On a tale of two pull requests
Sunday, June 15th, 2025I was going to leave a comment on “A tale of two pull requests”, but would need to authenticate myself via one of the West Coast behemoths. So, for the benefit of readers of the FSFE Community Planet, here is my irritable comment in a more prominent form.
I don’t think I appreciate either the silent treatment or the aggression typically associated with various Free Software projects. Both communicate in some way that contributions are not really welcome: that the need for such contributions isn’t genuine, perhaps, or that the contributor somehow isn’t working hard enough or isn’t good enough to have their work integrated. Never mind that the contributor will, in many cases, be doing it in their own time and possibly even to fix something that was supposed to work in the first place.
All these projects complain about taking on the maintenance burden from contributions, yet they constantly churn up their own code and make work for themselves and any contributors still hanging on for the ride. There are projects that I used to care about that I just don’t care about any more. Primarily, for me, this would be Python: a technology I still use in my own conservative way, but where the drama and performance of Python’s own development can just shake itself out to its own disastrous conclusion as far as I am concerned. I am simply beyond caring.
Too bad that all the scurrying around trying to appeal to perceived market needs while ignoring actual needs, along with a stubborn determination to ignore instructive prior art in the various areas they are trying to improve, needlessly or otherwise, all fails to appreciate the frustrating experience for many of Python’s users today. Amongst other things, a parade of increasingly incoherent packaging tools just drives users away, heaping regret on those who chose the technology in the first place. Perhaps someone’s corporate benefactor should have invested in properly addressing these challenges, but that patronage was purely opportunism, as some are sadly now discovering.
Let the core developers of these technologies do end-user support and fix up their own software for a change. If it doesn’t happen, why should I care? It isn’t my role to sustain whatever lifestyle these people feel that they’re entitled to.