[suprjami]

I ran TTRSS many years ago after Google Reader went away. There was one particular feature I really liked that people kept making forum threads asking about, and the maintainer would post angry rants in reply.

Eventually he said if one more person asks, he would just remove the feature altogether. Of course, that happened, and my enjoyment of the software was reduced.

Nobody needs "brilliant jerks" like that. Hopefully they've developed a better attitude in the years since.

[muppetman]

That was one of the reasons I loved TT-RSS. People would ask inane questions and then get all put out when they got called on it. I'm not sure why world seems to think all Open Source Software must have maintainers that treat everyone super delicately. I realise a lot of Open Source software is maintained by businesses these days, so of course they treat every ticket with "Yes sir of course sir 3 bags full sir" but I really found fox's attitude harsh but fair. People HAD asked thousands of times, I understood his frustration. No one would read any previous threads, forge on in with the same question AGAIN and then got all sulky when it was pointed out to them.

What's wrong with that? Why must every open source maintainer be a sycophant towards their users? It's so bizarre to me that it's what's expected and everyone gets all "He's so horrible!" when they're not pandered to.

[austinjp]

That feels like a false dichotomy. There are many more attitudes then only rudeness and obsequiousness.

That said, FOSS has a big problem with maintainer burn-out. It seems that projects like SQLite demonstrate more sustainable models, such as source-available and a closed group of maintainers who are exposed to limited demands from users.

[tobias3]

Looking at recent threads on the forums: No.

I do handle annoying feature requests on my open source project by just ignoring them.