so, I just went a few rounds with a user getting WebService-CaptchasDotNet working while running in taint mode. not the world's most important module, but something that is apparently being used and needing fixing.
as it turns out, the user didn't know much about perl - didn't know about PREFIX or use lib to manage local installs on a hosted machine, for example - so I gave him a few pointers along the way, in addition to fixing my module so it worked for him. in truth, I really didn't do much, and I was kinda embarrassed that it took two iterations to fix the problem. but it's all in a day's work for most of us here in the open source world, right?
>>0.05 just uploaded to CPAN, and should appear around the world tomorrow. >> >>sorry it took so much effort to get this working for you... > > Please, no apologies. Thank you so much, you've been more responsive and > helpful that I ever imagined.
I agree with the others that this is not necessarily reflective of prior experience with “open source” any more than it might be reflective of experience with “software projects” or with “closed source” or “packaged products” or any other collective. How do you know it’s the particularly collective you associate with? That’s merely your bias, if you ask.
It might even be reflective of no experience at all.
I’ve been vanity searching the web for mentions of a small utility of mine now, and I’ve found that few people tend to think to report back to the author himself. I saw a number of people write about it in their weblogs or file bugs on distribution trackers; things I would never have heard of, had I not searched for them myself.
People just don’t seem to expect that the creator of something they use, particularly when they perceive it as complicated enough that they couldn’t recreate it, would spend time to converse with them and help them solve their problem.
I think there are a number of factors that play into this, all of which have to do with people not realising how close the web really brings everyone together. Before I dipped my toes into the Perl community, I would never have dreamt I’d ever have a chance to chat with, say, Larry Wall – in retrospect, it’s almost cute how misguided my preconceptions were. This thing works so very differently from all the old media and their deep chasm between consumers and the makers.
