Hug an OSS Developer or just don't be a dick
theautomatedtester.co.uk
theautomatedtester.co.uk
While most of our users were/are good individuals, there were certainly some nasty ones in the bunch. I remember being cursed at many a time simply for politely refusing to implement whatever random feature a user requested.
If a bug were to come up in the software, there were times where threats and/or demands were made that I fix the bug or modify something to the user's liking. (Never physical threats as far as I can recall, but still unwarranted aggression.) They absolutely refused to believe that I didn't directly "owe" them anything. It was a bizarre entitlement feeling some of the users had. It's not like I worked on the project for a living. I had a day job as well.
I finally started transitioning away from the project and handing it off to someone else when I started getting phone calls at my home. A user managed to track down my cell phone number and started calling me in the middle of the night (3am - 4am.) He wanted to talk to me about his "ideas" that I should implement in the code.
That's not to say all of our users were jerks. In fact, it was a very small minority. Out of the hundreds of thousands of users we had, only a handful were dicks. Unfortunately, some took it to creepy levels.
On the other hand, many warm e-mails were received and even on occasion cases of beer for our coding efforts. I still hold a lot of fond memories of that time. Hell, even the legal issues were a learning experience, though the majority of that occurred around the time I was bowing out.
I really don't even know what point I'm trying to make here. I just wanted to share a few brief stories.
`Tis a strange world.
It was Pidgin, but back when it was called gaim. The pidgin transition occurred while I was leaving. I stuck around long enough to participate in deciding on the new name / logo / branding and then handed everything over to Sean officially.
If a user is unreasonably forcing a bug to be fixed, okay. But the "owing" part?
A friend of mine decided one day to buy a bunch of donuts and hand them out to some folks waiting in a long line out in the cold.
Most people were very thankful or even surprised that someone would do such a thing. A small subset of people complained that he only bought one kind of donut, or complained that he didn't also purchase coffee for them.
Though I am no longer really associated with the project, I am curious what the bug is/was. If you like, fire off an email to me off-site and send a link to the report or fill me in. You can find my e-mail in my profile.
If you can't find the fault, provide a fully formed test case that shows the problem.
If you can't create a test case, be polite and extremely specific when reporting the bug.
If you can't be polite... well the bug is probably less of a problem than your attitude.
If you're consistently (honestly) well-intended and nice, you'll see that it changes peoples attitude. Further, more people will stick around because they like the friendly atmosphere.
However, it has to be managed constantly. I want everyone to be nice, no matter if they're a developer who has worked on the project for 5+ years, or just a random person who saw a crash. Though, long time developer gets a bit more leeway than a new person.
If someone writes a really good rant or troll, I only want to see nice replies. Fortunately, this is usually what happens. Doesn't also make sense to get harsh or angry; just becomes a long thread because emotions get heated and people who are angry always seems to have a lot of time to vent.
Trying to make everyone be nice takes a lot of effort. Usually people do mean well, it is just that they either word it wrongly, culture (Germans :P), or that they're used to harsh communities elsewhere. It takes quite some effort to always respond in the best way, and not behave the same way back.
I'm sort of like a BOFH. Having sysadmin abilities means that I could be a behaving way too radically and there is nobody to easily say otherwise (could moderate them, remove their privs, etc).
I do above for the good of the project. Cannot code in the way the developers do and try to help out in this way.
One big problem is cultural differences. Some people expect really friendly and long language and see anything else as harsh; eventhough it is not intended that way (Northern Europe:P). E.g. a "No" as an answer to a long paragraph.
For example, it can be demeaning to OSS developers who have spent much of their time (often unpaid) to build this software for you to use, when you open your bug report with the attitude that it must be broken simply because it doesn't do what you want it to do.
I prefer to start every conversation (bug report, etc), not with the purpose of fixing something that's broken, but to expand the both project's applicability and the community's understanding of the project. For example, consider
This software is broken on IE.
Can we make this software work in IE?
This is also why I encourage everyone who's having trouble with any of my projects to open an issue ticket. I often get emails or tweets from people asking for help with some problem, and the first thing I tell them is, open a ticket. Their aversion to opening a ticket is because they're not sure if it's an issue with the software, or if they're just doing it wrong. But I say it's ticket-worthy either way, because a ticket isn't made to fix broken software, it's made to increase the project's applicability and the community's understanding of the software. If you're having the problem, chances are someone else is or will have that same problem, and now they can find the solution.
[1] http://www.alfajango.com/blog/communicating-with-engineers-a...
For better or worse, I get snippy when something doesn't work that I was told would work. Like when the included examples don't work or the documentation is wrong. Then I'm not angry because I didn't get the free pony I wanted, I'm angry because you lied to me.
That being said I understand how difficult it can be to contribute positively to some OSS projects. Tired and perhaps jaded core team members responding "Hey if you don't like it just create your own <xyz tool>." don't help.
The Selenium guys are a great example of an OSS project that is both open to outside input (even from relative noobs) and focussed on the right priorities (correctness over speed for example).
Underlying libraries break, people have weirdly configured environments, browsers ship with new unexpected updates. There are a million legitimate reasons that things don't work at any given moment (yes, even the examples in documentation). Furthermore, the documentation often takes as much time and effort as the code itself, so it's entirely possible that the developer just hasn't had a chance to update the docs yet.
At the time you encounter your problem, you have no way of knowing why it's not behaving as you'd expect, or what led to such a circumstance. Having an attitude when submitting a ticket (as if the developer lied to you) is entirely counter-productive to finding a solution, even if you're right.
When you get to the Mozilla / Selenium level of popularity discussed in the post, it must be a near-certainty that you will also attract your fair share of uninformed and/or plain rude people posting bug reports and comments. In that sense, it can be viewed as a good thing: your project is a success, otherwise it wouldn't be attracting all the bad vibes!
However, Mozilla is getting paid for the software. Just because it is open source, does not mean that people don't get paid.
Mozilla takes money for their software in the form of donations. So some users are actually paying directly to Mozilla.
Also, Mozilla makes most of its money by selling private information to Google (searches etc). Users are paying through giving up some of their privacy, by doing searches through Firefox, and google.
Also, the Mozilla foundation is a non profit organisation which means all the US tax payers give it money indirectly through government support. If it was a company, then it would not get certain privileged treatment.
Finally users contribute to OSS through at least testing products - if not in documentation and many other ways.
Anyway, my point is that you can't really use the excuse that it's free to the users, so they can't expect anything - because it certainly isn't entirely free.
People should try and not be rude - on either the developers side or the users side. I've seen a bunch of rants from Mozilla people about this, so I think their community needs work. They should consider watching how their developers communicate with people as well. Calling people 'dicks' and such is pretty harsh. They should also consider making Bugzilla nicer. Things like WONTFIX, and other communications with bug reporters can really make people angry, and can make Mozilla come across as being rude too.
The Mozilla Corporation pays taxes on its profits (including its business deals with Google) like any other US company. There's no special "privileged treatment" on the business deals.
(Disclosure: I work for the Mozilla Corporation)
my main point over all is that both parties should be nice, and improve their communication to make the community a nicer place. It's not just the users that are 'dicks', and they should stop being 'dicks'. Other things can be done to make the community nicer on both sides.
Concerning the private searches part that you take issue with... My main point was that Mozilla gets money from the users indirectly (and directly), so the argument that users are not paying so can not expect anything is silly.
Mozilla also gets money from Google "for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages", not just the default search engine bit.
You're right that people can argue over what the search arrangement with Google should be called. The private searches which people type into Firefox go to Google. Google pays money to Mozilla for this. It reminds me of when people try to work around liquor laws by making up some 'work around'. For example people sell tickets which can then be used to buy alcohol... and because you're not directly selling people the alcohol people think that is ok. But really, the laws still say you can't do that clever little ruse. Now, people don't have to agree on this, but I'm pretty sure many people would think of it as their information being sold to a corporation if they knew that arrangement was in place. I doubt most users of Firefox realise that google pays mozilla for the search arrangement though. We don't need to agree on this, or that the world is flat either, but I think it is the case.
To your second issue you raised, "The Mozilla Corporation (abbreviated MoCo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation". -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation The Mozilla Foundation is a non profit, as such gets special treatment. The government, and tax payers give non profits a break because they are contributing something good to the community - like all the good stuff Mozilla does.
cheers,
[edit: removed thing about google getting sent url bar entries in ff]
You must be thinking of Chrome. In Firefox this is very definitely NOT the case. That's why the url bar and the search field are separate.
If I type "blabla" into the url bar and press enter it still goes to google, even if you change the default search engine to say duck duck go/wikipedia etc.
Also doesn't Firefox send google the url for 'safebrowsing', the anti phishing detection thing?
It goes to a search engine defined in user preferences, actually. You are correct that this search engine is not correlated with the one selected in the search field.
> 'safebrowsing', the anti phishing detection thing?
That's carefully designed to not have to send the url to the safebrowsing provider. The browser has a client-side database of blacklisted urls, and there is also a mode where a one-way hash of the url is sent to the safebrowsing provider. In no case is the actual url sent.
Either you're a bit confused about what it means to be a "non profit", or I'd really like to see a clear explanation of what sorts of special treatment you think Mozilla is getting here.
(Disclosure: I too work for the Mozilla Corporation, though I've been contributing to the project for a lot longer than I've been employed.)
Mozilla Foundation owns Mozilla Corporation, and Mozilla Foundation is a non profit. Non profits get special privileges that companies do not get - and that is all I am talking about, I'm not concerned about it.
Mozilla Foundation and Subsidiary declared $61,501,145 Royalties from search in the 2006 Auditors report.
I mention this, to rebut the point that users are not contributing anything to mozilla - therefore they can't expect anything. Disregarding other ways users contribute to mozilla (donations, testing, etc), this is one way everyone is contributing to mozilla foundation (or at least the people who live in countries where mozilla has foundations).
Even if users were not paying anything, I still think they have rights in open source communities and should not just be ignored or mistreated just because they don't happen to pay money to license the software.
Yes, I'm well aware of that. The point is that the privileges nonprofits get are largely about not having to pay taxes on revenue, but the Mozilla Foundation has no revenue to start with, so there would be no tax to pay in any case.
The main "privilege" the Mozilla Foundation gets, as far as I can see, is that people who donate money to it can claim that as a tax deduction on their income tax return.
This is for the US; I have no idea whether Mozilla has any sort of nonprofit presence in other jurisdictions, nor what the laws are there regarding nonprofits.
Again, can you point to any specific privileges that you're concerned with that Mozilla is getting, instead of handwaving? I see a privilege that people giving money to Mozilla get, is all.
Here are some advantages of non profits: http://grantspace.org/Tools/Knowledge-Base/Nonprofit-Managem...
In exchange for being a non profit, the government gives non profits these advantages, and that relates to the public supporting the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
Yeah, there are other mozilla foundations in other countries. There's some listed on the mozilla foundation wikipedia page.
I feel a little trolled, and have other things to do, and I also think this conversation is going nowhere - so am not responding any further.
_You_'re feeling trolled? Pardon me, but as far as I can tell you're doing the trolling....
Full disclosure: I am not an employee of Mozilla Corporation.
For example, post a question on some mailing lists and you'll get flamed or told RTFM noob stfu. On other projects everyone is nice, happy and it's all warm hugs.
If the developers or other community members are getting abused, that is not on. There's really no excuse. However, having developers call their users 'dicks' is also something that should not happen.
There's things that communities can do to make them develop nicer for everyone involved. Community development is a massive topic, but basically people need to work on making the communities nicer. The basics like: managing peoples expectations, being transparent, respecting the time people put into things can go a long way towards making a better environment.
I think bug trackers like Bugzilla don't do an awesome job from the perspective of the bug reporter. Once they report a bug, they have an expectation that someone is going to fix their problem. I think that's the wrong way to get people to think about open source projects, and it sets the wrong expectations - which leads to people getting angry, and frustrated. This post, and others from developers and users show to me that Mozilla has a problem which is being caused in part by their bug tracker, or how the bug tracker is used.
Big communities can often turn out bad too. Which is why growing a community may not be the best thing to do. A famous comedian is asked about where he does his experimental comedy - and he answers that he is not telling, because he wants his little club night to stay small. The comedians who run it do it as an artistic thing, and they don't want too many people coming along and spoiling it. So this famous comedian did not want a plug on the radio show by this journalist, because it would grow his community too big.
Some of the nicer open source communities keep commercial things away from the project because that would spoil the fun. The project could probably be better with more commercial involvement, but some projects choose not to have that happen. Mixing commercial and non commercial development is another hard thing that mozilla does. I mean, why are the bug reporters and testers not getting paid, but some developers are? I know the reasons, and am not saying it should be different - just that can cause tensions.
Open source communities are a very important thing to talk about, and to make better. Especially if people are going to be interacting in them so much. We all have a lot to learn and improve on, since we have problems now.
If you want "free support" you either need to be able to fix it yourself or get on good terms with the developer. In any case, don't be a dick.
Is there some clearinghouse of OSS support suppliers?
Pretty much true of any software, proprietary or not; only a blind optimist or someone with deep pockets will use a mission-critical piece of software without developing in-house expertise. Also, free online resources are available for both. We use a mix of proprietary and OSS products here and we've found that paid support is somewhat better for proprietary (easier to get, though quality varies extensively), but free support is typically better for OSS products.
Still, the main benefits of OSS have little to do with free support, though it is a nice bonus. I've thanked many developers for their time spent not only creating a program/system I use, but also for supporting it. Especially for small projects, sending a few good words and a few bucks (when you can afford to) shows the devs their efforts are appreciated.
It gets worse; A lot of those people expect fully fledged support for trivial "problems" which are clearly explained in the help file (that ships with the product) on the website, in the forums, and in a wiki. And they'll be dicks about it too.
On the other hand, with a proprietary product, you have no control over the software; if there is a bug you're left hoping the company providing the program is willing to work on it. Also, if the company goes bankrupt or makes decisions you don't agree with you're just out of luck.