[M95D]

This is the attitude that made me keep my patches to myself.

Hey, you, FOSS maintainer, whoever you are:

- If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it. You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time and then find out, days later, it isn't capable of what I need or I simply don't know how to use it.

- If you set up a bug tracker, then at least have the decency to answer bug reports. Bugs make it unusable. Someone took the time to write those bug reports. I'm not asking to fix them (I lost that hope decades ago), but at least you could give a one line answer or 2-line guidance for some another person that might want to try a fix - "I don't have time to fix it, sorry, but it's probably because of <that thing> in <that file>." I mean, you wrote the stuff! One minute of thinking on your part is the same as 6 hours of digging for someone who never saw the code before.

- If you open it up to pull requests, it means you want people to contribute. Have the decency to review them. Someone took time away from their jobs, families or entertainment to write those PRs. Ignoring them because you don't need that feature, not affected by the bug, or simply because of code aesthetics is an insult to the one who wrote it.

PS:

- And no, don't expect someone else to write the documentation for your code. Same as the bugs: 1 minute of your time is 6 hours of work for someone else.

If you can't do at least these things, just say it's abandoned on the front page and be done with it.

[bigstrat2003]

> If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it.

This isn't true. For many people (myself included), making a project open source means "if you find it useful feel free to make use of it, if not I don't really mind". I don't care, at all, if one soul finds my code useful. It's a gift to the commons, not some kind of social obligation I'm agreeing to.

[ForceBru]

Yeah, I didn't like that attitude either.

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all. You are not entitled to contribute. You are not entitled to features. You are not entitled to the attention of others. You are not entitled to having value attached to your complaints. You are not entitled to this explanation.

Sure, I'm not entitled to anything. At the same time, this text essentially says "you don't matter", which I personally don't like.

[bigbadfeline]

Right, it sounds like "you don't matter to me", which I read as "Oops, wrong address, go find somebody else".

The bigger problem here is that the OP author is pretending to be a speaker for all open source, I guess there's no other way to justify the uncompromising attitude he somehow developed.

AI will undoubtedly change how OSS works, bot-submited PRs can be overwhelming, authors should not despair though, where there's a will, there's a way.

[palata]

> I guess there's no other way to justify the uncompromising attitude he somehow developed.

I disagree. When someone open sources code, they give away some of their work for free. That's all, and that's nice.

I really don't get how so many people think that if you give away some of your work for free, then you must give even more work away for free because they consider it "basic decency".

[bigbadfeline]

> people think that if you give away some of your work for free, then you must give even more work away for free because they consider it "basic decency".

I didn't say that and I have no moral objections to the hardline attitude you seem to like, I respect that choice.

However, we have to be careful here, every author may have to take a firm stance from time to time, but that's not a good idea for all or most of the time, thus the latter isn't the best for everyone or every project, a lot of authors will be happier with different approaches.

Building a project is a lot about building a community around it and while I understand that not everyone can do it, I prefer those who can for completely rational reasons.

We've entered a time when OSS is becoming more important while the technical part of it is becoming less problematic, in this environment interpersonal skills grow in importance and it would be hard to manage a successful project without them.

[palata]

> Building a project is a lot about building a community around it and while I understand that not everyone can do it, I prefer those who can for completely rational reasons.

And I totally agree with that!

I am not saying that authors must take a firm stance. What I am saying is that users need to understand that they are not entitled to anything at all. It's all bonus.

I do help the users of the projects I maintain, as much as I can. Still they are not entitled to anything at all, I do it because I'm trying to be nice. And what I see is that it's not rare for them to not understand that; they behave as if it was my job.

[zzzeek]

> - If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it.

no, it doesn't, maybe I have a github project, I want to easily share it with ten of my friends for something, I don't particularly care if other people see it, so I make it public. That in no way implies I want random people to come along with bugs and PRs.

> You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time and then find out, days later, i

if it doesnt have any documentation then that is a clear sign you should not expect anything from the author of that software. if reading some code and figuring out if it's useful to you or not is too much of a risk of your time, then assume it's not useful and move onto something else.

> If you set up a bug tracker, then at least have the decency to answer bug reports.

maybe the author had time and energy to answer bug reports a few years ago and maybe right now they don't. When bugs go unanswered (like, all the bugs, not just one in particular), that means the project is possibly in an unmaintained or semi-unmaintained status, might be time to move on. Or if it's just your bug, it usually means your bug is something the maintainers don't care about or dont have the cycles to spend effort on (again, could be time to move on).

certainly, if I'm an OSS author and I want people to use my project and stay with it, then yes, I'm certainly going to answer all bug reports. But I have no such obligation (indeed I have lots of projects and are in both categories and many in between).

> If you open it up to pull requests, it means you want people to contribute. Have the decency to review them. Someone took time away from their jobs, families or entertainment to write those PRs. Ignoring them because you don't need that feature, not affected by the bug, or simply because of code aesthetics is an insult to the one who wrote it.

counterpoint, people who barge in on your project with huge PRs for features or changes that were not discussed at all much less signed off on by the maintainers are incredibly rude and entitled, because they are using exactly your logic above "I starved my family to bring this to you!" to guilt you into taking your project into directions you may not have wanted, and beyond that, PRs are just as much work for maintainers as for the person contributing them. An unannounced PR to me is pretty much a bug report with a guilt trip attached, no thanks. I really wish Github would provide more options in this area.

- a maintainer

[M95D]

> no, it doesn't, maybe I have a github project, I want to easily share it with ten of my friends for something,

Then make it private.

> I don't particularly care if other people see it, so I make it public.

Yeah, I see someone else made the same argument. It's a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Build labyrinths and scatter them around the internet. Leave manholes uncovered. Markov chains to trap humans. You could at least say it's not maintained - no, not in the disclaimer.

> maybe the author had time and energy to answer bug reports a few years ago and maybe right now they don't.

Then close bug tracker and post "Abandoned" on the front page.

> counterpoint, people who barge in on your project with huge PRs for features or changes that were not discussed at all

Then say so and then reject them. That's what PR review means. I don't have a problem with rejected PRs. I have a problem with ignored PRs.

[ragall]

> Then make it private

You don't get to decide that.

> It's a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Build labyrinths and scatter them around the internet. Leave manholes uncovered.

That's a *you* problem, because you have wrong expectations.

> Then close bug tracker and post "Abandoned" on the front page.

You don't get to decide that.

> Then say so and then reject them. That's what PR review means. I don't have a problem with rejected PRs. I have a problem with ignored PRs.

Another case of you having wrong expectations. Like in networking, you should put a timeout on all requests. For all practical purposes a request that times out is to be treated the same as a rejection.

[M95D]

> [...] you have wrong expectations.

I did. (Past tense.) I'm calibrated now.

> You don't get to decide that.

You're exactly right. I only get to decide what I do with my own toys. And I've decided I won't waste any of my time. If you (plural) can't write a one line answer to a bug report or click a reject PR button, then why should I put any effort?

Isn't it nice "git clone" was invented?

[palata]

> If you (plural) can't write a one line answer to a bug report or click a reject PR button, then why should I put any effort?

You wrote a PR because you benefited from source code that somebody on the internet shared for free, and wanted to share that work for free as well. See the PR as just one way to open source your patch. You could put it on your blog, in an email list, or keep it in a fork.

By opening a PR, you make it visible to other people who also benefit from the project and who may be interested in using it.

> then why should I put any effort?

Something I really want to say about this: if you decided to open a PR to an open source project, it is very likely that you put less effort into your PR than the other put into the open source project. But they gave it for free without complaining. You don't have to do it, but you can. And you will still have put less effort into it than the author.

[M95D]

> You could put it on your blog, in an email list, or keep it in a fork.

Get serious. Nobody's going to look into forks of a project to see what other people improved. Not even github has a search that good that would show bug fixes and improvements from forks that someone is searching for. How would you even search? (Well, to be honest, maybe Github has, or maybe Copilot can do that kind of search based on a half a page text description of what I'm looking for, but I'm really not aware that it exists.)

> By opening a PR, you make it visible to other people who also benefit from the project and who may be interested in using it.

Yeah, but if I have moral standards and care about not wasting those interested people's time, then I have to keep the PR forever maintained and rebased on current HEAD, even if I don't need to update my fork that often, or I stopped using that project altogether. If I didn't do that, then I would be a hypocrite.

[Capricorn2481]

Just sounds like you've moved the goal posts to something completely different. This entire statement is addressing people frustrated with their half broken PRs being closed. It has nothing to do with "not clicking the reject button"

[M95D]

No I didn't. I said the same thing from my first comment: Ignoring PRs with no review, accept, or reject is wrong.

[wat10000]

Sorry, unless your IP is being infringed, you don't get to decide what's private or public. The internet is a vast and wondrous place. Figuring out which parts of it are worth your time is a you problem.

[throwaway346434]

Picture this scenario.

You make one really good birthday cake. Following the success of this went to your local school fete out of the goodness of your heart and set up a cake stall, had a complaints and suggestions box on the table, maybe even had a donation tin out. You know it's out of the goodness of you heart because everyone will SEE you doing this and maybe you'll get hired by the local bakery.

But then it's a bit of a long day and you start screaming at everyone who came up to you for wasting your time, rejected requests to not put broken glass fragments in the cakes, get into a fistfight with the local health inspector who pointed out you need certain food prep hygiene practices. You get big mad, and leave your stall in a huff, where hapless strangers stumble across your cakes only to find they are now covered in bugs and get sick from eating them.

Would this be acceptable or unacceptable behaviour on your part? Are you as the cake stall operator taking advantage of the the commons in any way (donations, showing off your bake-folio?) Are you damaging the commons or people visiting the commons? Does your free speech expressed in cake form outweigh the rights of people to tell you to change what you are doing? Does your freedom of expression mean you should never be accountable? Should people be thankful that you let them have cakes covered in bugs, even if they get sick as a result? Does the local health inspector who is an expert in a domain that overlaps with everything food have any standing?

This is a contrived thought exercise; obviously.

But I would bet that you clearly identify that violated social norms aren't great; you would agree there are expectations about access to a commons have implied standards of behaviour for all parties; you have expectations around quality vs general safety, etc.

[wat10000]

Now imagine I make a weird cake and I think it's interesting. I put up a poster with a photo and a recipe and say "thought this was cool, try it if you want." And then some nonce comes along and tells me off for a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Compares it to an open manhole cover that could get somebody killed.

Throwing some interesting code onto a web site isn't like setting up a booth at a community event. Its not even really like putting up a poster, since posters get seen by whoever happens to come nearby whereas web sites only get seen by people who seek them out, but it's about the closest you'll get to a real-world analogy.

[M95D]

Probably won't get anyone killed, but I've seen loss of data. Valuable data. And now you're going to point to the disclaimer and 321 backups...

Websites are seen by everyone seeking not a site, but a feature, via search engines. Same as a poster if you look in that direction.

[hinkley]

Anything you in a public space, will be made social by someone eventually. If you (GP) don't like it then tough shit. That's a You Problem, not an Us Problem.

And you can make github repositories that others can see but not the rest of us, it just costs a little money. You can host a book club at your house too and not have to listen to other people snicker at your friends' commentary on the book at the coffee shop. But if they're gonna keep saying stupid shit in the middle of a Starbucks, then someone is going to butt in.

[Capricorn2481]

Making a PR is also in the public space, and if your PR is lazy spam, you deserve a less generous response than the one Hickey gave.

[hinkley]

A less generous response is one thing. Getting defensive about it and saying nobody is entitled to shit is something else entirely. And that's where the antisocial people of HN usually go.

[bachmeier]

Years ago, I tried the hot new Linux distribution. I tried to install a couple of popular packages, but they failed, due to lacking a dependency. I installed that dependency and it worked.

It's natural to file a bug report for this type of problem. I told them the missing dependency and assumed they'd make a minor adjustment and push out a fix for the buggy package. Instead, they closed the bug with a rude message about how it was a waste of everyone's time to file a bug report without an exact error message, and the buggy package just sat there.

They probably went on to become a SO mod, closing questions because they were duplicates of unrelated questions, but that's speculation.

[palata]

> This is the attitude that made me keep my patches to myself.

That's your choice. Now if you open source your patches (in a fork, or in PRs to the upstream repo), someone other than the maintainer could benefit from it. So it's still helpful.

> If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it

No. I benefit from others open sourcing their code, so I open source mine when I can. Because if nobody does it, then I don't benefit from it. But I don't care if people use it or not.

> You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time

No. You are responsible for your time. If it takes you days to realise that you struggle understanding what my project does, that's on you. I am not responsible for you wasting days.

> If you set up a bug tracker, then at least have the decency to answer bug reports.

No. If you report a bug there, it can be useful to someone other than the maintainer, so it's still worth it.

> but at least you could give

I gave you a whole project that you apparently find useful, and all you have to say about it is "at least I could give more"?

> If you open it up to pull requests, it means you want people to contribute

No! Again a PR is a way to share a patch. Even if the maintainer never even looks at it, it may be useful to someone else.

> If you can't do at least these things, just say it's abandoned on the front page and be done with it.

I added a licence that explains what you should expect. I don't know of a single popular open source licence that sets any of the expectations you have. All they say is that you can reuse the code under some conditions.

[lucketone]

> me keep my patches to myself.

Exactly.

Nobody is entitled to your patches.

[wat10000]

I can't tell if this is satire or not. I fear that it's not.

"If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it. You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time and then find out, days later, it isn't capable of what I need or I simply don't know how to use it."

WTF? If I make it public it's because I think other people might like to see it. That runs the gamut from "this is a production-ready project that solves a major problem" to "this is useless but shows some interesting techniques you might like to learn from."

If you spent days fiddling with an undocumented project that turned out not to do what you need, I'm not the one who wasted your time. That would be you.

If you want to limit yourself to only looking at high-quality projects with documentations and active bug trackers and PR reviewers, go for it. That's probably a good move! But putting some source files on a web server does not imply any further obligation, in those areas or any other.

[hinkley]

I sing in the shower all the time. I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out one at a time and the video sold to psychopaths than go to an open mic night or participate in a talent show.

I know what I am and I know the degree to which people suck. Don't walk into abuse teeth first and then make a surprise Pikachu face about it.

[wat10000]

You’re right, but for some reason I keep coming back here anyway.

[throwaway346434]

I agree. I would add a pet peeve of mine:

- Don't publish a code of conduct and then be an absolute asshole to contributors (pick a lane and stick to it)

I feel there is a lot of performative policy published, which at the end of the day is lip service. Actual users or contributors come along and follow the guidance, expectations, etc? They then find themselves treated like a hostile entity and there is a weird prevailing attitude here that's "fine".