It's called "support" and many companies pay for it to be provided by many of the major FOSS software producers; mileage with those services varying I'm sure. Making demands of indep producers? This "should" vocabulary I'm not a fan of. Maybe I'll write a blog post about all the things "others should do" and sure I will be heard? Sounds like there was plenty of extra time on the table for this author to make these office hrs to begin with
Open source projects should run office hours
241–250 of 279 posts
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#242I've been running a "happy hour" at Friday 10am for 4-5 years now. Some weeks no one shows up. Some weeks 3-4 people will show up. The important thing is that I'm talking with users regularly so I get to help them and hear their pain points.
https://sidekiq.org/support.html
Office hours are great because they remove the admin overhead of scheduling individual appointments.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that you are only going to hear the voices of those who did not understand. Those who did had no reason to comment on it.
There is another option - I understood and did not agree.
My mistake - I meant to reply to the discussion about people misunderstanding the expression "office hours" and attached it to the wrong subthread. This is not related to your point about "should" at all.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#244I have deep aversion to "Open source projects should run office hours" title. Maybe "Office hours may be a good idea for open source projects"? This would not suggest obligation. In general, fact that someone created or maintains or supports open source projects should not be considered to create any obligations beyond lack of malice and abuse. I am not obligated to support any bugs, create any features and it is per…
What happened to the HN rule of "interpret everything with the most positive interpretation possible", when this is the top voted comment ? It seems pretty obvious that the author doesn't intend to coerce anyone into doing anything.
I thought that rule was for interpreting comments to keep civil discussion. Identifying possible interpretations of what is in an article and the biases it may either imply, be sourced from, or create in others seems a worthwhile topic to discuss about an article, though care must be taken to distinguish from 'could imply' and 'does imply'.
One such use of this is when someone posts an article they have some control over, knowing how the title biases or primes a reader can be very informative if they need to make a change because of an unintended effect, given the chance of communities entirely disconnected from hacker news viewing and possibly discussing the article.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened to the HN rule of "interpret everything with the most positive interpretation possible", when this is the top voted comment ? It seems pretty obvious that the author doesn't intend to coerce anyone into doing anything.
It is overruled by the "law of the topmost comment" - the top comment is very likely a negative take on some subpart of the topic at hand, sometimes unrelated to the actual article, worded in the strongest way possible.
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Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you, but the article is not about that.
I referred specifically to the title in my comment.
Yes, we're aware. The criticism is that you didn't engage with the substance of the actual idea, and instead spawned a ten-page thread about something the article doesn't say.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#247Yeah just give yourself a new job moonlighting for free.
But look on the bright side: if you build something really useful and it gets picked up by Amazon, you'll get zero dollars! Mmmmmm yummy.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#248I hate articles like this. Or maybe it's just the headlines but it follows a set formula: 1)Person X finds a way of doing something that works for them . 2)Person X writes an article either saying outright, or implying, that this is how it should be done for everyone About the only universal statement I've every found useful is the one that says "Universal statements should always be treated with skepticism".
"I’d like to encourage more open source project maintainers to consider doing something similar."
Yes, it doesn't make for a convenient headline. I'd just like to avoid "Everyone Should Do X" headlines.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened to the HN rule of "interpret everything with the most positive interpretation possible", when this is the top voted comment ? It seems pretty obvious that the author doesn't intend to coerce anyone into doing anything.
It is overruled by the "law of the topmost comment" - the top comment is very likely a negative take on some subpart of the topic at hand, sometimes unrelated to the actual article, worded in the strongest way possible.
your take on his take is meta-humorous.
If your argument holds, I would expect my agreeable comment of mine to be downvoted or replaced by a comment possibly critical of your viewpoint.
Re: Open source projects should run office hours
#250I think a lot of the comments are concluding from the title that open source maintainers should be working on the projects during office hours. That is not what the article is suggesting. From the article - >> anyone can book a 25 minute conversation with me on a Friday to talk about the project. I’m interested in talking to people who are using Datasette, or who are considering using it, or who just want to have a c…
I thought "office hours" is a common term in universities?
That is how I took it.
I suspect it might also be a synonym for "working hours" or 9-5, aka a job.