7 ms·

Why would you feel bad? The whole point of open source is they could have done it themselves, if they wanted some integration they needed and you didn't. And t

Why would you feel bad? The whole point of open source is they could have done it themselves, if they wanted some integration they needed and you didn't. And then they could either contribute it back, fork your project or just keep it to themselves, if the license allows it. At any rate, you already helped them...

qu83rt 6y ago
Different people have wildly different ideas about what the point of open source is.
mattlondon 6y ago
People often act very entitled about open source I've found. You'll often get angry irate emails/issues raised demanding you help them or add a new feature or whatever. Some people are just clueless and need help, others are just dicks. It is often not worth the hassle in my opinion, but then everyone's circumstances and motivations are different and I am glad that a lot of people do think it is worth it.
- bartread 6y ago
  > People often act very entitled about open source I've found. It's interesting. For me there are at least two classes of open source. 1) Project with a single maintainer, or perhaps a small number of key people, nothing in the way of corporate backing, often worked on in spare time, but which can still be very popular and widely used. I always think back to the example of NDoc, which was a great tool for taking raw XML doc comments from .NET code and turning them into beautiful Javadoc-style HTML documentation. It worked incredibly well for .NET 1.x but the .NET 2 support was never finished because the author, Kevin Downs, received abuse and threats via mail-bomb due to it not being ready "fast enough" for some people. Understandable he decided to quit and, as far as I'm aware, not a peep has been heard from him since in terms of OSS contributions. The way Kevin was treated, and the way other OSS maintainers have been treated by both individuals and corporations, is absolutely despicable and completely unacceptable. 2) Corporate backed OSS projects that are actively evangelised: projects like .NET Core, Node, npm, TypeScript, React, Angular. You might even think of something like Firefox in this category since, although Mozilla is a foundation, it's substantially funded by corporate sponsors (mainly Google?), has full time employees paid to work on the products, etc. Some of these might at times have been considered open source in name only: i.e., source code is absolutely available, but there is little or no way for most people outside of the sponsoring organisation to meaningfully contribute. With these I take a slightly different attitude, and I certainly expect sponsoring organisations to take more responsibility for the projects. If you're actively evangelising people to use a project (and especially if you've succeeded in recruiting large numbers of people to use your project), and you're not giving them much opportunity to contribute, then absolutely you need to take responsibility for making sure the project is supported appropriately. That might even include paid support options. And I suppose perhaps these represent the extremes of a spectrum (perhaps - I don't claim to have this absolutely right, by any means). Clearly there are a lot of people who would disagree with me on both sides. E.g., people who think every open source project should be like (2) and that all authors bear an equal responsibility for supporting their code. On the flipside, since I've been flamed on this before, I know there are people who think I'm a walking manifestation of all human evil because I've suggested that any open source project might perhaps fall into category (2). Fundamentally though I think your point stands: a lot of people behave in a way that's very entitled towards individual maintainers of OSS projects. As you say, depending on your circumstances, often not worth the hassle.
- ljm 6y ago
  If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165 https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165
  - guygurari 6y ago
    I don’t doubt it, but covid-sim is not the best example of this effect. In this case, people are worried that poorly written simulation code is informing policy decisions that affect billions of people. They are not demanding that it should be fixed, they are demanding that it should not be relied on in its current state.
    - ohgodplsno 6y ago
      Dunning-Kruger powered software developers with beliefs that they are in any way qualified to say that mathematical simulations checked by dozens of actual scientists with PhDs are not valid ask that results are ignored because there's no unit tests.
      - 1000units 6y ago
        It's funny that none of these people has produced a failing test.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      They're worried that there isn't testing code to prove that it's correct. If it's proven correct in other ways, it doesn't need unit tests. Yeah, the code's bad – so what? It wasn't written by programmers. Most simulation code is bad, but if it's been proven correct it doesn't need to be good. From what I can tell, this is a matter of conflicting conventions in different fields meeting head-on.
      - guygurari 6y ago
        To be clear, I am not arguing for or against the validity of the claims regarding covid-sim. I am only saying that this is not a good example of the effect where people feel entitled to get open source code that fits their needs.
- Haga 6y ago
  Because the open source model is to lie about the state of the project. And to hope that the flood of fools like me fix it..
- danjac 6y ago
  The funniest ones are those who need your thing for their professional work, yet treat you as if you were a fully paid contractor at their beck and call.
- Max_aaa 6y ago
  I have a very simple Firefox extension that inverts the colors of sites, I wrote it as I needed something that would just give me dark themed web pages when my baby was asleep next to me. You would not believe some of the reviews and requests (ultimatums) I got.
austincheney 6y ago
> is they could have done it themselves Absolutely, but that is often not the expectation. When I have pointed this out in the past people have gotten hysterically angry demonstrating a degree of entitlement. The mere mention they could do it themselves or submit a pull request has been regarded as a hostile personal insult like declaring war or perhaps worse than making sexually profane and racial commentary about their spouse.

qu83rt 6y ago

Different people have wildly different ideas about what the point of open source is.

mattlondon 6y ago

People often act very entitled about open source I've found. You'll often get angry irate emails/issues raised demanding you help them or add a new feature or whatever. Some people are just clueless and need help, others are just dicks. It is often not worth the hassle in my opinion, but then everyone's circumstances and motivations are different and I am glad that a lot of people do think it is worth it.

bartread 6y ago
> People often act very entitled about open source I've found. It's interesting. For me there are at least two classes of open source. 1) Project with a single maintainer, or perhaps a small number of key people, nothing in the way of corporate backing, often worked on in spare time, but which can still be very popular and widely used. I always think back to the example of NDoc, which was a great tool for taking raw XML doc comments from .NET code and turning them into beautiful Javadoc-style HTML documentation. It worked incredibly well for .NET 1.x but the .NET 2 support was never finished because the author, Kevin Downs, received abuse and threats via mail-bomb due to it not being ready "fast enough" for some people. Understandable he decided to quit and, as far as I'm aware, not a peep has been heard from him since in terms of OSS contributions. The way Kevin was treated, and the way other OSS maintainers have been treated by both individuals and corporations, is absolutely despicable and completely unacceptable. 2) Corporate backed OSS projects that are actively evangelised: projects like .NET Core, Node, npm, TypeScript, React, Angular. You might even think of something like Firefox in this category since, although Mozilla is a foundation, it's substantially funded by corporate sponsors (mainly Google?), has full time employees paid to work on the products, etc. Some of these might at times have been considered open source in name only: i.e., source code is absolutely available, but there is little or no way for most people outside of the sponsoring organisation to meaningfully contribute. With these I take a slightly different attitude, and I certainly expect sponsoring organisations to take more responsibility for the projects. If you're actively evangelising people to use a project (and especially if you've succeeded in recruiting large numbers of people to use your project), and you're not giving them much opportunity to contribute, then absolutely you need to take responsibility for making sure the project is supported appropriately. That might even include paid support options. And I suppose perhaps these represent the extremes of a spectrum (perhaps - I don't claim to have this absolutely right, by any means). Clearly there are a lot of people who would disagree with me on both sides. E.g., people who think every open source project should be like (2) and that all authors bear an equal responsibility for supporting their code. On the flipside, since I've been flamed on this before, I know there are people who think I'm a walking manifestation of all human evil because I've suggested that any open source project might perhaps fall into category (2). Fundamentally though I think your point stands: a lot of people behave in a way that's very entitled towards individual maintainers of OSS projects. As you say, depending on your circumstances, often not worth the hassle.
ljm 6y ago
If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165 https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165
- guygurari 6y ago
  I don’t doubt it, but covid-sim is not the best example of this effect. In this case, people are worried that poorly written simulation code is informing policy decisions that affect billions of people. They are not demanding that it should be fixed, they are demanding that it should not be relied on in its current state.
  - ohgodplsno 6y ago
    Dunning-Kruger powered software developers with beliefs that they are in any way qualified to say that mathematical simulations checked by dozens of actual scientists with PhDs are not valid ask that results are ignored because there's no unit tests.
    - 1000units 6y ago
      It's funny that none of these people has produced a failing test.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    They're worried that there isn't testing code to prove that it's correct. If it's proven correct in other ways, it doesn't need unit tests. Yeah, the code's bad – so what? It wasn't written by programmers. Most simulation code is bad, but if it's been proven correct it doesn't need to be good. From what I can tell, this is a matter of conflicting conventions in different fields meeting head-on.
    - guygurari 6y ago
      To be clear, I am not arguing for or against the validity of the claims regarding covid-sim. I am only saying that this is not a good example of the effect where people feel entitled to get open source code that fits their needs.
Haga 6y ago
Because the open source model is to lie about the state of the project. And to hope that the flood of fools like me fix it..
danjac 6y ago
The funniest ones are those who need your thing for their professional work, yet treat you as if you were a fully paid contractor at their beck and call.
Max_aaa 6y ago
I have a very simple Firefox extension that inverts the colors of sites, I wrote it as I needed something that would just give me dark themed web pages when my baby was asleep next to me. You would not believe some of the reviews and requests (ultimatums) I got.

austincheney 6y ago

> is they could have done it themselves Absolutely, but that is often not the expectation. When I have pointed this out in the past people have gotten hysterically angry demonstrating a degree of entitlement. The mere mention they could do it themselves or submit a pull request has been regarded as a hostile personal insult like declaring war or perhaps worse than making sexually profane and racial commentary about their spouse.