Am Freitag, 12. Februar 2016, 04:57:12 schrieb Martin Owens:
[...]
Thinking of others is hard, it's hard to listen, it's hard to discuss and process ideas over multiple levels of sophistication. I don't mind that it's something most people would rather not do, but it'd be a sign of a great project when there are people who looked after users. I don't want people to have hard jobs they don't want to do, but I don't want us to get into the mindset that only one type of developer with one type of agenda is possible in the Free Software ecosystem.
And why would you do that, listen to users and think about how to tailor the program to suit them? Exactly: because it's fun to do that.
I never said (or wanted to imply) that developers shouldn't care about users. But as the only benefit they get is the fun for doing it (*) projects would be wise to not implement anything that takes the only reason to contribute away from contributors. And sometimes implementing strict rules about how things have to be done (for many everything besides writing code, like tests, management stuff, ...) might hurt more than one might expect when thinking about the same rules in a professional setting where people just have to accept them for their motivator being money. It's easier to walk away when fun is the thing you are looking for than when you have to do it to pay your bills.
Kind Regards, Martin Owens
Tobias
(*) I am talking about voluntary developers. I don't care about paid people here, they might be chained to a desk and threatened with a whip so I won't speculate on their motivation and if they should be catered for when coming up with policies.