Pontifications
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
One facet of OSS sustainability that's often on my mind: how to cope with an endless stream of critiques, sometimes unstructured and underinformed.
The problem comes in a few guises:
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
The best-case version goes like this. You make your project increasingly, truly open, giving opportunities for people to weigh in at every point in the development process. (With Rust, this is very explicitly a *Request* for Comments).
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
The better your project is on this front, the more commentary needs to be digested and responded to. And for those taking the initiative to Get Something Done, it can feel like running a gauntlet of criticism.
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
In this best-case world, this gauntlet improves quality, ensures that stakeholder constraints are met, and uncovers positive-sum solutions (see http://aturon.github.io/2018/06/02/listening-part-2/ …).
But even so, even if everyone is polite and on point, the Critique Gauntlet is... exhausting.
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
A harder variant is Critique Groundhog Day, in which the same critiques are made over and over at each stage of the development process, sometimes even within the same (long) thread.
Again, this can happen even if everyone is acting in good faith and doing their best.
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
Then there are critiques that aren't part of the development process, but rather "just" personal outcries. With OSS, though, these critiques can appear at random "in the workplace", within the forums where development usually takes place. Stochastic Critiques!
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
If you're doing Open well, there's a sense of co-ownership of the project shared by its entire community. And from that perspective, it's easy for an individual, even on the periphery, to believe that their critique needs to Be Heard.
aturon is Business Flamboyant
@aaron_turon
14 Dec 2018
So: a project trying to be truly open. Everyone playing their role in good faith and intent. But a result of a Critique Gauntlet, Groundhog Day, or Stochastic Criticism... all making it pretty hard to keep burnout at bay.
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