arclight on Nostr: I sympathize with the no-exoectation-of-free-labor aspect of this commentary but I ...

I sympathize with the no-exoectation-of-free-labor aspect of this commentary but I lose a huge amount of sympathy when I hit the I-don't-do-Windows attitude. (subtooting https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/114714349666402914 because I'm not looking to argue with the OP nor do I want to hijack the discussion)

My goal in writing software is to meet users where they are within the limits of my budget, ability, and time. I prefer unix-y systems but the reality is we have always worked in a heterogeneous environment. If I want my code to help the most people and to have the greatest utility and longevity, I write platform-independent code to the greatest extent possible. I put a very high value on platform independence. This comes with the cost of having to work around platform deficiencies and peculiarities and having to source hardware that I otherwise have no use for (e.g. scavenged Apple gear). It's not a complaint; it's just an expected cost of supporting the most common user environments.

I understand not wanting to work on unfamiliar, unnecessarily complex, proprietary systems. I have no great love of Windows development and the platform's utter lack of fundamental tooling (e.g. sh, find, sed, grep or equivalents). Given the choice of learning CMake or autoconf/autotools, there was no question - autocorrect was a platform-specific dead end. If I was going to spend the time and effort to learn a build system, it had to support all the platforms I was likely to support - Linux, Windows, and MacOS.

We each choose our values and live with the consequences. There's just something about deciding to not support Windows then being upset that someone else does when you won't and being even more upset they don't adhere to your project's goals. You can't marginalize yourself and then complain that you're ignored. There's a tragicomical level of hubris and surprise going on here - what precisely did you expect would happen?

I work mostly on work or personal projects of a very niche nature (legacy scientific code) not on high-visibility FOSS code. I don't deal with external support requests by choice and mainly due to obscurity - I'll defer to those whose projects are popular enough to get large numbers of feature requests and bug reports. They know better than me what they can and can't support, and where the line is on free labor and corporate vs maintainer agenda. But making the concious decision to bury one's head in the sand and then complain about being ignored? Sorry, zero sympathy, none whatever. I don't have it in me to be that parochial and entitled.

Again, I chose a different path, I have a different set of values, and I try to uphold them without too much complaint. I just dont see the point in complaining when you get what you ask for and it's not everything you wanted. :/