Emails
As a side-effect of me having produced a lot of Open Source code over a substantial period, and that my code has been used in billions of products and devices, my name and email address are also shown in a lot of places. Usually as a direct result of license compliance when a manufacturer insert for example the curl license in the "About Window" of a car infotainment system.
When users of such devices, tools or applications run into problems and start to look around for someone to contact and get help from, they may sooner or later find my name and my email address in their product.
If they do not get help and adequate support from the original vendor, sometimes the poor end user will end up sending me an email, begging for help.
The questions are often a result of utter desperation when the human out there in the other end has tried everything else, turned every stone and I am now perhaps the last chance to get their issue handled.
From my point of view, these questions come completely out of the blue and concern products and subjects I have not got the faintest idea on how to handle, and I am quite surely never the right person to ask. I usually did not even know that my code was used in the device or application that causes the concern.
To me, they often just end up confusing and sometimes downright funny. Without revealing who sent them, let me show you some real world examples of email I have received.
Last modified 7mo ago