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Actix project postmortem

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Re: Actix project postmortem

#251

Post by dyeje »

drclau wrote: post #249
dyeje wrote: post #244

The entitlement in this thread is astounding. Don't like how the project is maintained? Fork it. If you don't have anything nice to say to the person who gave you the code _for free_, then just don't say anything at all.

The repo currently contains a single README.md. https://github.com/actix/actix-web Edit: I was not aware he moved it under his personal github account and it’s still accessible. Nonetheless, I still think removing it is a bit extreme.

Yea, because the maintainer was tired of being abused.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#252

Post by KirinDave »

sophacles wrote: post #242
KirinDave wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that replacing unsafe code with safe code is "spitting" is unhealthy in the extreme. I don't understand why the author felt so defensive about accepting packages. As far as I can tell, they've always had this attitude. Why even make a project open source if you don't want to consider patches? The whole idea is that even if you think a thing is boring, someone else may not and they'll do that work for the co…

> Why even make a project open source if you don't want to consider patches? The whole idea is that even if you think a thing is boring, someone else may not and they'll do that work for the community. This is a false dilemma - making a project open source can have plenty of motivations besides "I want to be a project manager for free!". Some other motivations: * Someone may find this useful even if I don't ever touc…

> This is a false dilemma - making a project open source can have plenty of motivations besides "I want to be a project manager for free!". Some other motivations:

But isn't it also a false dilemma to suggest that the only lens by which you accept PRs is in the role of "project manager?"

> Other reasons offered

Sure but those are hypothetical. That's not what was going on here. The author of this diatribe was actively soliciting patches and maintaining the project publicly.

We certainly aren't coercing him to take a role he didn't want (at least initially).

Re: Actix project postmortem

#253

Post by ww520 »

fraktl wrote: post #13

Open source maintainers have a hard time - especially when they're under criticism and receive zero positive vibes. Author mentions it, here's the excerpt: Be a maintainer of large open source project is not a fun task. You alway face with rude and hate, everyone knows better how to build software, nobody wants to do home work and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help. This a big problem with open s…

Similar experience. Some OSS users have some very entitled mentality.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#254

Post by rumanator »

Tehchops wrote: post #238
geofft wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely correct that people don't have obligations simply by putting some code online. But they do have obligations when they start telling people to use their code. We understand this as humans even in realms far from open source: if I see you approaching a door, I am under no obligation to open it just because I'm physically able to, but if I open a door for you, I'd better hold it until you're finished wal…

> It's absolutely correct that people don't have obligations simply by putting some code online. But they do have obligations when they start telling people to use their code. We understand this as humans even in realms far from open source: if I see you approaching a door, I am under no obligation to open it just because I'm physically able to, but if I open a door for you, I'd better hold it until you're finished w…

> Ignoring security conventions, and then adopting a "take my ball and go home attitude"

That statement is quite wrong. It's not a "take my ball and go home" attitude. You are not the boss of a FLOSS maintainer not are entitled to order anyone around to do your bidding. At best you're addressing a person and asking them to do you a favour. If the maintainer doesn't feel he should be bossed around by you then he has been generous enough to let you pick up where he left off and actually put in the legwork you are expecting others to do.

And in return these haters prefer to just bitch around and criticise others for not following their orders.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#255

Post by jturpin »

Tehchops wrote: post #238
geofft wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely correct that people don't have obligations simply by putting some code online. But they do have obligations when they start telling people to use their code. We understand this as humans even in realms far from open source: if I see you approaching a door, I am under no obligation to open it just because I'm physically able to, but if I open a door for you, I'd better hold it until you're finished wal…

> It's absolutely correct that people don't have obligations simply by putting some code online. But they do have obligations when they start telling people to use their code. We understand this as humans even in realms far from open source: if I see you approaching a door, I am under no obligation to open it just because I'm physically able to, but if I open a door for you, I'd better hold it until you're finished w…

> Like it or not, there are implicit social contracts if you maintain OSS software.

I think I agree, and its tricky because its really hard to pinpoint what the contract is (without sounding "entitled"), like there is with any social contract I guess. Maybe it even depends on the various cultures of the people working on the project.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#256

Post by dunnock »

saagarjha wrote: post #147
tastroder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this seems to be a constant point in this thread but I don't see it: How exactly did that person hurt anybody? They maintained this project for 3(?) years and the code is readily available elsewhere on github now. If there's really that many people being inconvenienced by that, surely somebody else will take over that fork instead.

This person killed the momentum that this project had, much of which was only partly their work. Forks fracture a project’s community and pit the pieces against each other: occasionally they work out, but often they all just fizzle into nothingness. Keeping a project together has value. (Also, note that associated GitHub metadata such as issues has been wiped.)

What do you mean wiped? It was moved to personal account https://github.com/fafhrd91/actix-web.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#257

Post by drclau »

dyeje wrote: post #251
drclau wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The repo currently contains a single README.md. https://github.com/actix/actix-web Edit: I was not aware he moved it under his personal github account and it’s still accessible. Nonetheless, I still think removing it is a bit extreme.

Yea, because the maintainer was tired of being abused.

I understand how he may he feeling, but this is probably the most used web framework for Rust. He may be hurting a lot more people and projects then just the people he disagreed with.

A proper way of handling this would have been to abandon the project and let someone else pick it up. My understanding is that he did move the source code under his own git user, so hopefully he’ll allow someone else to pick it and maintain.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#258

Post by arh68 »

Is it too late to set up a SafeActix project, let him keep the Actix name & creative control, and resolve things semi-positively? Seems like the community mistook it as an effort to build something safe, and it was a thousand cuts of misconceptions/asks. Maybe open an issue and give them a week to decide/vote a new name. I don't think there's an obligation per se, it would just be better.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#259

Post by SamuelAdams »

fraktl wrote: post #13

Open source maintainers have a hard time - especially when they're under criticism and receive zero positive vibes. Author mentions it, here's the excerpt: Be a maintainer of large open source project is not a fun task. You alway face with rude and hate, everyone knows better how to build software, nobody wants to do home work and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help. This a big problem with open s…

Yep this is why, more and more, developers are simply doing private repositories. They might exist on GitHub. Or a torrent or something. Rachel goes into more detail about them here.

Basically people fix things and don't commit them back upstream because doing so is too much of a political headache.

> While it's probably true that the dictator does suck at design, the talented user wants no part of the drama which would follow such a report. There is absolutely no benefit to lighting that particular fuse. And so, the problem is never reported, and the patch is never conveyed upstream. It effectively becomes a private fork limited to the talented user's systems.

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/10/09/moat/

Re: Actix project postmortem

#260

Post by UncleMeat »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #17

People should really learn to ignore the emotional channel of the comments they receive. Just try to figure out if the message contains any useful information with a quick glance, extract it if it does and ignore the rest. People have to shit - that's physiologically inevitable, and there are people who do it in the streets and there are people who shit in comments/messages. Why take them serious?

Because it is very very hard to ignore.

I very occasionally get death threats to my work email due to people being unhappy with some public facing stuff I do. It's unsettling but I can mostly ignore it. But if it happened all the time and I wasn't able to open my email or interact with a community without getting hate mail I'd go into a cocoon. People aren't machines. When hatred is relentless it is unbelievably difficult to put it aside.

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