Open Warning / The Open Source project that made me angry

It’s too bad the author reacts this way, but there’s nothing much you can do about it, unfortunately. I’d check at that mailinglist or just the people who’ve encourages you to fork it to see whether they’re interested in helping. It’d be a shame if software with potential doesn’t live up to what it could be.

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/images/trophy.png

Perhaps you could poke your nose into the new project I’m starting. It’s called “Get a Life” and will be released under it’s own license called “BUTT OUT v1.04″.

I had an identical experience this year (except for involved attorneys!). It really sucks.

cinelerra project is similar. the original devs aren’t too interested in making a community, but they does release the code for the releases. the cinelerra-cv project takes this source code, puts it in revision control, and has a good community.

I recommend that you stick the latest version of the code in a revision control system somewhere. make sure the original dev can easily access any changes you make. then resync it when he releases a new version.

This sounds a bit like maemo-mapper. It has a SVN repository, but a commit is made only when there is a new version. No wonder it was forked to become mapper.

Also, a simple OSM editor for Maemo is the same (source in the form of the Debian tarballs). It is very annoying, as it would be something I’d like to help in.

Frankly, you come off somewhat badly here. From what I read out of this, He wants to do his own project, as a hobby, and not involve anything else. You say he’s a professional programmer; perhaps he spends all day every day herding other developers at work and the last thing he needs is having to do the same on his free time. He seems to me to be doing his own, thing, then being nice in releasing the source as well for anybody who may have a use for it.

You asked him about stuff and, not willing to be rude, he gave you some not-too-discouraging non-answers. But then you keep at it, pestering him and essentially telling him over and over that “no no no, he’s doing his own project all wrong and here is what you want him to do so that you – not he – will be happy with it”. He blows his top. I would have just stopped answering your mail, but hey, any way to make you stop is good I guess.

Yes, you seem to have been rather rude here.

Personally, I feel that if he doesn’t want to “build a community” as you put it, then you shouldn’t pressure him to. Fork the project if you want to, or don’t. The thing is, some software is better off being developed in the dictatorial model. Take, for example, Slackware, the oldest surviving (and thriving, I might add) distro. Patrick Volkerding has full and complete control over it. There are a very few developers that he allows to work on it with him. They have all proven to be very capable and devoted, and this is rewarded. Source is only released when the software is ready.

Contrast this with Debian, where everybody and their family can contribute. Both models have their pros and cons. If the author of this software wants to follow one over the other, you have NO RIGHT to tell him otherwise. You’ve made your point, now fish or cut bait, as they say around here.

stop bulling the nerd leave him alone.

pps. Working monitors or printers were not harmed writing this post. what about the keybord dum ass ? :)

HAhahahahahah

Wow, I’m actually surprised at some of the comments here.

I don’t think you’re an ass or a jerk, or anything like that, but I can understand how it could have been perceived like that.

Your point is mainly around the fact that between X and Y releases, you, as an end user, can’t see what’s going on, so it’s a huge pain to be able to help, and to contribute. OK, the guy accepts patches, but they’re not much help to him if they’re touching code that he might have already done major restructuring on etc, etc… So, it’s frustrating as an end user/contributor to add to it.

I don’t agree that accepting patches and not listing the people submitting them as a contributor is a good thing, especially as you’re not actually assigning copyright for that code to him… You should be listed in the copyright at least!

If you’re that concerned regarding this, then fork it, BUT, and it’s a BIG but… if the guy does a good job at coding it on his own, and does fix the bugs, etc etc… is there actually any benefit to forking it… as in that case, as frustrating as it might be … it might just be worth saying “ok, I’ll just be an end-user” … and forgetting about contributing back… If he’s constantly coming out with issues that would benefit from a fork, then fork it. But again, is a community maintained fork going to be any better than what he’s producing… ?

I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong here. Some people don’t mind releasing their software under a FOSS license, but don’t necessarily want to use the FOSS development model. Either they don’t know that model, or they do but don’t want to go to the trouble. You did the best you could suggesting ways in which following that model could help, and at no point did it seem like you became rude. Then when you actually did some of the work for him, by creating a mailing list and sending useful information there, the developer got a bit crazy/controlling/something and decided to complain and escalate the situation.

Let me first take a moment to say that the developer *did* generously release their project under a FOSS license. I’d still take one project with a FOSS license and cathedral development practices over a dozen proprietary projects with thriving communities.

The real question becomes “where do you go from here”. At this point I don’t think you really have much hope of maintaining high goodwill with the original developer. You can either choose to do nothing and continue to take the program as it stands without participating in the (non-existent) community, or you can create a community for the project. However, I’d still try to avoid the appearance of a fork for now. Create a repository, a mailing list, and other resources you’d consider useful, but pose your project specifically as a means of helping the author. Keep a mainline branch with just their code, and add other people’s patches on a branch. Merge upstream’s code when he provides it. When you get patches from others, send them upstream.

If upstream stops responding to you, or doesn’t accept your work, fine; that will turn your work into a defacto fork. On the other hand, upstream may decide to merge some or all of your work, in which case you just have a few helpful resources that aid other people in getting stuff upstream.

I’ll probably be repeating what others have already said, but:

It seems the author wants to have a hobby project where he does all the code and only rarely takes patches. I’ve seen a couple of projects like this and they can be quite successful, although often the developer is at least running a mailing list for the users. This is one style of running an open source project, it might be annoying to some community-oriented people, but in any case it’s their project.

He should have told you from the start if he’s not interested in having a public source code repository, a mailing list and all that, though, instead of threatening you with lawyers later.

If you plan on forking the project, it should happen with code. You say you’re not a programmer so you’d need to get together people doing features or bugfixes first and then fork. It’s no good announcing a fork if there’s actually no new code going into it, now and in the long run. It might just make the original developer abandon the project completely.

Maybe he doesn’t understand English that well. I have a friend who speaks English as a second language quite well, but we often get into huge arguments on Skype chat due to misunderstandings.

As someone who has both participated in and started free software projects I think you are right in spending some time attempting to convince the author to enhance the community around his project rather than simply forking it. Of course it’s his choice whether or not he listens to you. Since it seems like you have now reached an impasse, perhaps forking is the only avenue left if you want the situation to improve.

Impedance matching
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Impedance matching is the electronics design practice of setting the output impedance (ZS) of a signal source equal to the input impedance (ZL) of the load to which it is ultimately connected, usually in order to maximize the power transfer and minimize reflections from the load. This only applies when both are linear devices.

The concept of impedance matching was originally developed for electrical power, but can be applied to any other field where a form of energy (not just electrical) is transferred between a source and a load.

I think developer has every right to be quiet.
I have my own gpl project as a hobby.
It just happens that I like programming itself. Not for the program, not for the community, I just like to code. I´m not a professional and my major of study is far from programming.
So I decided to write some program. After I finished I could just put it in a folder ´junk´, ´stuff´(everyone has this kind of folder :)). But than I though – hey, it´s quite usable, why not allow other people to use it? Than I spent a lot of time pasting gpl-headers into sourcefiles, preparing tarball, some rpms, debs – hell a lot of work.
But, ok, my program is now in the internet! Ok, that is it. End of the story. I can sometimes when I have free time add some features.
But I don´t want anyone to submit patches, because right now I know what is happening in the code, and I don´t want to see other´s people code inside it.
I´ll make an example – you have a hobby, you make wooden tabels, not for sale, just for you, than you give it to everyone because you don´t need it. And suddenly comes a guy from the street and says: “Hey, I just made a leg for your table”. Would you feel good?
Or a guy comes and says: “I have a couple of friends, we are all going to make legs for your tables”. Of course you would try to be polite – some people want to help you, but you would not feel good.
returning to the programming – when it´s a community project you have to stay up to date, make releases, etc. You cannot allow a couple of month break, just because you feel like it.
Working with the community is great, but only if it is a community project. Otherwise programmers feels happy left alone (I do :)).

As someone who has written original software that I have a strong emotional attachment to, I think you’ve been very generous with this guy.

The only thing I can think of that could be an unresolved issue is the language barrier.

“@Janne: You’re right, it’s possible that he manages projects full time and now want’s to do something for himself. I’d like him to clearly state that somewhere, not play any games.”

Didn’t he? He brushed you off several times in as polite a manner as could be expected. It’s not his fault if you just refuse to take a hint.

GPL-released code or no, nobody is under any moral, social or ethical obligation whatsoever to allow other people to get involved, especially when you come across as muscling in on it whether he wants to or not.

I believe some people here are arguing at cross-purposes. As far as I can see, nobody is suggesting that the original author could be forced to do anything. Of course he isn’t obliged to do anything he doesn’t want to – it’s his project. However, for the most part the best thing for the project is to have a strong community around it, and I don’t think it’s wrong to at least trying to convince him of that.

And the winner is… TangoGPS (http://www.tangogps.org).

I think many here are not getting it. You didn’t do anything wrong. You asked the author how he felt about putting the code in a public repository. He said it sounded great. When you followed up on the idea he became aggressive.
If he likes doing things in private and then releasing the final results as GPL then that is surely his right, but when asked about going public with the development he should be clear about his preferences. He shouldn’t tell you he wants to do one thing and get you all excited and then do the other things and threaten you.
If I where you I’d either drop it or fork it. Even if you aren’t a programmer you could set up an SVN, give it a different name and then simply let the community take care of the rest.