Open source is not about you (2018)

Post by ragall » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 10:04 PM UTC

throwaway346434 wrote: post #125

ragall wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's highly offensive and inflammatory. It is sane and factually correct. > Plenty of open source projects consider themselves a community which welcome newcomers, take governance seriously Rich is taking governance very seriously. Others aren't and give nobodies the right to vote. In any case, he's factually correct. Nothing in open source implies anything about any type of governance, as "Open source is a licensi…

You might need to go back and read that one again, this is the faintest criticism of a lengthy screed in which the person you are replying to labels user-hostile behaviours as "acting like a jerk" and generally disapproves. Your counter argument to this is to just be contrarian and imply they are a jerk... because, well, you don't agree with them. You didn't add substance to the discussion (facts, evidence, argument…

Post by throwaway613746 » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

dakiol wrote: post #42

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy. For example, if you show courtesy by contributing to an open source project and following all the guidelines they have, I think it's fair to assume that courtesy will be shown in return. I know that m…

Post by ragall » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #107

hinkley wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not disagreeing that people get entitled about the gifts they think they’re bringing to someone else’s party. Yeah it’s frustrating and sometimes it’s bonkers. Don’t bring “lutefisk” to someone else’s party and expect to be celebrated as a hero. That doesn’t absolve the host of all scrutiny in perpetuity, and that’s usually how these conversations go. This is a popularity contest and trying to have that conversat…

A gift economy only exists between people who agree that they are participating in one. Gifts between equals create expectations of reciprocity. If you use open source software, you are expected to contribute. Accepting a gift without an intention to reciprocate is an admission of social inferiority. Users who don't see themselves as socially inferior to developers are not participating in the gift economy and not bo…

Post by ragall » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

throwaway346434 wrote: post #130

sethops1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to create and maintain a community that's fine, maybe even great. TFA is just pointing out that the presence of an OSS license is not an implicit signal that the project is interested in any such community. They're separate things, and my read is that the author is frustrated with the constant conflating of the two. It's not an attack on your values at all.

Quick questions; as this project clearly exists in a community-less vacuum: How do people keep finding and using it? How do complaints or feature requests keep arriving? Why is the published to an audience that doesn't exist? Or is it fair to say the project has published in public, so has contact with a very broad community already?

Post by hinkley » Fri, Feb 13, 2026, 10:45 PM UTC

elzbardico wrote: post #152

hinkley wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counterpoints: > - You are entitled to human decency. Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project. This is a common thing in a lot of projects; maintainers have power, and this allows them to be rude without concern. Not ok. There is a subtle line here and I have some sympathy for both sides of this debate because for a long time there, and in some ways is still happening under different names…

Women deal weaponized politeness a lot. There. Corrected it for you