Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 454 posts

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#61

Post by autoexec »

al_borland wrote: post #10
incomingpain wrote: post #3

>Maybe it became a burden to maintain, This is literally why i think AI coding cant touch dev jobs. In theory you can code LOADS of projects. Want a panel widget on your desktop environment, dont even know what language its in? ask ai to produce it. but when you have open source projects, people from all over the world bring their requests and problems to you. Some are great to just merge, others you have no clue wha…

Isn’t this the thing AI is going to claim to solve? A project exists, a user writes a feature request, the AI codes up the changes, pushes a new release, and everyone is happy. That’s the sales pitch. The big issue with this, even if it works perfectly every time, is that there is no one at the core of the project with some vision and taste, who is willing to say “no” to bad ideas or things outside the scope of the p…

> The big issue with this, even if it works perfectly every time, is that there is no one at the core of the project with some vision and taste, who is willing to say “no” to bad ideas or things outside the scope of the project.

Why would any user ever care about the scope of the project or how you feel about their ideas? If they want your open source software to also play MP3s and read their email they'll just ask an AI to take your code and add the features they want. It doesn't impact anyone else using your software. What you'll probably have though are a bunch of copies of your code with various changes made (some of them might even have already been available as options, but people would rather ask AI to rewrite your software than read your docs) some listed as forks and others not mentioning you or the name of your software at all.

Most people aren't going to bother sharing the changes they made to your code with anyone but eventually you'll have people reporting bugs for weird versions of the software AI screwed up.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#62

Post by nemomarx »

neilv wrote: post #51
bitbasher wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I join a company I always create a bunch of made up names on my “prior inventions” list. When I open source something I just name it after something I put on my list if the description is close enough.

Do you think your colleagues have the same ideas of what is honest and trustworthy behavior? In what ways do you trust, and not trust, your colleagues? How do you feel about that?

The people approving this stuff are your bosses, not your colleagues.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#63

Post by enobrev »

lrvick wrote: post #57
pinewurst wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I open sourced a portable benchmark program and was getting angry responses because I wouldn't accept changes to make it Linux-specific.

Just tell them to fork it. Done. No need to take any grief you do not want.

Probably a bit rude, but maybe we can all agree to accept "fork off" as an acceptable, concise, and descriptive answer to unwanted requests.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#64

Post by andrewmcwatters »

systemdev wrote: post #52

I regret open sourcing an offline patch I made for an Unreal Engine 3 game. The game was unplayable due to an always online backend that got shut down, but was still being sold so I required everyone buy a license to play with my mod. I had to reimplement stock UE3 netcode, and a bunch of other really cool stuff. Someone who was mad at me for not giving them more help when they struggled to develop on my software dec…

I'm very interested in your stock UE3 network code reimplementation, but I understand if you no longer publish these details.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#65

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

neilv wrote: post #51
bitbasher wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I join a company I always create a bunch of made up names on my “prior inventions” list. When I open source something I just name it after something I put on my list if the description is close enough.

Do you think your colleagues have the same ideas of what is honest and trustworthy behavior? In what ways do you trust, and not trust, your colleagues? How do you feel about that?

I trust them to mind their own business and I do the same for them.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#66

Post by dfex »

ikidd wrote: post #53
jmclnx wrote: post #47

Never regretted. But my "things" are far from earth shattering and most have now have better alternatives. Only one item became a bit popular, but was written for MS-DOS ages ago and I hear it is still used by 1 person :)

PleaseReEnableSpacebarHeating.xkcd

There really is an XKCD for everything - thank you for the morning laugh kind stranger :)

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#67

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

galad87 wrote: post #19

I wrote a small app to display a bitrate graph of video files, and posted the code on GitHub with the GPL2 license. A few weeks later someone uploaded it to the Mac App Store and sold it for 7$, the only difference was the name.

Did they at least attribute you?

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#68

Post by mik3y »

greyface- wrote: post #15

I tried to open source a weekend personal project while at $BIGCO via their "Invention Assignment Review Committee". It turned into a minor bureaucratic nightmare and I was ultimately never given the OK to release it, or any clarity over whether my employer was choosing to assert an IP ownership interest in it. In retrospect, I wish I had never notified them of its existence, and released it under a pseudonym instead…

Ugh, you gave me bad flashbacks of the same committee.

I tried to re-license a previously-released project (like from GPL to MIT or similar) and they wouldn't budge. I had written all the code.

In the end, I decided that them suing (or firing) me to assert their ownership of $VALUELESS_PROJECT, so they could then license it back, was ridiculously unlikely, said fuck it, and did it. And I was right.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#69

Post by nbaksalyar »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #30
al_borland wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always just stick my Obsidian vault in iCloud and called it a day. No additional sync service required.

This gets complicated when you want your vault accessible across linux/windows/android/macos/ipad. The ipad is the real stick in the mud and I don't want to deal with an icloud staging zone for everything else, or try to get icloud syncing on linux/android.

> you want your vault accessible across linux/windows/android/macos/ipad

For that, I use Syncthing [1] in addition to iCloud. It works exceptionally well – I see my edits in real time across different devices.

[1] https://syncthing.net/

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something?

#70

Post by firefax »

I wrote a network security tool (if you can call a glorified shell script that) and it was used by script kiddies to harass people.

It made me feel maybe magicians had something, when they decided some knowledge should be esoteric and earned, given that it was so trivial I never listed it on my CV.

I think infosec, as a field, sometimes darts between too much obscurity and too much openness.

Post reply on HN