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Actix project postmortem

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Re: Actix project postmortem

#311

Post by phkahler »

smt88 wrote: post #291
kelnos wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an entirely specious analogy. This code will not cause someone to get sick or die. And "contaminated" vs. "not contaminated" is a binary result for food -- one is the case and one is not the case. With code, there's nearly always room for reasonable disagreement as to what is the right/good or wrong/bad way to do things, and often people argue over two (or more) perfectly fine ways of doing things that just c…

I'm not sure if this will change your mind, but in the Rust world, there's a concept of "unsafe" code that can lead to vulnerabilities. The difference here is that a code consumer can check a Rust project for unsafe code, whereas a food consumer cannot check for unsafe contaminants.

If it's OK to demand a project use only Rust and not unsafe Rust, then it must be OK to bitch at every C or C++ project and demand they rewrite in Rust. If that sounds absurd, that's because it's supposed to.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#312

Post by ufo »

phoe-krk wrote: post #8
3jckd wrote: post #4

Asking for a friend - could someone explain what happened there? The README doc is quite vague - it is more of a personal justification than a rationale (to me).

https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/epszt7/actixnet_unsou... has more context.

The Wayback Machine links don't seem to work anymore, unfortunately.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#313

Post by hardbop200 »

saagarjha wrote: post #135
dangerface wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If some one opens the door for you that was nice of them, they did your work for you, they have no ongoing obligation to maintain the door in an open state. If some one give you their code that was nice of them, they wrote your code for you, they have no ongoing obligation to maintain your code. by simply giving you their code they have already provided you with value, a head start for nothing in return, they have op…

We’re starting to stretch the metaphor too far, but by opening the door you’ve signaled to me that I can walk through it safely. Closing it abruptly can in some cases be even worse than the alternative, since I could have possibly opened the door myself (written it myself and not invested time in this particular project) or gone through a another door that was also being held open (used another open source project).

agreed that it is being stretched. perhaps a better metaphor would be not just opening the door, but building it.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#314

Post by EugeneOZ »

rossjudson wrote: post #300
CDSlice wrote: post #186

For context, this comes after yet another unsoundness bug has been found in Actix-web. Normally people in the Rust community don't get very worked up over these because we know that everyone makes mistakes, but the Actix project has had a consistent history of introducing unsoundness through the use of unsafe for dubious reasons like nebulous performance increases or bypassing Rust's safety guarantees (which is what…

You say, "This sort of behavior should not be acceptable from any open source maintainer that runs such a large, foundational part of the ecosystem." Or what ? What's the "punishment" here? Who's going to decide what's acceptable, and what's not? Seems like you are demanding that the author of Actix do what you want. Sometimes people take their football and go home. In this case the vocal complaining minority are fre…

Or he will lose the reputation, that's what.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#315

Post by jturpin »

avereveard wrote: post #290
jturpin wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

that contract is precisely spelled in the license file, idk what you all are on about.

This is kind of like saying "its technically not illegal!", in the same way it's not illegal to open the door for someone and then shut it as they are about to walk through. We are talking about social contracts that are not written but are collectively understood to some degree.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#316

Post by nindalf »

rossjudson wrote: post #303
saagarjha wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the maintainer made an active and conscious decision to do something that did nothing but hurt everyone using the project. There are no passengers who might benefit here, sadly.

I think you are confused. The maintainer made an active and conscious decision to protect himself . That's clearly not "nothing", and a perfectly legitimate reason.

They're referring to the maintainer's conscious decision to reject a patch made in good faith, that fixed the issues that had been pointed out. It was rejected with the statement "this is boring." Do you think this behaviour is justifiable?

> I think you are confused

You sure?

Re: Actix project postmortem

#318

Post by hardbop200 »

saagarjha wrote: post #78
jrockway wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's made pretty clear in pretty much every open source license: "Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND".

That’s a legal, not a social statement. Following the letter of the document that governs your work doesn’t mean you still can’t do something that would be inconsiderate.

I am honestly confused by this line of thinking. what should projects do in your opinion? should there be a LEGAL-LICENSE and SOCIAL-LICENSE?

I believe that the legal is the "top-level" statement that sets expectations all the way down.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#319

Post by didibus »

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…

I mean, the license state:

> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

So if some random person on the side of the street gave away browny, and had a sign like that, I'd do a bit of personal investigating first before eating it, like looking at the ingredients, asking for expiry, and all that. Which you can do for open source software, by just looking at the source code.

Re: Actix project postmortem

#320

Post by yongjik »

An argument could be made both ways, but I wish people stopped quoting licenses to resolve social issues.

For example, the license does not forbid the user of the software from INSINUATING THAT THE AUTHOR OF THE SOFTWARE IS INCOMPETENT, OR UNFIT TO AUTHOR ANY SOFTWARE, EITHER IN A PARTICULAR LANGUAGE OF THEIR CHOICE, OR IN GENERAL. So one can almost say that anyone who's doing it is exercising their right granted by license.

...But that kind of argument is not really helpful, isn't it? The question is whether some behavior is socially acceptable. License doesn't enter the question.

(BTW, of course I don't support the kind of behavior I endorsed(?) above.)

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