
What's the canonical retort to “it's open source, submit a patch”? - SandB0x
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/68740/whats-the-canonical-retort-to-its-open-source-submit-a-patch
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tedunangst
Contrary to the top answer, I don't think submit a patch means "we don't care
if you like our product or not." It means "we are busy improving the product
in many other ways."

Apparently, some people think "I have added your request to the end of our
infinite backlog of requests" is a more productive response. "Submit a patch"
not only conveys the same info, it also provides concrete advice on how you
can jump the queue.

~~~
akkartik
I think saying, "we think it's a good idea because.." or "it's not a good idea
because.." or "hmm, that's interesting, we'll need to think about it." are all
better responses than any of your quotes.

If somebody cluelessly expresses urgency and wants it fixed _now_ , it's
perfectly ok to say "if you need it soon you should consider paying someone
for it". But I find "submit a patch" often used when people disagree with your
suggestion but can't articulate why.

~~~
tedunangst
In at least some of these discussions, I think "submit a patch" stands for
more than just the literal phrase, it's a whole category of response, in
contrast to the "I will do your bidding, master" category. I will sometimes
use the phrase literally, but haven't found the shock and outrage of asking
somebody to fix their own problem is diminished much by flowery phrasing.

For the record, I will not say "submit a patch" for a bad idea, I will say
"that's a bad idea". Not that people like hearing that, either.

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dlsspy
It's kind of weird reading that.

Many people think it's rude to ask someone who wants work done to do the work
themselves.

I think it's rude to expect other people who've got you 90% of what you want
to just drop what they're doing and give you the remaining 10%.

The answer is likely somewhere between, but (and I'm biased), I'd tend to
think that those who brought a body of work forward should have a little more
leeway in responding to the demands of those taking advantage of it.

~~~
dgreensp
I think it depends a lot on the situation. A non-programmer who reports a
blatant bug in a "mainstream" app like Firefox or VLC, if they press too much
or one of the devs is insecure, may eventually get a cold "you could always
submit a patch" that borders on sarcastic, or at best only sounds that way
because the dev doesn't realize the reporter is not a programmer.

~~~
akkartik
You don't even have to be a non-programmer to get it. "Submit a patch" is the
classic passive-aggressive non-sequitur response when someone's feeling
defensive.

~~~
dlsspy
"I demand you give me apples from the tree you have growing in your back
yard."

"Here's a ladder. Take as many as you like."

"How rude."

~~~
colanderman
...it is if the requestor is paraplegic, as would befit the analogy to a non-
programmer reporting a bug.

~~~
dlsspy
A paraplegic can't learn to walk, and usually presents as such.

A non-programmer can usually shed this condition with effort, or at the very
least exchange laziness for money.

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mechanical_fish
"I'm not a programmer. How much would you charge to write the patch and then
submit it for me?

"If you don't have the time or inclination to do so... do you have any friends
with talent who need money?"

~~~
donaq
That's a great reply, but I'd change "need money" to "would be willing to do
it for a fee".

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jrockway
Wow! It's fun to see what people that don't participate in the open source
community think about open source.

Keep in mind that as a user of an open source project, you are already getting
the whole thing for free. Asking for more is what's rude; being told, "sure,
we'll add that when you write it" is a very polite invitation to invest in the
software that you apparently rely on. Remember, everything that already works
was once a patch.

If you don't know how to program, sure, submit a bug, but don't hold your
breath. Pay someone to fix the bug or implement the feature you want: there
are plenty of contracting companies that do this, and like anything in the
world, you get what you pay for.

Finally, what is a retort going to get you, even if you come up with a good
one? You got some software for free, and now you want people that don't care
about you in any way (you aren't their friend, you aren't giving them money,
etc.) to give you some more stuff. They say no. You respond with a witty
retort. Where are you now? The same place you were a few hours ago.

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prodigal_erik
I see a lot of "but I'm not a programmer" complaints. I'm concerned how many
end users seem to overlook the solution of hiring programmers to make desired
changes, since enabling that is a big part of what open source is _for_. How
do we fix this? If third parties followed up by offering estimates to do the
work, would that be well received?

~~~
tedunangst
Hiring programmers would be contrary to the goal of getting something for
nothing.

~~~
Devilboy
The goal of OSS is not 'getting something for nothing'.

~~~
chc
He's saying it's those people's motive.

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pkteison
Somebody has given you a gift, their time and talent, and your response was
'give me more'. They replied with 'I've given you all of my time that I want
to', and now you are looking for ways to argue that point with them, which at
_best_ will take more of their time. No. Remember your manners and thank them
for the gift. You asked, they answered, the most important thing at this point
is to respect the author's time by not arguing with them about how they choose
to spend their time.

I can readily see the concept of "I wrote this code, somebody else might find
it useful, so I'll make it available, but I don't want to bother with doing
anything else with it." If an author wants to write my feature, cool, but I
just don't see any problem in 'submit a patch' answers. To me it's a the
distilled essence of "I already spent all the time I want to on this thing, I
gave you a gift, I don't owe you anything, if you value this feature you're
welcome to do it but I don't value this feature and am not interested in
working for free." - but it saves all the arguments that would come up if you
actually gave that answer, as people with time on their hands would take every
point and try to pick it apart and take up more time arguing. By explaining
reasons, you're just handing out ammo to fire back at you. Saying no without
leaving the no open to argument is the only way to limit demands on time.

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wccrawford
I agree that it's a rude response, but hinting at them submitting a patch
would never work. Those who lean towards that would just do so without asking.
It's the rest of the people that need the pointer.

For many of my projects, my answer would be worse in their eyes: Fork it and
do what you like. I have no intention of adding bloat to this project.

That's far more rude, but totally truthful. I created that project for a
purpose, and I was nice enough to BSD license it so others could do -anything-
they want with it. Asking me to change it to your liking is going too far.

Of course, that assumes I don't want the feature. If I do like it, then I'll
happily add it to my backlog and then ignore it until I feel like working on
it.

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hristov
I am thinking the best retort would be to submit a patch.

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noonespecial
I've found that even the tiniest of donations rockets your request right to
the top of the queue. Especially for hardware.

Want that strange little T1 card to work in asterisk? Give them one and watch
the magic. Its way cheaper than hiring someone to code it for you.

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djloche
If you can't do it yourself now, a) partner with someone who can b) learn how
to do it so you can do it yourself c) hire someone to do it

I'd like to imagine that the community surrounding the open source project is
a perfect place to start looking for someone to hire to build it out from 90%
of what you need to 100%.

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robryan
One of the big reasons to open source is that you can get others to fix bugs
and add features, progressing the project quicker and putting it into more use
than it would have been closed source. People that use the software without
contributing are more of a side effect, the more widely used the project the
more users, the more smaller amount of contributors.

So I can see why there is this attitude when those getting a free ride on the
software also want it developed to their needs for free. Especially when the
feature is very specific and isn't something any of the contributors to the
project need.

As an aside: I hate it when people say they can't program out of hand without
actually really giving it a go, we all started somewhere.

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joe_the_user
Hmm,

You've created something you think is worthwhile and given it to the world.
Hopefully, one factor involved is that you would enjoy even a little
appreciation.

If you say "these are my resources and this is my plan for further
development, I would certain appreciate any resources that one might
contribute to extend this", you might, just get a nicer response back than if
say to the user " don't like it? There's nothing I'm going to do to change
that".

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akkartik
It's interesting to me how people's rephrasings of "submit a patch" in this
thread almost universally seem less objectionable. Perhaps it's all about how
you say it. Perhaps the biggest issue with the statement "it's open source,
submit a patch" is its curtness. Just changing it to "perhaps you should
consider" takes the edge off.

I imagine people saying this are usually at the end of their tether fending
off suggestions and feature requests. The best response in those situations is
to say nothing, and to take a break. If the guy that finally did it for you
just submitted an innocent suggestion, there's no sense in snapping at him.

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wladimir
Very simple: Don't act as if you're entitled to having any feature you desire
implemented for nothing. Offer money or other compensation to the developer(s)
to have it implemented.

Either that, or do it yourself (and submit a patch).

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akkartik
Everybody here should read this comment by Steve Yegge:
<http://groups.google.com/group/seajure/msg/145c06c54847c048> (original
thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2466731>)

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akkartik
I like my most recent retort: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407414>
(just the first 2 paragaphs)

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ndl
"Unfortunately, I don't have time to learn this system and work my way through
your review process. I think I'll have to buy [insert (possibly proprietary)
alternative] for now. Best of luck with the project."

For the record, I have written a couple patches and released open source code
before. I say this after years of trying to convince all my friends to switch
to Linux, and finally coming to terms with the fact that even I still have to
keep a Windows boot for certain occasions.

~~~
rbanffy
As long as you are happy with the [insert (possibly proprietary) alternative]
solution, I'm happy too.

Would you consider paying up to what [insert (possibly proprietary)
alternative] costs for someone to write the patch for you? Would you consider
gathering more people so you can fund your patch?

~~~
ndl
For paying a bounty, yes, assuming it can be arranged in a timely fashion.

For the latter, probably not. Assuming that for whatever reason I cannot write
the patch myself, I do not have the time to start a new organization every
time I encounter a new bug in some project. And I would guess that most
ordinary consumers don't either.

This is not supposed to be a necessarily snarky response. Sometimes, an open
source project exists, and it's not for everyone. The people behind the
project should realize that every feature they choose not to include cause the
software's value proposition to cease to exist for some users. It is up to
them what to prioritize, and up to me whether using their software is worth
the time of getting a patch committed.

Of course, my operating assumption here is that they want to hear about
bugs/feature requests, and so it is worth something to them that I would bring
it up in the 1st place. But I rarely ever make new feature requests. Usually
this is in response to an evangelist telling me that I should switch to their
platform, and my responding that it does not replace a current proprietary
solution.

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earl
Maybe stop complaining 'cause you aren't getting something for nothing and ask
about consulting rates? It's a fast and easy way to jump to the front of the
priority queue.

