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There's some expansion that can be done on that third option. Even if I'm not very invested in a project, I'd be happy to mention a bug if it were easy to do. B

There's some expansion that can be done on that third option. Even if I'm not very invested in a project, I'd be happy to mention a bug if it were easy to do. But my experience has been that, if I report the bug, I'm going to start getting asked for details about my system, and asked to try a bunch of things to try and sort out the reproduction steps, and possibly even have maintainers getting frustrated with me if I don't want to fix the problem myself. Consequently, my unofficial policy is that, for an open source project, I'm generally not going to bother to report a bug unless I'm also planning to fix it myself. The author is right, though, being super up-front about welcoming issues might help break the ice a little.

account42 7y ago
> There's some expansion that can be done on that third option. Even if I'm not very invested in a project, I'd be happy to mention a bug if it were easy to do. But my experience has been that, if I report the bug, I'm going to start getting asked for details about my system, and asked to try a bunch of things to try and sort out the reproduction steps, and possibly even have maintainers getting frustrated with me if I don't want to fix the problem myself. A quality bug report should include system details and detailed reproduction steps. Expecting "something didn't work for me" to leat to a fix is unreasonable, especially when you expect unpaid vonlunteers to do the work.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  And there, I think, is the rub. So many open source projects see bug reports as something of a zero sum game, where simply mentioning that something isn't working quite right is seen as being a sponge. I think that's a sad culture, but I go along with it. Hence the policy of not even bothering to report bugs I'm not prepared to fix. The reason that's sad is that it creates a culture where, as the author of TFA describes, critical bugs that severely hinder the project's popularity by rendering it unusable to many users might go undetected by the project's maintainer(s) for a very long time. Because it creates a situation where potentially every single person who encounters the bug will decide that the path of least resistance is to quietly go find something else to do without bothering to mention that there's a problem. It's almost like a sort of cultural prisoner's dilemma. If we're all charitable and try to give each other the benefit of the doubt, we'd probably collectively be a lot happier and more productive. But the presence of a significant subset of people who take a more stand-offish attitude means that everyone's optimal strategy is to be a little bit stand-offish, for better or for worse.

account42 7y ago

> There's some expansion that can be done on that third option. Even if I'm not very invested in a project, I'd be happy to mention a bug if it were easy to do. But my experience has been that, if I report the bug, I'm going to start getting asked for details about my system, and asked to try a bunch of things to try and sort out the reproduction steps, and possibly even have maintainers getting frustrated with me if I don't want to fix the problem myself. A quality bug report should include system details and detailed reproduction steps. Expecting "something didn't work for me" to leat to a fix is unreasonable, especially when you expect unpaid vonlunteers to do the work.

mumblemumble 7y ago
And there, I think, is the rub. So many open source projects see bug reports as something of a zero sum game, where simply mentioning that something isn't working quite right is seen as being a sponge. I think that's a sad culture, but I go along with it. Hence the policy of not even bothering to report bugs I'm not prepared to fix. The reason that's sad is that it creates a culture where, as the author of TFA describes, critical bugs that severely hinder the project's popularity by rendering it unusable to many users might go undetected by the project's maintainer(s) for a very long time. Because it creates a situation where potentially every single person who encounters the bug will decide that the path of least resistance is to quietly go find something else to do without bothering to mention that there's a problem. It's almost like a sort of cultural prisoner's dilemma. If we're all charitable and try to give each other the benefit of the doubt, we'd probably collectively be a lot happier and more productive. But the presence of a significant subset of people who take a more stand-offish attitude means that everyone's optimal strategy is to be a little bit stand-offish, for better or for worse.