I just received the sort of email that I normally just delete, but I thought that instead I would put it on my blog in the vain hope that people might learn from it. It also a good place to vent my frustration.

I contribute to the Open Source community in the form of Checkstyle. In the past I developed a tool called Chainsaw that worked its way into Log4J. The new version is an excellent rewrite, but I digress. The reason I contribute to Open Source is because I enjoy it, not because I am paid to. Hence, I only do things if I personally see merit in doing so, and I am willing to give up my personal time to do so.

So imagine how I react when I get an email like this today: 

Subject: Please respond ASAP

Hi,

I am using the ChainSaw, as per the documentation, iam able to see
the appln running.  When i try to upload the file, It gives the
message " Loaded 0 Events ".

Pls let me know ASAP.

Thanks & Regards
SHiva

It certainly does not motivate me to respond as:

  1. Why is the request so urgent as to be ASAP?!
  2. Have they actually read the documentation?
  3. Have they looked the mail lists?
  4. Have they posted to the mailing lists?
  5. The email is equivalent to "I cannot get Chainsaw to run" without any information to explain the actual problem. What version of Chainsaw are they running? How did they generate the file to be loaded?
  6. Etc