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Why we never thank open source maintainers

windsooon.github.io

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Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#11

Post by notzorbo3 »

naturalgradient wrote: post #5

As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement ? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their lazin…

Ways I deal with this as an open source maintainer of various projects:

1. Severely restrict the scope of the project (i.e. do one thing and do it well) 2. Don't feel guilty about saying "no" 3. Realize that people have no malicious intent or are lazy when they request . It's just like a normal customer in a business: they often have no idea of the cost and difficulties in implementing things. That's okay, it's my duty to inform them of that. 4. Refuse pull requests for features that I don't feel like maintaining. I always try to keep people from wasting their time and ask them to confer before implementing a feature.

I don't feel animosity towards people who (even rudely) request such things. But they can expect a short reply in the form of "I'm sorry, that feature is outside the scope of the project / is going to take too much of my time."

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#13

Post by wolfgke »

naturalgradient wrote: post #5

As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement ? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their lazin…

> 'Hi, can you implement ? Thanks!'

Answer with an estimate based on your hourly rate.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#14

Post by notzorbo3 »

rsync wrote: post #8

Anytime I find a very useful tool[1] or get help from a maintainer or author I always offer them a lifetime, free rsync.net account. A fair number of them have taken me up on it. [1] Some examples of useful tools include: TextBar for OSX, git-annex assistant ... someone wrote a great encfs tutorial ... etc.

That's an awesome way to reward people! I've gotten offers for money, but actually getting to money to me is more of a hassle than it's worth, so I just decline.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#15

Post by amelius »

inglor wrote: post #9

Actually, in all projects I've been involved in I've gotten more than enough thank you emails. Not to mention hooks for consulting gigs (which I dislike and _rarely_ do), conference invites and job offers. Open source has been _tremendously_ cost-effective for me. I do it for fun and because I genuinely like building open tools people like using. This is me https://github.com/benjamingr https://stackoverflow.com/user…

> conference invites and job offers.

Don't we all get spammed by these, regardless of where we work?

Also, conference invites usually cost money rather than return money.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#16

Post by inglor »

naturalgradient wrote: post #5

As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement ? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their lazin…

Send them quotes back:

"I'm glad you liked it, I have X hours to dedicate to project Y this month. If you'd like, I'm willing to work on that feature for you under terms Z".

People _pay_.

You'd be surprised just how much of Chromium and other open ssource projects is written by consulting companies paid by third parties to solve a use case.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#17

Post by inglor »

amelius wrote: post #15
inglor wrote: post #9

Actually, in all projects I've been involved in I've gotten more than enough thank you emails. Not to mention hooks for consulting gigs (which I dislike and _rarely_ do), conference invites and job offers. Open source has been _tremendously_ cost-effective for me. I do it for fun and because I genuinely like building open tools people like using. This is me https://github.com/benjamingr https://stackoverflow.com/user…

> conference invites and job offers. Don't we all get spammed by these, regardless of where we work? Also, conference invites usually cost money rather than return money.

Conference speaking invites usually cover the hotel and flight fares (in all honesty, I couldn't really afford attending otherwise).

Some conferences also offer to do paid workshops which are a big factor too.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#19

Post by amelius »

naturalgradient wrote: post #5

As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement ? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their lazin…

You should use an issue tracker, and ask them to submit a new entry.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#20

Post by wolfgke »

SadWebDeveloper wrote: post #12

I think maintainers would definitely love more some monetary support rather than just a thank you, specially those doing it in their free time (since some maintainers of big open source projects are well established paid employees).

The problem is that it is hard to transfer money over the internet.

I just wanted to know what bureaucratic hurdles one has to jump in Germany to even be able to receive donations on your webpage. I don't want to go into the gory details, but just come with something that I say for years very often: The surest way to become a terrorist very fast is to read up into law.

And this is only for being legally able to receive and not about the taxation issues that arise when you concretely receive donations.

Also in countries there are lots of preferred ways on the methods for money transfer. For example in Germany many people don't want to use a credit card and prefer SEPA money transfer/direct debit for paying in the internet.

Yes, of course one could use some fancy cryptocurrency, but the legal/taxation issues remain.

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