> I take a quick glance at my GitHub notifications via Octobox
The term "GitHub" appears nine times on that page. One way to resolve this problem, if it is a problem for you, is to not use GitHub. If you use a tool that was designed to incentivize exactly the scenario described in this article, you shouldn't be surprised when that scenario is realized.
Post your code in another form, such as on a website as source.zip. If this doesn't work - often because the developer feels there are personal benefits to being the maintainer of a highly visible project - I'm less sympathetic. Even releasing your project on GH with a readme that says you're posting your code but don't have time to deal with issues will solve the problem.
The real problem is buried within the text: "Failing to handle it directly affects your online reputation." That is the motivation for the project. This person wants to enhance their online reputation (for whatever personal reasons). This is all fine if that's your thing, but online reputation doesn't come for free, just like a YouTube channel with 100k subscribers doesn't come for free.
I wouldn't expect people to read that. The real issue, I think, is still that many fail to understand that open source software is free, in multiple ways.
The worst of the examples in the article is the: "We are waiting for a solution". If you pick open source software for critical infrastructure, then you need to be prepared to provide solutions for your own problems. Sometimes that means fixing stuff yourself, sometimes it means paying external developers to do it for you. People/companies forget that part.
The OpenBSD approach of just shutting down request with a the comment: "Show us the code." is a little hard, but not unreasonable.
> The OpenBSD approach of just shutting down request with a the comment: "Show us the code." is a little hard, but not unreasonable.
I feel as if many have not been exposed to this approach and without questioning it buy the concept of your open source projects being advertising for you as an individual and that lest you provide support for each operating system (and their many versions…), etc. you are unworthy of the honour of giving away your labour of love free of charge and deserve to be scorned publicly. Maybe this is because I entered the community in the early 2000s and things were “different” back then, but I have never understood this perspective. Did it rise to dominance with the likes of GitHub? Note that I am not suggesting that GitHub et al. are a “source of evil” here.
OpenBSD is an operating system made by its developers for its developers. If you can not “handle” Theo [1], dislike the fact that there is for example no Bluetooth stack because they were happy with the code quality, or zero tolerance for binary blobs, it is perfectly fine! Want the codebase to steer a new course? Fork it! Want something else? I am sure there are other communities out there better aligned with your goals and maybe they are open source ones too? “It does not work” or “We are waiting for a solution” is to me akin to marching down to your local volunteer orchestra and insisting on them changing their repertoire or perhaps incorporating your accordion this very moment or you will throw a tantrum. It is silly, it is childish, and it frankly pretty much deserve the response that people that behave like this get from the OpenBSD community.
My introduction to open source software was in the early 2000s as well, and I think you're right in that things where somehow different.
Perhaps it's the understanding that projects like Apache and Linux came from a large community of people, and companies, who all fix bugs they cared about, or implemented features that they need. If someone else could benefit from the work you where going to do anyway, then that's wonderful, but it's was something you did because you needed it.
The term "GitHub" appears nine times on that page. One way to resolve this problem, if it is a problem for you, is to not use GitHub. If you use a tool that was designed to incentivize exactly the scenario described in this article, you shouldn't be surprised when that scenario is realized.
Post your code in another form, such as on a website as source.zip. If this doesn't work - often because the developer feels there are personal benefits to being the maintainer of a highly visible project - I'm less sympathetic. Even releasing your project on GH with a readme that says you're posting your code but don't have time to deal with issues will solve the problem.
The real problem is buried within the text: "Failing to handle it directly affects your online reputation." That is the motivation for the project. This person wants to enhance their online reputation (for whatever personal reasons). This is all fine if that's your thing, but online reputation doesn't come for free, just like a YouTube channel with 100k subscribers doesn't come for free.