4 ms·
The author brings up some rather salient points and supports with compelling examples; I think the compelling points they raise about writing FOSS are: 1. The
by dleslie 5y ago
The author brings up some rather salient points and supports with compelling examples; I think the compelling points they raise about writing FOSS are:
1. The work _will_ be stolen, in parts or in whole as proprietary software, if it has commercial value.
2. You are unlikely to be adequately compensated for the value of your efforts.
3. The vocal users are often the least thankful, most entitled, and most offensive.
So unless you feel a moral obligation to support and create FOSS, or you're comfortable with the aforementioned three concerns, then it is probably not amenable to your mental health to be developing FOSS.
- Teknoman117 5y agoHonestly, 3 is the one that bothers me the most out of that list. People being irritating and entitled about something that's free (as in beer) is beyond frustrating.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoOn the upside, you literally do not owe them anything. Even with rude paying customers, I feel somewhat obligated to respond to support requests... but with FOSS you can tell them anything or nothing at all. Just block them instantly. Tell them you'll send a refund.
- capableweb 5y agoOut of those three, that one is also the easiest to fix (or at least, least effort to combat): don't reply to them, ignore them, kick them out from you community with a warning or simply ban them. Most communication tools support those patterns, use them if you find it draining. Just because you publish open source code doesn't mean you owe the users of that software anything.