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While I know the maintainer of an open source project has no real obligations to random developers, I have also spent a lot of time struggling with getting open
by InfiniteRand 6y ago
While I know the maintainer of an open source project has no real obligations to random developers, I have also spent a lot of time struggling with getting open source projects to work as advertised in the documentation. So I can understand the frustrations that users might have. But that is a reason to be careful in the projects you use, not to harass the developers.
My rule of thumb is not to pick up random open source projects unless I am confident they have a stable user base and some active maintenance. I may take code from a random open source project if I understand it well, but I'm not going to rely on some packaged solution unless I know that their is some community behind it.
- cpfohl 6y agoI think that third option is my primary one. For small dependencies I'll often use code by copying the relevant source into my project with links back to the original source. It forces me to understand the code base better. Usually I find I can fix the issue. _Sometimes_ i contribute it back.
- cpfohl 6y agoContributing code back is tricky for a lot of the same reasons that leaving your open source repo's issue track open is...fwiw I don't use code with licenses that require contributing back.