this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Engineers: Hmm, maybe we should get someone with a bit of market knowledge to the table.
MBA: Shit, I have no clue what they're talking about. I need someone who speaks my language.
MBA 2: Man, these engineers really have no clue what we're talking about, huh.
Engineers: removed
Plenty of engineers struggle to care about the right things too though. You can witness this in Linux communities. The engineers will engage in passion-project rewrites of core systems any day of the week over fixing that one annoying UI bug that thousands of users complain endlessly about.
The key part there is that they're not paid. So working on a passion project is all that matters.
As an aside though, those core system rewrites are often undertaken by businesses rather than the individuals. A lot of businesses view Linux as a tool rather than a consumer OS, so the core systems are the only part that matters.
No, it isn’t. That’s not how it worked on the playground as little kids and it isn’t how it works in the open source community.
Think of it like this: if you’re playing by yourself in your own personal sandbox in the back yard of your house, you’re free to do whatever you want with the sandcastles you build. But, as soon as you invite all the neighbourhood kids to join you, it doesn’t matter if you built the biggest sandcastle before anyone else arrived: you’re now in a social environment where social rules and etiquette apply.
If the other kids politely critique the sandcastle and suggest improvements that you don’t agree with (or don’t think are important), then you’re faced with a dilemma: either compromise and work out a way forward that’s satisfactory (if not perfect) for everyone, or ignore them and face a potential breakup of the community as well as the ostracism which tends to follow. Even worse is something like deciding “no, this is my sandbox, everybody get out!”
Now, if you’ve got the foresight to post a sign by the sandbox which lays out all the rules and expectations for participation, then you have a lot better chance of getting everything to work out. But the idea that “this is my passion project” trumps everything else is not gonna fly in basically any community above a handful of people.
So you expect people to work for free on what you think is important, rather than on what they think is important?
A different analogy: I invite you over to a BBQ that I'm throwing. You show up and say you don't want to eat what I'm preparing. You don't want to bring anything or contribute because you can't cook, and I invited you, so it's rude to ask you to contribute and now I owe you food that you want that I'm not interested in making.
You don't want a "community", you want to be provided with high quality low cost software.
Even in your sandbox example: if I'm building a sand castle you don't get to demand I build it the way you want just because I said you could play too. I don't want to build that into the castle. If you want to add that bit, you can do it. I'm sharing by letting you play in my sandbox and that doesn't entitle you to dictate how I play in the sandbox. We can play together, but that doesn't mean I have to do what you want.
Remember that what you're doing under the auspices of "community" is justifying telling other people how they should give you free stuff that takes a lot of work that they don't want to do unpaid in their free time.
Let’s continue with the barbecue analogy. I come to your barbecue and you drop my steak on the ground and then just put it on my plate covered in dirt and tell me “it’s a free steak, if you don’t like dirt on it, then leave!”
See how it works? You don’t want a community, you just want an adoring fanbase for your passion project!
Yeah but that's the thing. You don't have to eat the steak. This isn't just a 5 person bbq, there's tens of thousands of people here that want to have my steak, and I'm the only person cooking in the whole town that isn't burning the whole thing black . There's plenty of food, sorry there's some dirt on that one, but I'm not going to derail the whole event for you. Enjoy the barbecue. You don't like it? Leave. But I don't care about a little dirt on my steak because I still seared it the way I'm proud of and clearly it's better than most of the other steaks around or you and everyone else wouldn't be here.
I'm here to cook steaks because having a barbecue is what I like doing. If I feel like the dirt is a problem, I'll fix it, but I'm trying to make the best steaks possible and to me that means focusing on the cooking, not the dirt that got on yours.
Don't like it? Leave. Wanna bitch at me until I stop cooking? Fine by me. I'll go inside and cook my steaks there.
Out of tens of thousands of people actually visiting, only 1% are actually taking the time to say anything about the dirty steaks. Everyone else is just quietly leaving after seeing the chef shout down a guy for complaining about the dirt, and then throwing his bbq tongs at them!
That's not quite right because we're all getting the exact same thing. I'm giving you a free steak and you're complaining about the cut of meat. Everyone is getting the same cut, and I bought the steak that I'm giving away so I get to pick what I buy. If you don't like it you're more than welcome to bring your own steak and I'll get it on the grill, or pay me to get you what you want, or hope that I remember to grab one for you the next time. You're not entitled to a free steak though.
Even backing up and looking at your interpretation as you presented it: you're complaining that your free steak got ruined and asking for a new one. You might not always get a new gift just because the one given to you went wrong.
Sorry you didn't get a free steak. Do you want me to take one from someone else?
Here's the thing though: so what if I do? If "I" get what I want, then you get something you like for free. At worst, you get nothing for the grand total of no cost.
You might be forced to go pay for some commercial software, where it'll cost more and you'll probably also not get your feature on demand.
Well with software the steak analogy breaks down. You’re making one steak and an unlimited number of people get to eat copies of that steak. They’re all perfect copies of a nicely cooked steak, but they all have dirt on them. And for some reason you think it’s more important to fiddle around with the charcoal instead of offering steaks without dirt.
Yes. Because every person who deals with the software has the same opinion about functionality.
Dirty food is objective. Variety isn't. "Menu is confusing" is subjective, hence some people don't feel motivated to change what they don't see as broken.
I honestly can't fathom arguing this hard to defend flagrant entitlement. You keep glossing over how your demands of fair treatment and community are directed towards someone offering to share with you without any request for reciprocity.
Usually the maintainers are people who got involved because they actually have ability and were able to change something they wanted to be different. Their opinions matter more because they actually bring something to the community.
You're not entitled to someone's nights and weekends just because they shared with you. Trying to phrase it as elementary school manners doesn't make it magically true that now they owe you.
"You invited me to dinner. If you didn't want my critique of your cooking and home decor you should have never invited me". Same entitled energy.
They are also the only steaks in the world and the person is making those steaks for free. You can get the dirt off the steak if it’s the only steak in the world.
They aren’t though. Hardly any open source projects are completely unique types of software with no alternatives.
If that’s the case, why are you going to get free dirt steak when you can go get free not dirt steak? Yes this is still the metaphor.
It’s free dirt steak or overcooked chicken or one of those delivery meal kits where you have to cook everything yourself.
But the whole point about the dirt steak is that simply not dropping it in the dirt would be so much less effort than all the arguing that has already gone on in this thread. Everyone arguing against me is trying to justify feeding people dirt because “passion project > building something really nice, clean, and polished that users love”, which is why so much of open source on the desktop remains a niche hobby for 3 decades and counting.
These people are making the steaks for themselves and are generous to offer the scraps to the community. If you go around demanding free steaks all the time, I ask why don’t you start cooking steaks too?
You speak as if it’s only generosity that motivates people to contribute to open source. That power, recognition, career advancement, or even salary (which may not be publicly acknowledged) are not factors.
You can say the same about moderators on forums or hobby wikis. I think a lot of them are motivated by the sense of ownership and power they have over others within a particular area of interest.
Yes, but you’re still getting free burgers and complaining to the chef. Whatever is motivating the chef is irrelevant.
Complaining that he keeps dropping the burgers in the dirt and then insisting we eat dirt.
Why don’t you try volunteering at a soup kitchen and trying to serve people food you dropped on the floor? Let me know how that goes for you.
When I volunteer at a soup kitchen, I am serving someone else’s soup to people. When I am the burger man changing the way burgers are being made, I am using my own money, time, and ingredients all the way through. There is a difference.
No one is insisting you eat dirt, btw. You’re willingly choosing to eat dirt and then complaining to the generous burger man after the fact.
The people being served are not poor homeless people with nowhere else to go. They are middle class, have the tools they need to cook burgers themselves, and still insist on eating someone else’s burgers.
The Open Source world is not a soup kitchen created to serve you. If that’s how you see it, then we clearly have different opinions. I don’t personally go around complaining for that free thing someone gave me to be better. That’s a weak mindset. If you want something, go build it yourself. You’ll have all the control over it that you want. Complaining about it is childish.
Those are software people. I wouldn't really consider them engineers in the sense being discussed here. Lots of software people are ready to rewrite the entire code base in a refactor bcz they think they can decouple a few systems in a better way, all the while introducing bugs while they do it. I dont know a lot of engineers willing to do that. It's not zero, I do know a few, but it's a lot less.
There’s no professional organization that all software engineers belong to, the way we have with civil engineers. This leads to a ton of ambiguity about who is a true engineer and who are software people, as you call them. This is an issue even among people who know how to write their own software.
So then should we really be surprised that non-technical MBAs can’t tell the difference between true engineers and software people?
This isn't a no true scottsman thing. An engineer is someone who also does engineering work in addition and not just software. It can be anything from structural stuff like FEA simulation, fluid dynamics, to manufacturing. That's the distinction, that's it.
How does that pertain to the above issue of businesses and MBAs and software which was nothing to do with physical engineering work? Like if you’re saying only people who understand fluid dynamics know how to build business software and the people who engage in passion project rewrites on Linux software don’t, then what? I have no idea what you’re really arguing here.
You made a statement about engineers vs software people.
Yes, because you invented the term “software people” and I took the ball and ran with it. If you’re now going to deny such a distinction then I don’t know what else to tell you.
I didn't invent anything. Why are you getting offended by a simple statement?
Well, I'd argue they're focused on the right things from their perspective, which is usually trying to optimize a thing for a purpose. Engineers are pretty good at engineering and not so good necessarily at other stuff, like every other job.
But if you tell them what you want and why, and what limitations you have, clearly. They can typically engineer the thing you want. The complications are normally money, suppliers, manufacturing, etc
Everyone is focused on the right things, from their own perspective. One of the biggest challenges with large projects is getting everyone on the same page about what’s important.
Look, I’m not saying software engineers are clueless or whatever. I think this issue occurs throughout large projects and organizations: people working on one specific part tend to see that part as the most important but people working on other parts tend to see it as less important than it is. We’re all naturally biased by our own perspectives.
I do agree that MBAs as a concept are broken. You can’t train people to be experts in all things business. The needs of specific businesses are learned only through hard experience in that business.
are those paid positions?
Why does that matter? People always say that about open source! “If you don’t like it then fix it yourself!” And then they complain that no one wants to use it!
You can’t have it both ways. If you’re just building it for yourself then keep it to yourself. If you open it up to the public then people are going to complain if there’s issues (or just ignore it outright if it sucks).
Having said all that, I do have a lot of sympathy for volunteer devs who promise to fix issues after they complete some core rewrite or major refactor, as long as they’re open about it and make a good case for it being necessary. I have a lot less sympathy for developers who are forever bored of fixing issues and just want to endlessly break things by doing rewrites and other fun hobby stuff. If you’re going to do that then don’t present your project as if it were part of the open source community; it’s your hobby, not a community project.
are they paid?
yes or no
Many of them often are, through donations / Patreon / etc.
so no
there’s your answer and I suspect you understand this as we’ve struggled to arrive here
if you want people to do non passion projects you need to pay them for those parts specifically
as much as I love patreon as a concept (not the company it is shit) the work agreement I’ve always seen is rather open
Even setting aside Patreon or whatever else, I think you’re still wrong about public passion project developers getting to do whatever they want and not have people criticize them for it. If you invite people into your space and then pull the rug out from under them, people are going to treat you like an asshole because you are one for doing that.
people get all kinds of ideas on what they are owed
but expecting educated, talented people to do boring/difficult/unfun stuff for free is lol
There’s no expectation here. You’re free to walk away from a project any time. You’re free to take your ball and go home. The question is about whether you’re immune to criticism.
I say that when you put a project out into public and people start using it, you invite criticism (but also praise, of course). The issue is with people who think they’re only entitled to praise and not criticism. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
and yet here we are lol
this is really simple
if you want specifically a thing, pay for specifically that thing
But you’re free to criticize, free to fork, and free to ignore in the open source world. Can’t take the criticism? Too bad! Grow a spine!
sure and mostly likely no will have any reason to take you seriously
Except in the case that I originally brought up, which seems like years ago in this thread: thousands of people complaining about the same issue.
Then no one takes the project seriously.