Linked by Bob "number9" Minvielle on Fri 13th Jun 2003 18:51 UTC
Having written open source software myself, and being a subscriber to mailing lists, etc, there is a realization that the number one thing missing from smaller open source projects is feedback from users.
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Having been on both sides of the Open Source world--as manager of a large project and as a contributor--probably the most painful thing about Open Source software development is the negative feedback going in either direction. You only need to deal with a few salty comments from OSS project managers or a hoarde of nasty OSS project "contributors" to learn this. Go browse the Trackers on SourceForge to get a feeling for how good/bad this process can be. Some people just seem to enjoy making others feel bad. It's the fear of having this happen to yourself, whether as a contributor or as a manager, which prevents the feedback loop from working.
That's just from my own experience of having done OSS development both ways.
Kris