Writing free, open-source software is an incredibly public activity. Everything you do is in the public eye, and google will inevitably discover your site, and then other people will find your software, and download it, and this is a good thing. It's why you're doing it, after all, and it's so nice to receive those occasional 'Thank you for your software' e-mails. There are occasional exceptions, however.

Today's practical exercise is to demonstrate your skills responding to the annual student exercise question, like this one, following on to finish a real exchange while still retaining your sanity to the maximum extent possible. Humour will receive bonus points.

Here goes. First up, we have an e-mail arriving out of the blue which looks like this:

how to run the caldav server
in window
i have download it from the http://wiki.davical.org/

I understand that, for this person, English is not their first language, or perhaps this is an attempt at haiku? In either case, I think that they could try a little harder... and they're trying to do it on Microsoft Windows, too, which has been erased from all of the laptops I ever had it installed on (and it never came with any of my servers in the first place). I can't really help, except to point them at the wiki. And it would be natural to believe they might already know about that, I mean: given the URL they provided, and everything...

I haul out all of my very best punctuation to reply with:

Hi,

I know that people have run DAViCal on Windows, but I wouldn't have a
clue what version, or what they did.

I'm sorry, but I have not used Windows for many years and unless someone
pays me ludicrous amounts of money I can't see it happening any time
soon.  I don't own a copy, and of the 12 computers in my house none of
them run Windows.  Why would they?

Here http://wiki.davical.org/w/Windows_With_Apache is some information
that may be of assistance.  There is also some code in the tree for
creating the database on a PostgreSQL on Windows environment, but it
probably needs some updating.

You could try asking (perhaps a bit more politely) on the mailing list,
and someone who still remembers Windows might be able to help.

Good luck,
                                        Andrew McMillan.

You would think that someone might get the point, here. I mean I haven't been exactly subtle about the 'some politeness would be nice', explicitly mentioning it in the last paragraph and all. Anyway, they continue right back at me with:

 actually i want to develop an icalender  and client  should interact with
server through caldav protocol but i am geeting the exact methodoly for
the project
         please mail me the methodology and sudo code of  client which
will interract with the server

Ah, OK. Now I get it. He's trying to get me to do his computer science project for him! Of course he's not telling me that, so I can't be completely sure - I mean people in third-world countries like Nepal (ever curious, I'd run whois on his from domain & sender IP by now) just might get given jobs like this. So I quickly reply back that beyond 'sudo' code, there is real code... and no, I won't do their assignment for them, so I cheerfully omit any mention of that:

There is PHP code for a client in the DAViCal source code, which you
could use as a template.  Look for inc/caldav-client.php for clues.  It
uses some libraries from my other AWL php libraries for constructing
iCalendar and handling RRULE and so forth.

Cheers,
                                        Andrew.

But lo (and this is the entire content of his e-mail):

please mail me icalender.php file and brief methodology of the project

Along with their abruptness and lack of punctuation, the sheer laziness of this person is really starting to piss me off. I'd hinted earlier (strongly, I thought) that a sprinkling of politeness might garner better cooperation, but this person has clearly linked /dev/input/hints to /dev/null. Well, that's what /dev/input/cluestick is for, so here goes:

Why don't you just download it?  Install the Debian package?  Pull it
from the source code repository?  Why do you want me to "provide a brief
methodology of the project"?  Are you intending to pay me to do that?
Who the hell are you?

Your abrupt and unpunctuated communication might be the result of you
not being a native speaker of english, but I strongly encourage you to
work on overcoming your apparent rudeness if you want my cooperation.

Cheers,
                                        Andrew.

Of course I'm starting to enjoy myself now (sallying forth with the cluestick always gets the adrenalin flowing :-) so I manage stay up long enough to finally receive the first e-mail that contains a little honesty, if still sadly lacking in the politeness and punctuation departments...

The subject line^Wword of all of the earlier e-mails was 'help' but I must have scored a hit with that cluestick because this time it's 'sorry'.

sir
     i am final year student of computer engineering in 'XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX 
XXXXXXXX xxxxxxx campus Nepal
                            I am doing this project as my final year project
and i have been  studying caldav protocols,webdav,php calender and others
since last 10 days
               but i am not sure about the exact methodlogy so i request u
to tell  brief idea
            after installing ur sever i can't find  icalender.php file so
i told u to mail me that file
                                ur regards
                                        xxxxxxxx

So my question, dear readers, is "What Would You Do?" at this point? It won't affect my own response, which I spent some time drafting (well, 23 minutes, to be precise), and toward the end of which I could be heard giggling maniacally.

Was I too harsh? I'm sure some people who pop in here from time to time are not native English speakers and might have some interesting comment on whether or not I am making enough allowances for that. I do know that the first word of Spanish that I learned was 'hola', and the second was 'gracias', closely followed by 'por favor' (strangely, this was then chased by '¿Dónde está el baños?', but that's how stuff happens I guess). For German I'm pretty sure it was 'guten tag' and then a race between 'danke' and 'bitte'.

I won't show you what I wrote, so please be as creative as possible in any suggestions you care to leave as comments below. I can, however, leave you with their final reply, where apparently all is forgiven. This was sent only 5 hours after the first message.

  your are really great and  sorry for my words
                                       your regards
                                      xxxxxxxx

I'll share the communique from me that eleicited that final squeak in a month's time, or maybe sooner, if I can get five good alternatives in the comments section.