> Even writing it down here I'm worried I sound like I'm trying to curate a closed community of ego-boosting yes men.
There's this weird trend that's been happening for some time now that tries to make non-fully-open groups look wrong, but honestly, has anything ever actually been done by such open groups? As far as I can tell, "closed community" is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for any kind of quality creative output (this includes individual projects as single-person closed group). Having a core of creators surrounded by distinct group of fans and secondary contributors is a natural organization that forms spontaneously.
I think the linux kernel developement is quite open. But Linus is famous for telling people directly in not so nice words, that they are not helping.
I don't think insults are the solution, but giving a clear no, is a skill many people struggle with. And if some cannot cope with that, blocking individuals also works.
It is also a cultural thing, being from Southern Europe took me some time to get used to the Northern Europe approach to be direct without any yes and buts.
Linux development is distributed (largely, between commercial entities), not really "open". If you aren't intimately familiar with the culture, you're likely to be ignored unless your issue also affects somebody who is.
Being open for collaboration does not mean anyone and anything is welcomed. But I could just write to the kernel mailing list (I think, it used to be like this) - but yeah, since I am not a kernel hacker, I do not have anything meaningful to contribute, I would be ignored, or told to shut up - as it should be. I won't go there and say "hey you know, it would be really good if linux would support xyz ASAP". I have no right to do this and this would not be welcome - yet in many other open source projects, this is quite the norm. People come with this expectation. Some even might have donated 5$ and think now they own the place. Well, no.
There's this weird trend that's been happening for some time now that tries to make non-fully-open groups look wrong, but honestly, has anything ever actually been done by such open groups? As far as I can tell, "closed community" is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for any kind of quality creative output (this includes individual projects as single-person closed group). Having a core of creators surrounded by distinct group of fans and secondary contributors is a natural organization that forms spontaneously.
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