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Write some software, give it away for free

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Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#171

Post by nly »

tconbeer wrote: post #127
komali2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to FOSS developers but struggle to understand this, maybe because it hasn't happened to me. But, why is this a mental drain? Is there not a simple solution? Reply with the license, "comes with no warranty," "you're free to fork," close issue and move on? I suppose in aggregate it could be draining.

The assholes outnumber the good ones, and it feels like all of humanity is transactional and extractive. At first all engagement is exciting and validating. You work nights and weekends to please people you’ve never met, sure that one good turn deserves another. Then you get your first jerk, then your second, then your third, while your father is in the hospital. You feel pressure to ship a feature you never wanted.…

Encourage forks, not PRs

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#172

Post by matheusmoreira »

utopiah wrote: post #170
matheusmoreira wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally fine to turn off issues and pull requests, and refuse all contributions. The problem is many maintainers create undue responsibility for themselves with snide responses like "PR welcome" to every issue or request. When people show up with the patches after a response like that, I'd say that they are very much owed some of the maintaner's precious time.

Agreed, if a patch is offered after being suggested then some reaction should take place, even if to clarify that currently there is not enough resource to accept/reject it and thus it might be better to temporarily rely on their own fork.

> if a patch is offered after being suggested

I'd say it comes off as more of a challenge than a suggestion. "I don't care, do it yourself if you care so much". Most people just go away when they get told that. Some people actually rise up to the challenge.

> even if to clarify that currently there is not enough resource to accept/reject it

That's fine if clarified beforehand. The CONTRIBUTING.md from the above comment is an excellent example. It clearly communicates the maintainer's stance.

If it's coming from someone who previously "welcomed PRs", that sort of reply is extremely rude. Learning and modifying someone else's project is a major undertaking, and it's very disrespectful when maintainers don't match that effort, especially when they invited it upon themselves.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#173

Post by renticulous »

jaapz wrote: post #153
SerCe wrote: post #37

Or don't. I've done both, published OSS projects and sold some software. The level of entitlement in some comments I received on the OSS side was pretty crazy at times. While with the paid software, all of the interactions I had were so much more constructive. YMMV, but willingness to pay is a great filter.

A TV-presenter of a fairly popular TV-show with an audience in my country once told an anecdote that they wanted the admission for the audience to be free. But when the tickets were free, a lot less people showed up. When they changed the ticket to be the quite arbitrary amount of 7 EUR, suddenly the theater was full every time.

Context is king. A famous cello player playing on streets is valued less and is valued more when playing in a stadium. This is the typical framing phenomenon which psychology has discovered about humans. Even what colour we perceive changes based on surrounding context so not surprising.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#174

Post by globular-toast »

jaapz wrote: post #153
SerCe wrote: post #37

Or don't. I've done both, published OSS projects and sold some software. The level of entitlement in some comments I received on the OSS side was pretty crazy at times. While with the paid software, all of the interactions I had were so much more constructive. YMMV, but willingness to pay is a great filter.

A TV-presenter of a fairly popular TV-show with an audience in my country once told an anecdote that they wanted the admission for the audience to be free. But when the tickets were free, a lot less people showed up. When they changed the ticket to be the quite arbitrary amount of 7 EUR, suddenly the theater was full every time.

We naturally go for scarce things first. A few examples of this:

- I'm not particularly into castles, but I've visited a fair few while travelling. I lived in Norwich for 10 years, home to one of the finest Norman castles in the country. Did I visit? Did I heck.

- When your favourite film was on TV you'd watch it every time. Then when you got it on DVD you'd never watch it again.

- Give a dog some miscellaneous leftovers and notice how they prioritise ingestion.

Not sure it's really the same entitlement phenomenon the GP was talking about, though.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#175

Post by Paradigm2020 »

kw3b wrote: post #48
nohell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't alive in the 90s, and barely was in the 00s. I look at others writings about those early days, and compare it to today, then get a weird feeling of wanting to experience the "good ol' days" before python scripts made in 10 minutes by an AI and sold to investors as "vendor lock-in" was the thing to strive for.

The one thing I take away from those early days is that we didn't really care what most people were doing. We figured most people were lamers, so whatever most people were doing was probably lame by definition. I guess if you want to kind of approximate the good ol' days, I'd ignore what most people are doing, work on what you want to work on, and if you think it's cool try to join or build a community around that. T…

What are you making?

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#176

Post by seba_dos1 »

DANmode wrote: post #162
seba_dos1 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all of them if you want to. It's 100% up to you whether and how you deal with other people and their contributions, and it's completely orthogonal to being FLOSS or using a git hosting.

Then the thread feels a little tangential, because you don’t have to “drive a hard line”, to do that, you just draw it once (publish a no PR policy, don’t host on GH, etc), and you shouldn’t be hearing from users.

That's just one way to do it. Even if you let them send you PRs or whatever, you can still act on them or not depending on how they behave, your available resources, health, mood or just whim. You don't owe anyone anything and "creating a community around a project" is not a goal you have to be striving for regardless of whether you take contributions or provide some user support or not.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#177

Post by DANmode »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #176
DANmode wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the thread feels a little tangential, because you don’t have to “drive a hard line”, to do that, you just draw it once (publish a no PR policy, don’t host on GH, etc), and you shouldn’t be hearing from users.

That's just one way to do it. Even if you let them send you PRs or whatever, you can still act on them or not depending on how they behave, your available resources, health, mood or just whim. You don't owe anyone anything and "creating a community around a project" is not a goal you have to be striving for regardless of whether you take contributions or provide some user support or not.

> depending on how they behave

So, reviewing them.

Which takes time/focus.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#178

Post by cassianoleal »

jaapz wrote: post #153
SerCe wrote: post #37

Or don't. I've done both, published OSS projects and sold some software. The level of entitlement in some comments I received on the OSS side was pretty crazy at times. While with the paid software, all of the interactions I had were so much more constructive. YMMV, but willingness to pay is a great filter.

A TV-presenter of a fairly popular TV-show with an audience in my country once told an anecdote that they wanted the admission for the audience to be free. But when the tickets were free, a lot less people showed up. When they changed the ticket to be the quite arbitrary amount of 7 EUR, suddenly the theater was full every time.

Back in my home town, we used to have free events all the time. Outdoor concerts, theatre, even indoor concerts and festivals.

They were almost always full to the brim.

Anecdotes are fun, but not much more than that.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#180

Post by josephg »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #159
DANmode wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of them? Why are you on a platform open to accepting them in the first place? Are we talking about the same thing?

Yes, all of them if you want to. It's 100% up to you whether and how you deal with other people and their contributions, and it's completely orthogonal to being FLOSS or using a git hosting.

The central freedom provided by opensource software maintainers is the fork button. Not the “merge pull request” button.

Git hosting provides discoverability and the ability to fork repositories. Everything else is an optional feature.

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