Trouble with Diaspora

Post by dabent » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 5:02 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #19

cies wrote: post #17

"Release early, release often" (an open source mantra). Here on HN i also find the 'getto launch' being preached -- "if you not embarrest by your product at lauch-time, you should have released earlier". Judging from the noise their release makes here on HN i think the diaspora guys did well opening up their repo 'early'. And to steve: i think you hold 'professional programmers' (which i interpret as programmer that…

There are a few reasons why this is worse: first, they are launching to media attention and a rabid community. BCC sucked at launch, but no one saw it, so yay. (And by sucked, I mean looked ugly, not "Anyone can delete all your documents at will.") Diaspora has thousands of end users already. Some seeds have 200+. They are launched. Not prealpha. Launched. Their entire reason for existing is "Facebook but private". A…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

cmars232 wrote: post #40

jarin wrote: post #31

I'm not even sure it's worth submitting patches to Diaspora, both because of the fundamental problems with the code, but also because of their "Open Core" licensing scheme (AGPL + contributor agreement): http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/10/16/open-core-shareware... Looking through the code, it looks like Diaspora is really just putting a front end and "aspects" on top of OStatus. I think it might be good at this po…

At its core, the real value in something like Diaspora is its protocols. If you disagree with the license, or the language they chose, why not make your own implementation from scratch that can federate with it. If it survives, I might do this... I think their approach is fine for rolling out a private enterprise FB or creating an alternative hosting solution, but I'd like to see an even more decentralized solution.…

Post by RyanMcGreal » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 5:06 PM UTC

mayank wrote: post #2

It's great that they're getting so much open-source help, but I'm going to ask the obvious question: if a "complete overhaul" is what's needed, as the author seems to imply, and the FOSS community performs said overhaul, then what of the $250k that was given to the Diaspora guys? Is it still even "Diaspora" anymore, as opposed to a FOSS project?

Post by jokermatt999 » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 5:10 PM UTC

Maro wrote: post #42

At least somebody's got a sense of humor: Github issue #8: "Facebook has a majority market share" http://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues#issue/8

Post by jordanmessina » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 5:12 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #38

First people bitch and whine because they are working "in secret" and not releasing code. Then they release and everyone freaks out because it's not finished. I guess the only way everyone would be happy would be if they released a completed project after a week.