supported
not supported
not supported
not supported
FEATURES
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Every change will ruin
someone’s day.
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If a feature works well,
you’ll never hear about it
again.
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People only get excited
about something a project
doesn’t quite yet support.
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Users will disguise feature
requests as bugs.
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Many people will throw
features requests at you,
just to show that they are
clever.
They don’t want that feature.
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Make them:
sign up, log in, fill out a
form for a feature
request.
It’s a laziness filter.
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Users usually only think
incrementally.
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People threaten to not
use software if it lacks
their favourite feature.
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User: Does $PRODUCT support $TECHNOLOGY?
Team: No, it doesn’t.
User: I can’t see myself using $PRODUCT unless it
supports $TECHNOLOGY.
Team: Sorry, there are no plans to add that.
User: Well, you’re going to lose a customer.
Team: This is open source, there are no customers.
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Documentation
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Users will seek you out
online to directly ask a
question that is answered
two clicks from the front
page of a website.
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A looping, animated GIF
will be watched over and
over. A paragraph of text
will not be read.
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Man pages are too
densely crammed with
information, and too
long, for modern
Humans.
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Support questions
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“What have you tried so
far?” is the best question
for finding time-wasters.
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User: How do I do X?
Team: What have you tried so far?
User: Nothing, I was just wondering...
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No content
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No content
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No content
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Miscellaneous
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People will pick arguments
with you about incidental
things, such as your choice of
bug database, branch names,
version numbers, text editor
used, PDF writer and so on.
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User: Why are you using $BUG_DB, when you
could be using $ALTERNATIVE?
Team: We like it.
User: But $ALTERNATIVE is open source!
Team: Our $PRODUCT is open source. That’s
the part we care about and focus on.
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SEO consultants aren’t very
good at searching the web,
and identifying all-volunteer
open-source projects.
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SEO: I can help you double your revenue!
Team: We’re an open source, volunteer-only
project. Oh look, I just doubled zero myself.