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I will never understand how entitled or mean people can be towards OSS devs. I sympathize with this post a great deal and wish the author all the best in whatev

I will never understand how entitled or mean people can be towards OSS devs. I sympathize with this post a great deal and wish the author all the best in whatever he does next.

roenxi 2y ago
It goes a bit beyond OSS; try doing anything important in life and you'll be a target sooner or later. Jealousy is a powerful force; ignorant mobs are powerful forces and there are a lot of evil opportunists in the mix. People really need to get a little more cynical at a young age. Everyone should be doing things because they think it is in their personal best interests. People can still be altruists, but it is important to understand that is a personal belief in what a local optimum looks like and it can't be seen as a noble sacrifice. I thought this dev's attitude was fairly healthy. Try something, see it didn't work, start charging.
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  They pity you when you fail - "What an idiot, everyone knew it would fail." They resent you when you succeed - "They got lucky - I could have done that!" You just need to do your own thing. You must find validation within yourself.
- anaxamander 2y ago
  Yeah, but on the other hand, when you start charging for something, people automatically feel entitled to expect the world from you. I'm not saying they don't already do that for people who donate their labor to a project, but I'm saying the abuse might get worse. They're now "paying customers."
- Intralexical 2y ago
  Jealousy, or fear of change, even. A lot of times even existing is enough to offend some types, if you or what you are doing is perceived as a challenge to what they think they already know and control. I don't think people should get any more cynical. That's why we have this problem. The solution isn't to become more like them. But it is absolutely vital to understand that there are those types of cynical individuals out there. That's fine. Block them out as appropriate; You don't owe them anything, and they wouldn't reciprocate anyway. Keep an eye on them and take steps to protect yourself when they start to get too opportunistic/actively sabotaging/slanderous etc.
danielmarkbruce 2y ago
It's mostly naivety. There are a lot of people who really don't understand that people are doing something without getting paid, as a side gig, just to be helpful. They just don't get it. An uncle, who is a totally decent human being otherwise would complain loudly and bitterly at folks who ran kids sporting events when things didn't run smoothly. At the time I didn't think much of it, until I was an adult and saw the adults running things things in their spare time despite having families and jobs etc. Just being good people. This uncle was just a very naive person, it's like he thought these people's entire existence was to run kids sporting events.
- zem 2y ago
  that is a wonderful parallel - well worth expanding into a blog post, if you have a blog.
- DavidPiper 2y ago
  I love this framing. My experience of people like this uncle is also that they have generally never done something like running kids sporting events, and in some cases outwardly signal that such work would be beneath them. (Not saying this is true for your uncle, but it is in some of my experiences.)
- Intralexical 2y ago
  > It's mostly naivety. There are a lot of people who really don't understand that people are doing something without getting paid, as a side gig, just to be helpful. They just don't get it. I think calling that naïvety brings inaccurately benign connotations. It is possible to be naïve while thinking the best of people, and understanding in good faith that everybody is probably trying. Naivety alone doesn't make somebody's default cynical and bitter. > This uncle was just a very naive person, it's like he thought these people's entire existence was to run kids sporting events. If you literally cannot even conceive of other people existing in any way that doesn't directly serve your own desires, I think that's less naivety, and more arrogance and entitlement.
- nitwit005 2y ago
  Once you're dealing with a large group of people, you can't assume you're dealing with a basically nice person. If you interact with a thousand people, you are going to interact with multiple genuine criminals.
austin-cheney 2y ago
Entitlement. Imagine if OSS went away tomorrow, not even all OSS, just the supplemental developer code specific tools. Suddenly 90+% of JavaScript developers would no longer be able to do their jobs. They wouldn’t even be able to pretend to write deliverable code. Careers instantly killed. Nobody thinks about that. These free helpers are just assumed to be required and always available, completely taken for granted. These things are just presumed to be absolute necessary and unavoidable. God forbid those OSS devs don’t do your jobs for you too, or at least just provide a bit more custom help.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  > These free helpers are just assumed to be required and always available, completely taken for granted. These things are just presumed to be absolute necessary and unavoidable. Xkcd, Nebraska, 2003...? ETA: https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
wkat4242 2y ago
I don't think this is unique to FOSS. There's always haters. Do you think Windows 11 devs don't get cursed at? Sure they do but because Microsoft shields them from the users they don't know about it. I can't log an angry issue against the windows repo because they've added yet another stupid ad somewhere. And the same goes with most commercial software. Most commercial outfits have support and development split out into different functions. It's pretty unique to FOSS that end users can log issues directly with the devs. And for a support person it's easier to deal with this because it's not their own work that's being criticised so they don't take it personally. I was in support myself and I was pretty emphatic with customers, because in many cases they were right, our software really did suck because there was way too much attention spent on marketing and not enough on UX.
- _akhe 2y ago
  Agree with this, you touched on all the points from corporate teams being shielded to support not being offended because it isn't their ego. For those who dare to create and release things to the wild as an individual - hope you have thick skin! People are mean, lazy, heartless, cruel, brainless, but also occasionally helpful, thoughtful, and sometimes even smart - and can correct and improve you. So it's overall worth it! A lot of people have mastered this better than me, but you can see yourself in a sort of 3rd person sense instead of a 1st person sense (I think it's called "being objective") and when you do it fully and purely, you can't be offended, it's impossible, because if done correctly you no longer identify with yourself but as the bird's eye point-of-view - but because you are still in control of yourself, from this vantage point you can direct your intentionality from a much wiser position. And if somebody unjustly judges you out of spite, jealousy, resentment, etc. you can see it as clearly as if you viewed someone doing that to someone else. A powerful mindset to hold for public-facing creators. You get the benefits of being shielded, and "it's not my ego" and also ego when you want it - at night, under the stars, having a beer, when it's safe to feel proud.
somnic 2y ago
It might be sort of habitual. If I'm reaching out to support for a piece of software or hardware I've paid money for then it's actually fair to be pissed off if they're not providing what you paid for. The same doesn't apply to OSS, but a lot of people treat repo issues as if they're corporate tech support.
neurostimulant 2y ago
Doesn't seem to be unique to OSS. Free/cheap stuff attracting the worse kind of people also happen in other fields.

I will never understand how entitled or mean people can be towards OSS devs. I sympathize with this post a great deal and wish the author all the best in whatever he does next.

roenxi 2y ago

It goes a bit beyond OSS; try doing anything important in life and you'll be a target sooner or later. Jealousy is a powerful force; ignorant mobs are powerful forces and there are a lot of evil opportunists in the mix. People really need to get a little more cynical at a young age. Everyone should be doing things because they think it is in their personal best interests. People can still be altruists, but it is important to understand that is a personal belief in what a local optimum looks like and it can't be seen as a noble sacrifice. I thought this dev's attitude was fairly healthy. Try something, see it didn't work, start charging.

monero-xmr 2y ago
They pity you when you fail - "What an idiot, everyone knew it would fail." They resent you when you succeed - "They got lucky - I could have done that!" You just need to do your own thing. You must find validation within yourself.
anaxamander 2y ago
Yeah, but on the other hand, when you start charging for something, people automatically feel entitled to expect the world from you. I'm not saying they don't already do that for people who donate their labor to a project, but I'm saying the abuse might get worse. They're now "paying customers."
Intralexical 2y ago
Jealousy, or fear of change, even. A lot of times even existing is enough to offend some types, if you or what you are doing is perceived as a challenge to what they think they already know and control. I don't think people should get any more cynical. That's why we have this problem. The solution isn't to become more like them. But it is absolutely vital to understand that there are those types of cynical individuals out there. That's fine. Block them out as appropriate; You don't owe them anything, and they wouldn't reciprocate anyway. Keep an eye on them and take steps to protect yourself when they start to get too opportunistic/actively sabotaging/slanderous etc.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago

It's mostly naivety. There are a lot of people who really don't understand that people are doing something without getting paid, as a side gig, just to be helpful. They just don't get it. An uncle, who is a totally decent human being otherwise would complain loudly and bitterly at folks who ran kids sporting events when things didn't run smoothly. At the time I didn't think much of it, until I was an adult and saw the adults running things things in their spare time despite having families and jobs etc. Just being good people. This uncle was just a very naive person, it's like he thought these people's entire existence was to run kids sporting events.

zem 2y ago
that is a wonderful parallel - well worth expanding into a blog post, if you have a blog.
DavidPiper 2y ago
I love this framing. My experience of people like this uncle is also that they have generally never done something like running kids sporting events, and in some cases outwardly signal that such work would be beneath them. (Not saying this is true for your uncle, but it is in some of my experiences.)
Intralexical 2y ago
> It's mostly naivety. There are a lot of people who really don't understand that people are doing something without getting paid, as a side gig, just to be helpful. They just don't get it. I think calling that naïvety brings inaccurately benign connotations. It is possible to be naïve while thinking the best of people, and understanding in good faith that everybody is probably trying. Naivety alone doesn't make somebody's default cynical and bitter. > This uncle was just a very naive person, it's like he thought these people's entire existence was to run kids sporting events. If you literally cannot even conceive of other people existing in any way that doesn't directly serve your own desires, I think that's less naivety, and more arrogance and entitlement.
nitwit005 2y ago
Once you're dealing with a large group of people, you can't assume you're dealing with a basically nice person. If you interact with a thousand people, you are going to interact with multiple genuine criminals.

austin-cheney 2y ago

Entitlement. Imagine if OSS went away tomorrow, not even all OSS, just the supplemental developer code specific tools. Suddenly 90+% of JavaScript developers would no longer be able to do their jobs. They wouldn’t even be able to pretend to write deliverable code. Careers instantly killed. Nobody thinks about that. These free helpers are just assumed to be required and always available, completely taken for granted. These things are just presumed to be absolute necessary and unavoidable. God forbid those OSS devs don’t do your jobs for you too, or at least just provide a bit more custom help.

CRConrad 2y ago
> These free helpers are just assumed to be required and always available, completely taken for granted. These things are just presumed to be absolute necessary and unavoidable. Xkcd, Nebraska, 2003...? ETA: https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/

wkat4242 2y ago

I don't think this is unique to FOSS. There's always haters. Do you think Windows 11 devs don't get cursed at? Sure they do but because Microsoft shields them from the users they don't know about it. I can't log an angry issue against the windows repo because they've added yet another stupid ad somewhere. And the same goes with most commercial software. Most commercial outfits have support and development split out into different functions. It's pretty unique to FOSS that end users can log issues directly with the devs. And for a support person it's easier to deal with this because it's not their own work that's being criticised so they don't take it personally. I was in support myself and I was pretty emphatic with customers, because in many cases they were right, our software really did suck because there was way too much attention spent on marketing and not enough on UX.

_akhe 2y ago
Agree with this, you touched on all the points from corporate teams being shielded to support not being offended because it isn't their ego. For those who dare to create and release things to the wild as an individual - hope you have thick skin! People are mean, lazy, heartless, cruel, brainless, but also occasionally helpful, thoughtful, and sometimes even smart - and can correct and improve you. So it's overall worth it! A lot of people have mastered this better than me, but you can see yourself in a sort of 3rd person sense instead of a 1st person sense (I think it's called "being objective") and when you do it fully and purely, you can't be offended, it's impossible, because if done correctly you no longer identify with yourself but as the bird's eye point-of-view - but because you are still in control of yourself, from this vantage point you can direct your intentionality from a much wiser position. And if somebody unjustly judges you out of spite, jealousy, resentment, etc. you can see it as clearly as if you viewed someone doing that to someone else. A powerful mindset to hold for public-facing creators. You get the benefits of being shielded, and "it's not my ego" and also ego when you want it - at night, under the stars, having a beer, when it's safe to feel proud.

somnic 2y ago

It might be sort of habitual. If I'm reaching out to support for a piece of software or hardware I've paid money for then it's actually fair to be pissed off if they're not providing what you paid for. The same doesn't apply to OSS, but a lot of people treat repo issues as if they're corporate tech support.

neurostimulant 2y ago

Doesn't seem to be unique to OSS. Free/cheap stuff attracting the worse kind of people also happen in other fields.