This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Eric Hodel. Original Post: On Community Funding of Open Source Feed Title: Segment7 Feed URL: http://blog.segment7.net/articles.rss Feed Description: Posts about and around Ruby, MetaRuby, ruby2c, ZenTest and work at The Robot Co-op. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Eric Hodel Latest Posts From Segment7

The other day Yehuda Katz announced a kickstarter for creating Rails.app, an OS X application that makes it easy to bring new programmers to Rails and Ruby.

I think the idea is fantastic. When I first started learning Ruby I had to do battle with compilers, RubyGems didn't exist, the RAA had but a handful of libraries, and there weren't really even any tutorials for learning Ruby around. I had either fortitude or stubbornness on my side to get through the much steeper learning curve than many of you had to deal with to get where I am today, and it sucked.

I think the idea of soliciting community for funding is fantastic. It's not the first time a Rubyist has solicited money to work on open source. I funded Gregory Brown's work on Prawn a few years ago and was happy to do so even though I've never used Prawn (although I'd like to someday) I was incredibly happy to support it. I'll probably never use Rails.app, either, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy to support it, nor that Rubyists are wrong to support it.

Now, to get to my point, I don't understand why I keep seeing such negative feedback around Yehuda's choice of soliciting money to bring us Rails.app. Sure, it may just be a few of you, but if you don't want to give Yehuda money, fine, just don't. If you think Yehuda is asking for too much money, fine, just don't donate. If you just don't like Yehuda, fine, just don't donate.

But stop with the personal attacks, even the snarky ones and the jokes at Yehuda's expense.

You would not find it so funny if people were ganging up on you.

This is a fantastic idea Yehuda has presented and if he had the ability he would bring it to us for free. Right now he doesn't have that ability so he's asking for our help.

Being a major contributor to open source is incredibly difficult. While thousands or even millions of people may be happily using your software, you mostly hear from the people who are having problems with it, especially after they're extremely frustrated. Throwing insults atop this is incredibly demotivating and depressing, so cut it out.

If want to continue to complain, whinge or make cruel jokes, towards Yehuda or any other Rubyist, why not take that effort and put it towards something positive. Do something that is welcoming to new Rubyists like improving some ruby documentation, submitting a bug report or submitting a patch to fix a bug.

Stop making our community look like a bunch of jerks. It's fine if you disagree with another Rubyist, especially one who has contributed so heavily to Ruby, but you should have enough respect for them to be polite.