Testing reports

[Colin Scott]

> The plain fact about free software with volunteer maintainers is 
> that, for every developer, the "target market" is usually 
> him/herself.  If you do something in your spare time, the primary
> motivation for that is going to be whatever motivates you -- this is
> just a tautology. The effect is that the motivations of others who are
> not offering help with your project are not that interesting.  Why
> that should be remotely controversial is mystifying to me.

Yet somehow there are any number of "free software" open source projects out there - some of them accounting systems! - which do seem able to plan the intended direction of the product and produce road-maps for future development, often even with projected dates for the next few releases.  And any number of such projects that genuinely welcome user feedback and requests, and use them (selectively, of course) to shape their on-going development.  To follow your argument to its logical conclusion, none of this is possible, which self-evidently is not so.

> Every free software project I've ever been involved with 
> occasionally
> has the experience of someone coming to the mailing list and wagging
> his (it seems always to be "his") finger at the developers, telling
> them that they have all the wrong priorities &c &c.  These people
> often appear to be vexed that others are not willing to do for them
> something they are unable to do themselves (directly or, by paying
> someone, indirectly)

The problem, it seems to me, is a mismatch in expectations.  As I've said before, the idea that the target market is limited to the developers only is perfectly tenable.  However, if the punters attracted in by the "free software badging" (both on the website and the product's splash screen) are not not made aware that they are *not* a part of the target market, that if they want changes they will have to make them themselves, then they will expect things that the project cannot or will not deliver.  Manage those expectations, and the problem very largely goes away.  Don't manage them (and apart from the occasional apparently rather grumpy "if you want it, do it" in this mailing list I have seen no attempt to do so), and you shouldn't be too surprised when some of the punters occasionally get a bit restless. 

Colin