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Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

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Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#31

Post by otikik »

dessant wrote: post #20
rorykoehler wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a don't be a dick clause to the license and revoke the keys of anyone who is.

That can be cathartic, but normalizing hostility towards users will ultimately hurt both you and your project. There are no winners in this context once you decide to draw your weapon.

On the other hand, letting people use the project forums to vent, or to attack others users, or attempting to hoard the devs' attention, will create its own set of problems.

I'd say 1 or 2 polite warnings are due (everyone can have a bad day). If the misbehavior continues, take out the banhammer. Use it judiciously but decisively.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#32

Post by dessant »

peterwwillis wrote: post #22
dessant wrote: post #12

> We can get demotivated, uncertain, depressed even by negative reactions or interactions, and it can lead to developers stepping away from the project, taking a break or even leaving for good. It truly is a struggle. I have a couple of projects with moderate numbers of users, and between the "it doesn't work" private messages (not even mentioning which project) and some abusive and entitled users, I do wonder someti…

You get to decide how much support you're going to give, and what kind of access. The easier access people have to you, the more they're going to share their frustrations and start demanding things. My first suggestion is to limit access. Only provide a mailing list e-mail address, so people know their comments are going to be public, and they have to subscribe to it and craft an e-mail. Second I'd suggest you provid…

I agree that this is how it should work. Though in practice issue and feature request templates are usually left there unfilled, and people will find a way to reach out on all of your social media accounts. My experience has been that the lines we draw are regularily disrespected.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#33

Post by magduf »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #9
axaxs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a while on a distro. The issue tracker is stressful for two main reasons. One, a lot of esoteric bugs that are hardware dependent. It's so frustrating to ask for help in testing to be ghosted or told 'no.' People don't seem to understand that as a small team, you don't have and won't buy all the hardware choices that exist to work on something for free. The second stressor are people being adament and pu…

> People don't seem to understand that as a small team, you don't have and won't buy all the hardware choices that exist to work on something for free. that's why there shouldn't be as many distros. With fewer distros, it would be easier to test them on various configurations. Also it would make sure any fixes for specific hardware are used more widely, rather than ending up a patch in a single distro.

Yeah, but much of the reason I think there's as much volunteer involvement as there is is because distros are different, and the volunteers are happier to contribute their time to something they believe in.

If you have fewer distributions, that means they're going to make design choices more people won't like, which means volunteers aren't going to be as interested in contributing. You can't please all the people all the time, remember. A small number of distros will equate to making lots of compromises, so no one will be happy. This works for corporate products, because people are getting paid to work on something they don't care much about, but it doesn't work for a volunteer project.

Just as an example: if I were working on, say, Linux Mint, but then all the distro maintainers decided to have a giant meeting and in it they decided we really only need one Linux distro, CentOS, I'd just quit. There's no way in hell I'd want to work on CentOS of all things. I can find more enjoyable ways of spending my free time. I'm sure you'll find this with anything that people are passionate about: if you try to get them to redirect their energy to something "boring", they're not going to do it.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#34

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sodosopa wrote: post #26
arusahni wrote: post #25

This touches on something I've seen in (some, not all) large open source communities: the language used on a daily basis. The default tone is one devoid of empathy or understanding. > This update is shit. or > [new build gets published, person's pet bug doesn't get addressed] > The devs are lazy. At what point did this sort of tone get normalized? I initially chalked it down to non-native English speakers using verbi…

While I'd like to blame this on gaming culture, this went on back in the Usenet days too.

Hell is other people.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#35

Post by folex »

rossdavidh wrote: post #23
dessant wrote: post #12

> We can get demotivated, uncertain, depressed even by negative reactions or interactions, and it can lead to developers stepping away from the project, taking a break or even leaving for good. It truly is a struggle. I have a couple of projects with moderate numbers of users, and between the "it doesn't work" private messages (not even mentioning which project) and some abusive and entitled users, I do wonder someti…

So, it seems like there is a potential way for a non-dev user to help out with open source, here. Basically, if a person volunteers to be an intermediary, reading the feedback and distilling it down to the relevant content (stripping out the unproductive negativity), that could be useful. It would also be emotionally easier to read harsh feedback, when it's not about _your_ work, just the work of a product you use. M…

While the idea is good and kind, it's not as easy as it seems.

That's called a support line, and it requires good understanding of the project by non-dev support. That requires to educate someone about your project, and maintain their knowledge to be up to date.

That's not an easy task even in commercial projects with a team of several people, and ability to delegate, and requires a non-trivial skill of leadership.

In other words, the project is very lucky to have such people. And while it sometimes happen organically, it's hard to implement this intentionally.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#36

Post by john61 »

dessant wrote: post #12

> We can get demotivated, uncertain, depressed even by negative reactions or interactions, and it can lead to developers stepping away from the project, taking a break or even leaving for good. It truly is a struggle. I have a couple of projects with moderate numbers of users, and between the "it doesn't work" private messages (not even mentioning which project) and some abusive and entitled users, I do wonder someti…

Has it been tried to offer such unproductive users paid support?

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#38

Post by dhimes »

Townley wrote: post #18

> Beyond that, keep in mind that while donations keep Linux Mint and other distributions afloat, the occasional message of appreciation can be encouraging, and at times personally invaluable. Exactly. This issue isn't just something that "maintainers deal with"; it's also something that "users can help with". The next time you install a library that makes your life easier, write someone an email. Star the project on…

Great advice.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#39

Post by GoblinSlayer »

z2 wrote: post #8
doktrin wrote: post #4

> Remember that these folks are pouring all of their energy into a free product, and remember that they're sensitive to how you perceive it. I hope I live to see the day when the internet stops bringing out the worst in us. The Linux community might not be as vitriolic as cesspools like gaming, but some days it really isn't that far off.

As someone who has published a free app for fun, I've learned that due to any mix of entitlement and ignorance, anything you put out there can make some people emotionally angry. I'm still learning how to move on and accept that this is OK, for them and for me.

I assume that human's stupidity is infinite. It helps a lot.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#40

Post by MisterOctober »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

Linux Mint seems to take a fairly regular beating from the Linux community at large, and I'm not sure why. It became fashionable after their ISO downloads were briefly compromised in 2016, and a popular LWN post became the script for people to reiterate every time Mint is mentioned in any capacity.[0] I think it's a terrible shame. For all the stuff I wish it did better, it does so much right that I still overwhelmin…

Totally - Mint was my bridge from OSX to Linux. Great stuff. My impression is that the "cool kids" like to dis Mint because it's popular and easy to use. I found that its ease of use allowed me to get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem at a relaxed pace and not throw my hands up in frustration.
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