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WiringPi – deprecated

wiringpi.com

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Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#31

Post by john_moscow »

LeonM wrote: post #22
edoceo wrote: post #11

I also make free software. It's a battle dealing with folks who want both free code AND free work! Making code GPL is both a blessing a curse. Tales lakie this make me stop and double-check my choices

It's not just free/libre/open source software that has this issue. I run an email security SaaS business. It's closed source, but the suite is free of charge to use for personal, non-commercial domains. We get numerous support requests each day of users on the free tier (who are obviously commercial users btw) that DEMAND us to fix all sorts of email problems for them. They regularly threaten that they will write a b…

Just out of curiosity: in your experience, do you think offering a free tier instead of a short time-limited trial pays off in terms of attracting paid customers?

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#32

Post by alanbernstein »

0xffff2 wrote: post #17
alanbernstein wrote: post #9

I can empathize with most of this, but I can't say I understand the "last straw" bit. How is there anything wrong with DanielK's request?

IANAL, but fundamentally I view licenses as grants of rights to non-copyright holders. As the (I think) sole copyright holder on the WiringPi code, the author is morally, if not legally (again, IANAL) entitled to do whatever the hell they want, irrespective of any licenses the code has been released under.

Ah, that makes sense. I assumed Danielk knew what he was talking about, but I suppose not.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#33

Post by ziddoap »

groundlogic wrote: post #30
ziddoap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Produce something of value, for free. Then, when you start getting 10,000+ e-mails shitting on you for not also doing XYZ for free, because how dare you not, I'll take your opinion with a more open mind. The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.

..so, in a hyphothetical case, let's say "you" published some code under the MIT license. You then got 10k emails. What's your point? What do you want to say?

It's not hypothetical.

>I never intended for wiringPi to be statically linked either – and thanks to the incompetence of many people who have done just this, I’ve had over 10,000 emails from people who upgraded their Pi and found that code stopped working because they were reliant on a system (typically some java/javascript/node or home automation or UPS thing) which had statically linked an older version

My point is, the author intended the project to be used for X. It was used for Y. Author doesn't want to support Y. Author gets bombarded with e-mails complaining they don't support Y. This isn't "suddenly creating drama like this" or "also somehow expecting to make money off this" as you asserted.

Another pertinent part of the article you seem to be skipping is:

>Add to that the people who have “bludgeoned” wiringPi to work on other fruit Pi platforms, but left my name as the contact email …

You claiming the author is just creating drama solely because of money is a gross misreading of the situation.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#34

Post by inferiorhuman »

LeonM wrote: post #22
edoceo wrote: post #11

I also make free software. It's a battle dealing with folks who want both free code AND free work! Making code GPL is both a blessing a curse. Tales lakie this make me stop and double-check my choices

It's not just free/libre/open source software that has this issue. I run an email security SaaS business. It's closed source, but the suite is free of charge to use for personal, non-commercial domains. We get numerous support requests each day of users on the free tier (who are obviously commercial users btw) that DEMAND us to fix all sorts of email problems for them. They regularly threaten that they will write a b…

As someone who's gone back and forth on licensing for personal projects over the years, tried to engage user communities for said personal projects, and tried to use various open source projects — I totally sympathize with the maintainers. As with a lot of things in life, user engagement is a two-way street. If folks want constructive engagement from the users, there needs to be constructive engagement from the maintainers.

From the user POV it can be very frustrating to use open source projects. Gordon's highlighted some real bottom-of-the-barrel end users and it would be hard to invalidate his experience with a straight face. OTOH some projects are incredibly hostile to users. Projects like Elixir/mix, Electron/VSCode, Thunderbird, and GIMP. How are users supposed to react when the sole maintainer packs up and leaves indefinitely? Or when patches are submitted upstream and the maintainers tell the users to pound sand?

Currently I'm working on a car-related Pi project. I'm not a hardware guy though, so I've done some research and discovered a piece of hardware that looks nearly perfect for my use case. They even have the specific version I'm interested in listed on their store. The only catch is that it's listed as 4-6 weeks out (and has been for a while). Their response? Sorry, we've moved on to something more interesting to us at 3x the price. No the store hasn't been updated (same with their blog and forums). I'm ready to fork over money, but with only sporadic signs of life it's difficult.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#35

Post by inferiorhuman »

groundlogic wrote: post #30
ziddoap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Produce something of value, for free. Then, when you start getting 10,000+ e-mails shitting on you for not also doing XYZ for free, because how dare you not, I'll take your opinion with a more open mind. The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.

..so, in a hyphothetical case, let's say "you" published some code under the MIT license. You then got 10k emails. What's your point? What do you want to say?

What's your point? What do you want to say?

The point, and the reason I've downvoted you, is that Gordon clearly spelled out that his frustration is not about money. Gordon's clearly articulated frustration is in having to deal with demanding and abusive users. By pursuing the argument that Gordon's angry about making an insufficient amount of money you're perpetuating a strawman argument.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#36

Post by groundlogic »

ziddoap wrote: post #33
groundlogic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..so, in a hyphothetical case, let's say "you" published some code under the MIT license. You then got 10k emails. What's your point? What do you want to say?

It's not hypothetical. > I never intended for wiringPi to be statically linked either – and thanks to the incompetence of many people who have done just this, I’ve had over 10,000 emails from people who upgraded their Pi and found that code stopped working because they were reliant on a system (typically some java/javascript/node or home automation or UPS thing) which had statically linked an older version My point i…

You seem to have commented to the wrong comment of mine.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#37

Post by guardiangod »

groundlogic wrote: post #30
ziddoap wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Produce something of value, for free. Then, when you start getting 10,000+ e-mails shitting on you for not also doing XYZ for free, because how dare you not, I'll take your opinion with a more open mind. The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.

..so, in a hyphothetical case, let's say "you" published some code under the MIT license. You then got 10k emails. What's your point? What do you want to say?

The point is, regardless of whether the author chooses GPL or MIT, he should not be subjected to abusive 'support requests'.

No one deserved to be verbally abuse from total strangers for things beyond his control.

Yes, the author could simply ignore the requests. But we ought to aim higher than 'silently accept the harassment and do nothing,' for the betterment of everyone.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#39

Post by groundlogic »

guardiangod wrote: post #37
groundlogic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..so, in a hyphothetical case, let's say "you" published some code under the MIT license. You then got 10k emails. What's your point? What do you want to say?

The point is, regardless of whether the author chooses GPL or MIT, he should not be subjected to abusive 'support requests'. No one deserved to be verbally abuse from total strangers for things beyond his control. Yes, the author could simply ignore the requests. But we ought to aim higher than 'silently accept the harassment and do nothing,' for the betterment of everyone.

I fully agree with you.

Re: WiringPi – deprecated

#40

Post by banana_giraffe »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #7
groundlogic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The article", written by a person offended by someone else getting richer from their code; whilst seemingly not breaking any licenses.

So, it's just an uncharitable pot shot when the article is perfectly relatable when taken at face value. I'd probably even add your mentality, ubiquitous on HN, to his list. People come out of the woodwork to shit on others. It seems even moreso when it's just a hobby project. You're basically taking one last snipe at him while he exits the theater. For what? Is this what you thought the world needed more of?

Ages ago, I wrote and maintained some Windows open source stuff. It wasn't GPL, but it was "here's the source code, and a binary version, have fun!". I had a little niche of a certain type of tool in the Windows world, if you searched for how to do a specific thing, my tools would show up.

Most of it included my real name and email address in the executable and DLLs details tab, as well as the source code. I was the top of the little niche, and more than happy to help other developers out there. I'd help users as best as I could, but my tools were mostly geared at developers (though, users never stopped amazing me at clever unintended ways to use things)

The emails I got from this could be broken down into two categories: Actual questions about the tools, including bug reports or problems integrating it into some other project. That was about 5% of the emails I saw. The other 95% was "Program stopped working! I can't find any contact anywhere expect in this one DLL, I demand you help me fix it!"

It was super disheartening, since my attempt to explain my role as someone that provided a tool or library to whoever wrote their application was responded with either "Your name is in this application, I don't care what your role is, you need to help me fix it!", or "If you didn't want to provide support, why is your email here?"

And that's, basically, how I ended up using random combinations of words on sites like this one. Maybe people with a thicker skin can deal with this crap, but I can't anymore.

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