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Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

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Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#31

Post by eitland »

Karunamon wrote: post #13
mion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about lowering the bar to entry, he's just saying you don't need to humiliate others when they are just trying to help you. You could at least dismiss them in a friendly/neutral way. "Sorry, can't accept this: check out procedure X in the docs."

Hence the "sympathize" part, but then again, I also sympathize with people who are human and eventually want to start inflicting bodily harm on people who can't be arsed to read the FAQ before A'ing the same Q again. Part of the "bar to entry" is that mindset. You don't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for submitting crap code. You get told your code is crap with the expectation you'll improve before wast…

Your FAQ better be very visible and better include the question and a working answer then.

Also (no offense, you might be a real genius) but a lot of people who think they are above everyone else really isn't. I've seen people frown at the use of Java reflection because it wasn't type safe then go ahead and deliver brand new features written in pl/sql.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#32

Post by gav »

tinco wrote: post #9

I've never seen an opensource leader make fun of an honest attempt at contribution. What I have seen is a lot of ignoring and rejecting attempts. Miguel de Icaza had a blog post on this I think. The problem with large opensource projects is that they have a lot to do, and simply don't have time to thoroughly follow up on all the small contributions that are ridden with naieve errors and plain formatting issues. Not t…

I'm of the opinion that the best thing for large projects is new blood. If large OSS projects rotated people through triage and new contributor on-boarding, e.g. how to make a patch, how to get it approved, and so on, then in the long-run the number of contributors will grow.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#33

Post by dbecker »

cloverich wrote: post #20
tinco wrote: post #9

I've never seen an opensource leader make fun of an honest attempt at contribution. What I have seen is a lot of ignoring and rejecting attempts. Miguel de Icaza had a blog post on this I think. The problem with large opensource projects is that they have a lot to do, and simply don't have time to thoroughly follow up on all the small contributions that are ridden with naieve errors and plain formatting issues. Not t…

> Yes it can hurt if your contribution is coldly cast aside, and yes it would be much better if they warmly took you in and taught you in their ways, but if the OSS project leaders don't keep up the constant stream of contributions, improving the project all the time the project will die and all work will have been in vain. Perhaps I'm being naive, but doesn't fostering relationships with contributors promote more co…

Agreed that fostering relationships with contributors promotes more contributions.

But, if someone's first contribution had naive mistakes, and it took more of your time than it saved, I can sympathize with a leader who doesn't try to get similar contributions.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#34

Post by potatolicious »

debacle wrote: post #11
steele wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymous examples would help make the point, but outright pointers to the behavior described is not a not too distant cousin of "hah check out this jerk"

When in society did "Look at what this jerk is doing." become something unwarranted? If people are acting like assholes, they deserved to be called out.

When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. If you linked to a Github pull request that demonstrates this behavior, that guy now becomes the eye of the storm, instead of the community where the focus should be.

If the author did that, we'd all be talking about how githubuserxyz is such an ass for belittling contributors and how dissimilar we each individually are from githubuserxyz.

It doesn't help the conversation - which is one that the community needs to have.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#35

Post by debacle »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #28
debacle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When in society did "Look at what this jerk is doing." become something unwarranted? If people are acting like assholes, they deserved to be called out.

> When in society did "Look at what this jerk is doing." become something unwarranted? // The point is here that it's assumed that the people making the pull request are attempting to make an honest contribution and the response they're getting is "look at what this jerk is doing". I don't think it's possible to give real life examples without making it possible to find the people involved. Clearly the author isn't w…

The author is coming from a point of view that I don't know if anyone else in the OSS world holds, and that the Internet doesn't seem to agree with. Without hard evidence, he's talking out his defecation hole.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#36

Post by eps »

tinco wrote: post #9

I've never seen an opensource leader make fun of an honest attempt at contribution. What I have seen is a lot of ignoring and rejecting attempts. Miguel de Icaza had a blog post on this I think. The problem with large opensource projects is that they have a lot to do, and simply don't have time to thoroughly follow up on all the small contributions that are ridden with naieve errors and plain formatting issues. Not t…

Try Miranda IM ;)

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#37

Post by akkartik »

Karunamon wrote: post #13
mion wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about lowering the bar to entry, he's just saying you don't need to humiliate others when they are just trying to help you. You could at least dismiss them in a friendly/neutral way. "Sorry, can't accept this: check out procedure X in the docs."

Hence the "sympathize" part, but then again, I also sympathize with people who are human and eventually want to start inflicting bodily harm on people who can't be arsed to read the FAQ before A'ing the same Q again. Part of the "bar to entry" is that mindset. You don't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for submitting crap code. You get told your code is crap with the expectation you'll improve before wast…

You sir are a douchebag, and I won't participate in any project you're associated with.

I don't understand why everyone's pussyfooting around this guy. Please? No offense? This guy is THE PROBLEM. He doesn't get a pat on the back and warm encouragement for providing crap people skills. People skills are part of a project too, just like code.

I downvote rude people on HN, and ascribe to the idea of not saying something you wouldn't say in person. But this guy? I'd say this and more to him in person, on a stage, in front of a million people. Go ahead, downvote me. It's all in a good cause.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#38

Post by ajross »

gav wrote: post #32
tinco wrote: post #9

I've never seen an opensource leader make fun of an honest attempt at contribution. What I have seen is a lot of ignoring and rejecting attempts. Miguel de Icaza had a blog post on this I think. The problem with large opensource projects is that they have a lot to do, and simply don't have time to thoroughly follow up on all the small contributions that are ridden with naieve errors and plain formatting issues. Not t…

I'm of the opinion that the best thing for large projects is new blood. If large OSS projects rotated people through triage and new contributor on-boarding, e.g. how to make a patch, how to get it approved, and so on, then in the long-run the number of contributors will grow.

But how do you do that without occasionally handing over the maintainership of some important piece of infrastructure to someone who clearly can't handle it? The people at the top of the ladder right now are there because (and sure, there are exceptions) they are (1) very good at it, and (2) willing to do it. And they have employers who have made bets on those two facts. Those employers aren't really interested in someone else taking over when they have someone working now.

I'm sensitive to this, really. I work in an embedded linux world where I end up submitting a bunch of patches to various projects as an "outsider" (often one who is still learning the project in question). And yeah, I get yelled at a lot. And it sucks.

I'd love these people to be nicer too. But honestly I don't see a "process solution" like you propose. We just need to find nicer hard-working ubergeeks. I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#39

Post by whatshisface »

bryanh wrote: post #5

I've not seen this at all. In my experience, most open source project leaders are very congenial and gracious that you're spending time on their project. I did some poking around and couldn't find any OSS leads that disparaged their contributors. Not sure if the lack of examples was an attempt to not "name and blame" or if there aren't many good ones. OP, to be clear, this isn't merely leads saying "this code/feature…

>I've not seen this at all.

Well, there is always everyone's favorite grumpy uncle Linus. :) I think it ends up being 'ok' for him to do it because nobody questions the importance of a kernel being perfect.

Re: Dear Open Source Project Leader: Quit Being A Jerk

#40

Post by debacle »

potatolicious wrote: post #34
debacle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When in society did "Look at what this jerk is doing." become something unwarranted? If people are acting like assholes, they deserved to be called out.

When the goal is to change behavior as a whole it helps to not point anyone out. If you linked to a Github pull request that demonstrates this behavior, that guy now becomes the eye of the storm, instead of the community where the focus should be. If the author did that, we'd all be talking about how githubuserxyz is such an ass for belittling contributors and how dissimilar we each individually are from githubuserxy…

This doesn't seem like an activity that's rampant in the community in any fashion. I personally only recall it happening once, ever, and I've been a contributor to open source projects for almost ten years.
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