I have been heavily criticized for criticizing, critiquing, and complaining about lack of quality in open source projects. I have done these things because I care, generally because I care about that specific project, or Open Source (or whatever I'm talking about) in general. I've been attacked, insulted, and sworn at. I've recently come to the realization that the community support that behavior, to the point that they won't stand up against those doing it. It is a very cliquish and tribal community, if you're in the in crowd you can do or say what you want, if not you'll be ostracized. I have been ostracized for years. I have decided to join the opinions of those I've been ostracized by, but also to accept my exile.
In order to discontinue my negative and inappropriate behavior, I have to stop caring. I choose now to not care about helping others who cannot (or choose not?) to help themselves. I will no longer complain about the problems of some projects, even those that I can and have provided fixes to the problems for. I will no longer fix problems that do not impact me. I will no longer tell people that they are misguided, no matter how much they are. I will no longer produce anything that doesn't help me. I have to become selfish and stop caring about the problems of others.
To this end I'm discontinuing my work on Arch Linux's AUR as it doesn't help me, CPANPLUS::Dist::Arch which does most of the work, is more than capable of doing this for anyone using Arch, the packages will be orphaned. In acceptance of my exile I am removing myself from all IRC channels (though I will continue to connect) unless I have a problem, that way I do not end up causing a problem, it seems even when I have a problem and try to limit it to that I end up causing one. I am going to ask that my blog be removed from the Iron Man 'competition'. I've been told that none of the work I've done is significant anyways, and thus my loss will not be a loss at all.
I will continue working on any project that has some benefit to myself, as my time is precious and I have a life outside of Open Source. I will only do so, however, if it doesn't require me to have an opinion. There is no point in pushing for a fix that I have a workaround for already, I will simply be seen as entitled and asking too much of other peoples time.
I can't win the fight by writing patches, or by helping people by answering questions, or sharing my knowledge publicly. So I choose not to fight, I choose to accept that I am not wanted and so I will leave.
unfortunate news. I've found use for more than one of your blog posts and generally enjoy reading them.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to give advice given only you and those involved know what dramatic events occurred, but I'd like to think/have seen most projects accept patches and fixes with open arms (at least within the perl community).
This is unfortunately something I too recognize in the perl community. I am not saying that everyone in it are bad people, but there are a lot of bad community habits compared to some other communities. And unfortunately, I don't think this post will make any difference on that.
ReplyDeleteBut it is something that we can change, it just requires a lot of people being willing to recognize that our beloved community has a problem and accept that we need to work on it.
Even if they weren't as visible as others, your contributions mattered. Contributing to a community is not, or at least should not be a popularity contest. There are those of us who really appreciate your effort. Thank you for the hours you put in, and I hope you change your mind. (-:
I'm confused. First you say that you care, but then you say that you don't care.
ReplyDeleteIn order to stop your negative and inappropriate behaviour you need to change your attitude. You need to realise that people have other interests in their lives. They may care about other things more than the things that you care about. So don't fault anyone if they don't cater to your needs. You should also stop looking at this whole thing as a fight. Calm down hombre. Don't stress yourself out.
This also applies to your precious life outside of Open Source.
Anyways. Have a nice time. Good luck!
I think the problem is simpler than you realize. I have found programmers specifically have a greater tendency towards using critical reviews of things instead of positive ones. This has the side effect of "I'm happy" => "I wont say anything" , "I'm slightly dissatisfied" => "I'll be moaning", and of course, at the receiving end, all you see is the moaning, and none of the satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteI think you also possibly identify with this mentality to an extent.
Its sad you're scaling back your contributions, because for me, being able to contribute, no matter how little its appreciated, ( if even at all ) is a huge win for me. A million times more satisfying than getting paid for some get-raped-daily IT job.
Instead of reducing your care about projects, I would suggest you instead stop caring about how people react. Just do the best you can to do the right thing, and if some people are not happy with that, fine, just silently mentally flip them the bird, put your contributions in a place that less-retarded people can use them if they really want to, and let people vote with their actions.
You cannot make everyone happy, and striving to make everyone happy at your personal expense will only make you very unhappy. Be yourself.
@kent at this point I'd rather get paid (seeing as how I'm unemployed).
ReplyDeleteNone of this means I'm going to stop coding. I just won't be coding things that don't benefit me directly.
I'm just going to stop participating in 'forums' where people can treat other people like complete shit and no one does anything about it, and in fact where people get mad if you speak out against them treating other people like shit.
It reminds me of elementary school where the playground monitors turned a blind eye to kids beating up kids. In this case some of the monitors are the bullies, IMO.
Not all of the things I did was patches, people need to learn to respect bug reporters and testers too.
Some people need to learn the difference from criticism, that could be turned into something constructive (and then make it so), and insults. From some of my blog posts you might think I didn't like Dist::Zilla but then why do I keep posting about it... obviously I'm using it, and extending it. I'd love to have my projects criticized (in a way that includes constructive information (e.g. saying it sucks helps no one) ) it tells me where I can improve them.
Yes I know that some people have /lives/ and other things that they would rather focus on. But that all goes back to an earlier post and an argument that led up to this. You volunteer it's a job, you have a responsibility to do it, imo. This is me quitting my job, because not enough of my co-workers take there's a seriously as they should, imo, and I try to assist in projects getting done, but I can't finish them because the boss doesn't give me enough access to finish them.
I'd also like to say I'm not entirely discontinuing this blog, but it should have been removed from ironman by now. If you wish to continue reading it subscribe separately.
ReplyDeleteSo you tried to change the community and you realized that you filed. That's OK - not everything works at the first attempt - now I suppose you should think about what works when you want to change a community.
ReplyDelete