From running a large OSS project, the general passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) complaint ratio to the amount of "thanks, this is awesome" ratio can be quite overwhelming and painful at times. Usually.
I've basically resolved to not complain about anything given to me for free, ever, at least on twitter, because I've felt so much of it. "Why I personally prefer X vs Y" is ok.
For twitter, it can be anything from a software project to some customer service guy somewhere, but it's important to remember that real people are out there.
That guy's boss might be a jerk to person XYZ about what you said about his software on twitter, even if you weren't particularly upset. And you definitely didn't make the author feel very good either. And who are you to complain when you couldn't build it yourself, and are putting in much less energy?
If you have a problem with free OSS bits, help fix it, or use something else.
If you've paid for something, this is what support departments and customer service groups are before too.
I've basically resolved to not complain about anything given to me for free, ever, at least on twitter, because I've felt so much of it. "Why I personally prefer X vs Y" is ok.
For twitter, it can be anything from a software project to some customer service guy somewhere, but it's important to remember that real people are out there.
That guy's boss might be a jerk to person XYZ about what you said about his software on twitter, even if you weren't particularly upset. And you definitely didn't make the author feel very good either. And who are you to complain when you couldn't build it yourself, and are putting in much less energy?
If you have a problem with free OSS bits, help fix it, or use something else.
If you've paid for something, this is what support departments and customer service groups are before too.
( This blog is good reading on the subject too - http://powazek.com/posts/3368 )