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Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

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Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#41

Post by teddyh »

detaro wrote: post #26
teddyh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you don’t give verifiable links to examples so we can judge for ourselves, and your reported experiences don’t match the majority’s, the rest of us are more or less forced to believe the simplest explanation: There’s a known principle that goes “If you think that everyone around you is an asshole, they’re not the assholes, you are .”. This would be the simplest explanation in this case, since we don’t know anyt…

Or they were just unlucky in their in their interactions (I doubt many people would claim that all interactions in Open Source are good), or perceive some things differently than others, or ... there's more than enough Open-Source maintainers complaining about bad interactions. Indeed many of the parents complaints are also reflected in the study as things people experienced as barriers to contributing. Luckily for m…

Sure, there are many possible explanations, but what I wrote was the most likely one.

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#42

Post by fundamental »

blattimwind wrote: post #4

I think the converse would be very interesting as well: Why do people dis-engage?

In addition to people dis-engaging, it's interesting to see both in this paper and in other literature what factors can create feedback loops.

For instance a project which loses a few contributors could result in the other contributors getting overloaded/burnt-out, which could then repel new contributors, thus forming a negative feedback loop.

Usually when I see these sorts of papers come up I try to look at both the short term actionable items to-do/to-avoid as well as other notes which impact more long-term project/community health. There are a bunch of cool papers in this space and it's neat to see the slightly different views each one comes up with.

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#43

Post by KirinDave »

teddyh wrote: post #38
KirinDave wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing I can do can change the outcome either way, teddyh. I suspect you've already decided how you feel about me. People are seeing a candid discussion of subjective experience as an indictment of theirs. This is another action I regret. I thought perhaps a related but dissenting viewpoint would have value to the conversation, but I guess not. This conversation itself is an example of the kind of negative experienc…

> Nothing I can do can change the outcome either way, teddyh. On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds. > I suspect you've already decided how you feel about me. Again, you are mistaken. You are just some random anonymous person o…

> On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds.

Consider for a moment what you're asking me to do: name names. In several cases, for events over 5 years old. You're asking me to expose myself to more contention and argument to convince you that my feelings are not dirty lies that slander the OSS community.

The most respectful thing I can do for all parties is relate my experiences. If you find them to be so outrageously implausible that you feel the need to call me an asshole, there's not much I am willing to do that will change that. You're right, I could link to examples of people behaving badly (and inevitably, cases where I have behaved badly because those exist). But there is very little upside in that for me.

Like I said, this demand predetermines the outcome. It asks me to shoulder more commentary like this for the dubious promise of your personal approval. That's not a very compelling value proposition. Add to that that your tone disinclines me to believe you're actually asking in good faith, and I have absolutely no reason at all to reopen these topics.

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#44

Post by watwut »

teddyh wrote: post #38
KirinDave wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing I can do can change the outcome either way, teddyh. I suspect you've already decided how you feel about me. People are seeing a candid discussion of subjective experience as an indictment of theirs. This is another action I regret. I thought perhaps a related but dissenting viewpoint would have value to the conversation, but I guess not. This conversation itself is an example of the kind of negative experienc…

> Nothing I can do can change the outcome either way, teddyh. On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds. > I suspect you've already decided how you feel about me. Again, you are mistaken. You are just some random anonymous person o…

If someone expresses positive experience, do you demand link of proof too? If no, why the difference? Why should negative experience cross higher tresold then positive one?

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#45

Post by gboudrias »

erikb wrote: post #32

Saying FLOSS instead of "open source" is like saying "LBQTXRSABCFGHKWPÖ" instead of "queer". Putting more letters doesn't make it more inclusive or anything, it just makes you look less serious.

That's actually a reasonable analogy, but I think we only seem "less serious" to those who have their mind set on ignoring the movement from the get go.

To me open source just conveys the idea of "free shit". Saying "FLOSS" conveys the idea that this is actually a culture, with beliefs and ideologies. Much like everyone can identify as queer, but being an LGBTQ+ militant requires belief if not outright dedication to a certain family of ideologies.

Now if having beliefs or being a militant for a particular cause makes you "less serious", well, agree to disagree.

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#46

Post by teddyh »

KirinDave wrote: post #43
teddyh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing I can do can change the outcome either way, teddyh. On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds. > I suspect you've already decided how you feel about me. Again, you are mistaken. You are just some random anonymous person o…

> On the contrary, I told you exactly how to change my mind (and that of others): Point to examples that we can read for ourselves and decide that yes, you really were treated badly in all these cases. That really would change minds. Consider for a moment what you're asking me to do: name names. In several cases, for events over 5 years old. You're asking me to expose myself to more contention and argument to convinc…

I’m sorry, I did not mean to ask for anything you were unwilling to do; your initial text did not give the impression that you were unwilling to name names, it just lacked details or links – on the contrary, you even named “my extensions to the clojure time library”, which could conceivably be used by somebody to look up said details, so I did not see anything to indicate you wanted to avoid “naming names”.

Certainly, nobody can force you to name names if you don’t want to, but vague accusations (such as yours) towards a community deserves to at least be questioned and probed for evidence. Some people would say to not say anything which you’re not prepared to back up with evidence, but I’m not sure I would go that far. Unsubstantiated claims have some value if presented carefully and tactfully. But you appeared to be neither; you seemed to make sweeping generalizations (while carefully not literally doing it), but not giving examples or even details. This style is a non-working strategy for effecting change, which I would assume to be the goal of us all.

> Add to that that your tone disinclines me to believe you're actually asking in good faith

I’m sorry to hear that; I did not mean to give such an impression. I would certainly say that I believe myself to be acting in good faith, such as it is; my goal is to give people what I believe to be a reasonably accurate picture of what kind of treatment they can expect from contributing to FLOSS, to counter the view they might get from your initial comment.

In conclusion: There is a good possibility that you were merely unlucky, either with individual authors or toxic projects. That is simply a slightly more unlikely explanation than the simplest one which I gave. Please don’t be offended by it; I actually only offered it as a motivation for you to disprove it by giving us examples, so we might see for ourselves, and I fully expected you to simply give a few links to end the matter. Since you won’t (for reasons I fully accept), the discussion took an unexpectedly unproductive turn, and I am sorry for that. I never accounted for the possibility of you to not wanting to give details or references, but I should have.

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#49

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

KirinDave wrote: post #10

I've never understood it. I've only had horrific experiences with my open source efforts. From the simplest cases like being ignored on PRs and tickets to mockery in social circles for algorithmic mistakes to finding out my work was enabling bad people to finding out people were misrepresenting my employment status while using my work in violation of the license, I don't think I've ever once had a positive experience…

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who aren't going to bother even looking at your software unless it's open source, especially in certain domains. (That Apple released Swift as open source, for instance, is evidence of this, since they are generally not very positively oriented towards open source.)

Re: Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

#50

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

KirinDave wrote: post #16
andreyv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like you were forcing yourself to contribute for whatever reason. The best results are when you are genuinely interested in your work and in the process of making software better.

Some of the projects were in fact my original work. I was genuinely interested. I get similar negative feedback for writing, often. I don't write issue reports on github because I'm tired of people being angry at me for reporting problems or being derisive because I don't have the workarounds they didn't write down.

This sort of thing varies wildly from project-to-project. I've had a range of experiences from the type you describe to developers bending over backwards without prompting.
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