4 ms·

I think there's another side to this, which is that if you're the maintainer of some open-source project and you actually want your software to be successful an

by elihu 4y ago

I think there's another side to this, which is that if you're the maintainer of some open-source project and you actually want your software to be successful and widely used and generally to make the world a better place, you're going to need to maintain a good relationship with your users. When people report a bug, that's actually valuable. They're telling you something for free that you would otherwise have had to devote time and effort on validation / quality assurance to find. If someone requests a feature, that's telling you something about what users want (even if you might have perfectly valid reasons to decline the request). For every random email you get, there's probably a hundred more people thinking the same thing but didn't write the email. I think if I were to contact a maintainer of some project and they sent me to this page, my thought would be: "oh, I guess this project is just a hobby project someone uploaded to github for posterity and they're not actually interested in maintaining it." That's okay! Not everyone has time for that.

detaro 4y ago
The first paragraph is important: > I quite often get bug fixes, patches, requests and questions regarding the things I have published. Most of the feedback is respectful and helpful. However occasionally there are other requests. This page is where I plan to redirect them as a final warning before I block and ignore them.
- veltas 4y ago
  I will say that in my own experience with online diplomacy, you should just block and ignore them before sending them something that in context is telling them to "fuck off". As soon as you engage with language like that the civility is already over and not worth talking. Honestly, the title is catchy, but this article is not phrased diplomatically enough to send to a difficult person.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    When a reckless driver is on the road, the worst thing you can do is retaliate and aggravate the reckless driver. No, you should just let the lunatic drive by and hope he forgets you were even on the road.
- elihu 4y ago
  I think the page sends a mixed message. The title is "fix it, fork it, fuck off" -- if I were a user, I would get the impression that the author might consider me rude or ungrateful if I were to submit a bug report without a corresponding pull request to fix the bug. My bug report might be in the "helpful" category, but I don't know that in advance.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
samsquire 4y ago
It's work to maintain projects and if you're getting it for free, what does the owner really owe you in return. Bug reports, feedback is useful and valuable but the initial work by the creator is where the true value is. > They're telling you something for free that you would otherwise have had to devote time and effort on validation / quality assurance to find. You also got the initial product for free and you're using the time of the maintainer to review your things, for free. There's unfairness in the exchange of a low value thing compared to a high value thing. The maintainers time is valuable. You wouldn't trade £100 for £1, so why do you expect maintainers to drop everything and look at your "free £1"? > "oh, I guess this project is just a hobby project someone uploaded to github for posterity and they're not actually interested in maintaining it." That's okay! Not everyone has time for that. Someone took time to build something, uploaded their work (for free) for your edification and you expect more. Something is wrong with this thought.
- veltas 4y ago
  Yeah this is precisely the issue. Sure, all issues are value. But can you afford that value? Nothing is free.
- elihu 4y ago
  > You also got the initial product for free and you're using the time of the maintainer to review your things, for free. It goes both ways. The user isn't owed free stuff from random people on the Internet, but by the same token the software maintainer isn't owed users. If the maintainer wants users (which is to say, if the maintainer wants other people to invest time and effort using the software) they'll have to work for it. Some projects do want to have a lot of users and are willing to put in that effort, and those are the projects that make me want to use their software. Those are the projects that are making the world better off. Dealing with people is hard, though, and it's perfectly understandable that some people don't have time for that. And if a project already has more bug reports and feature requests than its maintainers have time to deal with, then adding more is just making the backlog bigger. > You wouldn't trade £100 for £1, so why do you expect maintainers to drop everything and look at your "free £1"? It's not a zero-sum interaction. If I report a bug, there's a pretty decent chance that the maintainer wants the bug fixed as much as I do -- fixing the bug is not a favor they're doing for me, it's a favor they're doing for me, them, and everyone else who uses the software. On the other hand, maybe I'm the only one affected and it's not a high priority for them. That's for them to decide. > Someone took time to build something, uploaded their work (for free) for your edification and you expect more. Something is wrong with this thought. Is it? I think I'd rather live in a world where people have higher expectations for software, whether money changed hands or not. I do think though that it makes sense to hold large projects like Firefox or the Linux kernel or OpenSSH to a very different standard than something somebody did in their spare time. And it's worth keeping in mind that there are a whole lot of different reasons why free and open source software projects exist, and some of them have commercial business models and substantial funding and some of them don't. Sometimes it's not even obvious which is which if you're not intimately familiar with the project. Just because users of the software aren't paying directly for its development doesn't mean that no one is.
Too 4y ago
Real bug reports are obviously valuable, Sadly though, a lot of "bug reports" are actually just disguised troubleshooting requests, that are unique to the reporters use case or infrastructure. Looking at any popular GitHub repo of a service that requires some form of environment configuration, half of the issues can be attributed to the user not reading beyond the first bullet of the Readme or didn't even bother to look the logs. You also see a lot of "How can i solve ${HOMEWORK|JOB}_ASSIGNMENT using this tool." Those don't really apply to the 3 Fs anyway, it still add noise into the issue tracker and shortening the patience for maintainers to address real bug reports.

by elihu 4y ago

detaro 4y ago

The first paragraph is important: > I quite often get bug fixes, patches, requests and questions regarding the things I have published. Most of the feedback is respectful and helpful. However occasionally there are other requests. This page is where I plan to redirect them as a final warning before I block and ignore them.

veltas 4y ago
I will say that in my own experience with online diplomacy, you should just block and ignore them before sending them something that in context is telling them to "fuck off". As soon as you engage with language like that the civility is already over and not worth talking. Honestly, the title is catchy, but this article is not phrased diplomatically enough to send to a difficult person.
- imtringued 4y ago
  When a reckless driver is on the road, the worst thing you can do is retaliate and aggravate the reckless driver. No, you should just let the lunatic drive by and hope he forgets you were even on the road.
elihu 4y ago
I think the page sends a mixed message. The title is "fix it, fork it, fuck off" -- if I were a user, I would get the impression that the author might consider me rude or ungrateful if I were to submit a bug report without a corresponding pull request to fix the bug. My bug report might be in the "helpful" category, but I don't know that in advance.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

samsquire 4y ago

It's work to maintain projects and if you're getting it for free, what does the owner really owe you in return. Bug reports, feedback is useful and valuable but the initial work by the creator is where the true value is. > They're telling you something for free that you would otherwise have had to devote time and effort on validation / quality assurance to find. You also got the initial product for free and you're using the time of the maintainer to review your things, for free. There's unfairness in the exchange of a low value thing compared to a high value thing. The maintainers time is valuable. You wouldn't trade £100 for £1, so why do you expect maintainers to drop everything and look at your "free £1"? > "oh, I guess this project is just a hobby project someone uploaded to github for posterity and they're not actually interested in maintaining it." That's okay! Not everyone has time for that. Someone took time to build something, uploaded their work (for free) for your edification and you expect more. Something is wrong with this thought.

veltas 4y ago
Yeah this is precisely the issue. Sure, all issues are value. But can you afford that value? Nothing is free.
elihu 4y ago
> You also got the initial product for free and you're using the time of the maintainer to review your things, for free. It goes both ways. The user isn't owed free stuff from random people on the Internet, but by the same token the software maintainer isn't owed users. If the maintainer wants users (which is to say, if the maintainer wants other people to invest time and effort using the software) they'll have to work for it. Some projects do want to have a lot of users and are willing to put in that effort, and those are the projects that make me want to use their software. Those are the projects that are making the world better off. Dealing with people is hard, though, and it's perfectly understandable that some people don't have time for that. And if a project already has more bug reports and feature requests than its maintainers have time to deal with, then adding more is just making the backlog bigger. > You wouldn't trade £100 for £1, so why do you expect maintainers to drop everything and look at your "free £1"? It's not a zero-sum interaction. If I report a bug, there's a pretty decent chance that the maintainer wants the bug fixed as much as I do -- fixing the bug is not a favor they're doing for me, it's a favor they're doing for me, them, and everyone else who uses the software. On the other hand, maybe I'm the only one affected and it's not a high priority for them. That's for them to decide. > Someone took time to build something, uploaded their work (for free) for your edification and you expect more. Something is wrong with this thought. Is it? I think I'd rather live in a world where people have higher expectations for software, whether money changed hands or not. I do think though that it makes sense to hold large projects like Firefox or the Linux kernel or OpenSSH to a very different standard than something somebody did in their spare time. And it's worth keeping in mind that there are a whole lot of different reasons why free and open source software projects exist, and some of them have commercial business models and substantial funding and some of them don't. Sometimes it's not even obvious which is which if you're not intimately familiar with the project. Just because users of the software aren't paying directly for its development doesn't mean that no one is.

Too 4y ago

Real bug reports are obviously valuable, Sadly though, a lot of "bug reports" are actually just disguised troubleshooting requests, that are unique to the reporters use case or infrastructure. Looking at any popular GitHub repo of a service that requires some form of environment configuration, half of the issues can be attributed to the user not reading beyond the first bullet of the Readme or didn't even bother to look the logs. You also see a lot of "How can i solve ${HOMEWORK|JOB}_ASSIGNMENT using this tool." Those don't really apply to the 3 Fs anyway, it still add noise into the issue tracker and shortening the patience for maintainers to address real bug reports.