10 ms·

God forbid you disturb the automatic tests of a company who's using your software without giving you anything in return.

• 1_player 5y ago
  How do you know they aren't giving anything in return?
  • scrollaway 5y ago
    You'd know if they were. Thus if you don't, they aren't.
    • ozkatz 5y ago
      If they're paying for support or using RHEL (which employs many linux maintainers and contributors), how would I know?
      • scrollaway 5y ago
        Sounds like you wouldn't find out about their issue via a stackoverflow question then, but rather via the support channel they're paying for.
        • detaro 5y ago
          Especially for non-priority issues, community resources are often more effective than paid "support channels".
          • scrollaway 5y ago
            You're kinda answering your own question here aren't you?
            • detaro 5y ago
              No. Paying for/supporting open projects makes sense for lots of reasons, just "I get to submit tiny questions" isn't usually one of them.
    • detaro 5y ago
      You know the contributions of every Stack Overflow commenter and their employer? impressive, how do you do that?
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • scrollaway 5y ago
        Okay, riddle me this: I work in a restaurant. I hand a bill to my customers. They leave without paying. But actually, how do I know they haven't paid? Maybe they gave the restaurant money ahead of time when I wasn't around, or they paid secretly behind my back... Or they just haven't paid their bill and i don't need to dig into it further. i ask them. If they paid, they'll let me know. If they have, I'll know. If I don't know, they likely haven't. If they have anyway, they'll tell me.
        • detaro 5y ago
          When I go ask questions on Stack Overflow I don't usually go "btw I work for XYZ, we are maintainers of A/B/C and contribute to D/E/F/G/H", no, because it's not relevant. Even though the maintainers of Linux tools very likely use at least one of A-H.
          • scrollaway 5y ago
            You're completely missing the point of my post(s). If you're contributing back to the software somehow, you'll have a more direct line to the developers. I've worked around, with and in open source nearly two decades, I've never seen this not be the case for anyone whose contributions weren't insignificant. If your issue is anything but trivial, you'll be going through channels where it is in fact obvious you have contributed back. Not stack overflow. For this issue it absolutely applies. If you can prove to me that the original poster/company has significantly contributed to the utility in question, I'll buy you a pizza. Your choice of toppings.
            • 5y ago
• random_70398 5y ago
  It's the everlasting battle: "Having fun with Open Source" vs. "scrum certifications"
• AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  FOSS software wants to be taken seriously, until they have to deal with the real world, then it's all "hey man, what do you expect for free?".
  • globular-toast 5y ago
    I don't think software is capable of wanting anything. As a FOSS user the less "seriousness" the better. Life is just more fun with jokes. I love that I can build "sudo" with an option to have it insult me when I get my password wrong. Who wants to live a serious life?
  • JohnFen 5y ago
    Plenty of commercial software contain easter eggs as well.
    • chris_wot 5y ago
      I worked for a company where a developer put a dirty limerick in a UI control, activated by a keystone sequence. They also turned on output tracing via another keystroke sequence. During a presentation, one of the consultants needed to turn on tracing in front of a VERY large multinational client (heavens knows why, it was in front of C-suite execs…). They hit the wrong keystroke, and up popped the limerick - on a large projector, in front of the CEO. Don’t put in Easter eggs.
      • JohnFen 5y ago
        I'm not saying putting easter eggs in is a good practice, only that it's not rare. I think with pretty much every company I've worked for, putting in easter eggs was specifically forbidden. And, in every company, they were put in anyway -- they just had to be sneaky enough to pass through code review undetected (which, I think, improved the quality of them!)
      • oxguy3 5y ago
        The lesson I take from that story is you should avoid dirty easter eggs, but innocent silly ones still seem fine to me.
• op00to 5y ago
  What does the automatic test EVEN DO?