3 ms·

I've read so many posts like this on HN. The crux of the issue is that, in my opinion, maintainers need to grow a spine regarding entitled user behavior. If som

I've read so many posts like this on HN. The crux of the issue is that, in my opinion, maintainers need to grow a spine regarding entitled user behavior. If someone opens an issue, and it's not currently in your backlog, tell them to pay up to move to further ahead in the backlog. Cite your hourly or per-issue rate. If people don't want to pay, they can go elsewhere. You kill two birds with one stone, either they leave or they pay you, both likely good outcomes for you. But simply doing it for free based on their whims just encourages entitled behavior, and that is how one burns out. Having worked retail, I know how customers will act when entitled, and with maintainers, it is abundantly clear who has also worked retail and who has not based on their ability to handle user entitlement.

nerdponx 4y ago
I mostly agree, but there seems to be a persistent problem where software authors and maintainers don't have a good communication channels to reach end-users. The only thing that seems to work consistently is embedding deprecation warnings directly in the software. Asking people to subscribe to some enormous mailing list that covers thousands of releases of thousands of different products, or to keep an eye on a forum that gets hundreds of post today, is not really fair to the end-user. It's easy to end up feeling like Arthur Dent: your house is about to be destroyed to build a highway, and while technically there was a long notice process, the process was not conducted in a way that you would ever have known about it. Homebrew is an interesting case because they do actually have a system in the package manager that displays a "caveat" to the user after installation. The maintainer probably could have added a warning there, before bumping the package version. None of this should be taken to excuse a for-profit corporation failing to give even the faintest whiff of a shit about auditing The tools that they depend on, let alone taking some ownership and responsibility thereof. But I do think we as an industry in general should spend some time thinking about this communication channel problem, because it can bite even vigilant, well-intentioned users now and then. Of course, one could also point the finger at the "rolling" release model that Homebrew uses as an extra source of difficulty in this arena, but I am more willing to blame the end-user in that case as well, because they ought to know what they are signing up for when using a rolling release package manager.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Asking people to subscribe to some enormous mailing list that covers thousands of releases of thousands of different products, or to keep an eye on a forum that gets hundreds of post today, is not really fair to the end-user. I'd say that if using free stuff doesn't scale for you when you are using hundreds or thousands of free things, you should use fewer free things.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    I meant the opposite, sorry. Subscribing to a general "release announcements" type of channel often means that you have to wade through potentially hundreds or thousands of messages for things that you don't care about, in order to get updates on the handful of things that you do care about. You should also subscribe to the upstream project's changelog, but if you're already pinning yourself to an old outdated version then that won't help you find out when the package in a repo is being updated.
ninjin 4y ago
Indeed, some communities have had this approach for over twenty years and continue to “get it right” [1]. [1]: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=166355488513954&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=166355488513954&w=2
latexr 4y ago
> If people don't want to pay, they can go elsewhere. You kill two birds with one stone, either they leave or they pay you, both likely good outcomes for you. By accepting payment you’re taking on another hassle: maintaining the feature for undetermined time. If it breaks or has a bug, you’re on the hook for fixing it. An entitled user becomes an entitled client.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Then reject the request, you don't have to take on every request even if it's paid.
mrtranscendence 4y ago
Sure, I guess if you're abused enough you get used to being abused and it doesn't feel so bad. That doesn't make it right.

nerdponx 4y ago

I mostly agree, but there seems to be a persistent problem where software authors and maintainers don't have a good communication channels to reach end-users. The only thing that seems to work consistently is embedding deprecation warnings directly in the software. Asking people to subscribe to some enormous mailing list that covers thousands of releases of thousands of different products, or to keep an eye on a forum that gets hundreds of post today, is not really fair to the end-user. It's easy to end up feeling like Arthur Dent: your house is about to be destroyed to build a highway, and while technically there was a long notice process, the process was not conducted in a way that you would ever have known about it. Homebrew is an interesting case because they do actually have a system in the package manager that displays a "caveat" to the user after installation. The maintainer probably could have added a warning there, before bumping the package version. None of this should be taken to excuse a for-profit corporation failing to give even the faintest whiff of a shit about auditing The tools that they depend on, let alone taking some ownership and responsibility thereof. But I do think we as an industry in general should spend some time thinking about this communication channel problem, because it can bite even vigilant, well-intentioned users now and then. Of course, one could also point the finger at the "rolling" release model that Homebrew uses as an extra source of difficulty in this arena, but I am more willing to blame the end-user in that case as well, because they ought to know what they are signing up for when using a rolling release package manager.

pessimizer 4y ago
> Asking people to subscribe to some enormous mailing list that covers thousands of releases of thousands of different products, or to keep an eye on a forum that gets hundreds of post today, is not really fair to the end-user. I'd say that if using free stuff doesn't scale for you when you are using hundreds or thousands of free things, you should use fewer free things.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I meant the opposite, sorry. Subscribing to a general "release announcements" type of channel often means that you have to wade through potentially hundreds or thousands of messages for things that you don't care about, in order to get updates on the handful of things that you do care about. You should also subscribe to the upstream project's changelog, but if you're already pinning yourself to an old outdated version then that won't help you find out when the package in a repo is being updated.

ninjin 4y ago

Indeed, some communities have had this approach for over twenty years and continue to “get it right” [1]. [1]: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=166355488513954&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=166355488513954&w=2

latexr 4y ago

> If people don't want to pay, they can go elsewhere. You kill two birds with one stone, either they leave or they pay you, both likely good outcomes for you. By accepting payment you’re taking on another hassle: maintaining the feature for undetermined time. If it breaks or has a bug, you’re on the hook for fixing it. An entitled user becomes an entitled client.

cercatrova 4y ago
Then reject the request, you don't have to take on every request even if it's paid.

mrtranscendence 4y ago

Sure, I guess if you're abused enough you get used to being abused and it doesn't feel so bad. That doesn't make it right.