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Open Source Is Not About You (2018)

https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9
59•doubleg•1h ago

Comments

mtmail•1h ago
Can you add the year (2018) to the submission title? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
regenschutz•1h ago
It would be nice to have some context on this. I assume there was some drama regarding this "Cognitect" organisation named. As someone not involved with Clojure at, it's difficult to understand the context for why this post was created.
tom_•1h ago
Presumably this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46990729
squigz•59m ago
TFA was posted in 2018; that drama is from the past few days. What connection is there?
pixl97•55m ago
You're not able to connect these two subjects?

A thesis on "don't abuse people in open source" and a bot "abusing people in open source"?

tom_•54m ago
But the link to the post was posted here just now! - which I'm assuming means something.

Both share a theme: the trials and tribulations of running an open source project, I suppose. Some contributions, one way or another, demand more of them than the maintainer might like. How do you deal with this? How do you set the boundaries? And so on.

squigz•51m ago
I guess we were responding to different things: my reading of GP's question was why the gist was posted (back in 2018), not why it was shared today.

But indeed yes, I can see that connection.

tom_•46m ago
I think you're right anyway. Re-reading the post with your comment in mind, I think it's clear enough that this was what was actually meant.
bee_rider•54m ago
There was also a thread about MinIO not being maintained anymore.

Hard to say without commentary. Maybe the poster here was influenced by multiple threads (I guess that seems likely, if it was just one thread they influenced them, they could have linked it in that thread).

brazzy•56m ago
It was a reaction to the State of Clojure Survey 2018 (https://danielcompton.net/clojure-survey-2018) and discussions it sparked, in which there were depands for Clojure to change to a more community-driven development process.
doubleg•56m ago
This was the context back then: https://old.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/a0pjq9/rich_hickey...

I was reminded of this gist when reading the discussion about MinIO (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47000041).

haberman•38m ago
Lately I'm seeing more and more value in writing down expectations explicitly, especially when people's implicit assumptions about those expectations diverge.

The linked gist seems to mostly be describing a misalignment between the expectations of the project owners and its users. I don't know the context, but it seems to have been written in frustration. It does articulate a set of expectations, but it is written in a defensive and exasperated tone.

If I found myself in a situation like that today, I would write a CONTRIBUTING.md file in the project root that describes my expectations (eg. PRs are / are not welcome, decisions about the project are made in X fashion, etc.) in a dispassionate way. If users expressed expectations that were misaligned with my intentions, I would simply point them to CONTRIBUTING.md and close off the discussion. I would try to take this step long before I had the level of frustration that is expressed in the gist.

I don't say this to criticize the linked post; I've only recently come to this understanding. But it seems like a healthier approach than to let frustration and resentment grow over time.

travisjungroth•2m ago
> I don't say this to criticize the linked post

What you have written is obviously a criticism of the linked post.

kevincloudsec•26m ago
I built a commercial product that competes with open source alternatives in my space, and this tension is constant. People ask why they should pay me when they could use the open source version. And the honest answer is: if you have the time and expertise to run, maintain, and interpret the open source tool yourself, you absolutely should.

I'm not owed your money any more than Rich is owed your contributions. But most people asking that question are really asking 'can someone else do the hard part for free,' which is exactly the entitlement he's describing, just pointed at a different target.

belval•17m ago
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.

1313ed01•19m ago
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.
OrvalWintermute•6m ago
I feel much better after reading this because our organizations are: - funding OSS developers - engaging with OSS developers to determine potential funding priorities - providing project hardware at the project level - providing hardware to the individual OSS developer

While we are not to the point of hosting events in Hawaii yet, I’m hoping we can see this as a teaming arrangement to accomplish great things together!

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