How do you organize a campaign for FOSS change?

[n_hologram]

Unlike so many members and Linux users whom I deeply respect, I'm a mere computer hobbyist. I do, however, work pretty deeply with organizing workers for my union. It's grueling and time consuming, so I've been absent from dialogue and development in the Linux ecosystem; but, upon returning, and seeing such necessary developments as integrating Firefox with Pulseaudio, or Systemd still impairing basic functionality over two years after its adoption to Debian DE, I've been curious about ways to actually produce change in this kind of environment. This miscarries a significant amount of faith I have in open-source software, but I know it's also not the end of all hope.

I know that this is a convoluted question because the user to developer ratio is way biased towards people who can't develop software, myself included, and users who refuse to donate. This is more of a project-planning kind of conversation.

Are there any success stories on instances where people organized to make change? What are some common issues we face when a lot of people bring a legitimate dialogue to light? What would it take for developers to really listen to its users (I'm guessing the answer is money, but maybe I'm wrong)? And, with all that in mind, to what extent did the no-systemd advocates, for example, do what they could, aside from conversation in forums?

[edbarx]

I know that this is a convoluted question because the user to developer ratio is way biased towards people who can't develop software

Everyone capable of reason (logic) is capable of developing software, don't be misguided. One doesn't need to have a photographic memory or exceptional abilities to code.

[mor]

Everyone capable of reason (logic) is capable of developing software, don't be misguided. One doesn't need to have a photographic memory or exceptional abilities to code.

He didn't mean that people can't develop software as in "they do not possess the mental capacity to do it", he was just pointing to the reality of facts that most cannot indeed develop because they have never learned and likely won't because it is not in their life path, so to speak.

Back on topic, I can throw my two cents in by saying that the opportunities for non developers to change things can only be through money, and lots of it.
Maybe for small projects hiring a good developer that steers a software in a certain direction might still be viable, but for the kind of radical change I think you (n_hologram) envision, it would require a corporation-like mentality and big monetary means.

However it seems to me that this kind of big influence is exactly what you don't like of the current state of things, therefore I feel it would be somewhat hypocritical to assume that one vision is better that another to deserve a pass on the "corporate way".

With proprietary software nobody questions the right of a company to go in a particular direction, maybe they question the wisdom and business acumen, but not the right to do as they please. With Free Software however, people tend to forget that the developers, whether they do it for the passion or because someone hired them, do not owe anything to the users, not even when they donate.
Let's not forget that the whole point behind Software Freedom is to get the code and modify it yourself, not having developers do what one want.

Now, this thread is not about software freedom but rather about the Open Source development model that is what Free Software is based on, and Open Source development when is not directly influenced by some employer, ultimately follows the whims and qualms of developers that may or may not respond to users' consensus and pleas.

Bye

[edbarx]

With Free Software however, people tend to forget that the developers, whether they do it for the passion or because someone hired them, do not owe anything to the users, not even when they donate.

The not even when they donate is ethically questionable. If a developer is accepting money for their part in a project they are ethically bound to consider what their benefactors want, otherwise, it would amount to misappropriation.

[mor]

The not even when they donate is ethically questionable. If a developer is accepting money for their part in a project they are ethically bound to consider what their benefactors want, otherwise, it would amount to misappropriation.

Come on!
Misappropriation?
It is a voluntary donation, not a fee of some kind or public money.
For misappropriation to occur a party has to be trusted with money for an agreed upon service and then take the money and not deliver. Donations don't fit the description in any way.
So no, I'm sorry, no misappropriation.

I will however, also challenge the notion that it is ethically wrong because to imply that a donation entitles, even to the smallest extent, a donor to become part of the decision making process (even if only indirectly) would indeed turn a donation into a commission, tainting the spirit of it.
Also, multiple donors will certainly have different ideas and desires about where a project should be headed, so which one should a dev disappoint? Not to mention the fact that, in general, if they donated they did so because they like the project already, thus making the most ethical thing a donation receiver should do, if anything, to just keep doing what he is doing.

That is why, ultimately, devs do what they want and users are not entitled to anything in any case.

That said, I'm not saying that a dev should not take users' desires into consideration, it would actually be nice and wise (also impossible to satisfy all). However, to complain because a dev that owes nothing to anyone should do this or that because some feel entitled to get what they want, is just childish.

Bye

[vbrummond]

A little story to why I don't care about developers and partially why "not invented here" syndrome exists. I had an older Linux laptop running Debian with intel hd graphics. I believe my system supported only OpenGL version 2.1. Despite this limitation the machine had very decent performance running Dolphin Emulator. Wii games were certainly possible to play. When dolphin 4 (and so on) were released the limitation of OpenGL version was made 3.0 and I was forced to use the old version. I was looking forward to dolphin when I bought my iMac with support for opengl4.1.

Well, sadly, I got horrible and unplayable performance on dolphin even with my skylake intel cpu. There was no way my computer was too slow when each individual core I have doubles the total multi-core performance of my old intel cpu. I rebuilt the software with -march=native, I tried setting every setting in the book, no change. So eventually I asked on the forums why the software was slow. I was given the answer my computer sucks and to buy a better one. I argued. They argued back. Eventually I angered someone into actually telling me why the software was so slow. The OpenGL backend allows OpenGL 3.0 but requires features of OpenGL 4.4 to function properly. Some kind of texture copy feature they used to hack but now have an extension to support it natively. So on my computer this is done in software, bringing performance to a crashing halt.

I decided to either a) improve support for machines with opengl4.1, or b) write a metal api backend for dolphin. When I informed them (with one post) that I was going to write this code myself. They told me "Mac and Linux" suck, and they were done dealing with me. (It was worse than this, but the "done dealing with me" part pissed me off more than anything else). Sure I am free to write this code myself still, but I feel that with such disrespectful developers I don't want to dirty myself contributing to their project.

This is why proprietary software companies continue to prosper. It only takes the angry replies to some of Linus' rants to show you that. Software is about people in the end, not computers. So feel free to donate, campaign, or vote with your wallet, but in the end.. You will end up pissed off at people and doing it yourself.

This isn't true with all projects of course, but I have left most projects after some arrogant angry asshole tries to lord over everyone else.

[mor]

@vbrummond
Well, the bottom line of your story is that you don't care about people who are difficult to work with: I think you're in good company.
It also can be said about any category, not just devs, because hear hear, they're all made of people like us with all their quirks and whims.

True some groups can have higher degrees of unpleasantness and yes devs are likely among those (more on this in a sec) but after all, in relation to your story, if you ask both parties about any exchange, the asshole is always undeniably the other one, so as a rule of thumb I always try to give even the most cantankerous person the benefit of the doubt that it might be me who's at fault.

Anyway, devs, especially those who do not have a boss that tells them what to do, tend to see their work in the same manner as artists see their pieces, and layman input is as welcome as a kick in the nuts (well, not always, but you catch my drift).
I don't know what you do but and whether what you do is something that requires a level of expertise that you can't improvise or just learn on the job, but I'm sure you can imagine how for someone who has that kind of competence having to have a peer to peer discussion about their creation or just their field of expertise with a non-peer can be quite off-putting.
But even with a peer, considering how on the internet a peer is often a supposed peer and particularly when the differences are philosophical, it's a war anyway.

All this however, doesn't change the fact that whether a dev is the sweetest human being or the biggest asshole, we still can't expect him to take our desires into account (again, not saying he shouldn't), and the only way we can have a say in a project is to stipulate a contract that establishes we're boss.

Bye

[edbarx]

Come on!
Misappropriation?
It is a voluntary donation, not a fee of some kind or public money.

Donations do not take place in vain, there is always a motive for which people donate money. In our case, a distribution may make appeals for donations telling its audience why it requests donations. In this case, diverting from what is told to encourage donations by any developer who also receives money, is misappropriation of funds. Please, be informed, I am not arguing about some concrete happening, but, I am arguing in a philosophical sense. What Debian did is their prerogative, not mine. I do not contest it, as you put it, that would be childish. I wish was still a child, but ageing is merciless and relentless.

Suppose I was given funds from distro-Q to code my project on condition that I follow certain guidelines. Add also the condition that distro-Q's benefactors donated money after they were given clear guidelines of how and why money will be used. Also let us assume, I decide to divert from those guidelines giving technical reasons as to why. In my ethics book, if I accept those donations, I would be guilty of misappropriation. This is my argument. It is not based on situations where donations are given unconditionally.