Why I'm Not Using Your Open Source Project - NCZOnline →
Nicholas makes some excellent points on reasons open source can hurt rather than help. He writes from a business perspective, as an architect at Box. His concerns are therefore quite ordinary:
Writing from a business point of view, this all makes a lot of sense. If there is a problem, a patch must be issued or else production code can be in jeopardy. If devs can’t understand how to use it because there is no documentation, then the library is unusable. Etcetera.
From a normal everyday user perspective, this matters less. If it’s a security vulnerability, it could be a big issue, sure. But individuals aren’t relying on having a strong community using the library and submitting patches. The average user has to be concerned about the license and the documentation, mostly.
It was also funny to me that Nicholas thought people wanted to open source technology and find users for the fame. I open source things because I don’t want to pay for private repos, and the code is generally not that unique or has little business value for me. So I make it public. If someone wants to use it, they can open an issue and I’ll respond.
I have offered my projects to people and companies who might find benefit, but it always comes with the caveat that I have not run it through its paces in every environment. Frankly, authors shouldn’t have to do that for every library they create. If you find a library that seems promising but has one or two things that should be fixed, maybe they weren’t fixed beforehand because the author(s) didn’t think that anyone else would use it. Now that you found it and want to use it to help build your business, the least you can do is submit those patches and open dialogue with the author. Contributions are the building blocks of an open source community, and the first ones have to come from somewhere.