Being an open source developer, there’s a certain branch I have occasionally perched myself on to get a glimpse of the frustrating aspects of development in this field. The frustrations really aren’t that much different from that of commercial software development project, but they’re amplified by two factors: not getting paid, and having a much more diverse pool of users (including many with no money or social skills). I’ve dealt with my share of different people. Many are a delight to work with, while others have the tendency to push me to an early retirement. I wrote this article after observing the user base for several of my own projects as well as a few that are not my own and found a very thin line between respecting open source and frustrating it.