Responsible Open Source Code Parenting

People are constantly changing directions, and constantly trying out new things which may or may not be useful to them in the future. We're all better off if that code gets released. In turn, we can't expect people to support code they may no longer use, or may not have ever really cared about in the first place.

It should be clear that running an open source project is something completely different. If you make an attempt to start a community, you probably should keep up with that community, or at least responsibly exit it. But people usually build communities around things that are really important to them, or that they have an ulterior motive for advocating (not necessarily a bad motive, just one beyond pure open source).

From where I'm sitting, if Gruber isn't adding anything to the community, he should have been made irrelevant by that community.

IMO any situation where that behaviour is undesirable is an edge case and should require more effort to work around.

Decades? I doubt that.

And no, you're not being too harsh. In fact, I think you might be too kind.

The issue here is that Gruber seems to be satisfied with Markdown-the-language, and Atwood (and many others) aren't.

Obviously, Atwood could just create a new markup language derived from Markdown (like MultiMarkdown). But then he can't call it Markdown. He wants the best of both worlds, and he's not going to get it. And that's his problem, not ours.

Atwood's account of history here is misleading, judging by the mailing list he quotes. He is unfair to accuse Gruber of being "passive aggressive". I'll talk at the end about why the accusation is part of the gratis labor movement.

The discussions started in February of 2008. Joseph Lorenzo Hall asked if anyone has considered forking Markdown.pl "hopefully with Gruber's blessing".

In reply, Tomas Doran mentions that maintains a CPAN module called Text::Markdown and that he would like this to be the fork or, "if [he] can get John to agree and approve - [to] become the 'official' maintained version which is linked from daringfireball [Gruber's web site]."

In short, the question arose which we can paraphrase: "Would Gruber give his name to bless Text::Markdown as the successor project of his earlier work?"

Gruber responded fairly directly that he does not like the way Doran has maintained Text::Markup (and he gives technical reasons why). He asserts that he would not like that to become the 'official' version of Markup.

From that, Atwood somehow gets "passive aggressive".

Why is that a "gratis labor" play? Atwood asserts that Gruber now has a problem and that he would not have that problem if between 2004 and 2008 he had given away labor to manage an open source community. That Gruber did not give away such labor makes him a "negligent parent". Evidence of the bad parenting is to be found in Gruber's alleged bad attitude, visible in his "passive aggression".

We ought to ask what effects such pronouncements have, especially coming from a prominent blogger. I can think of two that are quite conceivable (and jive with my own experience): First, let's suppose that Gruber decides to apply for a job somewhere and happens to mention on his resume that he has some experience with free software or "open source" projects. Recruiters are often advised to scan for articles like Atwoods to weed out (or in) resumes. In this case, the accusation that Gruber is a "negligent parent" with a bad attitude hurts his chances of getting hired. It especially hurts that this accusation comes from Atwood. Second, consider what happens if Gruber wants now to start a project and solicit public volunteers. The first time he makes a project decision someone doesn't like, there's every chance that someone opposed will say something like "This is no different from how Gruber handled Markup.pl. We should just fork away from him and move on." Yes, that kind of thing really happens.

So the Atwood's of the world are creating and helping to enforce a set of social norms within the so-called "open source community" in which failing to give away labor upon demand, or standing up for a technical decision when it is inconvenient for others - these are grounds for marking and ostracism.

Quite absent from Atwood's hit piece is any consideration of why Gruber was inactive on Markdown.pl for those years or why declining to endorse Doran's fork might be quite appropriate. Atwood just wants to generate some smoke, it seems.

Turnabout is fair play? Perhaps Mr. Atwood should next answer the question "When did you stop beating your wife?" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question )