They haven’t particularly made a comment on the situation so much as acknowledged it’s happening. They seem to be going with the story that they had nothing to do with it and this is news to them. Hope to hear more from them soon so we can find out more about the situation, how and why this happened, etc.
(The sceptical tone isn’t because of disbelief of Collin, it’s because we don’t know enough about the situation to be able to say Collin is or isn’t telling the truth here.)
I think if you read through this and take it at face value, there is a pretty clear picture of what happened: https://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2024/03/30/a-microcosm-of-the-interactions-in-open-source-projects/
As someone who runs a charity almost completely solo because of a lack of volunteers, I feel this so much in my bones. It’s one thing to say, “Hey folks, I can’t run this on my own, I need help” but it’s another to find people who actually have the level of skill, committent, passion and integrity to contribute in a meaningful way. I can get people putting their hands up but I’ve lost count of the number of people who have then turned around and said, “Oh, actually I realise now I don’t have time for this” or start in great and then just ghost me. It also takes more of my own time and energy, on top of what I’m already doing’ to onboard and train people and it sucks so hard when I do that and then people disappear shortly after - I constantly have to question whether the time it takes to do that will be worth it vs just continuing the struggle by myself.
When you get consumers being arrogant and demanding, getting angry at you for taking too long to respond to their messages or not work fast enough… it’s soul crushing. Way too many people take volunteer work for granted or assume you’re getting paid for your time and can therefore treat you like a working-class pleb or are plain just fucking rude and entitled. :( APPRECIATE YOUR VOLUNTEERS FOLKS! We need more volunteers, and appreciation. Many hands makes light work.
Hell… As a researcher maintaining one technology on my own, I feel this. This is another reason one shouldn’t do things for free. There needs to be an incentive. And professionalism in the community. Sadly, both are hard to find…
Damn. The amount of unpaid work for something so crucial to todays communication is staggering. I always make sure to pass parts if the donations I receive (not a lot) upstream.
I have the horrible feeling that very few people who use FOSS software and could actually donate some money at least dont do this. Do we have any numbers for this?
I am starting to believe that we shouldn’t rely on this type of labor product in the first place. Something as critical as OpenSSH should be (and possibly is) funded by the users and also NOT use third party libs because it’s dangerous, as this incidence showed. FOSS is free not as in beer.
I‘m not sure what you‘re suggesting. Every piece of FOSS software is made by someone and the a lot of it builds on top of some upstream thing. Otherwise everyone would have to rebuild from scratch and FOSS would break down. Or am I missing your point?
Also, you cant make every 16 yr old user pay for a foss product. Companies must be made to pay for foss and downstream teams must be made to send parts of their income upstream, no matter if they make enough.
I suggest you read my comment again.
Mate, we are discussing on two different threads. Chill out. Maybe I didnt get your point so feel free to elaborate or leave it. Your choice.
I think it would be really good if all of us on the internet agreed to a rule, which is that if you mischaracterize someone or misread them, it’s not that weird for them to want you to not do that. So I don’t think it’s fair to response to a comment correctly noting they are being mischaractized by going out of your way to try and make it about their emotions/mental state.
Whatever your reason for injecting yourself into this conversation is, youre out of line.
Yes. I simply think I already wrote what I needed to. The answer to your question is there. I guess it takes time to see my point.
You only said 2 things:
None of these make sense in my opinion
Again I’m just reading along, and as a person who cares about, you know, the principle of charity, I don’t see how you can possibly think that’s the most charitable interpretation of what they said. I took them to mean we should do what we can to ensure these projects have financial resources to continue, not that we should “say goodbye” to them.
And here’s the crazy thing: I’m not even saying I agree. I just think it’s possible to address a face value version of what they’re talking about without taking unnecessary cheap shots.
That’s a heartbreaking read, and I can’t imagine how it feels now to know that someone who finally helped lighten the load may be involved with such an egregious breach of trust and safety.
I think this is why I can’t get behind Linus-style takedowns, even if the prospective maintainer has made bad a mistake. Entitled consumers make things hard enough already with direct access to the developers, they don’t need any help getting burned out.
Reading that made me sad, angry and scared. Great article, but terrifying.