On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 11:55 PM, Ro Rao <[email protected]> wrote:
> seven months ago, i posted my first email to this group. the one you > responded to was the second email i've ever posted to this group. > > the first one was about a project i was working on that had a particular > set of requirements. the helpful response email i got was from marak, > suggesting that hook.io would do what i needed based on my requirements. > i looked into it and thought it was legit, but for one reason or another, i > decided against using it. > > i'm working on another project now, and if the whole idea behind these > modules is "use at your own risk", then that's kinda bs, and frankly not > the school of developer that i come from. > I wouldn't be so sure. Pretty much every software license - open source *and* commercial - includes a clause that effectively states that the software is provided "as is" and there is no warranty, so yes, it's "use at your own risk". Now, there are organisations such as The Apache Software Foundation that, in effect, provide community ownership for software, such that, as long as there are volunteers, the software will continue to be maintained. That's based on a central source of truth, as opposed to the typical GitHub one-or-two-person projects with multiple forks. However, there's still no guarantee, other than that the source code will continue to remain available indefinitely. With commercial software, you may think you have a guarantee, but it almost always has the same kind of "as is" clause. You may be able to pay someone to support it, but the company could go out of business or be acquired or abandon the project. In those cases, you're generally completely hosed, because the code wasn't made available to you, so you can't choose to maintain it yourself, even if you want to. > i think it would make sense to have some construct where if a module is > implemented and then abandoned, the submitter would be willing to let > someone else pick up where they left off. > We have that, as others have said. The GitHub forking model is exactly that, and a permissive license such as MIT is perfect for fostering this kind of approach. If what you're really looking for is a central body to manage the project, or a single "officially sanctioned" maintainer - well, again, anyone is free to start, or offer to start, such a community around a single fork. It's not how the Node community typically works, and it wouldn't be easy, but it's conceivable. One of the key take-aways here is: you're in charge. That is, whatever the direction you believe is right for a project, voicing that opinion and waiting for someone else to do the work doesn't generally make it happen. If you start down the path, others may choose to follow, and you'll be on your way. Or they may not. Much of open source revolves around "scratching your own itch". So start scratching, and see if others have the same itch. :-) -- Martin Cooper R. > > > On 12/1/12 2:39 AM, Isaac Schlueter wrote: > > Rohit, > > The same problems exist for all software, indie or enterprise. > > If you depend on it, be prepared to one day either own it or find a > replacement. Such is the way of the world. > > On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 11:37 PM, Rohit Rao <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ken brings up a good point. The biggest risk with indie tech like this is > that it might get abandoned due to unforeseen circumstances. > > It would behoove us to have some sort of fallback so users don't get > negatively affected with their projects due to something like this. > > > On Dec 1, 2012, at 2:14 AM, Marak Squires <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ken - > > Are you actually using hook.io? I suspect you are not. If you are, you have > the code and can continue to use it if you feel so inclined. > > If you are genuinely concerned about continued development, you can fork and > rename the project at any time. > > I'm telling you as the creator, you should not waste your time. There are > several fundmental problems with hook.io ( many of which are technical ). > Solving these problems would require an entire new suite of libraries and > tools, which do not exist. > > - Marak > > > > > On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Ken <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Interpersonal drama aside, I actually think this is a very interesting > scenario and something the node community should probably consider > developing some best practices around. To abstract a bit, what, if > anything, can and should the community do when a popular package is > abandoned by its sole maintainer? > > As far as github and the code goes it looks like Nathan Rajlich has an > up-to-date version here (package.json matches NPM, not sue if he's got > custom hacks though): > https://github.com/TooTallNate/hook.io > > It seems like NPM is a slightly bigger problem, as Marak is the only > maintainer and there are over 60 packages that depend on hook.io > https://npmjs.org/package/hook.io > > so while it would be possible to fork the package it would be a tremendous > effort to repoint all of the dependents at the new fork. Perhaps we should > have some mechanism for interested parties to petition the registry to take > over as maintainer of abandoned packages? > > --Ken > > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting > guidelines:https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting > guidelines:https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting > guidelines:https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > > > -- > Rohit Colin Rao > *Writer / Director / Producer* > ULTRASONIC > ultrasonicmovie.com > 206.293.8148 > > -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. 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