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by jitendrac 1561 days ago
I had similar experience in past. I submitted a bug report in a small library, the author/owner just rudely talked about that I should not expect him to work for free, and closed the bug. I would have been happy if it was tagged as non priority bug and did not get resolved in near future, but the already existing open bug report accepts the validity of bug and is an invitation for any willingful contributor.

I believe submitting a bugreport itself is a contribution. I know it does not mean that the developer is liable for fixing it or improving it, but if it's a valid bug at least they should politely refuse to fix or even just ignore it and let it be open.
1 comments
vgel 1561 days ago
The author responded to a similar argument in a follow-up post:

> Your bug doesn’t bother me (or my paying users). If it did, I’d have fixed it myself. When submitting a bug report, you are not working for me, you are working for yourself and the user community. The same way I was, when making the original software available free of charge (whether or not you want to do it is entirely your choice, I’m not asking you to). Does your bug report include a patch? If yes, then the problem’s solved for you, if not, then you are expecting me to come up with a fix. That’s a work order, here’s my bill.

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I'm personally in the middle; if the bug is posted on an open bug tracker, it can be a good way to coordinate the community to find workarounds and get a patch started. Also triaging a bug is work, so it could be considered helpful to say "I've tracked the cause down to this module/function/line" even without a patch.

OTOH, a Github issues is also a great gathering place for entitled jerks. and many an issue thread has become the HN/Reddit/4Chan punching bag of the day and now the project maintainer is expected to both write a patch for free and moderate / lock and clean up an impromptu internet complaining situation, so IDK. Open source is a mess sometimes.

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jitendrac 1560 days ago
Yes, I agree sometimes Open Source is a mess. I also accept that I always use Open Source projects and rarely contribute. But I do file bug when I feel it is appropriate. If ever I see a person struggling with something(on reddit,forums,hn or even quora) and asking genuine/silly question, I will help them up to my knowledge, it can be small tweaking, small steps by step instruction, introducing them to how it works(you may call it mini on-boarding checklist) or even an implementation suggestion of feature if the person is a developer. I do consider it a community contribution.

Accepting/Ignoring a valid bug is just not too much of task, rather it is more work to file the reply as what you got. Just accept/ignore the bug report and forget, don't be rude.

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