4 ms·

I think some combinations of items 6 and 9 are often missing from projects where there’s a quick rush to view issues and bug reports as nuisance instead of view

by mlthoughts2018 7y ago

I think some combinations of items 6 and 9 are often missing from projects where there’s a quick rush to view issues and bug reports as nuisance instead of viewing them as a lifeline of critical feedback the project needs for survival. I’ve seen it so many times where open source projects have critical bugs, but the existing contributors rush to play the false defense along the lines of “pay us if you want this fixed,” while prioritizing new features or projects out of intellectual curiosity instead. Obviously no contributor in an open source project _has to_ do anything. But at some level if you’re working on the project because you care about the project instead of burning the commons in a land grab for satisfying personal projects, then taking priority from reported issues and even thanking people for pointing out urgent bugs whose fixes should supercede the fun features of some planned release has to become the expected default.

saagarjha 7y ago
> Obviously no contributor in an open source project _has to_ do anything. But at some level if you’re working on the project because you care about the project instead of burning the commons in a land grab for satisfying personal projects, then taking priority from reported issues and even thanking people for pointing out urgent bugs whose fixes should supercede the fun features of some planned release has to become the expected default. This is a very important point that I have generally found it hard to express, because it seems so go counter to generally accepted view of "open source means I owe you nothing". Which is mostly true, but in certain exceptional cases it's important to understand that popular but problematic projects suck the air out of viable competing undertakings, and it's somewhat inconsiderate to "squat" on something you wrote for fun at some point, promote it until it is widely used, and then refuse to work on it anymore until people pay you because they can't use anything else.
- Hitton 7y ago
  I disagree. Unless the maintainer refuses to accept pull request adding new feature/fixing the issue, there is nothing wrong about working primary on things that concern the maintainer. Maintainer is not some sort of slave who must rush to fulfil every wish of the user.
- fourthark 7y ago
  > "squat" on something you wrote for fun at some point, promote it until it is widely used, and then refuse to work on it anymore until people pay you because they can't use anything else. Does that happen? Sounds pretty extreme, I hope you are exaggerating.

saagarjha 7y ago

> Obviously no contributor in an open source project _has to_ do anything. But at some level if you’re working on the project because you care about the project instead of burning the commons in a land grab for satisfying personal projects, then taking priority from reported issues and even thanking people for pointing out urgent bugs whose fixes should supercede the fun features of some planned release has to become the expected default. This is a very important point that I have generally found it hard to express, because it seems so go counter to generally accepted view of "open source means I owe you nothing". Which is mostly true, but in certain exceptional cases it's important to understand that popular but problematic projects suck the air out of viable competing undertakings, and it's somewhat inconsiderate to "squat" on something you wrote for fun at some point, promote it until it is widely used, and then refuse to work on it anymore until people pay you because they can't use anything else.

Hitton 7y ago
I disagree. Unless the maintainer refuses to accept pull request adding new feature/fixing the issue, there is nothing wrong about working primary on things that concern the maintainer. Maintainer is not some sort of slave who must rush to fulfil every wish of the user.
fourthark 7y ago
> "squat" on something you wrote for fun at some point, promote it until it is widely used, and then refuse to work on it anymore until people pay you because they can't use anything else. Does that happen? Sounds pretty extreme, I hope you are exaggerating.