> I challenge you to defend the proposition that focusing on making a given piece of software work or adding features is less important than "toxic" behavior. As a user, do I care that, say, notepad++ was created in an environment that was not "toxic" or that it does what I want it to do and that it does it well? To me, at least, the choice is simple and not controversial at all.
For starters, the survey was given by StackOverflow, so my interpretation is that these responses were given by people about what they would prefer as developers working with other developers. It seemed to me that the idea was that some people did not feel like they were being treated fairly when as members of the tech community, but I guess I could be inferring incorrectly.
As for the actual question, this seems similar to me to the question of whether we have obligations to others in society or if things are "everyone for themselves". This obviously is predicated on the fact that the complaints of the survey responders are valid (which my previous comment is my attempt at explaining my view on), but assuming they are valid complaints, the question is whether I should care about the treatment of people who made a product that I use. There's a spectrum of potential issues that they could have to deal with; I don't pretend that everyone will react the same way to if notepad++ were being developed by workers who were forced without pay to develop 12 hours a day to if they no longer got free coffee in the break room, but there's undoubtedly a line we have to draw somewhere about what we're willing to tolerate and even a spectrum on what "toleration" looks like. Personally, I don't have any issue with the idea that the people who make the software I use would insist on an environment free from harassment, and I wouldn't want new features at the expensive of the treatment of the people who make it. This feels pretty simple and non-controversial to me, but I guess this could be my own confirmation bias that makes it surprising that anyone would feel differently.
For starters, the survey was given by StackOverflow, so my interpretation is that these responses were given by people about what they would prefer as developers working with other developers. It seemed to me that the idea was that some people did not feel like they were being treated fairly when as members of the tech community, but I guess I could be inferring incorrectly.
As for the actual question, this seems similar to me to the question of whether we have obligations to others in society or if things are "everyone for themselves". This obviously is predicated on the fact that the complaints of the survey responders are valid (which my previous comment is my attempt at explaining my view on), but assuming they are valid complaints, the question is whether I should care about the treatment of people who made a product that I use. There's a spectrum of potential issues that they could have to deal with; I don't pretend that everyone will react the same way to if notepad++ were being developed by workers who were forced without pay to develop 12 hours a day to if they no longer got free coffee in the break room, but there's undoubtedly a line we have to draw somewhere about what we're willing to tolerate and even a spectrum on what "toleration" looks like. Personally, I don't have any issue with the idea that the people who make the software I use would insist on an environment free from harassment, and I wouldn't want new features at the expensive of the treatment of the people who make it. This feels pretty simple and non-controversial to me, but I guess this could be my own confirmation bias that makes it surprising that anyone would feel differently.