As many of you know, I work on Open Source Software (OSS). This means I release several projects free of charge that I create using my time. I’ve gotten a large amount of appreciation from users, but there is another side that’s quite disturbing. What’s worse is it appears to be indicative of a far more serious problem.
Often a user will ask for a feature that is not implemented. Sometimes I like the feature and it’s something I’ll use myself so I implement it immediately, sometimes it’s one I’ll work on if I have time, and other times I don’t care for it at all so I suggest that others work on it. I take a similar response to bugs, but with respect to whether I can reproduce it. Bugs I cannot reproduce nor fix tend to go unchanged. Most take these responses in stride, but there are some who do not, in particular, those reporting an issue that I cannot reproduce, and fail to give me the required information. A few of these, whom I will call the demanding consumer, demand their wishes to be met entirely at my cost in terms of time and effort. In the past few years, I’ve noticed this group grow in size.