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It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

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Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#181

Post by watwut »

brabel wrote: post #129
matheusmoreira wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a bit of a disclaimer in the readme should be expected Every project already has these. They're in the license files. > This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. This disclaimer is clear, self-explanatory, legally binding and a standard feature of all licenses. So why do people a…

> So why do people assume they can use random code from random developers they never met without even looking at the source code? Because that's open source, and has worked well for a lot of things.

That us not how open source ever worked. You get high quality open source from established projects and stability from governance. By governance I mean something like apache or eclipse or linux foundation that forces projects to be lead in certain way.

Random code from random people always had varios quality - from great to horrible.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#182

Post by ex_amazon_sde »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #113
saurik wrote: post #8

I agree: it is OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty. However, it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description talking about how awesome it is as a trap for other people to run into, and that is really the core problem: it isn't that you didn't spend an unreasonable amount of time and money to make a good product that no one paid for…

> it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description Package repositories can be open to all developers or curated by software distribution maintainers. Being able to publish an open source project without dealing with Linux distribution maintainers is a major selling point of programming language package managers. Why even let people publish packag…

> Being able to publish an open source project without dealing with Linux distribution maintainers is a major selling point of programming language package managers.

This is how disasters like leftpad happen.

The bar for publishing software is extremely low and we pay the price every day in terms of security, bloat and complexity.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#183

Post by franciscop »

JimDabell wrote: post #146
riquito wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Francisco but I'm sure he deserves better than this https://github.com/franciscop/picnic/pull/203/files +If you spot a bug or any other issue you may go to hell because this software is officially Bug Free(TM). +

If you see somebody behaving like that, report them to GitHub so they don't do it to anybody else. The link is on their user profile page.

I did, no response so far.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#184

Post by guygurari »

ljm wrote: post #180
mattlondon wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often act very entitled about open source I've found. You'll often get angry irate emails/issues raised demanding you help them or add a new feature or whatever. Some people are just clueless and need help, others are just dicks. It is often not worth the hassle in my opinion, but then everyone's circumstances and motivations are different and I am glad that a lot of people do think it is worth it.

If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

I don’t doubt it, but covid-sim is not the best example of this effect. In this case, people are worried that poorly written simulation code is informing policy decisions that affect billions of people. They are not demanding that it should be fixed, they are demanding that it should not be relied on in its current state.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#185

Post by namelosw »

wolco wrote: post #96
saurik wrote: post #8

I agree: it is OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty. However, it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description talking about how awesome it is as a trap for other people to run into, and that is really the core problem: it isn't that you didn't spend an unreasonable amount of time and money to make a good product that no one paid for…

"sure: it is totally their fault for deploying something without carefully reading your code to figure out that it was a bit shitty beforehand" Yes you must read and understand everything or have trust in the publisher. Relying on the package name is going to get you in trouble. Sounds like a great exploit opportunity.

Most of time it's just trust. It's not possible to read through node modules, or reason about C compilers, or even inspect the source code of the operating systems.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#186

Post by maest »

ljm wrote: post #180
mattlondon wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often act very entitled about open source I've found. You'll often get angry irate emails/issues raised demanding you help them or add a new feature or whatever. Some people are just clueless and need help, others are just dicks. It is often not worth the hassle in my opinion, but then everyone's circumstances and motivations are different and I am glad that a lot of people do think it is worth it.

If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

Some of the commenters in that issue have a very regressive and myopic stance. Raising such a public ruckus will heavily disincentivise scientists from publishing their code in the future. Decisions will still be made, but in the dark. There's a certain amount of self-stroking going on there with people feeling better by putting down code produced by non-professional programmers.

A much better response would be:

1. Scrutinise end users of the code: demand that governments only use this data if proper due dil has been carried out.

2. Submit code improvements.

3. (maybe) Demand that peer reviewers are more rigorous when checking the way results are generated. The issue with this is that this would also be a strong disincentive for scientist to publish their work.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#187

Post by growse »

sgillen wrote: post #178
cellularmitosis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand this point of view. The author has already given you possibly hundreds of hours of free labor simply by publishing the project. But now, because they won’t give you a few more, they’re a douchebag? Even if they close all issues with no comment, they have given you a such _massive_ head start vs having to write the entire project yourself from scratch. How can you be anything but grateful?

It's just that if you put lot of effort into isolating a bug for someone for free, it can feels bad to have it rejected without explanation. Also if it's a real issue that you won't fix you should at least leave the issue open so other people know. IMO you can definitely be extremely grateful for someone's contribution and also think they are sort of rude, not incompatible views/feeling.

> It's just that if you put lot of effort into isolating a bug for someone for free, it can feels bad to have it rejected without explanation.

Where does that bad feeling come from? Does it come from the fact that you feel like you're owed a response? Do you get the same feeling when you email strangers and they don't respond?

> Also if it's a real issue that you won't fix you should at least leave the issue open so other people know.

> IMO you can definitely be extremely grateful for someone's contribution and also think they are sort of rude, not incompatible views/feeling.

You're not entitled to gratitude. Assuming that people should & will run their own projects according to your values around courtesy is a little self-centred.

If you need the bug fixing and the maintainer isn't doing it fast enough, just fork it. This is the point of open source.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#188

Post by austincheney »

yuribro wrote: post #142
Justsignedup wrote: post #89

I once wrote a library in backbone.js to have a data-synchronized list. It allowed me to provide an array, and it'll keep that array sync'd up to what I saw. I had a kid and a fulltime job and going through a divorce. I happened to use it at my job, but everyone kept asking for me to integrate it into new up and coming repos which I didn't have time for. Honestly I felt bad about not caring, but the reality is that I…

Why would you feel bad? The whole point of open source is they could have done it themselves, if they wanted some integration they needed and you didn't. And then they could either contribute it back, fork your project or just keep it to themselves, if the license allows it. At any rate, you already helped them...

> is they could have done it themselves

Absolutely, but that is often not the expectation. When I have pointed this out in the past people have gotten hysterically angry demonstrating a degree of entitlement. The mere mention they could do it themselves or submit a pull request has been regarded as a hostile personal insult like declaring war or perhaps worse than making sexually profane and racial commentary about their spouse.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#189

Post by growse »

gingerlime wrote: post #81
Jesus_piece wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the point. Maintainers have no obligation to do anything for anyone

No, there is no obligation. But there’s a thing called courtesy. And as humans there are certain social norms. If someone spams me, I will ignore or retaliate by reporting as spam. If someone sends a low effort question, I might politely tell them to rtfm. If someone makes an effort to articulate a problem, even if I disagree, I’ll try to give them a reasoned response. And if I genuinely have no interest in any inter…

> No, there is no obligation. But there’s a thing called courtesy. And as humans there are certain social norms.

In my experience, there are no objective social norms or definition of "courtesy". What's polite in one culture might not be in another. Projecting your own values onto others isn't helpful.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#190

Post by leibnitz27 »

I have an OSS 'fun project' - I'm still amazed by the number of issues/emails I get raised which say:

"You should rewrite in" / "Why does't it do" / "Make it do".

It's nice that people are using it. I generally (try to) assume this is a language/cultural thing, and people don't realise that they're coming across as a bit rude in English.

But, it would be nicer if people approached commenting on OSS by first thinking "Author is doing this for fun, unpaid, and I'm getting something nice out of his/her time", THEN writing their comment.

I'd get the same issues raised, and that's fine. But the language might read a bit nicer.

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