Andrew PlotkinI guess the takeaway from the xz backdoor situation is:
If you’re an open-source project maintainer, and somebody starts getting on your case for not doing enough free work for them, you reply “big Jia Tan energy there” and then block them forever.
Mike Taylor 🦕@zarfeblong Hard cases make bad law. I'd want to be careful about adopting such a rule.
beetle_bThing is, it's a good rule to have even if there is no malicious intent.
As a volunteer maintainer, it is wise to always put your sanity and mental well being above the project. If you think you have the energy to deal with rude folks, by all means proceed, but do ensure you *can* handle them.
Personally, I've found the "returns" for dealing with them to be in the net negative. So I ignore/block them. I owe them nothing, even if they spent 10 days writing a beautiful patch.
@beetle_b @zarfeblong I don't really disagree, but ...
If I spent ten days writing a beautiful patch only to have it rejected because of the tone of my communication, I don't the lesson I learned would be "I need to improve my tone". It would be "It's a waste of time trying to contribute".
Joris Meys@mike @beetle_b @zarfeblong thing is: people who actually spend 10 days writing a beautiful patch, tend to not behave like entitled twats. Those who do, find many excuses not to contribute in a meaningful way.
At least, that has been my experience.
@JorisMeys @beetle_b @zarfeblong Fair point. The real issue for me is not so much that I expect my contributions to be offhandedly discarded; it's that the possibility of that reduces the likelihood of my even getting started.
Yes, a classic example of differing expectations.
Me: If you wrote a PR, you solved a problem you had. Now I decide whether I want it. If I ignore it, I'm not hurting you.
Reality: You could have solved the problem sloppily with poor code if it was only for your private use. But for a PR, you expended effort polishing it, and want that acknowledged.
Still, I go with: Inform the owner of your fix. Ask first if they're interested. Only then should you polish it.
@beetle_b @JorisMeys @zarfeblong That all makes sense. At least in the case that a PR was written primarily for the benefit of its author.