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FOSS "just fork it" delusion

hamishcampbell.com

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Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#31

Post by mariusor »

Another person that isn't able to make the distinction between developing software and operating platforms and imagining that everyone else is equally befuddled.

The article is also quite wrong, because there are already multiple forks of the original Mastodon code base, which have communities that adopted them. Not at the same magnitude as mastodon.social, but not negligible either.

> The result is lost value, lost history, and lost trust – rinse, repeat, move on.

I hate, hate, hate when someone that's on the side of building things proscribes what the people that actually do build should spend their effort on. I don't see Mr. Campbell building communities, fostering cooperation and gathering funds so that people can better work together instead of apart on things.

This kind of article is an empty, preachy, hot take which misses the point that open source is about communities of builders, not about communities of users, and is uselessly antagonistic against a whole category of people for basically no reward.

~~And that implication at the bottom that forking, as opposed to "collaboration", is close to fascism is a level of being so far up their ass that gets my humors up and my blood boiling.~~ [edit] This juxtaposition between the article about forking and the one about fascism might not be intentional by the author, but it's still an unhealthy implication to leave on.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#32

Post by maybewhenthesun »

I don't really understand these sort of articles. If something is closed source and the original owners quit or decide they move to a subscription model or whatever then you're just screwed no matter what.

When the possibility of forking exist there's at least a chance someone (or you yourself) takes over maintenance. Even if it's just basic 'port it to newer systems' stuff.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#34

Post by analog31 »

A middle ground is "just write a plug-in." What I mean is, I like programs that provide a mechanism for scripting, adding a plug-in, whatever. This allows you to add a feature and perhaps even maintain it in your own repo, without trying to manage the entire project yourself.

Of course it only works for some kinds of changes, and not total structural or cultural revision, but still it seems to be a part of many of the most vibrant open source projects.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#35

Post by zozbot234 »

It's not a delusion, it's reality. The Right-To-Fork is a critical part of the proper definition of FLOSS, and key to its success. OP is just saying that maintaining a FOSS project is hard, but who cares? Maintenance is open to forking too: if you think an existing maintainer is doing a bad job of it, you can just take that code wholesale and maintain a version of it on your own.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#36

Post by chii »

boltzmann-brain wrote: post #29
jamesbelchamber wrote: post #12

I think the wisdom of "just fork it" is that in a project the power lies with the people who do the work (yes, that power is often rented out in exchange for a pay cheque), and in an open source project you have the right to do that work without kowtowing to the authority of other people who did the work before you ("just fork it"). The important point lost in many of these anti-fork posts is that forks usually aren'…

in 30+ years of software development i've never heard "just fork it" or "you're welcome to fork it" used as an encouragement and i've heard it as a dismissal countless times. the article is spot on, and your interpretation of the described real-life situation is a rosy-tinted hypothetical at best.

> i've heard it as a dismissal countless times.

a project owner have the right to be dismissive about anything regarding their own project. This is why "just fork it" is both dismissive, but also power.

If you are simply asking a project owner to do somethings you wanted (often for free, i might add), then why shouldn't they be dismissive?

If you have an idea for said project that the owner is dismissive about, then you fork it - prove that the idea is good.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#38

Post by lezojeda »

verall wrote: post #20

> That’s not empowerment – it’s fragmentation > This isn’t resilience, it’s entropy > That’s not openness, that’s abdication > Just fork it” hides power, it doesn’t challenge it > is not about obedience to maintainers. It’s about stewardship of commons. > the goal isn’t endless new projects. It’s shared infrastructure It's Not A Blog Post — It's Moralizing Slop

[dead]

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#39

Post by zozbot234 »

jamesbelchamber wrote: post #12

I think the wisdom of "just fork it" is that in a project the power lies with the people who do the work (yes, that power is often rented out in exchange for a pay cheque), and in an open source project you have the right to do that work without kowtowing to the authority of other people who did the work before you ("just fork it"). The important point lost in many of these anti-fork posts is that forks usually aren'…

> forks usually aren't hostile

This. You can't even issue a Git pull/merge request without technically forking the project first! It's super common.

Re: FOSS "just fork it" delusion

#40

Post by kmaitreys »

verall wrote: post #20

> That’s not empowerment – it’s fragmentation > This isn’t resilience, it’s entropy > That’s not openness, that’s abdication > Just fork it” hides power, it doesn’t challenge it > is not about obedience to maintainers. It’s about stewardship of commons. > the goal isn’t endless new projects. It’s shared infrastructure It's Not A Blog Post — It's Moralizing Slop

Half the comments on this forum itself have this incessant it's not X, it's y" pattern.

i would think humans would start writing in a way that doesn't scream ai generated writing by now, or perhaps the internet is truly dead

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