Comment by ahepp
2 years ago
I hear this and it makes sense that a minority of users sucks up a lot of time, but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people.
I've never maintained a popular open source project so maybe there's something about the situation I just don't understand. But it seems like:
> Thank you for your feature request, we will add it to the backlog. The core team doesn't work on unfunded feature requests because they use up a lot of time and resources. We are happy to review high quality PRs from anyone interested in implementing the feature. We also have a variety of sponsorship options, and a list of past contributors and maintainers available for contract work.
would be reasonable and polite?
> but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people.
One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find.
Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands.
It's also worth nothing that some requests/issues/questions might be reasonable when viewed in isolation but not if there are hundreds of them.
Think for example stuff unrelated to the project but where you as a hacker could nonetheless help because you do know the answers/possess the skill. For me at least, I find it hard to deal with that, because I know that I could in theory help that person. I just can't in practice because time and energy are both finite.
> We are happy to review high quality PRs
Are we though? There's a lot of work attached to reviewing even high-quality PRs. Also, even if the PR is high quality, the maintainers will still be the ones maintaining that new feature so it's still significantly more work.
I've never read any resources on what constitutes proper open source. It seems like there are a lot of different and incompatible goals in the world of open source. For example, if I wanted to get paid I definitely wouldn't be reading something by Stallman.
Sure, reviewing and maintaining PRs is work too. If I wasn't willing to do it for free, I'd be clear and upfront, and say
> Unfortunately we don't have the time to review PRs without funding. If you are interested in having a PR reviewed, you can sponsor the project or contract a maintainer. In the past, it's taken a couple hours to review PRs. Keep in mind that even after your PR is merged, it will need to be maintained. If there are no volunteer maintainers able to keep your code in a decent state, it may be removed in future releases.
There's a very real chance someone won't use your project if you say this. They might use a competing project with maintainers that will work for free, or they might even fork your project. That's certainly their right.
I don't think I've ever seen a shitstorm arise from clear and open boundary-setting by maintainers. I'm sure I don't have an extensive catalog of every internet shitstorm, but the ones I can recall off the top of my head are usually situations that I'm sure felt like rug-pulls or shakedowns to users. I'm also having trouble thinking of a shitstorm over a minor incident that truly ruined someone's reputation, but I might just not run in the right circles to know about that kind of thing.
> but the ones I can recall off the top of my head are usually situations that I'm sure felt like rug-pulls or shakedowns to users
It’s funny you mention shakedowns, because I’ve seen at least one or two minor shitstorms (objectively, they were pretty minor, but I’m sure they didn’t feel that way to the maintainers in the moment) because language very similar to what you proposed was interpreted as a shakedown:
> We also have a variety of sponsorship options, and a list of past contributors and maintainers available for contract work.
And I think that’s where the rub is. Almost any strategy as a maintainer for trying to establish a boundary and ignore people (close issues or PRs automatically, offer contract services, etc) can cause these kinds of issues. People really dislike being ignored, and so a policy of ignoring things will kind of inevitably lead to conflict and confrontation with some percentage of people.
> Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands.
If you go on social media and offer your well-thought-out opinions about some controversial subject, you are very likely to get large number of people sending you offensive messages, arguing with you objectionably, trying to start pile-ons, attempting to dox you, etc.
Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting?
This is a bit tangential, but I actually think charging money to participate in certain online discussions is a really good idea.
For instance, I think it would be awesome if everyone sending an email to my main account had to send me $1. If what they are sending me isn't worth $1 to them, why should I get a buzz on my phone? Spam would be solved instantly.
I certainly don't think that every corner of the internet should be pay-to-play, and I generally don't think that the fees should be substantial to users participating in good faith. But I've got about five emails in the past two days from an airline bugging me to upgrade my seat. It costs me time and attention to weed through my inbox.
I'm sure this principle could be applied to sites like HN or reddit to raise the bar and put even just a little bit of skin in the game.
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> Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting?
Why are you asking me this? I'm not the author of that text. My take on this article can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38302098
>> but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people.
>One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find.
The solution is clear. Just apply the grandparent's advice recursively:
Ignore these "resources" (!) on "proper open-source", too.
Also, that term sounds awfully entitled to me, too.
Who the heck is anyone to decide what constitues 'proper' open source "resources"? Total nonsense.
Everyone can have their own opinion about that, or not even bother to have an opinion, and just do exactly and only what they want for their own open source project, ignoring the naysayers, free-but-unwanted advice-givers, and freeloaders.
I didn't know that we were living in a socialist heaven. Hot tip: We are not.
Apropos of this thread, and related to the recent HN post about a new Calibre version release, I googled Calibre and its creator, Kovid Goyal, casually, and was interested to see this older HN thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32052669
Which does go to show both kinds of opposing viewpoints about this whole "entitled" attitude of some OSS users vs. the maintainers, w.r.t. to the specific case of Calibre and Kovid. Based on that thread alone, it shows that is easy to get prejudiced by one negative comment about a maintainer, whether true or false, and not know about or ignore all the other positive work and behavior by him/her.
It's like if you live in a quiet suburb, and someone walks up to your window every night and starts yelling obscenities for an hour or two.
It can be ignored, yes, but the worst offenders go beyond a polite discourse and will send emails to whatever email they can find, DM you on Twitter, Mastodon, etc., and drop weird and annoying comments anywhere they think you have a chance of seeing them.
Some people have thicker skins than others, but it's just a bit tiresome no matter how much you can deflect.
This is something I'd love to see, the problem is that any "pay for features" model runs into serious legal issues:
- for American developers, many of them have provisions in their employment contracts that allow them to do unpaid open source work, but ban any kind of commercial (i.e. in exchange for money) activity. The fact that this reach into off-time by employers is possible is nuts anyway, but doesn't make the problem go away.
- as soon as any kind of money is involved, a lot of jurisdictions have provisions regarding warranties and liabilities - and these can be pretty enormous, see the log4j fallout. Some of these can be put aside by contracts, but nevertheless it's a legal minefield.
- some jurisdictions don't allow you to just take money in exchange for a project, it exposes developers to tax and social security liabilities. Even labeling such stuff as pure "donations" isn't safe if your tax auditor is particularly focused on nailing you.
- what to do if someone from a sanctioned country donates you money? What to do if you're European and get money from someone in Cuba (which is not sanctioned by the EU), but are employed by / work for American companies or intend to travel to the US?
- what to do if some arms manufacturer donates you / funds money for a project that could be used in weapons? Virtually all countries have some sort of equivalent to ITAR regulations that you really don't want to run afoul of.
> but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people.
There very likely isn't just one reason that applies to all maintainers.
But there are some reasons one can hypothesize that probably apply to some or many maintainers.
One of the best handlings of this I ever saw was on opal, where someone was ranting about a non-software issue calling for the removal of a prominent contributor.