Is this person OK? Doesn't seem it. I use single-spa. I'm now worrying about it's future with the sentiments and apparent dislike of users expressed here.
This person is more than OK. They're learning how to set boundaries and not let crappy people bother them.
Open Source will eat your soul if you let it. Low effort drive by issues, questions, or comments are crushing. On my humble project, something like 40% of people who open issues completely ignore the issue template, which means every. single. conversation. begins with asking for the bare minimum of details needed to even help them. Then you've got PRs with literally zero info, which you're expected to spend time reviewing / understanding.
Some people will even violate the Github boundary and email you directly to ask why their issue isn't being responded to, or why their PR isn't getting merged, or whatever. Honestly? Fuck these people.
> They're learning how to set boundaries and not let crappy people bother them.
Abusive mindsets parse boundaries as an illness. So saying that someone "seems unwell" simply because they want reasonable boundaries is definitely telling on oneself.
That wasn't my impression from reading it. The writeup actually seemed very reasonable to me. They perhaps sound like they're having a bit more trouble than many at handling the onslaught and saying no, but given that, this felt like a fine way to set things up.
So I'm curious: what in the writeup indicates a dislike of users?
Do you not see the irony that as a user of their free software you completely missed the point of their post that is basically saying, the people using my software are asking so much and giving so little that I'm burning out?
I got the opposite read regarding their mental health. This was a very clear and well thought out statement of reasonable boundaries, especially for someone volunteering their time. I admire them for it.
Seems to me, that he wants to keep going on it, but isn't really a "people person," and wants to control his agenda.
I can respect that.
I managed an open-source project for a decade, that was designed to serve an ... interesting ... demographic.
I think many of the folks here, would have defecated masonry, if they got some of the contacts that I did.
But I'm a fairly tough old coot. I held my own. It wasn't pleasant, though, and I learned a great deal, about interacting with ... interesting ... people.
I got the sense that Denning might have some sort of mild anxiety disorder, but I'm not any sort of expert on the subject. It doesn't sound to me like he dislikes users, rather he dislikes certain kinds of interactions. E.g.:
> When something feels like a demand (even a small demand such as “please respond to me” or “please review this pull request”), I often retreat. It is very common for me to take days, weeks, or even months off from open source because I get overwhelmed by the people asking me to do it. I experience a lot of initial anxiety due to the demand, followed by additional anxiety about me delaying my response.
