| The actual issue is a bit different than what is perceived. This comes down to the actual definition of community. Our priority is the contributor community and the user community as a WHOLE. Of those complaining on Github and online, not a single one of them have contributed a single line of code to the project. Not even one. Their complaints and concerns are also not very representative of the actual user community (1.2% of users are running Linux, while the overwhelming majority of complaints were from Linux users). So, in addition to the contributor community and the user community as a whole, I do not see any other community. There is this nebulous broader FOSS community that is often referred to. A group demanding to impose their version of idealogical purity on the project, yet not contributing a line of code. But if they are not contributors and not representative of the actual user community... why should the project be forced to cater to the demands of 1.2% of the user base at the cost of convenience to the other 98.8% of users? How absolutely insane would it be for any other software project to be beholden to 1.2% of their actual users? Don't get me wrong, we are extremely committed to FOSS, and our motivations are actually quite ideological - we believe every creator deserves equal/free access to professional quality software. The difference is our ideology is not the same as this very vocal minority that is primarily anti-corporate and whose demands limit capabilities for the overwhelming majority of users. |
I run OSX/Tenacity, not a Linux user looking for idealogical purity - just a long-time user that sees a lot of red flags on the wall with your acquisitions. Your comments in the musescore-downloader project after the legal threat were simultaneously the first red flag I was made aware of and the first time I had heard of the "Muse Group".
For a director of strategy, your strategy and how you deal with the users and fans of the software/good will you've purchased seems less than ideal to this outside observer. Good will was generated by a long-term interaction between the community and the open-source project and you've managed to squander it and apparently continue to do so.