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SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

jedimark.net

11–20 of 55 posts

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#11
I recently read about this project in the Motherboard article. Seems like it has had a really positive impact on a lot of people's lives. Unfortunate that it has come to this.

Official Project Page: https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/

Source Link: https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#13
> If there is one tiny bit of hard learned advice I can leave behind from all this, it would be: Friends don’t let friends release full blown complex applications under the GPL – Keep it for hacks or corporate backed stuff.

Anyone know what the story is behind this? Is it that GPL is hard to monetize?

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#15
From the linked blog post:

> Let it be known that the hosts of the ApneaBoard forum have finally succeeded in their efforts to hijack the SleepyHead project.

Sounds like it's not "shutting down" as much as forked, and he's upset. Also it looks like the reason why it's getting forked is because critical bugs went out. People are relying on this to live, and he's treating it like a hobby -- because it is to him.

His post is full of recriminations and cries about being betrayed. Even the forum post someone found[0] in these comments supports this idea of a fork.

> ApneaBoard's recent "release committee" initiative is illegitimate and is seeking to undermine my years of work on SleepyHead and undermine my role in my own software project."

> If it's NOT SleepyHead, don't call it SleepyHead, and don't make it look like SleepyHead... it's that simple!

The code is GPLed[1]. It sounds like there were other people willing to contribute. The code goes on, without him.

[0] http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project...

[1] https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#16
His work will be missed.

It sucks that it came down to this and it reminds me of how many entitled toxic pricks exist out there just to make the work of those voluntarily trying to make the world a better place harder. It's sad that they've won this time, but his wife and daughter won big time.

If you are reading this, thank you sincerely and I hope you find joy in your future endeavors.

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#17
Couldn't he just get a subscriber list that pay for the software and releases? I get that it's free, and great, but ongoing support takes his time. Put up a paypal link, or your preferred method, and get 300-500 people to sign up for $100/yr (for example). If there are forums, there are paying customers.

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#18

Read into this more, here http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... and here http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1... Its not as black and white as it seems

It doesn't look like the project was ever that collaborative, so I'm filing this under the classic "primary developer dislikes the overhead of accepting patches, occasionally loses interest": https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code/graphs/master

I've fallen into that pattern myself, and seen my code forked and extended by those that were still interested. The thing that stung was them erasing all the commit history giving me attribution!

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#19
A lot of small open source projects struggle with leadership and organizational issues as they become more popular with a wider userbase (and hence wider demands, such as in the case support for more CPAP machines).

It sucks but that's just how it works, and seems inevitable with the entire project focused around the primary maintainer.

Seems like Jedimark is doing the right thing by removing himself from the situation to focus on his life. It's open source so hopefully the community can fork it and maybe find an organizational model that's more sustainable for continued support.

Re: SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

#20

Two innovations have revolutionized my life—CPAP and Sleepyhead. I volunteered to do a sleep study at the famous Stanford Sleep Clinic some 15 years ago hoping that they would tell me I’m superhuman and don’t need sleep. They came back and told me that I sleep very poorly. CPAP machines are (finally) wonderful, but the manufacturers don’t share any of the data that their machines collect other than basics like hours…

Curious; what are the perils of drinking wine with dinner?
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