On 8/11/13 10:26 PM +0900, Philip Chee wrote:
On 11/08/2013 17:59, Trane Francks wrote:
One of the other users in the mozilla groups suggested that the mandate of open source software is to serve the users. Alas, the reality is that open source software developers scratch their own itch. They are not beholden to anybody, and that seems to have resulted in some directions being chosen that are strictly at odds with what a segment of users would want to see.
We once ran a trial offering a bug bounty for fixing some long standing issues. The result was ... crickets .... Conclusion: money doesn't motivate open source volunteers - or at least the amount of money we were offering.
Yeah, Phil. Exactly. It kinda bears out my point that OSS is all about scratching one's particular itch. It's even telling when a state in Bugzilla is "WFM" (Works For Me). I'm not complaining, mind you; I've developed open-source software myself and know all about the scratch/itch relationship.
Fixing bugs isn't glamorous. Nor does it appeal to those who strive to create new and wonderful things. Great bug-fixers are a unique breed who love being anal about details and are unsatisfied until things are as they should be. They are worth they're weight in gold for software maintenance teams due to their ultimate rarity.
Cheers, trane -- ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Trane Francks [email protected] Tokyo, Japan // Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
