Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sorry everybody, I failed with you

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 357 posts

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#41

Post by muyuu »

ulzeraj wrote: post #21
intricatedetail wrote: post #6

That's the dark side of open source. Companies think these projects grow on trees and they use them without paying anything. We need law changes to ensure that open source can be sustainable and companies pay the fair share of revenue they make by using it.

> We need law changes to ensure that open source can be sustainable and companies pay the fair share of revenue they make by using it. We don't need more laws. There is something called a License Agreement. However if you publish your stuff on GPL and other permissive licenses you can't really complain about Amazon, Google and Microsoft making millions on your code while you beg for donations on your Github page.

not sure why are you being downvoted, you have accurately described the incentive structure leading to these situations

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#42

Post by GuB-42 »

radarsat1 wrote: post #7

Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense…

Often a project, a club, or even a company only hold because of one passionate individual. Once he is gone, it is the end. It is very hard to find someone with the same level of motivation. Projects stop being maintained, clubs cease activities, and companies get taken over for short term profit.

It is particularly apparent in schools. Students start something, then they graduate and do something else. Most of the times, no one takes over, at least not in a sustainable way.

It is not always the case, but it is the most common outcome. Simply, I think there are simply more people who want to start something than there are people who want to lead somebody else's project.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#43

Post by rvz »

dgb23 wrote: post #13
rvz wrote: post #3

> ...People want a lot of things from you and your project, big companies are using the project and need a lot of things as well from it in order to keep their projects healthy, but in most of the cases this is a talk in just one way. There are more people interest in have things from you, than help! And this crashed me If they are all users of your open source software and are begging for features for free, ignore t…

We don't know how much pay/sponsorship was the issue here. It seems to me that the maintainer was simply overworked and slept very, very little. This is bearable for a certain amount of time but after that one really has to look after themselves, regardless of financial interests or a crash is inevitable.

True, burnout is inevitable with a single developer. That's why paid support or sponsorship is used to hire more developers / contributors to reduce the risk of the project stagnating due to one developer burning out.

Either way, no developer wants to do free work on someone else's deadline and it is always done in their own time, unless they want to pay for the effort.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#44

Post by wccrawford »

radarsat1 wrote: post #7

Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense…

"I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?"

I've seen lots of these calls for help fail.

And someone else points out: It's open source. Literally anyone can continue the work at any time. There's no need for the original creator to find someone else to continue it. Anyone can just do it.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#45

Post by fxtentacle »

bawolff wrote: post #39
arkitaip wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the insane entitlement that many devs have when it comes to open source? Getting bombarded with requests and angry emails from people who demand free support and bug fixes can burn anyone out. I think Github can be a positive force for change here. Redesign the UI to encourage donations, to encourage people to get involved in project work, to write less hostile issues, etc. If devs and designers can weaponi…

I wonder if this is a back-firing of the push for people to be "nice" and "professional". Open source maintainers used to have the sterotype of being rather harsh, and basically telling people to f off if they had stupid questions, didn't RTFM or didn't follow cultural norms. And dont get me wrong, there's a lot wrong with that, but maybe it was also that way for a reason.

Agree. I'm active in some communities that are unfriendly if not outright hostile towards newcomers.

I'm sure they lose a good amount of potential contributers that way. But the few newcomers that remain are highly motivated.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#46

Post by sokoloff »

wccrawford wrote: post #44
radarsat1 wrote: post #7

Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense…

"I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?" I've seen lots of these calls for help fail. And someone else points out: It's open source. Literally anyone can continue the work at any time. There's no need for the original creator to find someone else to continue it. Anyone can just do it.

There’s a community aspect to consider though. You and I could both decide to continue some open-source project. The community will (reasonably and maybe even “rightly”) look to the original maintainer for guidance on which 0, 1, or 2 forks they suggest to continue.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#47

Post by gbmark »

antran22 wrote: post #25
intricatedetail wrote: post #6

That's the dark side of open source. Companies think these projects grow on trees and they use them without paying anything. We need law changes to ensure that open source can be sustainable and companies pay the fair share of revenue they make by using it.

The point of open source is people can use it freely. A better project, which hits the right spots will naturally attract financial and technical support, both from the companies and the community. It is really just a free market, where the best projects survive.

Financial support is pretty arbitrary and not related to quality, user numbers or importance of the software.

OpenSSL has only recently received support despite powering all the Internet infrastructure for decades.

Xorg, xterm etc. have received very little or nothing. Same for most Unix system tools.

Projects that receive the most are "open" source corporate vanity projects that are also used for bait-and-switch hiring.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#48

Post by mschuster91 »

radarsat1 wrote: post #7

Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense…

> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?

There are few projects that actually get used for longer than a couple years at most, the churn (especially in JS projects) is massive. You'll always find people to work on Big Old Stuff that's used everywhere - think Linux kernel, Qt/KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird, libc, gcc, LLVM, jQuery, ReactJS - but the small stuff that gets disrupted ehhh replaced by some shinier newer toy? That will eventually diminish and die off, when the original author either has all their needs met, burns out or no longer needs the project.

Additionally, all of the above projects have massive financial firepower and/or other institutional backing behind them that contributes either with direct man hours or financial grants.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#49

Post by fxtentacle »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #29
KirillPanov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really something to be said for software that is so ruthlessly simple it runs forever without maintenance. Like most of what DJB has written: djbdns still works after all these years... And of course Knuth's TeX. Maybe people shouldn't start software projects if there isn't a "can leave it here unmaintained" milestone within sight.

> Maybe people shouldn't start software projects if there isn't a "can leave it here unmaintained" milestone within sight. It's because these projects have tons of dependencies and moving parts which tend to break themselves (often for very little reasons) so of course it's going to affect upstream. The software you listed are usually mostly self-contained or rely on stable projects. There is no such thing as "stabil…

I think you just said exactly what the parent comment meant.

Nodejs is the new Java jar dependency hell.

Maybe package the entire project into a docker container so that people can download and run the pile of dependencies in one step.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#50

Post by antran22 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #28
antran22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, if the new project maintainers go against the community, but the community really need to use it, the community will just fork out a new path and move on. If the project is really open source.

I don’t think that really happens, anymore. Twenty years ago, they would have done that, but these days, someone would just write a replacement from scratch (quite possibly, proprietary), or everyone would abandon it, along with their own projects that depend on it. Most open-source (and closed-source) APIs and SDKs are “Swiss Army knife” projects, with many functions that serve many purposes. Most API consumers use…

I think we are straying from the point of FOSS once we talk about money. If I start a new open source project, it will be my gift to the world, and I expect to gain nothing from it financially. If Google make a billion bucks from my project then I'm sure some other dudes running a startup is using it too, and if my project helps them then I'm happy. If my help is not appreciated, lotsa luck gentlemen ;)

As I have made my point before, if all I want is money I would spend my time working a paying job. But money is not everything isn't it?

Post reply on HN