Do NOT ask people who are writing software for free, on their free time, to
do it for you. Not because its wrong(though I personally feel it is), but
because it won't achieve anything.
Not necessarily true, Bill.
I agree that it's often better for people to do their own code work, and then submit it for consideration by the person/people in charge. However, there's nothing inherently wrong with asking open source developers for a feature. And there are certainly people out there doing OSS who will respond. -- Sam just did so recently with the request for a new alternative to the low-watermark setting, if you recall. (And I'm sure any number of other times. Thanks, Sam! :)
I agree. He seems to have the wrong attitude here, "you fix it, Sam, or I'll go play elsewhere!", which seems a little pushy (at best). But I don't see anything wrong with asking for others to make changes to OSS programs.
If all the changes *I* wanted to see in a piece of software had to wait for me to code them myself... well, they'd probably *NEVER* happen. ;-) I'm just not that much of a programmer. I do some CGI's but mostly do HTML, JavaScript, network configs, PERL, a few shell scripts, etc. I don't program big, compiled, multi-function applications a great deal. -- But if someone else who does is willing to code something up for me... I'm *gonna* take advantage of that willingness.
Of course, I also realize that I may not always get someone who's willing to code a particular fix or feature for me. And then, I either have to live without it... find an alternative solution... or buckle down and see if I can't program it myself after all.
But, never making requests of OSS developers is not something I'd advocate as a hard and fast rule.
-James
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