I work with pedagogies, teach, write curricula, coach, manage, mentor, consult, speak publicly, polemicize, and sometimes work as a full-stack web developer, architect, ontologist, and more.
Yes, this is the problem. Documentation is hard work, and no one wants to do it. And although the OSS community is good at attracting developers, it is not so good at attracting technical writers, designers, UX engineers, etc., with the consequence that OSS often suffers compared to proprietary software.
This leads me to believe that most devs, despite their regular and vigorous patting of themselves on the back, are not really in it for altrusitic reasons. If that were true, then are we saying that devs are altruistic by nature, but designers, UX researchers, etc. are not? I find that difficult to believe.
So that punctures yet another fable that OSS devs tell themselves: that it's about altruism. In my view, it's mostly about ego, career advancement, and necessity with "altruism" as a convenient cover. And the unwillingness to make an effort to document well just proves my point.
I would love it if OSS were what it pretends to be. But after nearly three decades of struggling with it, I find that it's nothing like the claims made for it. It is still greatly useful, and I certainly wouldn't want to go without it, but why can't we just be honest about what it is, what needs it fills, and why people actually build it?
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Yes, this is the problem. Documentation is hard work, and no one wants to do it. And although the OSS community is good at attracting developers, it is not so good at attracting technical writers, designers, UX engineers, etc., with the consequence that OSS often suffers compared to proprietary software.
This leads me to believe that most devs, despite their regular and vigorous patting of themselves on the back, are not really in it for altrusitic reasons. If that were true, then are we saying that devs are altruistic by nature, but designers, UX researchers, etc. are not? I find that difficult to believe.
So that punctures yet another fable that OSS devs tell themselves: that it's about altruism. In my view, it's mostly about ego, career advancement, and necessity with "altruism" as a convenient cover. And the unwillingness to make an effort to document well just proves my point.
I would love it if OSS were what it pretends to be. But after nearly three decades of struggling with it, I find that it's nothing like the claims made for it. It is still greatly useful, and I certainly wouldn't want to go without it, but why can't we just be honest about what it is, what needs it fills, and why people actually build it?