Comment by elihu
7 years ago
The other side of this is that open source projects are not entitled to users, or relevance. If they aspire to those things, then being responsive to their users and making something amazing that strangers want to use is part of the process.
Neither side has any particular obligation, but open source creates the most benefit when users and developers make an effort to be considerate towards each other.
Completely agree.
I don't know why more people aren't pointing this out. It's almost as though people don't realize how much the value of Clojure comes from the community. Or aren't aware that many of the most helpful and constructive members of that community are burning out and leaving.
From the link in geofft's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538873):
"At first, each community is defined by its potential. But as that potential is realized, the community begins to be defined by its compromises. That change is felt most keenly by the people who were there first, who remember what it was like when anything seemed possible. They feel fenced in and so they move on, in search of their golden city."
I've yet to see a non harmonious relationship between constructive and helpful community members and the core team.
I'm also not that sure the community contributes as much as you think. I use Clojure for work, and 95% of all value is from the core team only. I'm not trying to say the community is bad, I'm part of it, mostly trying to point out that it actually is quite disproportionate in relation to the core team, and I don't think we can criticize them until we (the community) actually step up and start being a lot more helpful and constructive.
As a serious user of Clojure, I just want to point out that one of my favorite thing about Clojure is the consideration that the core team has for its users.
I don't think this gist is targeted at users, but at other contributors.
As a user, Clojure is one of the best community I've ever been in. Where else do you get someone from the core team answering your questions in less than 24h ?
Design choices are well explained, the ticket process is well detailed on the Jira, the conj each year announce what to expect in the new version, and everyone is polite, inclusive and friendly to newcomers and beginners alike.
Getting responses in 24h was far from the norm for us. The responses were late and dismissive, but this was 2 years ago.
I since abandoned Clojure. I didn’t trust the core team anymore.
I've been engaged for the past 3 years. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've always received very quick answers to questions. I've had inferior support from paid offerings in comparison to be honest.