<story><title>Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers</title><url>https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05741</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KirinDave</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never understood it. I&amp;#x27;ve only had horrific experiences with my open source efforts. From the simplest cases like being ignored on PRs and tickets to mockery in social circles for algorithmic mistakes to finding out my work was enabling bad people to finding out people were misrepresenting my employment status while using my work in violation of the license, I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever once had a positive experience with open source as a producer. Hell, I never even knew my extensions to the clojure time library were even being used until another maintainer who had added some incremental stuff over my work disappeared.&lt;p&gt;I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self it was all a waste of time and I shouldn&amp;#x27;t do it. Maybe then I could be more positive about it now that I&amp;#x27;m better at writing software.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>x3yyy</author><text>You have had a lot of negative responses (unjustified in my opinion), so I hope my comment makes it through.&lt;p&gt;I have written two medium sized projects, one of which is quite popular.&lt;p&gt;I had great fun &lt;i&gt;writing&lt;/i&gt; the software, but maintaining it in public is hell. OSS has turned into a popularity contest, with people associating themselves with projects quite publicly (conference talks) but doing little work.&lt;p&gt;Generally, there is little respect for creators, a lot of useless bickering and talking and self promotion.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve come to the same conclusion that it is a waste of time.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers</title><url>https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05741</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KirinDave</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never understood it. I&amp;#x27;ve only had horrific experiences with my open source efforts. From the simplest cases like being ignored on PRs and tickets to mockery in social circles for algorithmic mistakes to finding out my work was enabling bad people to finding out people were misrepresenting my employment status while using my work in violation of the license, I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever once had a positive experience with open source as a producer. Hell, I never even knew my extensions to the clojure time library were even being used until another maintainer who had added some incremental stuff over my work disappeared.&lt;p&gt;I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self it was all a waste of time and I shouldn&amp;#x27;t do it. Maybe then I could be more positive about it now that I&amp;#x27;m better at writing software.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jancsika</author><text>&amp;gt; From the simplest cases like being ignored on PRs and tickets [...]&lt;p&gt;Yes, that&amp;#x27;s unfortunately a big problem in FLOSS. It will take a big effort to change that. But I think there are some communities who take mentorship seriously that are incrementally improving this.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; to mockery in social circles for algorithmic mistakes [...]&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s 100% unacceptable.&lt;p&gt;Did this happen on a public mailing list? If so, can you post a link?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; to finding out my work was enabling bad people [...]&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t figure out what this would mean, or how it is relevant to open source as opposed to proprietary software.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; to finding out people were misrepresenting my employment status while using my work in violation of the license, I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever once had a positive experience with open source as a producer.&lt;p&gt;Those last two seem exceptional. But you should report the person who was mocking you for making a mistake. That kind of behavior has no place in FLOSS and should be stamped out.</text></comment>