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Open source is not about you (2018)

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Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#51

Post by another_twist »

I think the issue is answering the question whats the business model ? If the team makes money consulting on clojure, then thats likely a bad model since I have not seen a single example of people paying for advice on coding. Usually the answer is to hire a coder who knows thier stuff and increasingly to use AI.

Open source for infrastructure products work just fine. It simplifies distribution by eliminating the need for procurement, builds some kind of attachment since people love using their own tinkered products and hedges risk for the customer since if the devs stop working on the product someone else will pick up.

But having to fill out forms, doing compliance work are great money making levers for which you just charge through the nose. Ultimately, open soircing is a distribution strategy and whether you should adopt it or not is dependent on the context. Most infra products do and it works out fine. Case in point: Clickhouse, Kafka, Grafana, Sentry, RedHat, Gitlab.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#53

Post by rlnorthcutt »

Its an interesting situation when an asset (like an open source project) is run by a team of volunteers (community)... but due to licensing, it kind of belongs to the whole world (community)

As a user of a project, I DO have a voice... but unless I am actively contributing (money, time, resources), then my voice has a different weight.

On the one hand, I don't like the idea that anyone should get more influence simply because they pay money... or that anyone should have more power just because they are active in the project. Both of those situations are possible paths for corruption or abuse of power.

On the other hand, the tragedy of the commons is a real thing. People who take, never give back, and then have the audacity to not only ask but demand things... well, that makes me angry.

I've moved from being an idealist to a realist, when it comes to open source. I think the evolving models we are seeing that restrict commercial competition are sometimes pretty good (overall), and the rise in COSS is a positive sign. We need to ensure that good projects have a way to sustain themselves.

The best projects have people (or even teams) who are focused on bringing new people in and helping them contribute. Not everyone can do that, but I think finding ways to enable people to contribute (money, time, etc) is an important part of building the community.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#54

Post by raincole »

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all

As a user of Hackernews you're not thereby entitled to anything at all.

As a member of the thing(forums, discord channels, facebook groups, any online community and real life community) you're not necessarily thereby entitled to anything at all.

Even as a user of some proprietary software, you're still not entitled to anything except perhaps critical bugfixes and security updates. Software is sold on shrinkwrap basis. You got what you bought.

It doesn't mean expressing your opinions about Hackernews, the thing or some proprietary software, even negative ones, is inherently wrong.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#55

Post by pjmlp »

1313ed01 wrote: post #40
intrasight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the difference between public on github or public elsewhere.

No public version control. No issues or pull requests or other social features. Like every project, more or less, before GitHub or Sourceforge.

Well we had RCS, CVS and Usenet groups.

And before that, compressed archives on BBS, or type in listings with snail mail.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#56

Post by shermantanktop »

dakiol wrote: post #42

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy. For example, if you show courtesy by contributing to an open source project and following all the guidelines they have, I think it's fair to assume that courtesy will be shown in return. I know that m…

You as a first-time contributor need to know that the large group of first-time contributors has a lot of poorly behaved people in it, and that the burden is on you to establish that you are not one of them.

Trust is built through iterative exchange. This is Bayesian priors - default is average, and only moves on the introduction of new information.

Lots of examples of this. In 1950's westerns, if a stranger comes to a small town, the default treatment is a guarded form of hospitality with a health measure of suspicion. If you are dating someone new, you are by default understood as the average first date partner, and the average first date partner is not a great match.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#58

Post by moritzwarhier »

But it is about humans in general!

Humans who want to use the software, and humans who author (or control dependencies of) the software.

Commenting as if this was a comment on yesterday's clawdbot-thread; I know it isn't, and it has previously been submitted here and is a good text.

It's about entitlement and using free OSS vs paying for a software product, I know.

But I think the gist of this gist can be generalized from "why you should not feel entitled to anything as a FOSS user" to "why software is about humans".

Especially because the commercial aspect is not as direct as in paid closed-source software for FOSS, but pressure (including commercial and/or social pressure) still exists.

Edit: "still" is not even a fitting word here, because the reliance of commercial software on FOSS is the societal change that causes this change in issue reporting, I'd say.

Crowd dynamics / psychological aspects cannot be ignored anywhere.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#59

Post by esafak »

haberman wrote: post #16

Lately I'm seeing more and more value in writing down expectations explicitly, especially when people's implicit assumptions about those expectations diverge. The linked gist seems to mostly be describing a misalignment between the expectations of the project owners and its users. I don't know the context, but it seems to have been written in frustration. It does articulate a set of expectations, but it is written in…

Furthermore, writing down the contract calmly, as part of a plan, can avoid having to bang it out in frustration and leaving a bad taste.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#60

Post by blenderob »

rlnorthcutt wrote: post #53

Its an interesting situation when an asset (like an open source project) is run by a team of volunteers (community)... but due to licensing, it kind of belongs to the whole world (community) As a user of a project, I DO have a voice... but unless I am actively contributing (money, time, resources), then my voice has a different weight. On the one hand, I don't like the idea that anyone should get more influence simpl…

(edit: I totally misunderstood the parent comment and wrote this reply. I've apologized for it in comment below. I could delete this comment but I am leaving it here so that others don't get confused when they see the replies below it.)

> or that anyone should have more power just because they are active in the project.

So you are saying that although I create a project to solve my problems but as soon as I make it open source (so that others can also benefit) my power on the project will become equal to the power every random person on earth has on my project?

If making my project reduces my power on the project, why would I ever open source anything?

Good thing that open source world does not work like that. When I make my project open source, I still have full power on my project and I decide what goes in it and what is rejected. I have no reason to not use the powers I have on the project.

If it ever became like you say that as the creator of an open source project, my powers will be equal to the powers of every random user, I'd stop making anything open source.

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