4 ms·

You also get users which don't understand a thing and who send you tons of emails and want A++ personal support. Sell the same service for $$$ money and sudden

You also get users which don't understand a thing and who send you tons of emails and want A++ personal support. Sell the same service for $$$ money and suddenly the users (as a group) are a much nicer bunch. Offering "Free Software" is sometimes like working in retail.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Free software never meant free support, not even for the financial burden of providing source code. (Also why "libre software" is a better term.)
- aseipp 5y ago
  Go tell that to the people who shit all over the emails and bug trackers of free software developers. The rest of us are well aware.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    I mean the solution to that predates personal computers... https://kk.org/ct2/heinleins-fan-mail-solution/ https://kk.org/ct2/heinleins-fan-mail-solution/
    - aseipp 5y ago
      The original complaint was "demanding and petty users flood you and take up your time, through the same channels your good users do", and your solution seems to be "just go ahead and let them take up your time"? What, is Heinlein's Ghost going to pat me on the back if I do? The reality is there is no real "solution" to this problem; there is no solution to "people are annoying." The very premise is completely ill-formed and only possible in a framework that views all human interaction and behavior as completely mechanical. It's not all bad, though, working on free/libre software, and I'd be remiss to not mention that. Maybe I'm letting it hit too close to home and you're just saying it in jest. But anyone here pretending that you can "solve" these kinds of issues so easily are deluding themselves and telling on themselves at the same time, in my opinion.
      - BlueTemplar 5y ago
        > your solution seems to be "just go ahead and let them take up your time"? How did you get this from my link ?? I'm suggesting pre-made answers here to the most typical "time-wasters"...
svachalek 5y ago
I've seen this exact effect multiple times. It's really rather amazing, that no one expects as much as someone who's paid absolutely nothing for it. Kind of a divide by zero = infinity in the human firmware or something.
ddaalluu2 5y ago
- LandR 5y ago
  > Well to be fair, if you release something to the public you do have a certain responsibility. At least to provide a running configuration without the documentation being behind a payment. If it's free, you have zero responsibility. People can choose to use it or not, I don't think you even have a responsibility to keep it running. If you have a hundred thousand users and you decide tomorrow to just yank it from existence, that's absolutely fine too. It's free, no one forces you to use, don't expect anything. The maintainer might get bored with it, delete it, accidentally break it, or change it just for shits and giggles to fuck with people. It's fine. It's free.
- kortilla 5y ago
  Entitlement to the extreme. Nobody owes anybody anything by marking something as open source. Take some responsibility.
- icambron 5y ago
  This is very silly and I urge you to rethink this position. The software is free, it contains a very explicit warranty disclaimer, and the implicit social contract is that nobody owes anyone anything. There is no fraud here. If you download the code I posted to my GitHub account and try to do something with it, and it doesn’t work or you don’t understand it or I didn’t bother writing docs, that is in fact very much on you. Perhaps my software project has lots of docs and I’m super helpful to users, and it is therefore more likely to be popular, or perhaps it does not have those properties and will stay obscure, but either way it is your job to decide what free software to use, not mine to make it up to your standards. I have never seen paywalled OSS docs and it seems like a silly idea, but that doesn’t make it fraudulent or even bad. It just makes it perhaps inadvisable to use. Which again is on you.
jdrc 5y ago
Let's agree that it's a global tendency of humans to take advantage of other humans who have shown that they are willing to accept it.

BlueTemplar 5y ago

Free software never meant free support, not even for the financial burden of providing source code. (Also why "libre software" is a better term.)

aseipp 5y ago
Go tell that to the people who shit all over the emails and bug trackers of free software developers. The rest of us are well aware.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  I mean the solution to that predates personal computers... https://kk.org/ct2/heinleins-fan-mail-solution/ https://kk.org/ct2/heinleins-fan-mail-solution/
  - aseipp 5y ago
    The original complaint was "demanding and petty users flood you and take up your time, through the same channels your good users do", and your solution seems to be "just go ahead and let them take up your time"? What, is Heinlein's Ghost going to pat me on the back if I do? The reality is there is no real "solution" to this problem; there is no solution to "people are annoying." The very premise is completely ill-formed and only possible in a framework that views all human interaction and behavior as completely mechanical. It's not all bad, though, working on free/libre software, and I'd be remiss to not mention that. Maybe I'm letting it hit too close to home and you're just saying it in jest. But anyone here pretending that you can "solve" these kinds of issues so easily are deluding themselves and telling on themselves at the same time, in my opinion.
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      > your solution seems to be "just go ahead and let them take up your time"? How did you get this from my link ?? I'm suggesting pre-made answers here to the most typical "time-wasters"...

svachalek 5y ago

I've seen this exact effect multiple times. It's really rather amazing, that no one expects as much as someone who's paid absolutely nothing for it. Kind of a divide by zero = infinity in the human firmware or something.

ddaalluu2 5y ago

LandR 5y ago
> Well to be fair, if you release something to the public you do have a certain responsibility. At least to provide a running configuration without the documentation being behind a payment. If it's free, you have zero responsibility. People can choose to use it or not, I don't think you even have a responsibility to keep it running. If you have a hundred thousand users and you decide tomorrow to just yank it from existence, that's absolutely fine too. It's free, no one forces you to use, don't expect anything. The maintainer might get bored with it, delete it, accidentally break it, or change it just for shits and giggles to fuck with people. It's fine. It's free.
kortilla 5y ago
Entitlement to the extreme. Nobody owes anybody anything by marking something as open source. Take some responsibility.
icambron 5y ago
This is very silly and I urge you to rethink this position. The software is free, it contains a very explicit warranty disclaimer, and the implicit social contract is that nobody owes anyone anything. There is no fraud here. If you download the code I posted to my GitHub account and try to do something with it, and it doesn’t work or you don’t understand it or I didn’t bother writing docs, that is in fact very much on you. Perhaps my software project has lots of docs and I’m super helpful to users, and it is therefore more likely to be popular, or perhaps it does not have those properties and will stay obscure, but either way it is your job to decide what free software to use, not mine to make it up to your standards. I have never seen paywalled OSS docs and it seems like a silly idea, but that doesn’t make it fraudulent or even bad. It just makes it perhaps inadvisable to use. Which again is on you.

jdrc 5y ago

Let's agree that it's a global tendency of humans to take advantage of other humans who have shown that they are willing to accept it.