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Actix project postmortem

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Re: Actix project postmortem

#271

Post by steveklabnik »

Traster wrote: post #264
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…

I've been thinking for a long time that one of the problems with these online shitstorms is that the adults in the room are silent. It would have been so much better if the senior people in the Rust community stepped in to actually say "Hey, we're all using it, yes it's got issues, but thanks for your contribution and don't worry about the idiots". Instead we've got senior people in the Rust community waiting until t…

It's a tricky balance. This is also sort of where I was getting at in my post with the "unofficial" bit; because /r/rust is not official, we do not look into it. And because this happened on Reddit, there was no real opportunity to actually step in. It's quite possible this is simply a failure on our part.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#273

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rumanator wrote: post #263
drclau wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 main…

> I understand how he may he feeling, but this is probably the most used web framework for Rust. Not a problem. Just fork it and put in the work to maintain it. The license grants anyonr that right. What stops anyone from doing it? If that's too much to ask then perhaps it should put into perspective how project maintainers are abused.

Ok, but the arrow of time being what it is you cannot fork something usefully after all the code has been taken away. You can now fork the readme and change that.

It's true I think everyone should do what I do which is to fork anything I think I might need at some point , but that isn't what you actually suggested and it isn't what the parent comment was observing could be a problem for people.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#274

Post by xscott »

drclau wrote: post #257
dyeje wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 main…

> My understanding is that he did move the source code under his own git user

It's not hard to find: https://github.com/fafhrd91/actix-web

> so hopefully he’ll allow someone else to pick it and maintain.

It uses the both the Apache and MIT licenses, each of which clearly allows redistribution of derivative works. It will be interesting to see if anyone (much less the abusive people) are willing to put their money where their mouths are about it.

I think he's being very gracious, all things considered.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#275

Post by xscott »

drclau wrote: post #270
rumanator wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand how he may he feeling, but this is probably the most used web framework for Rust. Not a problem. Just fork it and put in the work to maintain it. The license grants anyonr that right. What stops anyone from doing it? If that's too much to ask then perhaps it should put into perspective how project maintainers are abused.

You haven’t read my comment from two levels up. There’s nothing to fork on the original repo.

There certainly is: https://github.com/fafhrd91/actix-web

Re: Actix project postmortem

#276

Post by Hello71 »

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.

This argument confuses and saddens me. If I give away free food which I and others know to be contaminated with foodborne pathogens, is it wrong for them to criticize it? What if I don't know, but I obtain it from a supplier which is known to persistently sell contaminated food? What if I put up a sign in very small print saying that the food comes with no warranty whatsoever and all consumers eat it at their own risk? What if I put up a large sign? What if instead of pathogens, I intentionally add lead-based decorations on the basis that they look and taste good, even if they may be slightly carcinogenic if consumed? What if I clearly state that the decorations must be removed before eating? At what point do I acquire moral culpability for the harms suffered by my customers? These sorts of comments seem to imply that there is no problem with me doing any of this, as long as the food is provided for free and consumers have the choice to not take the food. I would vehemently disagree with that claim. Uninformed choice is not a true choice, and even informed choice cannot excuse certain foreseeable harms.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#277

Post by EdSchouten »

mannycalavera wrote: post #65
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…

Evan Czaplicki (Elm designer) has a great talk about this issue "The Hard Parts of Open Source" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_4EX4dPppA

I don’t want to come across as toxic myself, but I think that the toxicity that Evan sometimes has to endure from people in the community is somewhat self-inflicted.

Last year I wrote a web application in Elm. Even though I really liked the language and had lots of fun writing code, I noticed that the users effectively have to rely on Evan to make any meaningful progress. The ‘forkability’ of the project is very poor.

To give you a couple examples of that:

- Elm has a centralized package repository: https://package.elm-lang.org/. There is, however, no functionality in Elm to host your own registry, whether it is public or internal to your organisation. The monolithic compiler/build tool hardcodes the URL of this registry.

- Relatedly, there is no way you can easily fork a package and apply some changes, especially if you have no intent to host it through the official package collection. There is no way to say: “I want to use elm/http with this tiny local patch applied that I have sitting in my tree.”

- Some parts of Elm’s grammar/intrinsics are only permitted to be used by packages with author “elm” (i.e., the official core packages). This means that you cannot fork, say, elm/bytes to yourname/bytes and make local changes, as it can no longer be built.

Because of this, the maintainers of Elm don’t just decide what goes into the tree, they effectively also decide what users may do on their end. They are the folks sitting behind the master control panel and people filing issues/pull requests rely on them to push the buttons for them. I can understand why this causes friction within the community.

Note that this was my experience using Elm early 2019 (January-April). It may well be that Elm improved in these areas since.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#278

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rumanator wrote: post #268
j-pb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just walk away then, no need to set the door on fire.

> Just walk away then, no need to set the door on fire. That's what he is doing: simply walking away. But he doesn't owe you anything, and that'exactly what you are getting. It's astonishing how some people feel entitled to other people's life work. It's like you believe others owe you everything just because you like their work.

he's walking away, but before he does he decides to brick up the door he was holding. that's ok though because the house has lots of other doors that are based on the door he was holding open, all people have to do is to go through the effort to find the best version of the door that is most like the door he was holding open before that he's bricked up and thus is not available for comparison anymore.

I certainly think he had the right to do what he did, and the people who were rude deserved to have the door bricked up, but the people who read the notices he put up before hand about how he was holding open the door and it was a good way into the house might feel he is sort of a jerk.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#279

Post by Myrmornis »

Hello71 wrote: post #276
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.

This argument confuses and saddens me. If I give away free food which I and others know to be contaminated with foodborne pathogens, is it wrong for them to criticize it? What if I don't know, but I obtain it from a supplier which is known to persistently sell contaminated food? What if I put up a sign in very small print saying that the food comes with no warranty whatsoever and all consumers eat it at their own ris…

There's a difference between leaving poisoned but attractive looking food on a sidewalk, and putting code on github. You're losing perspective regarding open source programming -- it's supposed to be fun. There seems to be a political / ideological dimension to this disagreement. Your nanny state would be correct to punish someone for leaving poisoned food out. But we don't need your nanny state in open source software. People can choose to use or not use free software. Anyone whose software has life or death implications would indeed be culpable if they make those choices rashly. But the responsibility does not lie with the maintainer.
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