The great thing about working with open source is that if you come across a bug, you can fix it yourself. It’s the whole underpinning of the success of the model. Every developer scratches their own itch, and the cumulative result is a vibrant and useful piece of software driven by an enthusiastic community. If you’ve been fortunate enough to be the steward of a successful open source project you’ve probably seen this in action.

If you’ve been working on a really successful open source project, you’ve probably seen something else happen.

In the early stages of your project, the people who hang around are willing and able to help. When they find a bug or some missing documentation, they write a patch to remedy the situation. Even those who can’t fix the bugs will put in a Herculean effort to help isolate it with a test case.

But after a while the ‘they-brigade’ shows up, and instead of offering to help they merely act indignant that ‘they’ (the open source project) haven’t done it already. Rather than spend 10 minutes writing a patch to improve the documentation of a project they’ll spend 20 minutes writing an outraged blog post demanding that ‘they’ fix the problem.

Most open source projects aren’t controlled by a secretive cabal of conspirators. If you notice something broken don’t assume that the maintainers are deliberately trying to fuck with you. It probably hasn’t hurt them yet, or they’ve chosen to spend their time on something else. Remember, you’re not paying for this, no-one’s violating their SLA. Instead of seething with rage, try to find a test case that isolates the bug you’ve found. Instead of flaming on a forum, try to sketch out the points that the improved documentation should cover.

You’ll find your own work much more fulfilling if you’ve taken the time to improve your tools. The fact that the wider community benefits is just a nice big cherry on top.