So, this is a rant. Please don't quote me on this article, as my opinion might have changed a day after posting. In the meantime, there's a rant I've been meaning to write for a long time that I've put off since I'm officially wearing the KDE Marketing hat. Tonight, I take it off.
"Does KDE even need users?"
If the users are harming the project, we don't need those users. I've hesitated to tell these users to (quoting the recently deceased Carlin) "go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself."
From a cynical point of view, the only real benefit to KDE of having users is that some users turn into developers. This directly benefits the KDE project, the code, and the KDE developers who are writing the software (essentially) for themselves. Marketing in Open Source is a bit of a misnomer anyway, as we don't really benefit directly from having more users. Sure, every user loves to be on the winning side of the KDE-Gnome tug-of-war, but in all honesty, if you're harming the project, find a different project to be a rabid user of. If they'll take you. Which I doubt. I wouldn't wish the poisonous users on Gnome, XFCE, or any other project that you might gravitate to...
KDE and open source is not ever obligated to please users. We are not obligated to fix bugs. We are not obligated to implement things that you demand. We are not obligated to provide open forums for you to attack us personally. If you are kind to us, we might do some of those things.
So if you are one of these poisonous users who offer no thanks for the time, energy and skill that goes into creating KDE, please go away. Find another project to harass (preferably closed source) as we've had enough of it.
Now that I've said that, I'm off to start the race of Vulcans. Emotions are totally useless for technical development.
[/end rant]
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