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

Open source is not about you (2018)

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 196 posts

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#101

Post by wat10000 »

M95D wrote: post #95
zzzeek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it. no, it doesn't, maybe I have a github project, I want to easily share it with ten of my friends for something, I don't particularly care if other people see it, so I make it public. That in no way implies I want random people to come along with bugs and PRs. > You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time and t…

> no, it doesn't, maybe I have a github project, I want to easily share it with ten of my friends for something, Then make it private. > I don't particularly care if other people see it, so I make it public. Yeah, I see someone else made the same argument. It's a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Build labyrinths and scatter them around the internet. Leave manholes uncovered. Markov chains to trap…

Sorry, unless your IP is being infringed, you don't get to decide what's private or public. The internet is a vast and wondrous place. Figuring out which parts of it are worth your time is a you problem.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#102

Post by hinkley »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #91
hinkley wrote: post #84

I don’t disagree with Rich Hickey a lot but this one grinds my gears: > All social impositions associated with it, including the idea of 'community-driven-development' are part of a recently-invented mythology with little basis in how things actually work, Open source is effectively a gift economy. And we actually talked about it being so in the late 90’s early 00’s. Gift economies are older than human civilization.…

No, he's completely right on that point. There's this weird misconception in the tech community that "open source" means "you'll accept my contributions if I send them". I've seen people try to argue (in complete seriousness) that SQLite isn't open source because the developers keep contributions private. I don't know where the mistaken conflating of "open source" and "developed by the community" comes from, but it i…

I’m not disagreeing that people get entitled about the gifts they think they’re bringing to someone else’s party. Yeah it’s frustrating and sometimes it’s bonkers. Don’t bring “lutefisk” to someone else’s party and expect to be celebrated as a hero.

That doesn’t absolve the host of all scrutiny in perpetuity, and that’s usually how these conversations go. This is a popularity contest and trying to have that conversation with, frankly, people who have never one a popularity contest is exhausting. But you still have to point out things to your unrepentant friend even if they don’t seem to listen.

It’s not a conflation. Open source is two things. One, a way to trick your boss into letting you keep using tools you developed here at your next job. Two, a gift economy we are all participating in. Gift economies are a community. Whether you want it to be or not, it is.

That we listen to Rich Hickey at all is almost entirely down to the latter. He has given many gifts and this entitled to a soapbox precisely because of the gifts. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Suck it up buttercup. Or, continue to act confused and indignant as people call you and people like you out for the rest of time. It’s not going to stop.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#103

Post by afandian »

nyeah wrote: post #77
haberman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything wrong with the way he expressed himself, and I think his point is totally legitimate. I mostly just felt bad that he experienced so much grief about it, on account of a gift he was offering to the world.

"So much grief." It sounds like you're trying to interpret Hickey's emotions. How would you check whether your interpretation is accurate?

I don't know if you're a native English speaker, so apologies if this isn't appropriate. But the word 'grief' has more than one vernacular meaning.

"Giving someone grief" means giving someone a hard time.

So "he experienced so much grief" can just mean that it can just mean that people criticised him. It doesn't necessarily express anything about Rich Hickey's state of mind.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#104

Post by throwaway346434 »

M95D wrote: post #75

This is the attitude that made me keep my patches to myself. Hey, you, FOSS maintainer, whoever you are: - If you make your project public, it means you want and expect people to use it. You could at least write some documentation, so I don't waste my time and then find out, days later, it isn't capable of what I need or I simply don't know how to use it. - If you set up a bug tracker, then at least have the decency…

I agree. I would add a pet peeve of mine:

- Don't publish a code of conduct and then be an absolute asshole to contributors (pick a lane and stick to it)

I feel there is a lot of performative policy published, which at the end of the day is lip service. Actual users or contributors come along and follow the guidance, expectations, etc? They then find themselves treated like a hostile entity and there is a weird prevailing attitude here that's "fine".

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#105

Post by chasd00 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #91
hinkley wrote: post #84

I don’t disagree with Rich Hickey a lot but this one grinds my gears: > All social impositions associated with it, including the idea of 'community-driven-development' are part of a recently-invented mythology with little basis in how things actually work, Open source is effectively a gift economy. And we actually talked about it being so in the late 90’s early 00’s. Gift economies are older than human civilization.…

No, he's completely right on that point. There's this weird misconception in the tech community that "open source" means "you'll accept my contributions if I send them". I've seen people try to argue (in complete seriousness) that SQLite isn't open source because the developers keep contributions private. I don't know where the mistaken conflating of "open source" and "developed by the community" comes from, but it i…

> I don't know where the mistaken conflating of "open source" and "developed by the community" comes from

i think people confuse github with a social network and all the extra social conventions that come with that instead of just a place to remotely host a git repository. Open source is just a license model, if no PRs were accepted, all communication ignored, and no bug fixes made globally forever an open source project would still be open source. Take the code and do what you want as long as you comply with the license, that's all open source is.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#106

Post by ragall »

lukaszkorecki wrote: post #83
haberman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he eventually needed to write bluntly Is there a history of that here? Were there earlier clear statements of expectations (like CONTRIBUTING.md) that expressed the same expectations, but in a straightforward way, that people just willfully disregarded? I don't mean to "ding" anybody, I mostly just felt bad that things had gotten to the point where the author was so frustrated. I completely agree that project owner…

I don't remember the exact situation, but I think this relates to this: Clojure core was sent a set of patches that were supposed to improve performance of immutable data structures but were provided without much consideration of the bigger picture or over optimized for a specific use case. There's a Reddit thread which provides a bit more detail so excuse me if I got some of it wrong: https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojur…

Dissatisfaction n. 3 is the essence of the problem: "Because Clojure is a language and other people's jobs and lives depend on it, the project no longer feels like someone's personal project which invites a more democratic contribution process". This is a common, and modern, feeling that the more users a certain thing has, the more the creators/maintainers have a duty to treat it as a "commons or public infrastructure" and give the users a vote on how the thing is to be managed and developed. This is, of course, utter horsesh*t.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#107

Post by jltsiren »

hinkley wrote: post #102
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's completely right on that point. There's this weird misconception in the tech community that "open source" means "you'll accept my contributions if I send them". I've seen people try to argue (in complete seriousness) that SQLite isn't open source because the developers keep contributions private. I don't know where the mistaken conflating of "open source" and "developed by the community" comes from, but it i…

I’m not disagreeing that people get entitled about the gifts they think they’re bringing to someone else’s party. Yeah it’s frustrating and sometimes it’s bonkers. Don’t bring “lutefisk” to someone else’s party and expect to be celebrated as a hero. That doesn’t absolve the host of all scrutiny in perpetuity, and that’s usually how these conversations go. This is a popularity contest and trying to have that conversat…

A gift economy only exists between people who agree that they are participating in one.

Gifts between equals create expectations of reciprocity. If you use open source software, you are expected to contribute. Accepting a gift without an intention to reciprocate is an admission of social inferiority. Users who don't see themselves as socially inferior to developers are not participating in the gift economy and not bound by the social contract.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#108

Post by chasd00 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #44

Counterpoints: - You are entitled to human decency. Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project. This is a common thing in a lot of projects; maintainers have power, and this allows them to be rude without concern. Not ok. - As a maintainer, if you publish your work as open source, you already acknowledge you are engaging with an entire community, culture, and ethos. We all know how it works: you…

what you're describing is how to be a nice person, that really has nothing to do with owning a source code repository. Fortunately, most people are nice but there's no requirement or obligation to be that way when setting up a public remote repository (github or otherwise).

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#109

Post by nunez »

I don't know. On one hand, they're totally right; their project, their rules. On the other hand, it feels crappy to contribute to an open source project that doesn't actually take contributions (or derides new contributors because they made a mistake in their diff or PR due to missing a sentence in their gigantic contributing doc) or use a project that silently changed hands and is now full of tracking, malware and other junk.
Post reply on HN