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I don't think it's a hard and fast rule of course, there's always context. If it's one hobbyist asking another, nicely and without expecting anything, fine. I

I don't think it's a hard and fast rule of course, there's always context. If it's one hobbyist asking another, nicely and without expecting anything, fine. If it is an engineer asking nicely because it would help them do their work better... sorry, but that's asking one dev to improve the balance sheet of the other's employer. That's one of the distinctions I'd make.

jefftk 6y ago
Here's a random simple request I got on icdiff: https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff/issues/136 https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff/issues/136 "ptzz: I would be nice with a new release so that options in .gitconfig works." I have no idea who ptzz is, and it really doesn't matter to me whether they're a hobbyist playing around or at a company using icdiff for paid work. Either way, I was happy for a friendly reminder that I hadn't done a release in a while and that there were people looking forward to one.
- alangibson 6y ago
  This isn't a great example since dropping a new release is pretty trivial, but consider the counterfactual where you're having trouble paying rent and you do know that ptzz is a highly placed engineer at a Fortune 500 company. A little compensation starts to sound like a good idea.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    I have no objection to people working on open source saying that they require payment to make changes. I think anyone who gets obnoxious and entitled in response to such a request is being a jerk. I have a strong objection to the suggestion that this be socially required. If people felt that it was unethical to make a feature request or report a bug without offering payment, most people would not make feature requests or file bugs, and we would all miss out.
    - alangibson 6y ago
      > report a bug I explicitly excluded bug reports in an earlier draft because those aren't generally considered 'changes', but rather fixes to previous changes. Looks like I should have left that in.
      - jefftk 6y ago
        I think I still don't understand how you're thinking about it. When I report a bug or file a feature request, it seems to me that you would say I am asking the author to do some unpaid labor. That is, I am asking them to fix the bug or to add my feature. A bug report is requesting a fix to previous changes, yes, but isn't it still, in your view, a request for something in exchange for nothing? If you fix a bug for me, "you pay a hefty cost in time while my cost remains 0", no?
        black_puppydog 6y ago
        However, other people, including the author, stand to gain from fixing a bug in features they use. But of course there is blur there too; some bugs will require significant work and only benefit some small group of users. And sure you can still report those, but then you should (in my personal ideal world) not be surprised to hear "this will only matter if you're running this on enterprise scale, so wontfix unless paid to do so."

jefftk 6y ago

Here's a random simple request I got on icdiff: https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff/issues/136 https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff/issues/136 "ptzz: I would be nice with a new release so that options in .gitconfig works." I have no idea who ptzz is, and it really doesn't matter to me whether they're a hobbyist playing around or at a company using icdiff for paid work. Either way, I was happy for a friendly reminder that I hadn't done a release in a while and that there were people looking forward to one.

alangibson 6y ago
This isn't a great example since dropping a new release is pretty trivial, but consider the counterfactual where you're having trouble paying rent and you do know that ptzz is a highly placed engineer at a Fortune 500 company. A little compensation starts to sound like a good idea.
- jefftk 6y ago
  I have no objection to people working on open source saying that they require payment to make changes. I think anyone who gets obnoxious and entitled in response to such a request is being a jerk. I have a strong objection to the suggestion that this be socially required. If people felt that it was unethical to make a feature request or report a bug without offering payment, most people would not make feature requests or file bugs, and we would all miss out.
  - alangibson 6y ago
    > report a bug I explicitly excluded bug reports in an earlier draft because those aren't generally considered 'changes', but rather fixes to previous changes. Looks like I should have left that in.
    - jefftk 6y ago
      I think I still don't understand how you're thinking about it. When I report a bug or file a feature request, it seems to me that you would say I am asking the author to do some unpaid labor. That is, I am asking them to fix the bug or to add my feature. A bug report is requesting a fix to previous changes, yes, but isn't it still, in your view, a request for something in exchange for nothing? If you fix a bug for me, "you pay a hefty cost in time while my cost remains 0", no?
      - black_puppydog 6y ago
        However, other people, including the author, stand to gain from fixing a bug in features they use. But of course there is blur there too; some bugs will require significant work and only benefit some small group of users. And sure you can still report those, but then you should (in my personal ideal world) not be surprised to hear "this will only matter if you're running this on enterprise scale, so wontfix unless paid to do so."