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“Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

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Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#41

Post by coreyoconnor »

arthurcolle wrote: post #11

Can someone elucidate why he is so against "his" code being used in this project?

The reason is the concern that users will confuse issues with the project with issues with how the project is distributed in Nixpkgs. He doesn't want to have to support nixpkgs.

There are likely multiple root causes. The whole space of issue management around libraries and applications using those libraries is a horrible and abusive mess. In my experience, between an application using a library and a library users will target whichever is easiest; not most applicable. Plus, most opensource user support is a fucking chore (you'd need to pay me for these days) that's unsustainable.

Another cause is likely the cost of nixpkgs contributions themselves. Personally, I no longer contribute to nixpkgs because even for tiny changes the process is ridiculously expensive. That's not including the cost of getting up to speed with nix/nixpkgs and the, often, highly opinionated packaging.

nixpkgs needs to be broken up into multiple independently distributable packages.

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#43

Post by nailer »

elmerfud wrote: post #8

Seems like an author that doesn't understand the spirit of FOSS. The nixos team was clearly allowed to use it and include it when asking for some technical merits as to why, and even offering many alternative options to appease the author the author seemed to just childishly stamp their feet and say, "because I said so". Eventually the author took the position of "taking my ball and going home". Why is a person like…

He doesn’t understand the letter of OSS either. Limiting who can distribute a project means it no longer meets the Open Source Definition and is therefore not OSS.

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#44

Post by TheChaplain »

elmerfud wrote: post #8

Seems like an author that doesn't understand the spirit of FOSS. The nixos team was clearly allowed to use it and include it when asking for some technical merits as to why, and even offering many alternative options to appease the author the author seemed to just childishly stamp their feet and say, "because I said so". Eventually the author took the position of "taking my ball and going home". Why is a person like…

Legally yes they are allowed and can ignore the author as they like.

They can also act as a bigger person and say "Sure, we understand, respect your wish and will find an alternative."

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#45

Post by oauea »

Arnavion wrote: post #10

The package author has gone on to open issues for their other Python packages too - https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/created_by/frenck - currently five open (and locked) issues.

"Upset open source developer spams other open source repository"?

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#47

Post by stavros »

prepend wrote: post #14
sneak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's wishes are formally and legally specified in the copyright license to the code he wrote, which is MIT and allows redistribution. Everything else is simply noise. Once you make your software free, it isn't yours any longer and your opinions about it (or what others do with it) aren't relevant.

This is why we can’t have nice things. The project could have pinned the version and downloaded from pypi rather than repackaging. This isn’t a situation of “can do” it was “is it nice to do.” And the author mentioned that he’s changing the license to prevent it so it no longer becomes possible legally. I typically don’t like authors demanding stuff outside their license, but this started as a simple technical/commun…

> The project could have pinned the version and downloaded from pypi rather than repackaging.

It couldn't, since Nix is a package manager and will only download things from its repository. It can't access the internet otherwise.

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#48

Post by Zancarius »

pfraze wrote: post #2

Really seems like you need to respect the author’s wishes here, but the tension between author and community can get complicated with FOSS. Open source is a contract with your audience that the code can be used freely. Authors gain their audience because of that contract, so there’s some obligation for them to respect that. That said, respect flows both ways, and I’ve had FOSS code get repackaged to steal credit whic…

> (That’s not the issue here but it touches on the same challenge.)

I don't think so. The "problem" here is that the author doesn't want nixos to repackage his library because he's concerned about a "support burden" imposed, presumably, by nixos users who might get confused and report issues to him instead of the packager. I can vaguely understand where he's coming from, but being as his library in question[1] doesn't even have a single issue submitted, I can't help but feel that the "support burden" is either a consequence of paranoia or an excuse to have his sources pulled from nixos.

Worse, his package is being pulled--if I'm not mistaken--as a dependency of home-automation. So this is a totally different issue than yours.

As the sibling poster said, once you license something under a FOSS license, your intentions are pretty clear. If you don't want that to happen, pick a different (non-free?) license. Saying "this is open source, but I don't want $CLASS_OF_USER using it" no longer makes it open source by definition and thus no longer a free license.

His solution is to release a new version distributed under a license denying repackaging of his code, which is one solution, but that's almost certainly going to cause his package to get forked from an earlier version (under MIT) or dropped from home-automation.

Either way, this issue is going to get resolved, and I suspect it'll be resolved in a way he doesn't like. This should be a warning to anyone distributing under FOSS licenses: If you're squeamish about any vague possibility that someone, somewhere, might--maybe--post an issue on your issue tracker that has something to do with a use case you didn't plan, then you really ought to not distribute it under a FOSS license.

[1] https://github.com/frenck/python-ambee/issues

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#49

Post by shadowgovt »

steveklabnik wrote: post #17
arthurcolle wrote: post #11

Can someone elucidate why he is so against "his" code being used in this project?

He says early in the thread: > If users experiencing issues with the ambee library in this package, they will knock on my door. And I'm not willing to support that or accept that burden. Especially as I don't see a good repacking reason in this case.

That's an extremely valid concern, but one that seems easily addressed via an FAQ.

"I'm running into some issues with ambee..."

"First, make sure you aren't using the version in nixpkgs. I do not support that distribution and cannot help you."

Re: “Please don't add any of my stuff to this project”

#50

Post by eganist »

elmerfud wrote: post #8

Seems like an author that doesn't understand the spirit of FOSS. The nixos team was clearly allowed to use it and include it when asking for some technical merits as to why, and even offering many alternative options to appease the author the author seemed to just childishly stamp their feet and say, "because I said so". Eventually the author took the position of "taking my ball and going home". Why is a person like…

It seems like the reason is (paraphrasing) "because I can't meet the resulting burden of support."

which is something I haven't really seen anything in the open source world manage, though that might be because I'm not much of a contributor. What happens if a utility explodes in usage and the author can no longer effectively support it as a result of being buried in overhead?

Are there any mechanisms for limiting how much of one's life an author signs away to their project (without feeling compelled to grow an operation) while still retaining an Open Source designation?

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