4 ms·

YES to user empowerment.

by weikju 6y ago

mlyle 6y ago
YES to shipping something that's broken for many people, but that at least 1 in 1000 of them will dig up some esoteric knowledge, patch and recompile packages that many others depend upon, and "fix it"?
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > YES to shipping something that's broken for many people, but that at least 1 in 1000 of them will dig up some esoteric knowledge, patch and recompile packages that many others depend upon, and "fix it"? All software is broken in some way, so everyone says yes to shipping something that's broken. All things considered, it's not an important feature, especially considering it has a work-around. They have have the ticket for the issue and it's on a backlog. As with all software projects, they have to triage bugs, prioritize their work and allocate resources. The awesome thing about open source is that anyone can create a patch for the fix, and resolve it for everyone. Compare this to some Apple Radar bugs that are old enough to vote, but only Apple employees can fix.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Sure, but the impact here is pretty massive. Pointing to a workaround that most people won't find and that takes developer knowledge to employ is of limited value to most users, but in the open source community is often used as an excuse to ignore what would otherwise be high priority bugs.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      > ...but in the open source community is often used as an excuse to ignore what would otherwise be high priority bugs. Key word here is community - it's not just up to the maintainers and regular contributors (who may already be overtaxed with both their day jobs and managing the software project for no pay). Users who have a particularly urgent itch to scratch have to step up - if they're not technical, perhaps put a bounty on the fix so someone else is financially motivated to fix it. Abusing (IMO) maintainers by screaming at them to hurry-up-and-fix-it is not helpful, especially since they are volunteering their free time.

YES to user empowerment.

by weikju 6y ago

YES to user empowerment.

YES to shipping something that's broken for many people, but that at least 1 in 1000 of them will dig up some esoteric knowledge, patch and recompile packages that many others depend upon, and "fix it"?

sangnoir 6y ago
> YES to shipping something that's broken for many people, but that at least 1 in 1000 of them will dig up some esoteric knowledge, patch and recompile packages that many others depend upon, and "fix it"? All software is broken in some way, so everyone says yes to shipping something that's broken. All things considered, it's not an important feature, especially considering it has a work-around. They have have the ticket for the issue and it's on a backlog. As with all software projects, they have to triage bugs, prioritize their work and allocate resources. The awesome thing about open source is that anyone can create a patch for the fix, and resolve it for everyone. Compare this to some Apple Radar bugs that are old enough to vote, but only Apple employees can fix.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Sure, but the impact here is pretty massive. Pointing to a workaround that most people won't find and that takes developer knowledge to employ is of limited value to most users, but in the open source community is often used as an excuse to ignore what would otherwise be high priority bugs.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > ...but in the open source community is often used as an excuse to ignore what would otherwise be high priority bugs. Key word here is community - it's not just up to the maintainers and regular contributors (who may already be overtaxed with both their day jobs and managing the software project for no pay). Users who have a particularly urgent itch to scratch have to step up - if they're not technical, perhaps put a bounty on the fix so someone else is financially motivated to fix it. Abusing (IMO) maintainers by screaming at them to hurry-up-and-fix-it is not helpful, especially since they are volunteering their free time.