17 ms·

They can; but they shouldn't expect a life free of complaints. Commercial software, like most things in life, is responsive to incentives. The people who buy t

They can; but they shouldn't expect a life free of complaints. Commercial software, like most things in life, is responsive to incentives. The people who buy things get the most say in the product. For open source where the end users aren't buying anything, and the developers are either creating product for their own gratification, or for some more nebulous corporate goal, the incentives are rather indirect. And that makes a big difference. Software, under those conditions, will frankly be worse for the majority of users.

foldr 6y ago
>but they shouldn't expect a life free of complaints. This seems to be the dominant culture, but it's actually pretty toxic that people feel entitled to whine about software created by people who owe them absolutely nothing. Constructive feedback is useful, and appropriate if the creator indicates that they want it. Whining and ranting is a waste of energy. It makes people feel bad and leads to no beneficial change. I don't think Drew DeVault wrote this because he's received lots of useful constructive feedback.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  "people who owe them absolutely nothing" What makes you think people owe nothing to each other in the open source ecosystem? I maintain a package for Fedora, I have submitted a few patches to the Linux Kernel, and I regularly report bugs. Do the Wayland developers not benefit from any of the above? Even my mother, who is not very technical, has managed to identify bugs here and there which I report on her behalf. Do the Gnome developers not benefit from that? We cannot all be contributors to every package we use, but we are all part of an ecosystem and we all have the right to ask for changes by others in that ecosystem. You call it whining, but you know what? When developers break use cases, users have the right to complain about it. If the Wayland developers do not want to hear those complaints, they should not be involved in developing software that millions of people depend on, nor should they have tried to replace software that millions of people depend on.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Giving a project feedback does not impose any obligation on the maintainers of that project to help you – even if they find the feedback useful. In general, it's rude (and ineffective) to try to unilaterally impose non-trivial obligations on people without getting their prior agreement. Actual contributions are another matter. If you contribute to a project, then sure, you should get a say proportional to the size of your contribution. And I wonder how many of the people who complain about Wayland have made sizeable contributions? An important point here is that it's up to the maintainers to evaluate the value of your contributions from their point of view. If you don't respect this, you're again trying to impose obligations unilaterally. That is, offering help that may not really have been wanted in the first place and then expecting something in return. >If the Wayland developers do not want to hear those complaints, they should not be involved in developing software that millions of people depend on, nor should they have tried to replace software that millions of people depend on. This seems way off base to me. I hope this attitude is not pervasive because it seems like it's a huge discouragement to people who want to write useful software. (If you succeed to any degree, millions of people are automatically entitled to shout at you whenever they experience some inconvenience.)
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      "I wonder how many of the people who complain about Wayland have made sizeable contributions?" How many people asked for their distro to switch to Wayland? You seem to think that these critical packages that millions of people depend on can be treated like hobbyist projects. Yes, when your project is a hobby, you can tell people that their complaints are not your problem and that they should just fork the code if they need something different. However, distros should not make hobbyist projects core components that users are unable to avoid, nor should anyone push their hobbyist project as a replacement for a core component. The fact is that the Wayland developers set out to replace X11. In what world are they not opening themselves to criticism from people whose use-case was supported by Xorg but not supported by Wayland? By now a decision made by the Wayland maintainers will affect the vast majority of desktop Linux users; why should they be immune from complaints? When people depend on your software you have to deal with their complaints, that is just a fact.
- barrkel 6y ago
  > This seems to be the dominant culture, but it's actually pretty toxic that people feel entitled to whine about software created by people who owe them absolutely nothing. I don't think that's quite right. It's certainly bad manners to be rude, but the underlying complaints are one of the better - if not best - means by which the people who make the software can get feedback to ensure they're building the right thing. Would you invest in a startup whose founders constantly complained about how their potential users whined about their product? Aside from auxiliary revenue sources like complements and consulting, open source software has value in large proportion to how many people use it. Reputation and goodwill, if nothing else, bragging rights, job opportunities, and so on. You don't get these things from writing software than isn't used. And you can't really expect everyone to provide constructive feedback. Often, the more emotional the rant, the more pain the user is feeling. Not all humans are dispassionate rational agents. Not every user is a professional product manager able to outline constructive incremental improvements to satisfy requirements. And it's silly to expect that. Product managers are paid well in industry to do this. Doing it for free for open source is just as much a donation. I'll go further. If you're not willing to tolerate more and more rants as your software gets more popular, to the point that you end up not contributing or quitting, it might be better if you didn't start. Abandoned and decaying software hurts too, and it especially hurts the people who took a bet on it. (I learned my lesson young. I created a few bits and pieces of open source, and quickly found the the effort of integrating the contributions of third parties more work than it was worth. The only way I'd do open source again is as a developer outreach / organization halo PR strategy for the benefit of a company I'm being well compensated to work for.)
  - foldr 6y ago
    I think we’re talking largely at cross purposes. It might be a good idea for maintainers of open source projects to listen to all feedback. However, nothing obliges them to do so, and you’re not entitled to be angry with them if they don’t. If someone relies on a piece of open source software on the assumption that it will be maintained in perpetua for free, then they’re simply foolish, and they have only themselves to blame for any resulting harm. > Not all humans are dispassionate rational agents You seem to be forgetting that this applies just as much to the people who maintain open source projects. The endless negativity inevitably has an effect.

foldr 6y ago

>but they shouldn't expect a life free of complaints. This seems to be the dominant culture, but it's actually pretty toxic that people feel entitled to whine about software created by people who owe them absolutely nothing. Constructive feedback is useful, and appropriate if the creator indicates that they want it. Whining and ranting is a waste of energy. It makes people feel bad and leads to no beneficial change. I don't think Drew DeVault wrote this because he's received lots of useful constructive feedback.

betterunix2 6y ago
"people who owe them absolutely nothing" What makes you think people owe nothing to each other in the open source ecosystem? I maintain a package for Fedora, I have submitted a few patches to the Linux Kernel, and I regularly report bugs. Do the Wayland developers not benefit from any of the above? Even my mother, who is not very technical, has managed to identify bugs here and there which I report on her behalf. Do the Gnome developers not benefit from that? We cannot all be contributors to every package we use, but we are all part of an ecosystem and we all have the right to ask for changes by others in that ecosystem. You call it whining, but you know what? When developers break use cases, users have the right to complain about it. If the Wayland developers do not want to hear those complaints, they should not be involved in developing software that millions of people depend on, nor should they have tried to replace software that millions of people depend on.
- foldr 6y ago
  Giving a project feedback does not impose any obligation on the maintainers of that project to help you – even if they find the feedback useful. In general, it's rude (and ineffective) to try to unilaterally impose non-trivial obligations on people without getting their prior agreement. Actual contributions are another matter. If you contribute to a project, then sure, you should get a say proportional to the size of your contribution. And I wonder how many of the people who complain about Wayland have made sizeable contributions? An important point here is that it's up to the maintainers to evaluate the value of your contributions from their point of view. If you don't respect this, you're again trying to impose obligations unilaterally. That is, offering help that may not really have been wanted in the first place and then expecting something in return. >If the Wayland developers do not want to hear those complaints, they should not be involved in developing software that millions of people depend on, nor should they have tried to replace software that millions of people depend on. This seems way off base to me. I hope this attitude is not pervasive because it seems like it's a huge discouragement to people who want to write useful software. (If you succeed to any degree, millions of people are automatically entitled to shout at you whenever they experience some inconvenience.)
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    "I wonder how many of the people who complain about Wayland have made sizeable contributions?" How many people asked for their distro to switch to Wayland? You seem to think that these critical packages that millions of people depend on can be treated like hobbyist projects. Yes, when your project is a hobby, you can tell people that their complaints are not your problem and that they should just fork the code if they need something different. However, distros should not make hobbyist projects core components that users are unable to avoid, nor should anyone push their hobbyist project as a replacement for a core component. The fact is that the Wayland developers set out to replace X11. In what world are they not opening themselves to criticism from people whose use-case was supported by Xorg but not supported by Wayland? By now a decision made by the Wayland maintainers will affect the vast majority of desktop Linux users; why should they be immune from complaints? When people depend on your software you have to deal with their complaints, that is just a fact.
barrkel 6y ago
> This seems to be the dominant culture, but it's actually pretty toxic that people feel entitled to whine about software created by people who owe them absolutely nothing. I don't think that's quite right. It's certainly bad manners to be rude, but the underlying complaints are one of the better - if not best - means by which the people who make the software can get feedback to ensure they're building the right thing. Would you invest in a startup whose founders constantly complained about how their potential users whined about their product? Aside from auxiliary revenue sources like complements and consulting, open source software has value in large proportion to how many people use it. Reputation and goodwill, if nothing else, bragging rights, job opportunities, and so on. You don't get these things from writing software than isn't used. And you can't really expect everyone to provide constructive feedback. Often, the more emotional the rant, the more pain the user is feeling. Not all humans are dispassionate rational agents. Not every user is a professional product manager able to outline constructive incremental improvements to satisfy requirements. And it's silly to expect that. Product managers are paid well in industry to do this. Doing it for free for open source is just as much a donation. I'll go further. If you're not willing to tolerate more and more rants as your software gets more popular, to the point that you end up not contributing or quitting, it might be better if you didn't start. Abandoned and decaying software hurts too, and it especially hurts the people who took a bet on it. (I learned my lesson young. I created a few bits and pieces of open source, and quickly found the the effort of integrating the contributions of third parties more work than it was worth. The only way I'd do open source again is as a developer outreach / organization halo PR strategy for the benefit of a company I'm being well compensated to work for.)
- foldr 6y ago
  I think we’re talking largely at cross purposes. It might be a good idea for maintainers of open source projects to listen to all feedback. However, nothing obliges them to do so, and you’re not entitled to be angry with them if they don’t. If someone relies on a piece of open source software on the assumption that it will be maintained in perpetua for free, then they’re simply foolish, and they have only themselves to blame for any resulting harm. > Not all humans are dispassionate rational agents You seem to be forgetting that this applies just as much to the people who maintain open source projects. The endless negativity inevitably has an effect.