A thesis on "don't abuse people in open source" and a bot "abusing people in open source"?
Both share a theme: the trials and tribulations of running an open source project, I suppose. Some contributions, one way or another, demand more of them than the maintainer might like. How do you deal with this? How do you set the boundaries? And so on.
But indeed yes, I can see that connection.
Hard to say without commentary. Maybe the poster here was influenced by multiple threads (I guess that seems likely, if it was just one thread they influenced them, they could have linked it in that thread).
I was reminded of this gist when reading the discussion about MinIO (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47000041).
The linked gist seems to mostly be describing a misalignment between the expectations of the project owners and its users. I don't know the context, but it seems to have been written in frustration. It does articulate a set of expectations, but it is written in a defensive and exasperated tone.
If I found myself in a situation like that today, I would write a CONTRIBUTING.md file in the project root that describes my expectations (eg. PRs are / are not welcome, decisions about the project are made in X fashion, etc.) in a dispassionate way. If users expressed expectations that were misaligned with my intentions, I would simply point them to CONTRIBUTING.md and close off the discussion. I would try to take this step long before I had the level of frustration that is expressed in the gist.
I don't say this to criticize the linked post; I've only recently come to this understanding. But it seems like a healthier approach than to let frustration and resentment grow over time.
What you have written is obviously a criticism of the linked post.
I'm not owed your money any more than Rich is owed your contributions. But most people asking that question are really asking 'can someone else do the hard part for free,' which is exactly the entitlement he's describing, just pointed at a different target.
They seemed genuinely confused when I told them I was not going to fill compliance form and make patching commitments for free. Really makes you wonder how many maintainers are letting themselves be taken advantage of.
While we are not to the point of hosting events in Hawaii yet, I’m hoping we can see this as a teaming arrangement to accomplish great things together!
It's funny how a hobby project becomes "a burden" when you have to consider making it friendly/easy to consume by everyone eg. writing docs from the basics like how to make a venv in python, get your env setup...
I can't say whether it accomplished its original intent, but my experience is that it's held up in really disappointing situations which sit counter to my collectivist values
That's new
Edit: https://web.archive.org/web/20260213161600/https://gist.gith...
mtmail•1h ago