so as you may or may not know the author of this article is the author and distributor of a few open source projects, one most notable project is the Airjack project...this is a tool (a driver actually) for raw 802.11 frame injection and the sort, its what i used to break things for my blackhat lecture... i no longer actively maintain this project, but i still distribute it, and ill give help on it...and if someone has a really good question i really help and sometimes expand functionality... anyways, i get email all the time about it, most of it them are asking for support on some level, most are actually polite, respectful, ie, dont piss me off... every now and then i get a gem, one that is in leet speak, from the most vial script kiddie that has ever picked up a keyboard...id like to share some of the anger and frustration with you, the anonymous internet goer, in the hopes that i can somehow cathartically dispell these feelings... ---- ok first thing you need to know is this...if you are asking a stranger for free software that they spent time to write and make useful, then you are asking them for a favor...believe me there are many projects i work on and very very very few i make public...so if you have any troubles with it, go about things as you would when asking a stranger for a favor... i cant begin to tell you how often i get people upset because i didnt help them adiquitely in their eyes, or because i wont add a feature, or because it is hard to install, ive even been accused of embedding malicious viruses in my OPEN SOURCE code (something very untrue, its open source for god's sake)... some ground rules before you ever email a free software project maintainer... 1) know what the program/tool is, that includes what its supposed to do, the general type of program it is (driver, user space application, command line, x app, etc), what os it runs on, what os it doesnt run on...and again, what its supposed to do...you'd think that would be a prerequisite for even wanting a thing, but nope, later you'll see its not... 2) if you have trouble installing the program, this is not my problem...i clearly already have this installed and sence i owe you nothing, i have no obligation to help you install it...that said i made it public because i wanted to share, so i am more than happy to help you install it... 3) i dont write documentation because i like writing documentation...so if i have any, documentation, i have it there to help you, not me, i already know how it works...so read the documentation and dont ask me to paste it to you in email...the documentation is faster and bothers me less... 4) if you find a bug, its not my problem, i might fix it, i might not, your bug is your problem, not mine, if it works for me then im happy...thats not to say that i wont fix the bug, what that means is i have no obligation to fix the bug...believe me 99 times out of 100 im mo... [ Read More (2.3k in body) ] They're only frequently asked questions because no-one reads the FAQ | 
