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The open source definition talks a lot about how source code is available. It doesn't talk about being able to contact the author. The one aspect I'd change as

The open source definition talks a lot about how source code is available. It doesn't talk about being able to contact the author. The one aspect I'd change as the author is to not host the project on github because that platform seems to suggest a focus on being able to send stuff (patches, issues, ...) around and get reactions (for example it's impossible to disable the pull request UI). But that's a characteristic of GitHub not of Open Source.

x0x0 7y ago
I strongly suspect bachmeier maintains no open source, or at least nothing widely used. Anyone who does knows the emails that land in your inbox demanding things. Reading and categorizing for response 10-50 emails a day has it's own real costs, including the mental ones from getting home from work and then dealing with assholes, even if you do nothing more than hit block. Responding, even if it's a handful a day, is quite expensive. Let alone when you have 10k active users a day. It doesn't take many contacting you to create a serious time cost.
- bachmeier 7y ago
  Not a difficult problem to solve at all... If you're capable of maintaining an open source project, you should be able to set up an email template. And if you're really so busy that you can't be bothered to do that, then put a message on your site telling users that the project is frozen, so you won't respond to email requests. But silence, that's something you do because you want to feel important. Completely unacceptable.
  - fadzlan 7y ago
    Being nice is not scalable when you are dealing with potentially the whole world. It's like any celebrity with a twitter handle, they now have to have template twitter reply or its not acceptable? It's one thing when you have to deal with the support cases in your company when there is hard limit on how many people will be in touch with you. When you are releasing things to the world, there is no such limit. It can be one, it can be one thousand. I too would like to have something open source one day, if I have something that I think can benefit people. I may not have time to respond to people, given my life and my health, so because of that I should not contribute? And if I did contribute in such circumstances, it is completely unacceptable?
  - tastroder 7y ago
    > then put a message on your site telling users that the project is frozen, so you won't respond to email requests. You're literally writing this under a blog post detailing exactly that and it's also clear from the documentation of the project. What is your complaint here? That he potentially doesn't reply to every single e-mail?

x0x0 7y ago

I strongly suspect bachmeier maintains no open source, or at least nothing widely used. Anyone who does knows the emails that land in your inbox demanding things. Reading and categorizing for response 10-50 emails a day has it's own real costs, including the mental ones from getting home from work and then dealing with assholes, even if you do nothing more than hit block. Responding, even if it's a handful a day, is quite expensive. Let alone when you have 10k active users a day. It doesn't take many contacting you to create a serious time cost.

bachmeier 7y ago
Not a difficult problem to solve at all... If you're capable of maintaining an open source project, you should be able to set up an email template. And if you're really so busy that you can't be bothered to do that, then put a message on your site telling users that the project is frozen, so you won't respond to email requests. But silence, that's something you do because you want to feel important. Completely unacceptable.
- fadzlan 7y ago
  Being nice is not scalable when you are dealing with potentially the whole world. It's like any celebrity with a twitter handle, they now have to have template twitter reply or its not acceptable? It's one thing when you have to deal with the support cases in your company when there is hard limit on how many people will be in touch with you. When you are releasing things to the world, there is no such limit. It can be one, it can be one thousand. I too would like to have something open source one day, if I have something that I think can benefit people. I may not have time to respond to people, given my life and my health, so because of that I should not contribute? And if I did contribute in such circumstances, it is completely unacceptable?
- tastroder 7y ago
  > then put a message on your site telling users that the project is frozen, so you won't respond to email requests. You're literally writing this under a blog post detailing exactly that and it's also clear from the documentation of the project. What is your complaint here? That he potentially doesn't reply to every single e-mail?