When you’re talking to an open source dev, just remember that they are literally giving you their time for free, and they are people who don’t like to be treated poorly.
And here I am anxious thinking I might offend the devs so I spend way too much time thinking what I’ve written is not rude
I’ve only had beef with a single dev ever. The maintainer of Prometheus, Brian Brazil, or whatever his name is. His attitude is so shitty towards people proposing actually good ideas that would push his product forward.
Yeah, I had the same experience with the devs of Pushbullet, after constructively suggesting a few ways they might be able to work with proxy servers, and all I got back was “Proxies are bad, mmmmk?”.
Fucken Peter Pan-level mentality.
I don’t mean any ill will toward the guy. He’s frustrated and he’s just taking it out in the wrong venue at the wrong people, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.
But he is a bad person. He’s being a fucking idiot and being insulting to the person who made the software for him in the first place.
People like that don’t deserve patience and understanding. Perhaps a good response would be “this software is free for you to use, if you don’t like it then fuck off and make your own”.
But he is a bad person.
People like that don’t deserve patience and understanding.
These black and white statements won’t do you or anyone else any good. We understand that an inconsiderate or rude act doesn’t define a person when we can believe that about ourselves and love ourselves despite our many mistakes and cringe-worthy incidents.
When we love ourselves we begin to offer others the same grace and understanding we allow ourselves. We see the myriad reasons we don’t think or act how we’d like to and realize that everyone else’s life is just as difficult and confusing, and often for reasons we’ll never see or understand.
People who take stuff for free and compain them are bad people ngl.
Or don’t be that “don’t use any of my GPLv3 packages in your projects, because i don’t want”
Or, that guy who is “My project is free and open source, please don’t use for piracy, i don’t support piracy”
But yeah, complaining sucks, especially from somebody who doesn’t have his hands dirty, to somebody who does
And for free projects, don’t pay- don’t expect anything And even when paying, don’t expect much Just make stuff yourself, only making everything yourself you can be sure it will be good
Would it be OK if I will be that guy when ranting about NVIDIA Linux drives? Asking for a friend 😉
Hehe, sometimes I wish that I could be snarky like that. ;) Good for you.
I have been told by numerous people these days that there are no free things in life. I write and contribute to FOSS software, and had that exact discussion.
Apparently, I do it to feel good, and for the prestige, a reward in itself. Also, I probably want to make up for something.
“Doing something for free is no excuse to do it badly.”
Some others don’t even know what “free” means." And some don’t believe it at all, that someone is paying me. Probably thinking about influencers or something. Perhaps they saw an ad somewhere and believed I’d see any of that revenue. ;)
I just went with posting the wiki entry about FOSS, and my ko-fi page, and thanked them for their interest. The first two, because they genuinely didn’t know any better, and the third because, well, at least that one is clear. Every user is a tester. Testing is good.
Don’t be that second guy, use Nix.
I agree with OP, but the whole confrontation could’ve been avoided in the first place if all dependencies were spelled out to the letter in the form of a flake.nix with the latest accompanying flake.lock file.
I swear Nix users are the mormons of the Linux world.
I’m a nix user and I’m disappointed by how apt this comparison is.
ehehehe you said “apt”
Yes, but one of our promises is real… Just a real pain in the ass sometimes.
Are you saying that I will get my own planet if I use Nix?
Guilty. But substitute Mormonism with the proper way to do things.
That just sounds like Amish with more tech.
🤣 Perfect!
Upvoted in Nix solidarity. One day they’ll understand.
I think it’s funny. We are the new “I use Arch, BTW” and I’m happy to embrace it.
I just hate having to re-configure all my stuff whenever I set up a new box 🤷
Agreed. That and I hate Docker with a burning passion.
Don’t be the guy who ignores reports that your software doesn’t work with new dependency versions just because you can’t be arsed to test with anything else even if the report looks like a legitimate problem.
If you’re not paying somebody, don’t expect anything. You want shit done on your time, then cough up some compensation.
The self entitlement in open-source these days never fails to astound me.
As a maintainer of open-source projects, I can confirm… It’s unforunate lol
Nowhere else do people get so much for free and yet be so entitled. It’s rough.
See also: the hard parts of open source.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
the hard parts of open source.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I just watched this, it was a very good video, experienced a lot of the same things he did/does, thx. Was really interesting learning about the history of some these “alienated loner with god-complex” that was cultivated in early tech. Also good stuff about how the purpose for a given space shapes the discussion and interactions.
A lot of us understand the problem: that silicon-valley, in pursuit of profits and engagement, has wrecked peoples brains with traumatizing ragebait for years, and how stressful it makes all of our lives. We have to do everything we can to make these spaces the opposite: enjoyable, fun, and at the same time not addictive.
You are wasting my time! I demand a refund, where is open source’s manager!?
It depends on if the first guy is complaining about having to reinstall this specific software, or if the software borked his entire system to the point that he has to reinstall his entire OS. Because that happened to me once. But in the first scenario he is being a dick, and in the second one not so much.
I disagree, in neither scenario the open source dev owes him anything. You get to use and modify the software for free, but the flip side is you are entitled to nothing.
You are entitled to the truth. If the dev knows their software could have very damaging effects then that should be front and center on the software page.
Usually it is? But ultimately it’s still your own responsibility. You did not pay the dev, the dev does not ask you to pay them, ergo the dev owes you diddly squad.
Let’s be decent with each other, I don’t think my expectations are outrageous. I consider decent to make sure that the person that will use your software is aware of the dangers. And the best person to know those dangers is usually the dev.
Malware is free too
Malware is not usually open source.
You’re not entitled to a working computer once you execute a free program?
I guess you are not entitled free support once you execute a free program
I can’t say I’ve spoken directly to a dev in a situation like that, thankfully, but if that opinion were dominant, FOSS wouldn’t be a thing. Destroying your data or OS is kind of a no-no, whether you pay for the software or not. Obviously, you can’t sue the FOSS dev, but come on, it’d be amazingly shitty if they didn’t even try to help if there’s any evidence it’s their fault.
Do most open source projects damage your computer? It’s obvious they put effort into making usable programs.
Of course not!
The software is almost certainly provided as is, with risks assumed by the person installing it.
Still, I doubt any dev wants a catastrophic outcome and takes steps to avoid that or warn the end user if the code is more likely to bork something.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the dev to do their best but it’s also not like you can sue them and win, most likely.
Honestly, no. It’s your job to vet the software you run. If it’s open source, you had every chance to make sure it wasn’t going to irreversibly break your system ahead of time.
Alternatively, you could pay money for a solution from a reputable company with support.
You’re implying that to even install the simplest of programs, I’d need to read and understannd many thousands of lines of code, starting with the FOSS project itself and then spidering out to every dependency. This speaks nothing of the fact that it may be written in multiple languages, some of which I am not familiar with, and even if I am, code can be written in ways that’s almost impossible to understand. This might take a week for a 200 line project.
Reminds me of when my employer said they were going to stop using open source software until a team had vetted it completely. Lol, once they talked to engineers that idea died immediately.
That’s absolutely a ridiculous stance. Yes, you can personally go through everything, but there’s also searching around to find out what other people say about it, actually look through the issues people have raised. Some of it applies to proprietary software as well, find out what other people say about the software. You don’t need to do everything yourself, but you do have to take responsibility for trying to make sure it will work as you hope it will.
Whoosh
Who put the gun to your head and made you run the software though?
The response to this here is absolutely wild. I guess I should expect my machine to get wiped any moment
Whenever you choose to run a program that has full access to parts of your PC that may cause issues, you are the person who chose to do so.
Just run apps in a sandbox if you don’t want to risk having to reinstall your OS in a worst case scenario.
The developer owes you nothing.
This. I swear, some people in the FOSS community seem to be convinced everyone who uses a computer is a developer.
Right? And it seems like no one is interested in understanding my point, most only seem interested in defending developers of FOSS. I understand there is no legal obligation from FOSS devs… That is irrelevant.
I love FOSS. It’s one of the best products of humanity. I am not attacking devs at all…
My point was only that while devs don’t owe anyone anything legally, if the rare edge case happens where their code is destructive by accident, it would be a dick move to ignore complaints about it. I guess because it didn’t spell it all out like this, I “deserved” all the downvotes (on since-deleted comments) and condescending remarks?
Yes I know that if I use Firefox I can’t sue them if somehow they wipe my OS. Yes I know that would probably never happen, it’s extremely unlikely to happen. But if it did, FF owes us at least a response. And I means owes in the sense that it’s the right thing to do, not “if you don’t do it I can sue you”.
I can see how you got there, but I’m actually not saying you need to understand any programming languages at all. If the code is out there, and the product is worthwhile, the community can and will vet it.
Like I responded to the other guy, you put a level of trust in anything you use. You can pay for a product and expect polish and support, or you can go the open source route, the DIY hobbyist route, and expect to have to do more yourself. You might have to do research on a product before you trust it. This isn’t a radical concept to me. If I was putting together an RC car, I would do research on the motor to make sure it was unlikely to fail catastrophically.
Alternatively, you could pay money for a solution from a reputable company with support.
and run the possibly even greater risk that it’ll fuck something up, since you probably can’t even look at their source
If that’s what you get from a paid product, why would you assume it’s better for a free product?
??? You quoted my comment with ‘reputable’ in it. You put a level of trust in anything you use. Reputable companies are unlikely to fuck your shit up with bad software. It happens - not trying to say it doesn’t - but again, you have to trust somewhere.
No. It’s provided without warranty nor guarantee that it’ll work or even leave your system intact. That’s the core of most opensource licenses. Dev owes nobody nothing.
I didn’t say anyone owed anyone anything. I was saying one level of frustration was understandable, one was not. Anyhow, my case happened twenty years ago when creative commons barely existed.
Then you’re right. The frustration would be understandable, the expression thereof towards the developer, not.
what’s with the link in every comment? just curious
It’s a non-commercial copyleft licence for the comment in case the case against Microsoft’s CoPilot is won.
I don’t quite understand, why would Microsoft sue you for a lemmy comment?
Just to be sure, is this a serious question or a troll?
In this case, in trying to resolve the issue, he deleted his
node_modulesdirectory. So he’s talking about having to reinstall everything by typingnpm installand waiting for it to finish.oh man…
People can be such dicks, you have my sympathy.
I’ve been thinking about open sourcing a Node project of mine recently… concerning that this is the kind of thing to expect
Well, this isn’t usual. This is actually really rare. Almost all of the interactions I have with users of my libraries are great. People are generally appreciative and kind, or at least not rude. This is an outlier, and I try not to let these things sour my experience.
He’s frustrated and he’s being abrasive because of that, but that doesn’t make him a bad person. I try to respond without being rude back, but just stern. Usually when you do that, people will either not respond again or apologize. I’ve never had a user keep being rude, and if I did, I would just ban them.
Sometimes people just kinda forget that on the internet they’re still talking to other real people, you know?
You’re taking a far calmer approach than i could ever take.
You’re lucky. I left FOSS dev because I got tired of my free time being abused by people like the one in your post
I’ve had to adopt a two strikes policy towards these aggressive trolls, who treat you like your their personal servant, especially since they make up like <1% of ppl on issue trackers. After a warning, if they don’t play nice, then they’re out.
It’s the only way to keep the coding experience enjoyable, and not suffer from burnout.
Are you the developer for SMUI? Small world to see a username I recognized from another site. Nice-looking components! 👍
This is also any and all Firefox support queries in a nutshell.
“OMG THIS BROWSER IS SO SHIT IT ALWAYS BREAKS OR GETS SLOW”… “No I have not changed anything in ˋabout:configˋ, and what I did is definitely not the source of the problem!”… “Yes with a reset config it works fine, I don’t know why, your browser is shit!”
And it’s always the same people who do “hardening” and “privacy enhancement”, having fuck all actual clue what they’re doing but thinking they’re oh so smart. 😑
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> not know how to use meme arrows
rofl “meme arrows”
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Nope, it’s just that message boards can’t md properly.
“Lemmy” isn’t, afaik. Certain instances seem to have profanity filters. Probably not a great word to use in general, though.
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Being offensive and trying to be offensive are not mutually inclusive. And I wasn’t intending that as a personal rebuke or anything. Just commenting that, in the context of profanity censors, that is a word usually better left unsaid anyhow. Sorry if it came off as a comment on you specifically.
It’s not Lemmy; it’s the instance you’re using.
This goes for inter-developer communication too. Be nice to one another. Someone just wants to help sometimes.
