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".
@beetle_b @zarfeblong And in fact already knowing that there are people who think the proposed rule is a good one is enough to discourage me from investing my own effort into other people's projects. Not sure what to make of that.
Entitas@mike @beetle_b @zarfeblong If you want to talk me, me, me, let's talk about you. Are you so important that this conversation gets to be framed around you, your feelings, and your contributions, personally?
@mike @beetle_b @zarfeblong You don't seem like much, at least. If Mike Taylor is suggesting he won't contribute to my project because of some vague notion that his feelings might possibly theoretically be hurt, should I be sweating?
@TheEntity @beetle_b @zarfeblong Please, feel free to care just as little as you wish. If you think I'm the only person out here who feels this way, I think you are very very mistaken. I am just the one who's saying it out loud — and regretting it. I won't be doing that again: I'll just join all the other silent non-contributors. I assume that's what you wanted, so I guess we both win? /shrug/