Yes. As a maintainer whom actually cares about feedback and usability, I care that features developed apply to the real world and aren't imagined in an utopian vacuum by own possibly insane biases. Social democracy, not authoritarianism. If code isn't usable by other people in the real world, it's just graffiti while waiting for Godot.
throwanem|8 years ago
But if you close them NOTABUG or WONTFIX, you get a reputation as that guy who just doesn't want to hear about it, what a bastard.
I think there must be a middle way somewhere, for those projects which attract a lot of interest but few or no co-maintainers. But I'm glad I'm not on the hook for finding that middle way, too.
BrailleHunting|8 years ago
Support is what it is, and it's a two-way street.
Most engineers usually don't have customer support or sales experience, and so don't have the experience to triage and communicate pro-socially. (I sold software as a high-school job and also had my own consultancy at 17.) It's important to push outside one's comfort-zone when young (or old) to acquire skills that will be vital later on.
Post the policies, requirments and desires in contributing.md promenently. (I think a CoC is redundant and tyrannical SJWing.) Setting expectations and not making promises is important.
Finally, there is a cost to FOSS on both supply and demand sides. I just had some company fork the repo of a project I fixed, make a pointless PR and then offer no contributions in a grsec-theft-style way.
PS: Subversion has a great talk about defending the community.