Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
tylercipriani.com
Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
1–10 of 61 posts
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#2It is even more toxic in the corporate world.
At least in the open source world being a sycophant doesn't get you anywhere.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#3Part of the dynamic is that companies have this sense of entitlement. They see the open source as a vendor. Employees have been told to use the tool, so the employees are frustrated. Because the employer has made it hard to contribute back, the employee is doubly frustrated, and feels stuck between unyielding corporate stance towards open source and unpaid volunteers that can’t support them.
I’m not excusing the behavior. I’ve been the victim of it - the person commenting is often actually in a pretty crappy situation because of their employer has a shitty understanding that open source is about participating, not consuming.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#4One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached.
What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day.
Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-track: I'd be curious to learn if it is different in open-source and if so, why. My understanding was that the "professional" way to deal with hecklers online is in fact to ignore them and delete/block their content.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#5I stopped contributing to Open Source in any meaningful way in 2004 due to the incredible amount of non-stop entitlement and toxicity. I am working on a project with a few other folks and the subject of “to open source or not” has come up a few times, and in principle I think we should open source, but in practice I can do without the meaningless drama in my life.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#6One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Well, there’s actually one significant different. The IRL deranged person, if physically close enough, can actually cause you physical harm. Sure, ignore them, but remain observant and in tune with your surroundings.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#7Part of the dynamic is that companies have this sense of entitlement. They see the open source as a vendor. Employees have been told to use the tool, so the employees are frustrated. Because the employer has made it hard to contribute back, the employee is doubly frustrated, and feels stuck between unyielding corporate stance towards open source and unpaid volunteers that can’t support them. I’m not excusing the beha…
I would never excuse this sort of behaviour, but if you want to understand the corporate dynamic with open source, then you need to dig a little deeper than this imo:
> the person commenting is often actually in a pretty crappy situation because of their employer has a shitty understanding that open source is about participating, not consuming.
The most frustrating thing about using open source in a corporate environment is (imo) that open source maintainers have exactly this same attitude (or alternatively some passive aggressive version of it), even when the frustrated user is from a company paying a 6+ figure support contract. My personal expectation is that no bug that I have, no matter how serious, will ever be patched by an OSS maintainer, regardless of how much my employer is paying them in support fees. So far, this expectation has always held true, even with the more professional operations like Red Hat.
This is frustrating for me, but I at least have the ability to write patches for most of the OSS that I use (if I have to). For people who can’t do that, who are paying big bucks for support, I can’t imagine how frustrated they can get…
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#8One thing I learned from playing video games is that online, you can just ignore and block anyone. Seriously, everything is detached. What's the difference between a stranger on the internet yelling at you versus a crazy homeless man in San Francisco yelling at you? Absolutely none, their thoughts affect in you in 0 ways, feel free to ignore and carry on with your day. Edit, because a lot of replies are getting off-t…
Hmm. One thing I learned from playing video games is that I enjoy myself way more when my teammates are friendly or at least not actively hostile to me, even if I know I can block their communication.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#9I had a couple of popular repos. Eventually I just started charging for issues. No payment? Issue closed. Stress went way down. If I see an issue I want to fix, I will fix it, for free or otherwise. But the default is "pay me", which helps set expectations.
The code is still available and free, support is not free.
Re: Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
#10I stopped contributing to Open Source in any meaningful way in 2004 due to the incredible amount of non-stop entitlement and toxicity. I am working on a project with a few other folks and the subject of “to open source or not” has come up a few times, and in principle I think we should open source, but in practice I can do without the meaningless drama in my life.
You might consider a “source available” model a la SQLite. The maintainers there chose to make the code open and freely usable, and you’re welcome to fork it and use it for whatever you want, but they won’t take contributions back. It might be a good middle ground, depending on what your project looks like.