From: James Edward John Taylor on Monday, August 04, 2003 11:44 AM
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, Dan Hatton wrote:
I quite agree that no-one should try and oblige volunteer developers to write anything they don't want to. However, it's rather unfair to describe non-developers as partaking of a "free ride." There are well-documented (for example, in _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_) examples of their contributions like writing formal documentation, and well-crafted bug reports. I can think of two less well-documented, but more widespread examples:
Why is it unfair? I wasn't just describing non-developers. I was describing pretty much everyone.
I agree with James, "free ride" is exactly what we're getting. It does sound rather prejudicial but is accurate in it's own way (you're not from Yorkshire by any chance are you James! :o) ).
Personally I feel a moral obligation to contribute something back to the Open Source community in exchange for being able to use the results of their efforts.
However anyone can contribute just by using it and then feeding back their experiences. As a developer I've often found the most useful feedback I've got is from non-technical end-users (where it's something a bit more than "This software stinks!" :o) ).
Actually the whole area of providing feedback and bug reports can be a bit obscure. As someone with a little knowledge of the way Open Source development works I'm not always sure how to go about doing this.
Regards,
Keith ____________ Carpe Diem, quam minimum credula postero. (Seize today, and put no trust in tomorrow.) Horace