected of Open Source Dev culture, which has a nasty habit of being condescending to users.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    > Part of being a good developer, I think, is that just because you can't understand why someone wants to do a certain thing doesn't mean that their use case is invalid. For all intents and purposes, if you fail to make a convincing argument for a use-case to a developer, it is invalid. It's not actionable. An argument could be made for any program to do anything in any possible way, for any number of reasons. Developers need to narrow that possibility space down radically. It would be nice if developers could spend the time really understanding every opinion offered to them, but it's not going to happen. > That's childish and, frankly, entirely expected of Open Source Dev culture, which has a nasty habit of being condescending to users. Doing "customer support" for free to the general public can wear on you. In fairness, can we agree that there are "difficult users" as well?
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      > For all intents and purposes, if you fail to make a convincing argument for a use-case to a developer, it is invalid. There's a difference between failing to make a convincing argument and the developer willfully refusing to understand the usecase because they do things differently and are arrogant enough to believe that their way must be "the one true right way". That's the problem that plagues open source devs. > Doing "customer support" for free to the general public can wear on you. In fairness, can we agree that there are "difficult users" as well? Of course there are difficult users, that's not what I'm talking about. The use-case asked for by the OP is not even remotely unreasonable, yet nothing was done for 5 years even though it should be trivial. It's just remapping buttons FFS. Instead they were dismissed as an "edge case" and the functionality as something only "power users" would want, and therefore they didn't have to lift a finger. I wish I could say I was surprised, but that's what I've come to expect from modern developers. Users are cattle, best not to anthropomorphize them.