I guess the takeaway from the xz backdoor situation is:
If youβre an open-source project maintainer, and somebody starts getting on your case for not doing enough free work for them, you reply βbig Jia Tan energy thereβ and then block them forever.
Thing 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".
@beetle_b @zarfeblong @mike if you genuinely think you'd ever have to worry about this, the takeaway should be "maybe I shouldn't be an asshole to people online". Please don't spray water on the slope just to make it slippery; it's hard enough to determine intent of text.
This kind of rule is "don't be an asshole". If you think your method of communication is going to be seen as "being an asshole" by some projects, that's cause for reflection, not anger.
Some years ago, I deep dived into the communications, studying as much as I could.
A thing that many books point out: There's no surefire way *not* to trigger people. Much of the focus is on having the exploratory conversation after being triggered.
So I mildly disagree: Yes, one should introspect. But if a maintainer thinks you're being an a$$hole, it's not a given that you're the problem.
Still - it's his project, and you have to respect that authority.
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@zarfeblong @beetle_b That's true. But project maintainers are also perfectly capable of being jerks, and I find myself thinking the Selfish Rational thing to do it not put myself at the mercy of their capricious whims.
No-one comes out of this ahead.
Agree. Some really are jerks - I can give examples π
Thing is, contributing to a volunteer SW project always has been putting yourself at the mercy of their capricious whims.
I certainly don't put much effort into contributing, either - beyond bug reports. It's not a "loss" for these projects that people like me don't contribute, because this has always been the reality.
When Free SW took over the world, it did so despite this perceived flaw.
So don't "put yourself at their mercy" then
Looking at your profile it's not anything you've ever concerned yourself with anyway
Which never stopped anyone from being a pretentious, pedantic twit
If only one project rejected you for that reason, I understand your thought process. If the plurality of them did, I think you may reconsider ;-)
Beyond that, one should *never* spend 10 days on a patch hoping that someone out there will review it. Get some kind of a commitment from them first!
As always, one of the benefits of permissive licensing is that you can always fork the project, apply your patch and (if desired), announce it to the world.
@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.
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.
Passive aggressiveness isn't winning you any Brownie points.
I was tempted to as well.
You're cherry-picking from Mike's toots.
On my publicly facing projects, I add an explicit disclaimer stating they can submit bug reports/patches, but I don't commit to looking at any. They have to decide if it's worth engaging with me.
What kills me is that I shouldn't *have* to put any such disclaimer. Rather, maintainers who want to be very active should be the ones explicitly stating their commitments.
Looking at the bulk of Github projects, my stance is the majority one. Thus I shouldn't need a disclaimer!
Yesterday I read Just Say No, a post by Jeff Geerling who maintains a bunch of popular devops project on GitHub. His position, which I am totally sympathetic to, is that maintaining a project is a β¦
I'm conflicted. I applaud your effort and your intention, and yet I see it as a symptom of the main problem: That many perceive the unspoken "default" is that project maintainers should engage actively with random people (with or without a PR).
My argument is that when a project doesn't make an explicit statement like the one you advocate, there should be no expectation of a response. If a maintainer *wants* contributions and PRs, let them state it explicitly.
@beetle_b @zarfeblong "I see it as a symptom of the main problem: That many perceive the unspoken "default" is that project maintainers should engage actively with random people."
I would say, rather, that the problem is there IS no default. We may wish there was, but there isn't. (And different people might well have different ideas about what the default ought to be if there way one.)
So I think it's best to be explicit.
Agreed: It's always best to be explicit.
Appropriate response.
@zarfeblong the mastodon 4th pedantry division really got deployed for this one, huh.
Open source is a long game and no pull request is worth putting up with pushy jerks.
@zarfeblong It's very rare I block someone and that's usually because they are a nuisance who does nothing but comment (wrongly usually) on bug reports and make proposals with no code.
Otherwise I try and respond constructively (things like "great, please submit patches" - which sometimes gets 'you should X' people to actually do X) and at times "That's not where I want to go, but please fork the project and have fun if you want to"
@zarfeblong My policy has always been to express my regrets that it's not working out and "on behalf of management" to offer them a refund of twice what they paid, upon submission of a receipt.
Some laugh and get it, the rest go away. Bye, the rest.
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