> In my experience the kinds of people who run this exact combination of circumstances also tend to be the kind of people that have a wide variance in the level of kindness they display to the authors of open source programs that happen to be in their way.
Love this. There’s been past discussion on HN re how OSS maintainers are treated, and this is such a wry sentence. I really appreciate the tone / attitude to the problem.
Can you translate the American for me? “Wide variance”, does that they’re being assholes?
> Can you translate the American for me?
I'd say "wide variance in the level of kindness" is a rather British way to describe some of the opinions that have been voiced.
100%, author lives in Canada and the phrasing has the British heritage of Canadian English.
Well a little translation would be that some are very kind, some are total assholes, and everything in between. But your reading is probably more accurate.
I think the literal interpretation is correct here. It's a way of saying "you, dear reader who runs this combination of things, might be very kind, but some of your compatriots will be unusually unkind and will turn up in my issue tracker and on my socials to complain".
Thanks!