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this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
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I've seen this on a few repos and it never came across too harsh, the posts tagged with it were deserving. Wish I'd noted the repo names..
I'm fine with it tbh. FOSS devs need to squeeze every bit of enjoyment out of working on the project to keep motivated. If they (or mods) can drop a helpful reply and close an issue as 'skill issue' and get a little chuckle while they give their time for free answering poorly-written queries or bad bug reports then that's a reasonable trade to keep them from burning out.
Whats with the whole obessesion on "giving their time for free"? What does money have to do with this? It always comes across as a copout, implying you cant disagree with FOSS devs because they work for free. Just because they aren't earning money off off of it (aside from donations) doesnt mean they aren't earning some sort of reward for their work, whether its personal or social.
Besides that, its pretty common to include that type of work on a resume, which is sort of turning that work into future earnings if it helps you get a high paying job.
I appreciate what FOSS devs do, I just hear this victim narrative come up a lot in posts about them. I'm not even sure its FOSS devs posting that type of stuff on here, it might be other people defending them.
Who said they were victims? I said I don't see any harm in devs being mildly abrasive as long as it helps keep their passion for the project alive.
How many projects do you pursue in your free time for no compensation that benefit strangers all over the world, whom can file complaints about your project, asking you to remedy or change it?
FOSS dev work is not a victim-generating machine, it's just entirely misunderstood and underappreciated. They make a project for them, then they m0ake it free to all.. and the code, and the support. But, you ask them what they dislike the most - it's the support. The endless poorly-filled tickets, the duplicate tickets the submitter didn't search for, the user errors that are explained clearly in the documentation. That part is thankless work. That burns people out. But if they use a joke tag on a support ticket when they close it, it's suddenly "omg, devs are so rude".
Ah yes, FOSS work should be its own reward because they can say they did it. Sort of like how interns should work for free at big companies 'for experience', and young artists/techs/small businesses should help influencers for free because they're 'working for exposure'. Now that attitude is a cop-out.
I think the way you frame it is absurd. They aren't making things for themselves. If they were they wouldnt share it, or if they did they at least wouldnt maintain it or claim ownership over it. If devs open the door to allow outside help in, they really can't act like they are victims when they have to socialize with other people.
The fact that you focus on compensation really shows what's important to you anyways, and betrays the whole spirit of FOSS in my opinion.
^ See this is a great example of completely misunderstand FOSS. The vast majority are personal projects.
The whole point of making them open source is to share the software they've created for others to enjoy/use, and share the code for others to learn from or utilize in their own projects. Its not to "open the door to let outside help in" as though they're the ones gaining from the arrangement, lol.. the vast majority of FOSS code on npm for example has a single maintainer. Open Source Security Foundation discussing npm stats of almost 60% of all projects having a single maintainer, here: https://github.com/ossf/tac/issues/101
That you read my comments and focus on compensation, as though I haven't spent 90% of the commentary on other aspects is weird. I'm done responding, but feel free to shout into the void.
I'm sure all those single maintainers aren't complaining about all their unpaid work. Not sure where that opinion even comes from, but you sure seem ready to defend it.
If you think its okay for maintainers to complain about unpaid work, then we just disagree. If your point is that most of them don't do that, then good, that's fantastic.