Tom> In what is at least graceless and arguably unprofessional ways Tom> y'all screwed both the users and the upstream project, Tom> thoroughly.
Adrian> IMO, they didn't screw the users -- at least, not by Adrian> abandoning baz, which I have to assume is what you mean. Adrian> Unless they found some magic legal way to escape the GPL, Adrian> anyone is free to pick up their work and continue or extend Adrian> it, same as Canonical was free to pick up yours. Adrian> Also IMO, they only "screwed" tla by legitimately attracting Adrian> more development interest. As far as I can see and Adrian> extrapolate from the posts on this list, they did this by Adrian> themselves paying people to work on it, by accepting patches, Adrian> and by creating a more appealing development platform. Adrian> Why is this bad? Because there is more to a project than a static snapshot of its source code and the dynamics is where most of the value is for all but the most venerable/nearly-completely-stable components. Canonical arrived on the scene confronted with what was oriented to be a long term project. That long term project was characterized by a certain conservatism, in order to make sure it didn't get itself or its users stuck up a tree. The project had produced considerable value, as evidenced not least by the application Canonical itself made of it. It hadn't yet found a real business model but at least it was muddling through based on adoption number * busking-success-per-user rate. A lot of divergent user interests were being balanced and, yes, that meant among other things that a certain level of frustration was spread around. Forgive me for being immodest but casually destroying that emerging feedback cycle, with the brunt of that destruction falling on me, the guy who best understands Arch, is an awefully bad outcome. If all else being equal, it was an unecessary, forseeable, and preventable outcome -- I don't think "legitimate" is the right adjective to describe Canonical's behavior. Canonical came in to do one thing I find quite legitimate, but then in fact did other things I don't find quite legitimate. It was quite legit to use arch and to hack it for their own needs. It was quite legit to cut corners in their own version where it was consistent with their own needs. It leaves legitimacy behind to promote their corner cutting approach the ways they did only to hang their users out to dry and, meanwhile, utterly disregard being cooperative with upstream (which would be me). I understand that personal feelings came into play there. Confronted with some criticism of their work, some of the Canonical staff took to the response of vendetta. Yet subsequent developments, including Canonical's abandonment of their own fork and revc's demonstration of a better path, show that the criticism was well grounded (at least). The destruction was gratuitous and deserves the label "graceless and arguably unprofessional". Adrian> If "Canonical" were merely the handle of a user, or a group Adrian> of users, I would praise him/her/them without reservation. Adrian> "He" took a project that had lots of contributors but little Adrian> overall progress (that I could see at the time), branched it, Adrian> brought in lots of contributions, and kept it going at full Adrian> tilt. When "he" inevitably lost interest, it was up to Adrian> someone else to pick it up and keep going. Adrian> [...] Adrian> This happens all the time. It's the blessing and the curse Adrian> of free software -- if you don't like how it works, change Adrian> it. If you do a good job of satisfying your developers / Adrian> users, then people will migrate to your project. If you Adrian> don't, someone else takes your place, whether you like it or Adrian> not. Adrian> Is it somehow suddenly different because "Canonical" is a Adrian> company? I dissent from the view of "little overall progress". Regardless, yes, it is different because "Canonical" is a company. It would similarly be different if Canonical were a non-company or non-profit effort operating similarly to Canonical. The difference is relative power and how power is used. Canonical commanded a superior labor pool and therefore could overwhelm by volume. They faced a choice of deploying that labor pool with social responsibility and with respect to upstream -- or doing what they did instead. An individual hacker, on the other hand (Walter Landry, anyone?), has far less destructive potential. The burdens of responsible participation or dissent are correspondingly reduced. Adrian> Writing free software full-time and relying on donations and Adrian> sponsorship to keep going is an inherently risky and unstable Adrian> proposition. The money may be enough to get by for a while, Adrian> and one might enjoy the work, but if donations dry up, one Adrian> could also be suddenly "out of a job" at any moment with no Adrian> warning. It has never been my goal to rely on donations. I think I've been clear about that all along. It has been necessary at various times and enough to muddle through on. The risk I took up front, on my own, was the first release of larch. If the FOSS industry leaders were any good at evaluating new R&D and targetting investment, that would have landed me an average (or slightly senior) ordinary hacking job and I'd have lived happily ever after. They aren't and it didn't. I was financially stranded in a pretty nasty job market, and I was forced to keep doubling down my bet. Canonical's arrival proved two things: yes, my R&D was value creating and worthy of investment. No, our FOSS industry investors haven't learned how to not overgraze the commons. Adrian> I'm honestly considering studying today's approaches and problems Adrian> (with arch as a primary basis), then making my own (on my own Adrian> time). Naturally, I hope this does not further "screw" Adrian> arch. ;) Just don't take your lessons about how to wield finanical "power tools" from Canonical. Respect people whose work you derive value from, especially in those cases where free software licensing leaves that as a choice you have to make on your own. -t _______________________________________________ Gnu-arch-users mailing list Gnu-arch-users@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-arch-users GNU arch home page: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnu-arch/
