Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
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Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#2Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#3The clear dark pattern here should also have been addressed: Kite is listed with all its shiny features, whereas the alternative simply gets called inaccurate and incomplete. Local analysis does have some clear advantages over Kite, even excluding important privacy concerns. What if you're offline or are in an area with poor network coverage?
https://kite.com/static/media/autocomplete-python-flow.690d3...
The use of dark patterns is more of a policy/"culture" thing that people won't exactly "knock" (although there was a comment on the HN thread last week about this) or demand the removal of, but it does speak to how Kite is willing to operate, not just pre-minimap fiasco, but going forward too.
Edit:
The link to the PR in the post isn't the point here, it's the propensity to write misleading copy targeted at thousands of devs who had never heard of Kite that went unaddressed. Open source is extremely trust-based (how hard was it to believe that a text editor plugin of all things was doing funny things?), and Kite needs to talk about whether it will continue to behave as a potential bad actor.
Right now, all the post contains is an apology for a PR fiasco that occurred due to something akin to a miscalculation, not a deliberate onboarding strategy.
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#4> As we considered our options, we had a novel idea: buy an open source plugin, reward the author for their work, and expose new users to Kite.
That’s the root of the issue. Someone built a well, and offered its water for free to the community. Theirs was a good-faith effort that you subverted when then you paid the maintainer to help you turn people who came to the well into customers.
I don’t understand how you didn’t see that as problematic from the outset – at the very least, you could have first created an open API (akin to LSP) where others could add their own Kite-like service. That would have respected the spirit of open sourcing.
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#5The main problem here is one of trust. If you're going to share your code with a third party like Kite, even without getting into the possible legal issues involved, you have to be damn sure you trust the company. Kite's culture has already shown to be deceptive, and these actions are really not drastic enough to imply they're committed to change.
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#6Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.
they didn't. they just had them add _support_ for Kite. It was up to the user to enable it. I'm failing to see the issue here. I mean, yes, their UIs needed work, but they admitted to that mistake and have since fixed it (according to the article).
Your comment makes me think this is more of an open-source lynch mob rather than someone looking at this objectively.
Company needs users. Plugin has users. Plugin does things company's flagship product _could_ do (and it is _free_). Company reaches out to Plugin developer and they come to an agreement to add support for the flagship product into the Plugin, but the new support is _not_ enabled by default.
Wherein lies the problem?
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#7The clear dark pattern here should also have been addressed: Kite is listed with all its shiny features, whereas the alternative simply gets called inaccurate and incomplete. Local analysis does have some clear advantages over Kite, even excluding important privacy concerns. What if you're offline or are in an area with poor network coverage? https://kite.com/static/media/autocomplete-python-flow.690d3... The use of…
https://github.com/kiteco/kite-installer/pull/50 was linked from the post, but it's not merged
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#8The updated dialog still feels kinda slimy (https://github.com/kiteco/kite-installer/pull/50). It makes no mention that search and usages are paid add ons (https://kite.com/pro).
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#9The clear dark pattern here should also have been addressed: Kite is listed with all its shiny features, whereas the alternative simply gets called inaccurate and incomplete. Local analysis does have some clear advantages over Kite, even excluding important privacy concerns. What if you're offline or are in an area with poor network coverage? https://kite.com/static/media/autocomplete-python-flow.690d3... The use of…
It looks like they did (or are going to) address it: https://github.com/kiteco/kite-installer/pull/50
Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues
#10Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.
On the one hand, I agree with the sentiment.
On the other hand, if it is really that shady, it is on the open source developer to say 'no.' As described here, it doesn't seem that shady. There was a choice between Kite and Jedi for the one plugin, and for the other plugin, it was basically an AD.
On the gripping hand, I really want open source developers to get paid, this seems like a way for open source developers to get paid. It makes me more sympathetic to the idea that this was poor execution of an ok idea.