[swatcoder]

> frustration and anger

The root problem in your story is that your developer doesn’t feel like they can safely convey to their manager that the project has unexpected constraints. That form of intimidation happens, sure, but it’s not very nice to bring random strangers into the drama of your poor work environment.

If you have a shitty manager that you can’t communicate with, the maintainer doesn’t deserve to become the outlet for your frustration and anger, do they?

There’s a classic story of the workee coming home and taking out his work problems on his wife, who takes it out her marital problems on their kids, who take out their problems on the pets.

It’s meant to help you see that shuffling your problems on other people doesn’t solve problems and instead just makes other’s lives worse.

[BowBun]

Another take: Maybe many of us in software have enjoyed a long run of productivity driven by open source availability. That productivity is now baked into many software cultures (who doesn't assume they can use industry standard libraries, outside of very sensitive environments?) and an expected part of what programmers can do.

Imagine turning around 40 years in and telling business folks "Oh crap, actually we're only 20% as effective because we've been ignoring glaring security, maintainability, and social issues around FOSS that we've simultaneously benefited from for decades".

Feels like some golden handcuffs to me!