[jcoffland]

> You might also get flooded with rather demanding emails by technically incompetent people who complain that your free source code release didn't solve their problem.

Once I learned to listen to incompetent users, I started to create usable software.

My gut reaction is still, "RTFM you're doing it wrong." But now I follow that up by figuring out how to make the software work like the user thought it should or I change it so they never get in the frustrating situation in the first place.

What I finally realized was that if one person got frustrated enough with my software that they took the trouble to post an incoherent and technically incorrect rant on Github then it's likely that 100s more users had similar problems and said nothing.

Now I receive effusive emails about my Open-Source almost weekly.

[fxtentacle]

I fully agree with you that listening to users is the best way to create usable software.

But after reading the article, I thought that the 99% number was about developers not joining the discussion with other developers. And for that purpose, I'm not sure if open source is still a good idea.