The secret life of open source developers [video]

Hmmmm I dunno...

You make software available to other people, for free. But it's for them to use it (else, what's the point ?). So you're exposing yourself to users and users behave like users.

It's not because you give away something for free that its value (and the way that value is recognized, for example, by being polite) is any different.

The only thing you get by making it is the right, as a creator, to make it the way you want. That's the freedom you get (and what a beautiful one). But it doesn't give you any power on those who'll use it (well, except for the license); in particular, you have no power to make the users polite.

Now, of course, I prefer to talk with people who are polite and who express gratitude for the work I do for free. And of course I don't like rude people. But making FOSS doesn't change the human nature of you users. Even if you put hard work in it, you sacrifice a bit of your life...

So, the overall tone of the presentation seems a bit off to me. I would have preferred something like : here's why we do it, what motivates us, the success, the failures,... But the user, well, they just are what they are, software can't fix that.

(in case you wonder, yes, I've made some open source projects, one success, on failure and guess what, the success, at least to me, was measured by the number of users).

> So, the overall tone of the presentation seems a bit off to me.

I can see why you might think that but I think everyone is entitled a platform to vent their frustrations on from time to time. They didn't come off rude and I think their comments are ones worth making. However I do agree it was very focused on their bad experiences with user/community interactions.

I once got a mail for a free software I published: "You're product sucks, I don't like it, why are you even doing this? There are much better alternatives out there.".

So what to do with that? I have to admit that this mail really stung for a while. Maybe I should have asked, why it sucked for this person, but then, why should I care about someone rude?

It didn't take me long to learn that some percentage of people tend to behave badly, especially on the internet and I can't do anything about it. I don't even exclude myself, I also wrote things to support addresses that I regret now. Overall, when I release something in the open now I do it because either I don't care, it's good for my image or I hope that people like it. I ignore rude comments and enjoy the happy ones. You would hope that people that know about OSS would be more considerate but they just aren't, free-loaders exist everywhere, it's a human problem, but it's also no reason to not stay idealistic.

EDIT: typo

Right, I should have phrased it better: it's about self-interest. That interest _can_ be use of the software for yourself, and you're right, it can be selling support for the software or in open core models, selling add-ons.

I suppose "make the world a better place" can be a motivation as well (though I don't think it'll last very long for any individual unless they're RMS, maybe). There may be personal curiosity or education as motivation as well.

I don't think percentages between the motivations even matter for what the presentation is about (because it certainly isn't about users that pay for service contracts).

So there are transactional situations (support contract, other payments), there's "better world" idealism, and there's immediate self-interest ("I use this stuff myself").

Users being pushy on a communication medium demanding work from others with no fulfillment of these motivations that would back the demand doesn't even make the world a better place (pushy people != better world), so there's nothing in it for the devs.

Which gets back to the point of the presentation: if you want something fixed, step in (do it yourself, pay somebody to do it for you, ...). You can ask nicely, and that might even work at times, but you're not entitled to anybody agreeing to that kind of one-sided transaction.

> in particular, you have no power to make the users polite.

So very (and unfortunately) true. However they also have no power to make you do the thing they need straight away, or ever.

> Even if you put hard work in it, you sacrifice a bit of your life.

And this is bad. We need to move the needle away from this. It is incredibly exclusionary

I am a younger person, no kids, in a job where I was able to negotiate for open source maintenance time. By making "sacrifice" a requirement it makes it off putting for someone with kids, or working in a job that has them working long hours, or working multiple jobs.

> But the user, well, they just are what they are, software can't fix that.

No, software can't fix it. but highlighting the problem, and letting people possibly see what they are doing is not useful may change the user.

I have been a maintainer of a project for a long time, and I get everything from people pinging me in our IRC channel, to DMing me, to asking if I give them my skype ID so I can call into a bridge to help them debug an issue at midnight. We need to highlight this is not OK.

Personally, I really like the PowerDNS rule for open source support [1] - it sets expectations, and the base requirements from someone looking for help.

> the success, at least to me, was measured by the number of users

That is a valid metric, but just one. I personally measured the success of the project based on what people were using it (e.g. I would rather wikimedia vs 20 startups), but that metric is really person specific.

1 - https://blog.powerdns.com/2016/01/18/open-source-support-out...