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Sorry everybody, I failed with you

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Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#281

Post by jags »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #233
glangdale wrote: post #98

Seeing a lot of posts like this. Open source is wonderful in its way, but it's really not sustainable to work on projects that make money for other people - including big commercial interests - when they don't help out in any fashion. I'm not just talking money or contributions. I'm talking about simple acknowledgement: "we use project X" - even privately. A open source library that I worked on at Intel (the Hypersca…

I've long believed "open source" is for suckers for exactly this reason. Literally being open source, having the code open for review, isn't a problem. But usually "Open Source" also ends up meaning free as in beer, for EVERYONE, whether you're some college student or a billion dollar company. The only sane, healthy, sustainable license is the "wacky" one you describe: individuals (and possibly even (very) small busi…

I like this idea! Free for small and paid for medium/big. I think the real wisdom lies in taking the middle path (mostly). I recently read how babel, a project used by millions, struggled to keep few full-time developers. It was heart-breaking. Great developers gets glued to the idea of open-for-all at the cost of practicality. It's kind of like how people say "follow your passion" but realistically this approach only works for a a very tiny percentage and rest just struggle to pay their bills. But I am sure some projects out there must have taken this middle path. It would be interesting to know how it worked out for them.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#282

Post by young_unixer »

And Github still doesn't allow you to disable pull requests or issues in a repository.

If I had an open source project, I would not publish it on Githib precisely for this reason. Open source doesn't necessarily imply open development, or horizontal organization, or constant support, or anything. It just implies that the source is open.

Plus, on the Internet it's very hard to tell when someone is demanding something from you from when someone is just making a suggestion.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#283

Post by fourthark »

bin_bash wrote: post #255
supportlocal4h wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of facets to open source contributions. One big facet is the whole itch-scratching thing. If you know longer itch, stop scratching. That's ok. Maybe when you stop scratching, it will start to itch again for you or for someone else. If nobody steps up, it just means it doesn't itch enough. Abandonware is not such a bad thing. It served its purpose for a season, then the world moved on. Nobody's out the…

The hard part of OSS management is dealing with change requests. Something comes in and now it's on the maintainer to ensure that the new fix doesn't break anything existing, or the new feature doesn't collide with anything else that comes down the pipe later. It's not work that can be done by volunteers, it's something that can only be done by long-term maintainers. When I worked on an OSS project I hated getting PR…

Also it hurts all around to tell a hopeful contributor that their code isn't good enough.

Yes, with hours of effort you can make your review relentlessly positive and constructive, but then it still hurts and they probably don't have the ability to fix it.

You'll have to fix it for them, which is often harder than writing it from scratch.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#284

Post by apocalypstyx »

dabockster wrote: post #269
apocalypstyx wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only sane, healthy, sustainable license is the "wacky" one you describe: individuals (and possibly even (very) small businesses) can use it for free. Everyone else needs to pony up. It's absurd that a ton of the software allowing giant corporations to run day-to-day is not only created but ACTIVELY MAINTAINED by an individual or groups of individuals for free, as if they were running a soup kitchen. Microsoft,…

> This is neither free nor open by either the OSI or the FSF's definitions. In the famous words of Peter Griffin, "OH MY GOD WHO THE [expletive] CARES?!!" If someone isn't being paid for their work, then any version of OSS isn't really sustainable long term.

> In the famous words of Peter Griffin, "OH MY GOD WHO THE [expletive] CARES?!!"

The definitions of these terms have existed for decades. Trying to confuse or conflate them is just a slight of hand to generally disingenuous ends. Very little stops people from selling products under whatever terms they want. If they are honest, they can call their product what it is: proprietary. Otherwise it is just using the term 'open' to virtue signal. So 'open' becomes the new 'green'.

> If someone isn't being paid for their work, then any version of OSS isn't really sustainable long term.

Exactly my point.

FOSS (for the most part) can't achieve financial viability in the current economic system (along with several other things).

Electronics are integral to contemporary existence in most of the world.

Without full control over their tools, human beings cannot be free/autonomous.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#285

Post by elric »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #266
elric wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About a decade ago, Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo fame set up fosstithe.org, which was about encouraging companies to set aside some percentage of your profit to donate to FOSS projects. Alas, the website no longer seems to exist. I still think it's a great idea, and every year I donate 5% of my profits to FOSS projects I like. Convincing corporates to do the same is a little trickier. They want things like invoices…

Not every FOSS developer has a consulting gig. But they could! It's as easy as saying "I can consult on $topic, please contact me to discuss details." Then you charge money and do the work.

It's probably not that clear cut. Maybe they have a full time job. Maybe their employer has An Opinion regarding side gigs. Maybe they live somewhere where a side gig comes with a lot of paperwork/taxes so it isn't worth the hassle.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#286

Post by ludamad »

galimaufry wrote: post #280
ergot_vacation wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long believed "open source" is for suckers for exactly this reason. Literally being open source, having the code open for review, isn't a problem. But usually "Open Source" also ends up meaning free as in beer, for EVERYONE, whether you're some college student or a billion dollar company. The only sane, healthy, sustainable license is the "wacky" one you describe: individuals (and possibly even (very) small busi…

GPL is also a possible alternative. Big companies pay you back by contributing to the project, insofar as it is worth it to them to maintain a fork and add features for their own use.

This unfortunately worked much better before it was feasible to hide everything behind a server, having no releases so to speak at all

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#287

Post by rirze »

young_unixer wrote: post #282

And Github still doesn't allow you to disable pull requests or issues in a repository. If I had an open source project, I would not publish it on Githib precisely for this reason. Open source doesn't necessarily imply open development, or horizontal organization, or constant support, or anything. It just implies that the source is open. Plus, on the Internet it's very hard to tell when someone is demanding something…

I'm pretty sure you can archive a repository and disable issues that way. I've seen that happen (unfortunately) to a few libraries I follow.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#288

Post by phh »

galimaufry wrote: post #280
ergot_vacation wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long believed "open source" is for suckers for exactly this reason. Literally being open source, having the code open for review, isn't a problem. But usually "Open Source" also ends up meaning free as in beer, for EVERYONE, whether you're some college student or a billion dollar company. The only sane, healthy, sustainable license is the "wacky" one you describe: individuals (and possibly even (very) small busi…

GPL is also a possible alternative. Big companies pay you back by contributing to the project, insofar as it is worth it to them to maintain a fork and add features for their own use.

Sadly, GPL doesn't give you that. It only gives users the modified source code. No history, no time of fork. And nothing to the developer.

I think it might be time to upgrade GPL to the age of modern internet, and have licenses requiring that modification are actually PR-ed (or sent by mail or whatever) to the author.

Hell I'd even think that there could be licenses where you are required to use mainline for anything remotely looking like production, and you are not allowed to fork, you're only allowed to use as-is, and to contribute. This one would definitely not be considered FLOSS, but some components really would benefit from not having an infinite number of forks, like the Linux kernel.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#289

Post by zacmps »

ludamad wrote: post #286
galimaufry wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL is also a possible alternative. Big companies pay you back by contributing to the project, insofar as it is worth it to them to maintain a fork and add features for their own use.

This unfortunately worked much better before it was feasible to hide everything behind a server, having no releases so to speak at all

Is this not the purpose of AGPL?

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#290

Post by Waterluvian »

Tangentially related: My personal opinion is that github UI should make it bloody obvious by default "this project does not provide support." Maybe even with the issue tracker disabled by default.

There's a kind of pressure that can come from an unsolicited email of a real human explaining how your project is broken for them.

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