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“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

(mail.python.org)
2024 points randlet | 1 comments | 12 Jul 18 15:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.226s | source
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TheMagicHorsey ◴[12 Jul 18 20:54 UTC] No.17518505[source]▶
I don't know if it's just me, but if you read the forums and bug reports related to open source projects, it feels like programmers today are a really entitled lot.

The tone that people take when filing bug reports for what is basically free software is reprehensible. People are doing work for FREE to benefit you, and you take a tone with them like you are a prince and they are your royal goblet holders? Who taught these human beings their manners?

I totally understand the frustration when you write a large system in Python and then the Python committee makes a breaking change that makes your life very difficult. However, you didn't pay for Python! These sorts of changes should be expected, and if you didn't expect it, you are the fool. And in any case, you aren't paying these people a cent, so speak politely to them. You are basically a charity case from their perspective.

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1. Gatsky ◴[12 Jul 18 22:14 UTC] No.17519055[source]▶
It is just selection bias. People that start and maintain OSS are on average more helpful and nice than people that don’t, hence the interaction.

A similar effect exists in relationships. If you are ‘nice’ then your potential partners include both other nice people and horrible people, because generally a horrible person will not tolerate another horrible person. Hence, you see nice people in relationships with horrible people more often than one would hope.