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Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

blog.gitea.io

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Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#121

Post by sangnoir »

Oh, fuck - I had a good run I guess: I love Gitea, but this seems like a change for the worse.

I think there's an open source trap where successful projects see their adoption numbers, and billion-dollar companies using their projects and think "We're leaving money on the table" (which IMO is the whole point of libre software).

Unfortunately, this is the path to weird software licenses, open-core / community-edition product splits and a whole host that makes the software less useful to me as an individual user and occasional contributor. Besides, Gitea won't be able to make much out of individuals like me, so their roadmap will likely favor paying customers. I can guarantee that it will be too bloated to run on a Raspberry Pi Zero like I have it today, which means I'd have to choose something else.

I also suspect that switching to a for-profit company will decrease the number of volunteer contributions, after all following the same big idea that led to incorporation: who wants to work for free when someone else is making the money?

The good news about F/OSS is I have started my countdown to a community fork. After all, Gitea itself is a fork -it is the circle of life.

Edit: I forgot they are trying to pay contributors with some web3 scheme, perhaps to try and solve the inherent hypocrisy. But the cure may be worse than the disease because it further complicates the process of contributing to the project and reduces maintainer focus on actual product. Just give me pull-requests.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#122

Post by throwaccount12 »

sangnoir wrote: post #121

Oh, fuck - I had a good run I guess: I love Gitea, but this seems like a change for the worse. I think there's an open source trap where successful projects see their adoption numbers, and billion-dollar companies using their projects and think "We're leaving money on the table" (which IMO is the whole point of libre software). Unfortunately, this is the path to weird software licenses, open-core / community-edition…

The DAO was mentioned only around transparent governance and giving back to the community, but the blog post mentions hiring maintainers presumably with cash.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#124

Post by sangnoir »

bruce511 wrote: post #106
barnabee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when any of the features the enterprise wants to / can buy is closed source and not available on the same terms as the rest of the project.

I'm not wanting to insult you here, so please read in that light. I'm not trying to be the dick here. >> The problem Problem to whom? Not the customer (the one paying the bills), not the developer (the one getting paid) but by "the rest" - the ones consuming but not contributing. >> closed source Unfortunately the term "open source" encompasses a group of freedoms - the lack of any of them leads us to the term "close…

> ...but by "the rest" - the ones consuming but not contributing.

"contributing", when it relates to F/LOSS software, includes non-monetary activities, which you seem to be ignoring. Nevermind the fact that the so-called consumers are the whole reason why Gitea is in the position it is today. Without adoption, it would be a bunch of people making commits on an unknown codebase. Characterizing users as moochers is bad form, amd will not end well for Gitea, IMO.

> I feel like developers have a right to take their project in a paid direction if they want to.

The other side of the libre software coin is that the users have the right to fork the project and take it in a community-driven, non-profit direction if they want to.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#125

Post by mdaniel »

hrbf wrote: post #56
Dave3of5 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you setup a plain git server is there a step by step anywhere I could follow ?

Funny you should ask. I had actually written this up back then – for a FreeBSD install because it’s what I use. https://herrbischoff.com/2021/10/how-to-install-cgit-with-gi... I’ve also tripped over something regarding “master” and “main” branches that’s easily fixed: https://herrbischoff.com/2022/05/cgit-missing-idle-column-on... If you want it even simpler, just run mkdir repo.git && cd repo.git git init —bare in a…

Doesn't that only work for single user setups, since a `git push` run from some else's machine could concurrently modify that repo.git directory?

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#126

Post by sangnoir »

throwaccount12 wrote: post #122
sangnoir wrote: post #121

Oh, fuck - I had a good run I guess: I love Gitea, but this seems like a change for the worse. I think there's an open source trap where successful projects see their adoption numbers, and billion-dollar companies using their projects and think "We're leaving money on the table" (which IMO is the whole point of libre software). Unfortunately, this is the path to weird software licenses, open-core / community-edition…

The DAO was mentioned only around transparent governance and giving back to the community, but the blog post mentions hiring maintainers presumably with cash.

You seem extremely vested[1] in this, and have been very active in this thread - are you affiliated with the freshly-registered company? If so, I'd encourage you not to hide behind a throwaway because it gives the impression that you don't want to stand by your words.

More on topic: does this mean occasional/casual contributors to the project will continue to work for free while maintainers & employees get paid?

1. You looked up the name of one commenter and the donations made in their name 3 years ago.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#127

Post by mdaniel »

ddevault wrote: post #104
karussell wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fyi: I was just checking out SourceHut ... something is wrong with this link https://sr.ht/projects (get a "bad gateway") (referenced from the main page)

We're in the midst of a planned maintenance window: https://status.sr.ht/issues/2022-10-24-planned-outage/

Merely for your consideration, if you were to rewrite the 502 template to mention your status page, it could save these kinds of "communication gaps" in the future

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#128

Post by hrbf »

mdaniel wrote: post #125
hrbf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should ask. I had actually written this up back then – for a FreeBSD install because it’s what I use. https://herrbischoff.com/2021/10/how-to-install-cgit-with-gi... I’ve also tripped over something regarding “master” and “main” branches that’s easily fixed: https://herrbischoff.com/2022/05/cgit-missing-idle-column-on... If you want it even simpler, just run mkdir repo.git && cd repo.git git init —bare in a…

Doesn't that only work for single user setups, since a `git push` run from some else's machine could concurrently modify that repo.git directory?

The manual bare repo setup obviously offers no user access management beyond what the system's SSH configuration provides. Beyond that, a bare repository is actually an essential Git feature and what software like Gitea and even GitHub uses behind the scenes.

Given all users can share a user account on a server, it will behave exactly like you expect it to. Again, that's a core Git feature. Additionally, AFAIK Git has its own locking management. Also look up the `--shared` flag. `man git-init` is very helpful.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#129

Post by throwaccount12 »

sangnoir wrote: post #126
throwaccount12 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DAO was mentioned only around transparent governance and giving back to the community, but the blog post mentions hiring maintainers presumably with cash.

You seem extremely vested[1] in this, and have been very active in this thread - are you affiliated with the freshly-registered company? If so, I'd encourage you not to hide behind a throwaway because it gives the impression that you don't want to stand by your words. More on topic: does this mean occasional/casual contributors to the project will continue to work for free while maintainers & employees get paid? 1. Y…

Indeed I have been active. I am passionate about funding in open source, and saw someone link this on mastodon, and so I signed up to comment on things. I only know what has been said in the blog post. I have attempted to disclose all my leanings, and follow ddevault [0] and disclose especially around crypto things

> Additionally, we’re planning on establishing a fund to be able to provide support to contributors who not only contribute features, but also bug fixes, performance enhancements, and important refactors.

Sounds like occasional contributors can receive payment as well.

Like you, I also agree that financial disclosures and citing sources are important, and so so that is why I took the 5 seconds to validate a claim someone made, and also found someone in this thread who very clearly is not disclosing a financial stake in the matter.

Edit: I have seen a maintainer in this thread, perhaps he could share some more details as they come.

[0]: https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disas...

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#130

Post by goodpoint »

Aachen wrote: post #116
rapnie wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more free That is in the eye of the beholder. Phrasing as 'more permissive' is more accurate.

To me those are synonyms, but I'm not a native speaker. When you're allowed to do more things, such as taking open source code and using it without ever contributing anything back even if you distribute compiled versions of these people's work for exorbitant fees, aren't you more "free" to do what you want than if this were restricted in any way? I'm not saying I morally agree with it, but that's what I understand th…

> aren't you more "free"?

More freedom for one organization often translates into less freedom for end users.

That's why GPLv3 has explicit clauses against proprietization, tivoization and patenting.

Otherwise the freedom goes from developers to the first big company and stops there. End users and other developers get closed/patented code or SaaS.

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