> > it’s possible that […] your work makes the world a worse place
>
> Always great to hear that…
Painful, but it is true.
Free Software development is awkward in this respect. Both developers and users feel as if they are doing something virtuous, but it's unclear to what extent the contributions of either party help the other (or anyone else).
Meanwhile the presence of this self-conscious feeling of virtue makes transactions difficult, as every party feels they begin by deserving something out of it. So Free Software users are more demanding and aggressive than users of proprietary software, and Free Software developers are more prickly.
Loss of ego is absolutely essential here.
(More on-topic, this series of HN posts about X and Wayland has prompted me, a long-time holdout X user, to experiment again with switching one laptop to Wayland. It's massively better than the last time I tried it, and I'll probably leave this laptop like this unless something goes awfully wrong. Thank you, unappreciated Wayland developers.)
I am surprised. The system I use is someone else work. I've brought nothing, got it for free.
Demanding users I see looks like spoiled web users. They expect free services, they pay with privacy or are clever enough not to pay (adblock). But Free Software does not sell their data.
Or they compare to Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, quite profitable companies. But Free Software does not acquire telemetry, does not sell hardware or bundled services. There are some private companies (Red Hat, Canonical, Mozilla), their difference from my industry (web development) is they ship source.
Painful, but it is true.
Free Software development is awkward in this respect. Both developers and users feel as if they are doing something virtuous, but it's unclear to what extent the contributions of either party help the other (or anyone else).
Meanwhile the presence of this self-conscious feeling of virtue makes transactions difficult, as every party feels they begin by deserving something out of it. So Free Software users are more demanding and aggressive than users of proprietary software, and Free Software developers are more prickly.
Loss of ego is absolutely essential here.
(More on-topic, this series of HN posts about X and Wayland has prompted me, a long-time holdout X user, to experiment again with switching one laptop to Wayland. It's massively better than the last time I tried it, and I'll probably leave this laptop like this unless something goes awfully wrong. Thank you, unappreciated Wayland developers.)