Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s also a defective culture meme that believes software that hasn’t been updated in the past week is dying. This is a conceptual hack to avoid considering the state of the ecosystem.
I think GP is trying to imply that there's so much churn in the Javascript ecosystem that any project which isn't updated will actually stop working in a relatively short amount of time.
Sorry everybody, I failed with you
91–100 of 357 posts
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#92Of 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 think with the modern internet, and GitHub, it's much harder. It used to be reasonable to make a release every year or so, and basically not be in communication other than that. You could also assume all your dependencies would release updates every year. Now people expect replies to their GitHub issues within a few days, if you have CI you were probably using Travis and had to update everything, etc.
To release way less often has been one of the best changes I've made and also dual licensing. If people will get me a hard time then pay for that part of the development.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#93Of 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.
They literally can't though. Only the owner or a maintainer has permission to merge PRs in to the main branch. Anyone can fork a repo, write a patch, and PR it, but that's where outside contributions stop. It still takes someone from the original team to accept a contribution. Forking a project and then maintaining that fork as a separate project is an option, but it's divisive one that a lot of the community will react badly to if they see it as a hostile takeover or if there's a change in goal (eg making a commercial product out of the abandoned project.)
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#94Of 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…
A temporary BDFL... Would that be called a TBD (temporary benevolent dictator)? :)
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s also a defective culture meme that believes software that hasn’t been updated in the past week is dying. This is a conceptual hack to avoid considering the state of the ecosystem.
It's not a defective culture meme, because the modern ecosystem is moving fast. We're using to thinking about digital creations as if they're forever. This is incorrect. Software without a platform doesn't run. Platforms are always changing, and sometimes platforms die and get replaced with other ones. Think of software like a living being, not like a statue etched in stone (although even statues etched in stone degr…
It’s 2012 all over again: “churn makes things better! BTW, what should we be using this week?”
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#96Of 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…
Why is this necessary? If someone wants to start maintaining a project, all they need to do is fork it. For example, ZBar is now being maintained by a Linux kernel developer. His fork started getting updates and contributions and is now objectively better than the original project. Linux distributions have already accepted it as the master branch.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#97Earlier 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.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#98A open source library that I worked on at Intel (the Hyperscan high performance regular expression library) had to shed most of its staff (including all the original folks who worked on it, including me). One of the big contributing factors was a sense that "well, who really uses this". The answer was "tons of people, including some major Intel target customers" but a number of Hyperscan users picked up the library and never told anyone (not asking for public plaudits, but even a private communication would have been something to show our management).
When you can't even say "thank you, we're using your library now, it's great" in a goddamn email, don't be surprised when 75% of the people maintaining and advancing it don't have jobs anymore. Never mind paying money or contributing - even acknowledgement.
Open source is a recipe for burn-out. If something is important to people - especially corporate interests - there needs to be a way of getting paid. Much as I dislike those wacky "free for non-commercial use, otherwise, give me a call" licenses, I'm starting to see the point.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#99Of 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…
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#100The 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.
If your primary motivation is short-term monetary gain then you're right, it doesn't sound like a rational undertaking. I can think of two reasons to work on open source. Altruism, you want to give back to the community without expecting a monetary gain in return. Investment in skills, if you want to differentiate yourself from peers, you'll have something to talk about to potential employers. It is a great opportuni…