[forgettableuser]

As somebody who has written to companies about bugs in their products (and almost always ignored), I would really appreciate a response even if it was some form letter thing to the effect of "I just make a small component that happens to be used in your car, kind of like the people who make the screws in your car. Please contact your car manufacturer directly."

I personally just like knowing somebody read my letter instead of going into a black hole. And I kind of expect these things to go into black holes, so it's actually kind of heart warming when I receive any kind of response.

And this response would at least tell me to try a different contact. (I know in this case who Daniel Stenberg is and know what curl is so I wouldn't make this specific mistake, but sometimes hunting for support contact information returns things that are vague.)

If the customer gets angry at the response, it's fine because it just means they don't understand, which means they are just getting angrier at the car company. The car company deserves that since they made it so hard to contact them.

[linsomniac]

It's easy to say that if you don't have experience from the receiving end...

For a very long time I ran publicly accessible NTP servers. Usually this required little to no maintenance, sometimes we'd get hammered (like when a large ISP rebooted all of their customers boxes at the same time). But usually it wasn't a big deal.

Now, when you have hundreds of thousands of people using your services, it doesn't take many people who have decided you are going to fix their problem, as a percentage to get overwhelmed. Mostly users were great, but there were a few...

My company provided Linux support, and our support number included an option users could select that was prefaced with "If you are an existing customer and are having a service impacting emergency, press 1 to receive a call back from a technician within 15 minutes."

This system would allow them to leave a voicemail and then would log a bug in our tracking system and would start calling our senior on-call tech and their backup, 24 hours a day. It was either the second or third time in a week this happened, and I replied with a "You are not a customer, this is not a service impacting outage, and you are reporting our servers replying to your computer's requests for time service."

The level of vitriol I received in return convinced me it was time to stop offering NTP as a public service.

Most people will spend some time understanding what is going on before reaching out to someone they've never heard of before, expecting them to fix the problem. But if you have enough people using something you provide, you will run across people who have huge expectations of you and get pissed off if you don't fix their problem.

[pbhjpbhj]

>and our support number included an option users could select //

Did you charge callers. I wonder if "you will be billed £20 for this call [or $30 or whatever]; current customers will have this cost refunded" would be enough (even if you never charged) to put people off.

[haneefmubarak]

Not the parent, but that actually seems like a pretty solid idea. Is this actually something that can be done?

Alternatively, why not just require the customer to enter their 10+ digit account number to proceed further?

[linsomniac]

In our case, implementing a pay for call, or even an account number would have been fairly hard, as an 8 person company. MOST people respected it, and on top of it there were a few cases where people used it to our benefit.

So, it was definitely a judgment call about if we should add something requiring a special code for access, charging, etc... In this case, we had to make the judgment call about implementing something like this, or stopping public NTP service.

Part of the equation also included that pool.ntp.org was now available and fairly well populated, when we started offering NTP service it wasn't a thing.

[tremon]

It is what Microsoft does. Even with a support contract, you have to provide them with a credit card number before they will accept a support case. When Microsoft agrees you've found a genuine bug in their software, they won't charge you.

[patrickdavey]

But there are, presumably, tens if not hundreds of millions of cars with curl in them now. While I'm sure you would appreciate a response, imagine the time it would take to reply to these questions? I mean it's not like it's a bug in curl...

As for "if the customer gets angry at the response, it's fine...", well, what if you're taking the time to reply and then getting angry responses? What a waste of emotional energy.

Personally I'd agree that the correct thing to do is not to reply, there's only so many hours in the day, and there's really _nothing_ he can do to fix anything.

[Damogran6]

The Poindexter in me thinks he needs a mail relay with a whitelist. Everything in the whitelist gets through (plus some keyword), everything else gets a reply with "If you saw my email in $DEVICE, please contact the manufacturer, if you really want to talk to me, place $VERB in the subject of your email.

[JadeNB]

> If you saw my email in $DEVICE, please contact the manufacturer, if you really want to talk to me, place $VERB in the subject of your email.

Never underestimate desperate people's selective deafness; when you want to solve a problem, you will filter out everything between you and it, and will see only "place $VERB in the subject of your email". The false positives from this method will be the most desperate, and probably the least congenial.

[lazerwalker]

I'm in a roughly similar (if lower in scale) situation. I maintain a popular iOS app that frequently gets emails from people confusing my email address with the official support email from the service my app is a third-party tool for. I get emails on the order of maybe 3-4 a week.

I have a TextExpander snippet auto-reply. Takes me maybe 10 seconds to reply to a given email. It's hard to give advice without knowing the rough volume of the emails the author deals with; I can imagine situations where this would be a perfectly viable strategy, or times when even that would be an unreasonable amount of work.

[woliveirajr]

So what's the point in putting your e-mail address at the end of the license/about/readme ?

If you don't want to receive e-mails, don't put your e-mail.

If you just want to receive some kind of e-mails (like just congrats but not bugs), add that information in the end. Of course some people won't comply, but that's just human behavoir.

Now, just putting your e-mail and letting the black hole eat them without an answer is very disappointing to those who took their time to read the license/about/readme, find your e-mail, put their hope that you're able to help them in some problem, and then... nothing.

Edit

Yes, I did read the thread, the original post, and so on. I'm just putting myself in the position of the average costumer, or not-so-average, that took time to read the available documentation and tried to fix something, or to ask for a new feature, or anything else. He isn't receiving spam. I'm not suggesting, either, that he should address the problem or even find out who's the correct person to blame inside the company X that did the GUI of the radio for the company Y that finaly sold it to DENSO that will sell it to Toyota...

One way to fix would be, for example, changing the license in any future version to read "If you're using this software inside any component that will be used in a car, you should display the Copyright_automotive.txt contents instead of this one".

Edit 2

As far as I could find (in https://curl.haxx.se/docs/copyright.html), I would never blame regular car users, not even some tech users, if they couldn't find what Daniel is responsible for. The license just says:

---

  COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE

  Copyright (c) 1996 - 2016, Daniel Stenberg, [e-mail], and many contributors, see the THANKS file.

  All rights reserved.

  Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

  Except as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization of the copyright holder.

---

If you read that and can find where it says that it's not about the GPS, the mapping of the Electronic Fuel Injection, the windshield wipers, or something else, or even that it's about some specific piece of software, please, just point it out.

[pavel_lishin]

> Now, just putting your e-mail and letting the black hole eat them without an answer is very disappointing to those who took their time to read the license/about/readme, find your e-mail, put their hope that you're able to help them in some problem, and then... nothing.

He is not obligated to answer every email he receives.

He is certainly not obligated to play first-tier tech support for anyone who happens to purchase a product that uses curl.

[macspoofing]

>One way to fix would be ...

Trust me, that wouldn't fix it. As someone who works for a company whose name resembles a popular Microsoft product, putting in disclaimers (in our case on our support contact form) doesn't help one bit. They don't care.

[mst]

People forever confused the company I work for, Shadowcat, with a london hosting provider called Black Cat and with Sleepycat (i.e. the berkeleydb company). Even once both of those ceased to exist, it was a couple years before the effect trailed off entirely.

[jpindar]

I used to work for a defense contractor whose name had the word microwave in it (we made radar components and such). Occasionally someone would contact us to ask about getting their microwave oven fixed. I have no idea where they heard of us.

[SixSigma]

> putting in disclaimers (in our case on our support contact form) doesn't help one bit.

maybe you would be getting 2x the support calls without the disclaimer, even if this number is unchanged from before the disclaimer

[woliveirajr]

Well, his e-mail wouldn't show up inside a multimedia central in a car.

[striking]

It does, in the copyright section.

[woliveirajr]

Yes. Exactly. And then I argued (some levels up in this thread) that it isn't easy for some user to know what he e-mails refers to (curl?) in the way that it's displayed. Or that he could have a different copyright notice in future versions, preventing his emails from appearing on Multimedia Car Console...

[csydas]

I understand it's frustrating, but the license is there for an entirely different purpose, same with the email. Not to be heartless, but if they took the time to read the license, I would hope they understand then what the license is actually for any why emailing the person at the end is not a good idea for solving a problem related to a product that is not the licensed product. They're building up hope for themselves and then just getting themselves frustrated when it turns out they made a mistake, and that's not really fair on the licensee's part, especially when service manuals in the car are usually pretty clear on the means for support.

My last job was managing the support for a smaller university, and every so often we'd get people who just searched "Help Desk" and somehow stumbled onto our University Help Desk phone number. They'd get insanely frustrated when, rather often, we were completely unable to help them because the product was too niche or specific for my technicians to even begin to know how to troubleshoot; we had low enough call volume that the free publicity for the school after helping strangers more than offset the time spent solving a problem that wasn't ours to solve. But when the callers would get really upset and disgruntled, I'm not entirely sure what they expected, especially since my technicians would make it perfectly clear that we weren't a generic Help Desk, we were specific to a university. I have plenty of sympathy for them not being able to get good support through the correct channels, but when you know you're not at the right place and just hoping, it doesn't seem fair to peg blame on the people you know are the wrong people to contact.

Edit to reflect your edit:

I would imagine that the part that reads "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,..." should give away that this is not for support. Also that it doesn't read like a support document at all, and that it's not included in the car's support manual, and that the email doesn't mention Toyota at all. If they email that address from that page, they're not reading the file, they're just scanning for an email address. I'm not saying people who do this are idiots or anything of the sort - as someone who loves helping with tech issues, I sympathize and even empathize after having crap service from many companies. But the people are creating their own disappointment.

[pc86]

If you can't get GPS working in your car so your plan to fix it is sending an email to an address you found in a random open source license file, an "I don't have anything to do with your GPS" email is probably not going to satisfy you.

[DanBC]

Did you miss the bit that they're emailing him about stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with him?

Why would he know anything about the delay in audio and video when connecting through bluetooth? Or about the GPS?

He's happy to get emails about curl, even bug reports.

[karolist]

It's obviously just people that have no clue what cURL is and when it's appropriate to contact the author of the software. The email is there to report cURL related stuff, not ask for car usage advise.

[drzaiusapelord]

>"I just make a small component that happens to be used in your car, kind of like the people who make the screws in your car. Please contact your car manufacturer directly."

Have you ever had a customer service or tech support job? This line would just be used as a further launching point for an angry and argumentative person. Expect replies as "Thanks asshole" or "Surely you must know someone there who can help, instead you collect your big six figure salary while us working joes get stiffed," etc.

When I did tech support for $electronics_company, you would not believe the negatively you're on the receiving end of. The author is clearly making the correct move. Why be on the receiving end of negativity when you don't need to be? Yes, maybe there are people like you out there who would appreciate a short response, but you're maybe 1% of the population in regards to this. Argubaly, if you don't know what a FOSS copyright statement is and start emailing any email you find, more than likely you're not going to be the tech wizard who is thankful for a reply. You'll be the pissed off guy with a radio that doesn't work and see any reply as a smug 'piss off.'

I think one of life's tough lessons is that you can't help everyone and that discriminating who you let into your life is very important.

[Scoundreller]

Heh, after a dealership misdiagnosed my car's issue, I emailed their HQ. They said they don't overturn dealership diagnosis decisions. I replied that I won't be overturning my decision to not buy their cars again.

(I already ruled out the spark plugs and coils by swapping them around, and told them of this in writing, but they still told me that was the problem without running a compression test...)

[guitarbill]

The problem is asymmetry of work involved. Where do you draw the line between somebody who's technically challenged or somebody who's very lazy or entitled and simply spams the first email they see hoping the other person will oblige in helping them?

I mean, a single web search would reveal that the person probably doesn't work for <insert brand>. Would you email somebody about a Toyota car if their address wasn't "[e-mail]" or something? Besides, if they had bothered to read the license, it's clear it comes "WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND".

Also, many companies make it intentionally hard to find a contact address. Mr. Stenberg shouldn't be disadvantages because some company which doesn't care about customer relations has decided to use his excellent piece of open source software.

[Zarel]

The article says:

> I’ve learned over the years that just trying to explain how I have nothing to do with the product they’re using is often just too time consuming and energy draining to be worth it.

Responding to emails can be way more draining than you'd expect.

[kohanz]

> If the customer gets angry at the response, it's fine because it just means they don't understand, which means they are just getting angrier at the car company.

I think it's easy to say that "it's fine" without stepping into Daniel's shoes, but the responder still has to carry some of the emotional weight of that interaction through the rest of his day. I don't blame him one bit for wanting not part of that.

Remember, this is customer service. You and many others may be nice and have reasonable expectations, but it's the outliers that sour the whole experience. I also would not opt-in to wasting my time and energy on these responses.

[macspoofing]

>I would really appreciate a response even if it was some form letter thing to the effect of "I just make a small component that happens to be used in your car, kind of like the people who make the screws in your car. Please contact your car manufacturer directly."

I work for a small company whose name is reminiscent of a popular Microsoft product. We get a non-trivial amount of tech support-type questions pertaining to it. At first you either help them or politely explain to them that they have the wrong company ... after a while it's just noise.

[croon]

Sure, but you also (I'm assuming) would not confuse an open source/individual email for a corporate representative email. And would subsequently not email a Toyota related bug to [e-mail].

When someone randomly throws an email in a direction completely irrelevant to their issue, they are just grasping at straws. It would not be unreasonable to assume they've tried 20 other emails before or after this one, where most are likely to be more relevant to their issue.

If that person doesn't know the difference, any response you could send them would be of no help nor comfort, and the risks of continued questioning once you've opened that box is simply not worth it.

[FussyZeus]

But then they know someone is on the other end of that email address. For you, a reasonable person, that is a nice thing to know and you'll move on. For other people, they'll do anything form keep emailing more harassing things and escalating the language, to posting that email address on every spam signup form they can find.

[golfer]

One of my favorite games when I was a kid was Captain Goodnight by Broderbund. Apple II game. I loved the musical score to the intro so much that I wrote a (snail mail) letter to their HQ asking for the musical score to the intro music. Pretty random! I was a random kid.

They wrote me back! Not with the music, but an apology saying they didn't have the music score to send out. As an adult, I get it.. and I also have to say as a kid I was elated to receive a response back from the company. I didn't really expect to hear back from them at all.

I'm conflicted about this but I realize the bigger company has limitations. And a small shop has even more limitations. I get both sides.

[noonespecial]

It's not that far-fetched to imagine a wacky legal situation where you are exposed to some sort of liability for answering. He's doing the best thing in the circumstance.

[jaspervdmeer]

Yeah you would, but you're on Hacker News and not stupid, like 99.999999999% of users are.

To them a reply and it doesn't matter what's in the reply as they're not reading it anyway, means they have somebody to vent to. And if Daniel doesn't solve it. T-mobile is a bad company. DO NOT ever understimate the stupidity of people. No reply is best reply in cases like this!

[TheArcane]

>Yeah you would, but you're on Hacker News and not stupid, like 99.999999999% of users are.

Aren't statements like these frowned upon in HN? It's unfair of you to use a use a fake statistic like that and call people 'stupid'.

[InitialLastName]

So, like 7% of a single person isn't stupid? You might want to check the significant figures on that statistic.

[quickben]

Thinking so low about the entire human population besides yourself, won't get you far in life.

[crististm]

That 99.99...% out of all human population rounds up to leave no-one "not stupid". By simple exaggeration you just included yourself with the rest of us.

[ghaff]

No. 99.999999999% of users are not "stupid." They are just not educated or interested in technical arcana like you possibly are. I could say more but that's probably sufficient. Grow up.

[exolymph]

Have you ever worked support? Of course the percentage is an exaggeration, but seriously, many people are idiots and won't take no or "that's not our product" for an answer.

[trymas]

Thinking that all human population is stupid except you, means that you probably should look in the mirror..