REAL LINUX FEEDBACK?

His one example (Mozilla) isn't really a Linux project anyway. It's more a portable free
software project focused on Windows these days. (One sign of this is how hard the damn thing's
become to build, because virtually everyone other than core developers just uses binaries.
e.g. many extensions compiled by default in the Firefox 3 source tree simply don't. Compile,
that is. Makefile bugs, mostly...)

Let's give the original commenter some slack and assume that he's not trolling, but has had
some bad experience in the past.

In that case, your response will not be helpful.  

Apparently, in the past, he's tried to report bugs.  Most people don't even do that much.

Perhaps he's tried interacting with the community and has been rebuffed.  It's happened to me,
certainly, and I felt the same way as he does.  It does no good for a project to solicit input
and then rudely treat those who are willing to do so in good faith.  

Being a developer does NOT give anyone right to look down upon anyone else.  And much of the
Linux community does just that in their written communications.  The implicit attitude seems
to be "if you want to play with the big boys, you gotta be special; until then go away, little
boy".  

I've been a developer for MANY years, and I've learned (the hard way) that you are NEVER rude
to your end users -- the user that you discourage from submitting bugs could very well have
been the one who would have sent you the "missing link" that you're looking for to fix an
elusive bug.  For me, more than once, it's been one of those "dumbest", "most exasperating"
users that have brought me the gold.  It's always made me feel stoopid.

If you can't find a way to handle duplicate or spurious bug reports; handle users of opposite
temperament then yours; handle very negative feedback; deal with a zillion
postings/e-mail/phone calls about your project, well, then, you're doing something wrong.
It's not your users' fault, it's a management problem.  And if you're the management, it's YOUR
problem.

If you support free software, you are an ambassador for it.  Unless you're RMS, being nice
will get you heard more than if you're not.  And naysayers will point to rude comments and
say, "See, they're all like that!".  Contrariwise, *even if he was trolling*, a positive
response will reflect well.

Studies done in the past (late '80s, early '90s IIRC) indicate that there are lots of people
who are decent in person but easily prone to being rude in writing.  If you are one of those
people, for the good of any project you are with, may I suggest you learn to control that
because your writing may be your only "face" that many people [ever] see.