[relix]

I once submitted a pull request to add a feature to a popular OSS library. It got several "thumbs up", was actually useful, didn't change the API and had test coverage. I put a lot of time into making it nice and clean, in my opinion a perfect pull request. Two years later they closed it with a comment saying one of the more senior contributors added code that did what my code did (except 2 years later) so mine wasn't necessary anymore. They never merged my changes.

Objectively I can say what they did was cold but logical in the end, since it incorporated the change better into how they saw the next version of the library and they can trust the more senior contributor more. Subjectively it really hurt. It was one of my first contributions to open source and it definitely unmotivated me to do any others. It was in limbo for 2 years until they finally implemented it in another way, instead of just accepting the pull request for now until they could change it.

I don't hold a grudge against the people involved since I've used their code a lot and am thankful for their indirect help using their libraries. It just felt shitty.

[mst]

Given that situation, I try and find the time to teach the original poster how to rewrite it the way I think it would be better implemented - with the understanding that if they don't want to, it's my responsibility to do so.

Then again, if I can't sell them successfully on why my way would be better ... maybe I should just have accepted their code.

This takes more time over the short term but in the long term lets me give out more commit bits, which I regard as a net win.

[Evbn]

It is github, you had a fork, so anyone who wanted your feature in those 2 years could use your fork. And of course you got your feature and could easily merge upstream work as needed.

So what's the problem, aside from somebody you don't know not appreciating you? That person still gave you a great help (the rest of the project), and github prevented the difference of opinion from slowing you down more than a smidge.

[relix]

That's very true. I appreciate your comment because it shows the situation in another light completely. You're quite right, and logically this is also what I should think, however it just, I don't know, feels bad. Irrationally, it feels shitty. We're still humans and I guess that influences us a lot.