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Open source is not about you (2018)

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Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#61

Post by shermantanktop »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #44

Counterpoints: - You are entitled to human decency. Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project. This is a common thing in a lot of projects; maintainers have power, and this allows them to be rude without concern. Not ok. - As a maintainer, if you publish your work as open source, you already acknowledge you are engaging with an entire community, culture, and ethos. We all know how it works: you…

Maintainers are sometimes not perfect. But they are providing known value, and you are trying to add something with unknown value. That's an asymmetry which doesn't look like a mutual exchange. So I'd downgrade most of the hard obligations you describe to "it's really smart to do this."

I agree with the behavioral observations. People shouldn't be assholes just because they can. That applies to everyone everywhere. Reminding someone with a bit of power to not be a petty tyrant is fine with me.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#62

Post by pessimizer »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #44

Counterpoints: - You are entitled to human decency. Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project. This is a common thing in a lot of projects; maintainers have power, and this allows them to be rude without concern. Not ok. - As a maintainer, if you publish your work as open source, you already acknowledge you are engaging with an entire community, culture, and ethos. We all know how it works: you…

> Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project.

Everybody gets to be rude. They don't need your permission.

The rest of this is you just sort of making up standards that you're asserting that other people are obligated by "human decency" to adhere to. You're demanding ownership of other people's time and effort, and declaring that this obligation is triggered by the fact that they've already freely given of their own time and effort. You're the person who has been fed once and sues on those grounds to be fed forever.

If you, yourself, don't want to be rude, maybe reframe this as a list of suggestions that you think might be helpful to interact with people like you.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#63

Post by blenderob »

dakiol wrote: post #42

> As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy. For example, if you show courtesy by contributing to an open source project and following all the guidelines they have, I think it's fair to assume that courtesy will be shown in return. I know that m…

> I understand what the author means, but I think that in any human-2-human interaction, we are all entitled to at least basic courtesy.

Correct. The article does not disagree with you.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#64

Post by 29athrowaway »

Open source has many altruistic and smart people that like to learn and build while benefiting others.

But then you also have high ego people motivated by building a personal brand, prestige and status... and open source is just means to that end. While their contributions are valuable, conflicts of interest arise.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#65

Post by Linux-Fan »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #44

Counterpoints: - You are entitled to human decency. Maintainers don't get to be rude just because they run a project. This is a common thing in a lot of projects; maintainers have power, and this allows them to be rude without concern. Not ok. - As a maintainer, if you publish your work as open source, you already acknowledge you are engaging with an entire community, culture, and ethos. We all know how it works: you…

> - Since maintainers do owe basic human politeness, and they know people will be interacting with them, maintainers do owe this culture some form of communication of their intentions. If they don't want to take any changes, put that in CONTRIBUTING and turn off GH PRs. If they want to take changes, but no AI changes, put that in CONTRIBUTING. If they don't want to do support, turn off GH Issues. If they require a specific 10-point series of steps before they look at a PR or Issue, put that in CONTRIBUTING. It's on the user to read this document and follow it - but it's on you to create it, so they know how to interface with you.

In general it is already in the license. Even permissive licenses like Expat have (in ALL CAPS no less)

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO [...]

There is zero need to indicate anything about CONTRIBUTING whatsoever because already it is clear that the developer already indicates that nothing can be taken for granted.

Of course it helps to be open about expectations.

I for instance don't put CONTRIBUTING instructions online but so far all of my stuff gets so little attention that I have received almost no feedback about my free software at all.

To me, this is perfectly OK and in line with the expectation that I for instance put my code online mostly for my own benefit. If it helps anyone else, all the better. But don't derive any more expectations from it because it's free...?

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#66

Post by didgetmaster »

For those who maintain FOSS projects: How often when a user requests/demands your attention to support/fix/enhance the project to suit their particular needs, do they actually pay you something once you explain that what they are asking for, comes with a price?

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#67

Post by LegionMammal978 »

intrasight wrote: post #26
1313ed01 wrote: post #18

I think community development with repos out in the open and all that is increasingly a too high cost. I will migrate my little open source projects from GitHub as soon as I can decide on what site to post source code releases (tar.gz). Happy to share my code, but no need for everything to be out in the open.

I fail to see the difference between public on github or public elsewhere.

IME, on GitHub (or the other major public repo services), it's far more likely than not that I can pull up an old version of a project from 10 years ago if I want to experiment with it. (In case other old things used it as a dependency, I really want to reproduce an old result, etc.)

On the vast majority of other distribution platforms, it's at best a 50/50 as to whether (a) the platform still exists with any of its contents, and (b) the authors haven't wiped all the old versions to clear up space or whatever. The former typically fails on academic personal websites (which generally get dumped within 5-15 years), and the latter typically fails on SourceForge-style sites.

That is to say, I am not a big fan of the popular alternatives to Git repos as a distribution method.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#68

Post by SoftTalker »

joshlemer wrote: post #22
belval wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting world for sure, I maintain a somewhat popular package and got a form to fill from a Deloitte consultant about security once. They seemed genuinely confused when I told them I was not going to fill compliance form and make patching commitments for free. Really makes you wonder how many maintainers are letting themselves be taken advantage of.

Maybe that would be a good opportunity to offer them a quote for how much you could do the work for.

Assuming you want to. But if you do, understand that accepting payment for services creates obligation to deliver, and possibly liability for poor performance. You may or may not want that.

Re: Open source is not about you (2018)

#70

Post by rlnorthcutt »

blenderob wrote: post #60
rlnorthcutt wrote: post #53

Its an interesting situation when an asset (like an open source project) is run by a team of volunteers (community)... but due to licensing, it kind of belongs to the whole world (community) As a user of a project, I DO have a voice... but unless I am actively contributing (money, time, resources), then my voice has a different weight. On the one hand, I don't like the idea that anyone should get more influence simpl…

(edit: I totally misunderstood the parent comment and wrote this reply. I've apologized for it in comment below. I could delete this comment but I am leaving it here so that others don't get confused when they see the replies below it.) > or that anyone should have more power just because they are active in the project. So you are saying that although I create a project to solve my problems but as soon as I make it o…

Straw man + slippery slope.

I never said that, or implied it. It would be dumb to say that someone who creates an open source project is at the mercy of the people who use it.

But, many people have had the experience of dealing with loud voices in open source communities, and sometimes abusive voices. Or people who are pushing/promoting things that they want but are actually contrary to the goals and well being of the project.

As I stated, that power is a potential route to abuse. This is absolutely true whether the person is a maintainer, contributor, or creator.

If you create an open source project, of course you have absolute power over it... to suggest otherwise is foolish.

And we have seen projects that fail or collapse due to lack of leadership, corrosive culture, myopia, or burnout. That is inevitable.

My point is that we need to be realistic about these things. This goes back to the original post that "open source is not about you". Users aren't "owe" anything by a project or its creator. At the same time, creators/maintainers have a relationship with the community.

How they choose to manage that relationship is their choice... but we should be aware and honest about what that means and how it impacts the project (and the community).

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