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

51–60 of 357 posts

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#51

Post by progx »

andrewstuart wrote: post #34

The pattern is familiar: * open source project * success * no monetary reward, maybe just cost * burnout * project abandoned This is why I don't try to make any open source projects - what's the gain? I'd only do it if it paid money. If people aren't willing to pay then I'm not willing to work.

You don't have to do OS, you can if you want.

It could be fun.

The hope to find similar people who really want to work on the project too and split the workload for everybody.

Giving something back: i use so many OS tools, so i give back a tool that a made to solve a problem for me, hopefully it could solve problems for others.

On the other side, you don't have to maintain an OS project, you can publish it "as is".

I know people that publish basic OS software and sell their time to extend the project to the needs of customers. (so it could be a business model)

Burnout is not a OS specific problem, it is something that anybody has to learn and find his own limits. I hope the post author learned how to deal with it in the last year.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#52

Post by enumjorge »

zx2391 wrote: post #36

I maintain OS projects and my stance is simple: I'll fix thing, that are broken - mostly because I want things to work. I won't add new features for you, unless I really see the appeal. If you come up with a PR, nice! I'll take the time to review, but even for that there is no guarantee. The same limits I impose on the community I fully expect to follow when working with any OS project. Period. Remember, in that "oth…

I don’t know why paying for someone’s time and effort is a bad thing. If anything, undervalued/unpaid labor seems a little dystopian, especially when some large companies are getting value out of someone’s volunteer work without giving anything back.

I get the value of free software, but lately it feels like OS went from geeks sharing code because we value knowledge, to people who use the software making demands on someone else’s personal time.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#53

Post by mschuster91 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #34

The pattern is familiar: * open source project * success * no monetary reward, maybe just cost * burnout * project abandoned This is why I don't try to make any open source projects - what's the gain? I'd only do it if it paid money. If people aren't willing to pay then I'm not willing to work.

> I'd only do it if it paid money. If people aren't willing to pay then I'm not willing to work.

Would a form of UBI, together with 20 or 30 hours work week work for you? I seriously wonder what the state of open-source hardware and software would be if society would focus on redistributing automation gains more.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#54

Post by ivanbakel »

progx wrote: post #15
vbezhenar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you estimate a share? What's the share of libc in Google business? What's the share of openssl? What's the share of ncurses?

libc used in Android. openssl -> view boringSSL - BoringSSL is a fork of OpenSSL that is designed to meet Google's needs Nobody says that one company has to support every project and google supports many open source projects.

But how would you estimate the contribution that libc has to Android? Is libc entitled to 10% of Android's revenue? 20%? 100%, since it is a vital component? This is what the GP was asking.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#55

Post by genezeta »

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'm not sure if it's "become" rare or rarer. But in a way Github, npm, or maybe it was just ourselves in general... but we seem to have promoted the idea of "build it and they will come" to an unrealistic level.

While interested people will come, I think it is rare that a distant and complete stranger will suddenly appear and not only share your same interests but also with the same level of compromise. And given that some projects now seem to suffer sudden popularity growths as flavour of the month -or week-, it would also be rare that such a person or persons would appear before that happens and the pressure suddenly increases.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#56

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…

Also to refute your point here, I would say that there's not really that many project maintainers that just totally go rogue and kill the whole project. An event that was most similar to what I describe here is the Freenode boogaloo, and you can see that users started to move to Libera.Chat. If you advertise your product as community oriented and do stuff that your community despises then you basically have just shoot yourself in the foot.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#57

Post by progx »

ivanbakel wrote: post #54
progx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

libc used in Android. openssl -> view boringSSL - BoringSSL is a fork of OpenSSL that is designed to meet Google's needs Nobody says that one company has to support every project and google supports many open source projects.

But how would you estimate the contribution that libc has to Android? Is libc entitled to 10% of Android's revenue? 20%? 100%, since it is a vital component? This is what the GP was asking.

Only google can answer that. But i think we can not say one lib make x%, it are all the libs and tools that are necessary. We don't now what e.g. google search uses under the hood, but all are needed so google can make only $1.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#58

Post by muyuu »

ans123 wrote: post #30
krapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't own the open source software you write, so you don't have the right to make demands of its users beyond what the license stipulates. That companies can make billions with your software and not owe you so much as a cup of coffee is not the dark side of open source, it's an expression of the same freedom that allows you to fork and reuse any FOSS software under the same terms. If you want to require payment f…

Please stop the misinformation: Open source authors do own their IP, but are altruistic enough to license it to others. In the long term, altruism only works if there aren't too many leeches. Up to 2010, OSS authors at least got recognition, could stay aloof and in general weren't little corporate bitches. Now, this has changed, so there is no longer any point of writing OSS for free. The corporations have won their…

once you distribute your code under a permissive licence, you typically don't get to undo that surrender of control over your work

in that sense ownership is relative, for better or worse

writing OSS will always make sense, for certain kinds of projects and perhaps without expecting much compensation fo it most of the time

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#59

Post by icoder »

GuB-42 wrote: post #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 ti…

To maintain something you will need a match between what type of person is needed and what type of person is available. To start something, any type (well, very simply put) of person will do, often the need emerges from what they initiate.

This may also explain the imbalance you see.

Having said that, I also think that just as often it _seems_ no one is available, until someone steps down and things do turn out allright. Of course this idea that a project will stop if the passionate individual stops is based on exactly the observation you describe! So that fuels the idea but you'll never know until you stop.

Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you

#60

Post by icoder »

sokoloff wrote: post #46
wccrawford wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Sure, one thing (it being OK to drop an already open source project) doesn't exclude the other (suggesting a fork if there happen to be any).
Post reply on HN