“Please don't add any of my stuff to this project” • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by stavros » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

reidjs wrote: post #9

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.

One of the comments: "As the author of the package that is being re-packaged here. I'm against it being repacked into here. While licensing wise I cannot stop you, I do hope you can honor my request. Thank you for considering respecting the author's wishes." It seems more like a matter of respect than a matter of law.

The Nix maintainers asked very nicely whether there was a specific reason and whether they could work with the author to solved it. The author just said "no, just don't include my stuff", which he technically didn't have the right to say after releasing the code as FOSS.

You can't demand respect from the Nix folks after disrespecting them by telling them to do something "just because".

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

#62

Post by barbazoo » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #15

I am reminded of jwz, debian, and xscreensaver (Not linking to jwz's blog from HN because... he doesn't want it to be.)

> Not linking to jwz's blog from HN because... he doesn't want it to be

I don't think ... that's how the internet works?

(edit: I mean the "because... he doesn't want it to be" part)

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

#63

Post by mcguire » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

kissgyorgy wrote: post #42

If you don't understand the authors frustration, read Daniel Stenberg blog about what kind of requests he gets about curl. It's insane and ridiculous, not everybody is capable of/wanting to deal with all kinds of shit and hostile users like Daniel.

So...don't publish software? That's part of the game, no?

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

#64

Post by gameswithgo » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #50

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…

Sometimes when a package gets very popular other people step up to help, or take over. Other times the maintainer has a mental breakdown or just disappears.

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

#65

Post by bjt2n3904 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

This is an extremely odd request for something licensed as MIT.

Especially since the code layer is so thin. The project has existed for a week, and consists of 360 lines of python, most of which are get/set on what I think is JSON.

Edit: Geez. Half the commits are bumping dependencies. The project is incredibly clean and beautifully structured, but gosh...

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

#66

Post by lappa » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

arthurcolle wrote: post #11

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

Seems that he wants pypi and pip to be the exclusive distribution mechanisms for his project. He wants to avoid handling bugs that come from his project being packaged through other means.

He misunderstands how nixos works and suggests that Home Assistant will be able to install his package via pip on nixos.

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

#67

Post by archontes » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

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…

Yeah, they went above and beyond trying to mollify the original author, in my opinion.

I would have forked his repo, and said, "We'll be happy not to include any of your code. We'll just use this forked repo which is now our code."

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

#68

Post by eganist » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #64

eganist wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sometimes when a package gets very popular other people step up to help, or take over. Other times the maintainer has a mental breakdown or just disappears.

> Sometimes when a package gets very popular other people step up to help, or take over. Other times the maintainer has a mental breakdown or just disappears.

It sounds like this author is looking for a third option, one that doesn't involve people management (1) or ghosting (2), and as far as I can tell, no mechanism for this exists that doesn't violate the current tenets of open source.

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

#69

Post by MaxBarraclough » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #38

steveklabnik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, yes, but then when the NixOS folks offer something like: requiring users to explicitly set config.ambee.acceptThatThisPackageIsNotSupportedByUpstreamDevelopersAndIWillGoToNixpkgsToReportAnyIssues = true to be able to install the package, or they would get an error that would make it even clearer. Would that be enough for you? the author replies just: I feel like I'm starting to be on repeat now. Please don't…

Perhaps forking 'fully', and rebranding the fork, could be another option. That might help redirect the support burden downstream.

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

#70

Post by ticviking » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #50

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…

I've observed basically 2 sustainable patterns here.

1. Some kind of forum/wiki starts providing community support and increase community contributions pick up the burden

2. Some business starts supporting this component and picks up a lot of the burden because they fix things that cause them pain in their business.

I've never seen a single person passion project be both open source and well supported for a long period of time without healthy community engagement.