If Open Source were a girl, would she dump you?

So I have finally finished my taxes and pushed several back-logged entries out the door and am feeling pretty good. I also just finished watching Shaun of The Dead. If you have seen the movie (and if you have not, this is not really a spoiler), you know that Shaun’s girlfriend Liz dumps him early in the story. She basically decides that he is going to continue to be the passive, lazy non-leader that he has been, and is sure that she does not want that. Good for her.

So, what if Open Source and Free Software were a girl, and you were in a relationship with her. Would she dump you?

I ask this because of the take-take-take relationship many developers have with open source software. They have no problem using things like Log4J, Tomcat, Spring, Hibernate, or the Jakarta Commons libraries. They will not hesitate to criticize these offerings or demand more functionality. However, mention so much as filing a bug report and they are backing away.

What’s up with that? Do you throw your trash out of your car window, too? Do you never hold the door for people, but get angry when someone does not hold the door for you? Do you actually relate to your significant other that way? If you do, don’t be surprised if you find yourself in Shaun’s boat, only you won’t have a zombie horde to save your ex-girlfriend from so that she gets back together with you. G’night.