Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea • Hacker News Board

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#131

Post by sangnoir » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #101

Aachen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough for what? Paying expenses? Or are you expecting that open source contributions are to be paid at developer rates, and that one should contribute only as much time as is adequately paid? I thought open source meant that everyone was volunteering by default, just writing the features they'd enjoy to have for themselves, and that sponsorship of development time is not the norm aside from hugely important proj…

Yes, I am expecting exactly that, many developers want to try to make a living from open source. GPL was never about doing charity.

> GPL was never about doing charity.

Adopting GPL used to be a philosophical mindset consciously chosen (as opposed to freeware), and required some level of zealotry. Now, it's just a means to an end / pragmatics / a tool in the "growth hacking" toolbox because "everyone knows" having an open source project gives it an edge over closed-source equivalents on adoption.

IMO, it's not that open source developers have to earn a living (which they always have since the beginning), but that developers who want to earn a living in any way have started adopting open source by necessity. I'm no purist, regardless of motivation, the more open source projects there are, the better it is for everyone. For once the source is out: it is out.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#132

Post by sangnoir » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

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…

Whose freedom you're talking about matters: and your perspective focuses on developer freedom.

Which is the freer society: one where loud, all-night music in residential areas is permitted with no consequences, or one with restrictions on noise disturbances? Your definition supports the idea that late-night-parties has more freedoms, and I disagree with that. Hence the "eye of the beholder" thing applies.

My own subjective perspective is rather utilitarian: there are more users thsn developers (as developers are also users), hence, user freedom is more valuable than developer freedom, and it is worth restricting some developer freedoms to that end.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#133

Post by techknowlogick » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

Hi everyone. I'm the author of the blog post above, and I am sorry that I caused so much confusion.

I have spent much of today trying to clear things up, and will be writing a follow up to the post.

I see some concern around the mention of a DAO, I tried to get across in the blog post that community is incredibly important, and so I mentioned it as a possible way to ensure community governance, not to create a cryptocurrency and sell that. I mentioned it to be entirely transparent that it was a way that we are possibly investigating to make sure community is still involved.

Thanks to our paying clients, the company has been able to hire some maintainers, and contribute back the changes we've made back to the project so everyone can benefit. We are also looking into establishing a fund to not only pay contributors, but also projects we rely on.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#134

Post by techknowlogick » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

drej wrote: post #45

For me the main deterrent from Gitea has been their approach to UI design. The shameless inspiration (if you can call it that) they took from Github is pretty startling, the two interfaces look pretty much identical (well, Github has recently redesigned its repo page, but many can remember the old design). Sure, get inspired, make something similar here or there, but this is an outright copy of the whole product desi…

Hi, I'm the author of the blog post. Thank you so much for your comment. Yes, the UI needs an overhaul and that is one thing we hope to improve.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#135

Post by techknowlogick » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #76

> there are a few corporations (with revenues that are greater than some countries GDP) are building on Gitea for core products without even contributing back enhancements That's exactly what you get when you release Gitea under MIT. What they are looking for is AGPL.

Hi, I'm the author of the blog post. Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry about being unclear with that part. The issue is less them using the project, but more creating a support burden by sneaking into community forums and hiding their affiliation. I'd much rather donate my time to homelabbers, and people not being paid an obscene amount of money who in theory should be able to figure it out themselves.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#136

Post by anotherrandom » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

remram wrote: post #5

I've been donating to Gitea for years (on their Open Collective [1]) but if they start with this cryptocurrency/blockchain stuff, I am out. I am trying to fund development, not invest unstable currency technology. Gitea itself started as a fork of Gogs, it wouldn't be too surprising to see it fork again if they start being creative with the brand. [1]: https://opencollective.com/gitea

They didn't mention any currency creation, they only mentioned the creation of a DAO. That's a far cry from trying to make a currency

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#137

Post by sneak » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

techknowlogick wrote: post #133

Hi everyone. I'm the author of the blog post above, and I am sorry that I caused so much confusion. I have spent much of today trying to clear things up, and will be writing a follow up to the post. I see some concern around the mention of a DAO, I tried to get across in the blog post that community is incredibly important, and so I mentioned it as a possible way to ensure community governance, not to create a crypto…

What does “enhanced enterprise version” mean? Proprietary software?

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#138

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

throwaccount12 wrote: post #26

cycomanic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, they don't mention crypto. This blog post is simply an announcement that they started a company. The purpose seems to mainly be for providing support services and paying developers. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It does mention DAO, which is crypto adjacent, however like you said the purpose listed in the post is to provide paid support services, the DAO is for governance of the community, not to shill some scam crypto coin.

I don't think a DAO is just cryptocurrency adjacent. A DAO is entirely about trading traditional, well known, corporate structures (boards, shares, Robert's Rules, ballot voting) and replacing them all with cryptocurrency structures (NFT token holders, NFT tokens, "Smart" Contracts, more "Smart" Contracts). There is no DAO without cryptocurrency. There's no token trading or smart contract operations without trading in whatever cryptocoins underpin their DAO's platform of choice. If you think all cryptocoins are a scam to shill in one way or another, there's no DAO operations at all without shilling at least one scam cryptocoin (and usually there's more than one involved on every current platform that supports "smart" contracts).

Meanwhile there are existing open-source foundations and conservancies that operate just fine as traditional (not-for-profit) corporations and no need for a DAO or any cryptocurrencies for community governance.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#139

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #6

simonw wrote: post #3

Creating a DAO for this sounds _incredibly_ risky to me. One tiny flaw in the design of that organization and the project could be destroyed by people gaming the DAO rules for profit.

But does decentralized autonomous organization always have to imply blockchain?

We have the words "corporation" or "company" (or "foundation" or "conservancy") for easy to find synonyms of "organization" and despite appearances none of those words directly implies either "centralized" or "decentralized". There are companies and foundations that are built quite decentralized meeting only remotely over the internet today.

Companies and corporations are far from "autonomous" however, and that word currently always implies "smart contracts" and blockchain.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#140

Post by TheBrokenRail » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

drej wrote: post #45

For me the main deterrent from Gitea has been their approach to UI design. The shameless inspiration (if you can call it that) they took from Github is pretty startling, the two interfaces look pretty much identical (well, Github has recently redesigned its repo page, but many can remember the old design). Sure, get inspired, make something similar here or there, but this is an outright copy of the whole product desi…

For me this is a benefit, GitHub's UI in my opinion is really good and I'm glad I don't have to learn a new one for Gitea.

Whenever I need to report a bug on a GitLab instance, its UI is a big source of friction (especially since GitLab's UI is still annoyingly slow when loading things like issue comments).