Mike McQuaid

https://mikemcquaid.com Various articles I’ve written and talks I’ve done over the years working as a software engineer or at university. The skyline in the header is always a view from my current house. This site has lasted in some form across my name change, self-hosting in my university flag to Wordpress to GitHub Pages.

I agree with your points when it comes to commercial software. You should do your best for your users. However, I have spent the last ten years or so writing some reasonably popular open source tools. I have met some lovely, lovely people who use my software. It makes my heart sing with joy to know I have helped out random people all over the world. I have also got vitriolic, self-entitled emails from people who assume that I owe them something because they have downloaded my software. In one case, a user suggested I should kill myself (!!). So yes, you should treat your users like human beings while also realising that in the open source world, you owe them nothing [1]. Do your best and don't worry about it after that. [1] https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/03/19/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-not… EDIT: mispelling.

As Mike McQuaid from Homebrew once blogged: <<Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing>>[1] There are so many blog posts like this. And, a few times a year, HN likes to rehash this topic. Open source seems like a thankless, but necessary exercise in the modern world. At this point in history, I doubt there are any strong intellectual arguments to favour closed- over open-source. (However, there are economic arguments. For example: If you have excellent intellectual property, then it is much more economically valuable to keep as closed source.) I am so glad that I do not run an open source project with lots of attention. It looks like hell having to fight with Internet trolls all day long. To show some compassion for people who reach their wit's end and write a noisy blog post like this: It must be difficult being poked and prodded all day long. After you lash out, and a bunch of people (trolls?) tell you to "calm down". If only there was a (VR!?) simulator to put those very same people through the same hell to watch how they would react. [1] https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-nothing/

Keep in mind that maintainers of large projects are often burned or stressed out. On top of that, the "German" guy's first language is probably not English, it's German. You can't expect for every non-native speaker to always hit the "right" tone not because they are rude, but because they translate it from another language. I think calling open source "greedy" is an antithesis and a sentiment that if repeated enough burns out the best maintainers. They do not work for the software's adopters and it is their fair right to ask for money if they spend time on doing work that only benefits others. I recommend reading a bit about open source and expectation management: https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/03/19/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-not… In any case, it is unfortunate that the interaction did not meet your expectations. Keycloak is a great project, with a great community, and if it solves your needs you have made the correct choice!

I maintain open source software with bugs 10 years old. It's my free time and I can choose what to prioritize and work on. Popularity can be a burden because more users lead to more support cases. https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/03/19/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-not… > What you all sugest for this type problem for OS softs? If it fits your purpose use the OS software. If it doesn't (yet) then paid software (with support) like Wolfram Mathematica, Matlab

Have you seen Strap? Strap is a script to bootstrap a minimal OS X development system. This does not assume you're doing Ruby/Rails/web development but installs the minimal set of software every OS X developer will want. http://mikemcquaid.com/2016/06/15/replacing-boxen/ https://github.com/MikeMcQuaid/strap

> As a long-time open-source maintainer, I find all the second-guessing and armchair psychoanalysis here (not just in this comment, all over HN) about Tridge's motivations, state of mind, and so on incredibly off-putting. I agree that the entire episode is obscene, but I am also unsure of what to do here either. On some level this is the same problem movie stars run into. I agree that guessing or waxing about the motivations of anyone is a nosy and overall unproductive exercise, but I also think that there is a modest duty owed to users to explain things. > Tridge doesn't owe anyone anything as far as rsync is concerned. Yet he is spending his time maintaining it, only to be attacked for his efforts. I am reminded of this piece: https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-nothing/ Which, I empathize with, but I fundamentally disagree that maintainers owe users nothing. I will die on that hill. If you are getting to that point where you actively loathe working on the project, I agree you should be able to walk away. However, I strongly believe that when you create something for people to use that there’s an implicit social contract about how to go about doing certain things. I suppose in a very extreme example, having a project carry the MIT license, getting frustrated and then changing the project to delete the entire system is a crime. The average person and the courts don’t care if the license is “as-is”. There is a duty that is understood that you don’t…

>That negativity has been for the most part earned. No, it hasn't. It's unacceptable for you to make personal attacks calling them "shitty people" because they closed a bug report. It's unacceptable for you to demand that open source developers spend their time addressing your concerns for free. Period. End of story. This isn't up for debate and you're acting like a troll by constantly coming back on this. So I'm asking as person, can you just stop this behavior, please. If you can't agree this is unacceptable, you'll always be a toxic participant in open source. I'm not even exaggerating here. Open source developers will never owe you anything, the entire point of it is it's all voluntary and any contributor can come and go at any time they please. Read this article if you want to know more about why this type of toxic entitlement is always harmful: https://mikemcquaid.com/entitlement-in-open-source/ >You may disagree on that criticism, but from where I'm sitting it was legitimate. And I'm telling you it's not. You're sitting in a place with incorrect information. >Things like "I would be happy if they stop opposing server side decorations in Wayland" is entirely appropriate First of all, that's not what you said originally. You're walking it back again. I wish you would just be honest and apologize and say you were out of line before. Second of all, they're not doing that. Your statement is incorrect and misleading. GNOME isn't opposed to anyone else implementing…