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Why we never thank open source maintainers

windsooon.github.io

131–140 of 229 posts

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you give a mouse a cookie, the mouse will ask for a glass of milk"

That's a fun expression, first time I hear it! In Polish, you would say "you give a finger, and they'll take the whole hand".

It's the title of a popular children's book :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#135
post #122

As an author of dozens of open-source projects, I was really surprised how entitled / rude people can be. I was even told f-word just because I used babel for compiling JS. I was like WTF. Some people act as if they are my paying customers when I get zero compensation from my open source projects. I just share my work because I think they can be useful for some. I don't have any obligations to solve their problems.

This exists everwhere. Just today I heard it from a member of the archery club. He thought he didn't have to help for free, he wants to get salary for helping with preparation for competitions and other things we do. The egoistic culture is here more than ever.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#136
post #122

As an author of dozens of open-source projects, I was really surprised how entitled / rude people can be. I was even told f-word just because I used babel for compiling JS. I was like WTF. Some people act as if they are my paying customers when I get zero compensation from my open source projects. I just share my work because I think they can be useful for some. I don't have any obligations to solve their problems.

And I have people demand I use babel. Whatever you do, it'll be wrong either way.

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#137
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain a fairly popular repository, and it does brighten my day when I receive an email like this! Unfortunately, you are getting more random malformated issues (ie. “DOESN’T WORK. WHEN FIX”) than thanks!

Please don't feel disheartened by those types of issues. They seem to pop up on all kinds of projects after some threshold of popularity. I haven't originated any popular repos myself, but of the few I have contributed to, these types of issues can be quite common. One of the projects is a math library and a swear 1/2 issues are people discovering for the first time how floating point math behaves and complaining pro…

> This is one feature that I wish hosting platforms like github/gitlab etc had to help authors and maintainers: ability to grant issue management permissions (separately from full repo access).

You'll be happy to learn that in GitLab a reporter can manage issue but not the repository already. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#138
I just wanted to thank NoScript maintainer Giorgio Maone, as he is currently working really hard to fix issues.

NoScript was my favorite add-on and I have no doubt that it will be once again, but it really is heartbreaking to read some of the reviews[1]. Constructive feedback is a good thing, but I just don't understand why some people feel that they have a right to use the f* word when reviewing the new version. Just simply describe what is broken and say you have disabled it until the issue is resolved, and thank the man for his hard work.

Thanks again, Giorgio Maone!

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/revi...

Re: Why we never thank open source maintainers

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you give a mouse a cookie, the mouse will ask for a glass of milk"

That's a fun expression, first time I hear it! In Polish, you would say "you give a finger, and they'll take the whole hand".

In many Spanish countries we have a similar one: "le das la mano y agarran el codo", which translates "you give them a hand and they'll grab the elbow".
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