gotapex.com — I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I am able to contribute to open-source software projects when I can justify the business need. Recently, I've been contributing to SquirrelMail (http://www.squirrelmail.org), an open-source webmail IMAP client written in PHP. When I began contributing, I got listed as one of
Jan 26, 2007 View in Crawl 4
phyburnJan 28, 2007
wow amazing.
d3ltaJan 28, 2007
I don't think all OSS devs are like this, assh**es will be assh**es and you'll find them everywhere
mxclJan 28, 2007
While I agree the guy's response was rude and unecessary, I also see it from his perspective.What a lot of you don't understand is the volume of mail you can get when you work on an open source application. It's easy to get overwhelmed and lose your patience.A better solution though is to make your email address clearly labelled as not for casual support.
admjollyrogerJan 28, 2007
Sorry, I have to side with Steph on this on. She over reacted quite a bit, but the developer's typical "RTFM" response shows why most developers have no business talking to customers.
pdontthinkJan 29, 2007
The point is, I think, that the original inquiry crossed the line between asking for help in the right place and the wrong place. Support emails are not invited at the personal email addresses of any of the developers (although the prominence of the "About" page might make that slightly hard to understand to a layperson). The act of sending to Steve personally is a pretty big no-no, however, which is the point many of you are entirely missing.The developer's personal email is just that, and he is free to respond to his personal email in any way he sees fit. As the inquiry was uninvited, and not unique, I can understand why his response came out the way it did (let's not over-dramatize his response, either -- while perhaps harsh and probably incomprehensible to the recipient, it certainly is true -- the person was intelligent enough to find both his and the project leader's email addresses, but was apparently unable to look around the website any more than that).FOSS developers are normal people. Just like normal people, ALL of them have factors in their own lives, just like that of the original inquiring person, that make them stressed out, that contribute to making mistakes and so forth. What FOSS developers have that people like the original person MIGHT (not) have in other aspects of their lives, is a willingness to take big chunks out of their lives to create things that the rest of us use in on a daily basis -- with relatively little thanks. And so sure, while putting the exchange up on Digg might be in poor taste, I think the reaction by many people on Digg and here to show this as a shining example why FOSS is inherently flawed and all FOSS developers are the same anti-social geeks who should never come out of their holes is just totally out of proportion (and quite shameful in its own right... in fact, shows just how needlessly ugly the Internet is in so many ways).Once in a blue moon, someone will post a thread on SquirrelMail mailing lists that says "thank you guys for what you do", and those rare moments are truly invaluable to those of us who get a constant barrage of emails that are sometimes much worse than the original one in this case, lambasting us for something or other that we actually have nothing to do with. Most of those emails get answered with quiet, polite responses, but yeah, sure, sometimes some FOSS developers get frustrated and let some of it show in responses so some of the more "clueless" inquiries. We're all human after all. We could all probably use some stress-relieving in our lives. In the case of unpaid FOSS developers, why are people so quick to jump on bandwagons about how wrong they are and how they are all assh**es? Can't you just go buy a Microsoft product instead and stop with the negativity when you don't pay us a single euro? Exactly what do we owe you after all?That said, constructive feedback (which lacks in most of the Digg comments) is always appropriate, but in general I think the level of understanding could be higher. We probably DO owe you an effort to be as human and civil as possible (just as every human owes the same -- NOTHING to do with FOSS), but you owe us some slack sometimes, everything considered. (just as we probably owe you slack too...)
Closed AccountJan 29, 2007
Someone should have directed her to:<a class="user" href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html">http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html</a>Following just a few of the tips is usually enough avoid this sort of interaction unless the person is just a complete ass, in which case there probably isn'ta good way to ask.
shark72Jan 29, 2007
"The act of sending to Steve personally is a pretty big no-no"That's your problem right there. Steve's not cool enough that sending him email is "a big no-no." He's not cooler or more special than ANY of us because he develops FOSS software.My time's valuable, too. I often get email which was better sent to another person. But you won't find me claiming that the mere act of sending me email asking for help is "a pretty big no-no."
polymorphistJan 29, 2007
That's not really a downside. :)
groovepapaJan 29, 2007
We get confused emails like this all the time. Below is the template email response I use:,I'm afraid you've contacted the wrong person. I'm a developer on the SourceForge website itself, not on any of the particular project(s) or technologies you mentioned. If you need help with a specific project on SourceForge, please go to the project's page, then look to see if they have a 'Support Request' Tracker. If not, you might also try contacting the project 'Admins' or 'Developers', who should be listed on the project's page.I'm sorry I can't help you,-L
slickrickyFeb 16, 2009
This is nothing but a vicious cycle of the uninformed versus the informed people. "Uninformed People" don't understand why someone gets annoyed by them, and..."Informed People" think its funny when uninformed people are mad. Thus starting the cycle all over again, with the uninformed get more mad, and the informed thinking its funnier. Since we are all on one side of that coin at some point, it'd be much more healthy to get yourself informed. A laugh is always better than the stress of anger. Further, what some people don't seem to recognize is that this woman decided her time was more important than his (unpaid) time and that was the jumpstart to this cycle. Sure he could have been nice about it, but she also could have been humble enough to consider her time was not more important than his (or anyone elses). She then would have saw the answer was to get informed through her own efforts, before starting this cycle.