Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the newsworthiness of spats between FOSS developers. Almost inevitably, people will flock to read those stories — they usually get far more page views that what one might consider more important news — but are they really worth reading. More importantly, are they worth writing?

I’m starting to think, most of the time, no. Occasionally it is important to report on conflict between devs, particularly when it impacts the project itself, and when it results in forks of a project or worse.

But, when Developer A and Developer B have a pissing match about something that is inconsequential? Or when a big name, but more or less irrelevant personality announces “I’m done with using project X, which I don’t really contribute to, because of this problem and that problem” — should we be reporting that? Nah, I don’t think so.

And when those events are covered, a publication should take great care to get both sides of the story and try to make the coverage as factual and non-inflammatory as possible. Even better, publications would do well to focus a bit more on substantial matters that actually effect the long-term health of projects, and report on events that may not be as juicy but just as important in the long run. Or, perhaps, spend a little more time publishing useful content like howtos…

What triggered this post? A few things, but this post by Og Maciel, was the “final straw.” Maciel talks about passing the torch to a new lead for Ubuntu’s Brazilian Translation Team:

The task of selecting my own successor wasn’t very easy for me, since our team is made up of quite a few capable individuals of filling this position… but since only 1 person can be the next leader, I spent a whole week pondering on this subject… and finally made up my mind, choosing my good friend André Noel! As we have always made decisions as a team, my decision was heavily based on the conversations I had with André and Fábio, both administrators of the team, Fábio being the one who’s been working with me from almost the very start.

See, this is how projects usually work. Respect for other devs, a sense of responsibility to keep things running smoothly, and a sense of community. This is what appeals to me about open source and free software, and the experience that users rarely — if ever — see in the headlines.

I’d like to write about that more often. I wonder how many people would be interested in reading about it, as opposed to indulging in schadenfreude.