Agreed.
> and face significant amounts of online abuse from users of the software.
Much as I’d like this to change, I suspect it will not. I’ve been doing open-source work since the mid-90s, and have suffered abuse that would curl your toes, but I still do it, for reasons that would be obscure, for many folks, hereabout.
I think the onus is on the users of the software. It’s currently way too easy to make “LEGO block” software, by splicing together components, written by others, that we do not understand (which, in itself, is not necessarily bad. We’ve been working this way for centuries). I remember reading a report that listed YAML as one of the top programming languages.
If companies insist on always taking the easy way out, they continue to introduce a significant amount of risk. Since it’s currently possible to make huge buckets of money, by writing crap, we’re not incentivizing high-Quality engineering.
I don’t think there’s any easy answer, as a lot of the most effective solutions are cultural, as opposed to technical. Yesterday, someone posted a part of an old speech, by Hyman Rickover[0], that speaks to this.
“…comes as-is, without warranties and without any commitment for future work. Complaints will get your feature request deprioritised, may get you banned, and will look silly to any potential employer googling your name”.
Also, let’s make it a meme to call out unreasonable behaviour: stop Jigar-Kumaring!
Pretty excellent alignment, for once?