3 ms·

Good luck convincing a commercial software developer to apply the changes you want. It's rare that a company, commercial or not, changes software because of wha

Good luck convincing a commercial software developer to apply the changes you want. It's rare that a company, commercial or not, changes software because of what customers want (marketing department koolaid doesn't apply). Developers know best, even when they don't, because they're the ones doing the actual work. But in the FOSS ecosystem you have: i) the freedom to do the changes yourself ii) the freedom to offer help with design, documentation, ideas iii) a public bug tracking and issues manager Let me know when you can do this commercially. On a tangent: it is indeed a crime to use commercial software when there are libre alternatives; every use moves the needle one tick deeper towards Eternal September

simonh 6y ago
Is it also a crime to create and sell software, even if that's the only path available to you that will result in the product you see a need for?
- tomcooks 6y ago
  You answered yourself with your own question, best regards
magicalhippo 6y ago
> Developers know best, even when they don't, because they're the ones doing the actual work. For me, a large part of the fun of being a developer is enabling others to do stuff they otherwise couldn't. As such we absolutely entertain feature requests and similar, and implement a lot of them. When sales come back from a sales presentation laughing and telling of jaws hitting the floor, it's almost always due to features that started as a suggestion from one of our users. Very often though the feature requests are trying to solve XY problems. Often there's a better route to achieving what the user wants, which almost always is some way of avoiding redundant work or other workflow simplifications. Us devs often do know best when it comes to edge cases and limitations, and about other use-cases that this particular user haven't considered. However most requests are born from something real, so we will usually inquire what the user is after, in an effort to determine the impact and alternate routes. I might even contact other customers who I know use that module or have a similar work flow and ask them what they think. And based on that implement changes that make the program better not just for that user but for all our customers.

simonh 6y ago

Is it also a crime to create and sell software, even if that's the only path available to you that will result in the product you see a need for?

tomcooks 6y ago
You answered yourself with your own question, best regards

magicalhippo 6y ago

> Developers know best, even when they don't, because they're the ones doing the actual work. For me, a large part of the fun of being a developer is enabling others to do stuff they otherwise couldn't. As such we absolutely entertain feature requests and similar, and implement a lot of them. When sales come back from a sales presentation laughing and telling of jaws hitting the floor, it's almost always due to features that started as a suggestion from one of our users. Very often though the feature requests are trying to solve XY problems. Often there's a better route to achieving what the user wants, which almost always is some way of avoiding redundant work or other workflow simplifications. Us devs often do know best when it comes to edge cases and limitations, and about other use-cases that this particular user haven't considered. However most requests are born from something real, so we will usually inquire what the user is after, in an effort to determine the impact and alternate routes. I might even contact other customers who I know use that module or have a similar work flow and ask them what they think. And based on that implement changes that make the program better not just for that user but for all our customers.