Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
Thanks all. Hope you all had a nice Christmas :-) Let me reply to all the great feedback in a single email: On Sat, Dec 22, 2018, at 23:26, Jan Bessai wrote: > You might add that keeping things small is crucial for the described way > of operating. Otherwise things are impossible to understand for casual > contributors. Suckless embodies this as a core value. In your analogy > you can DIY fix bicycles, but DIY fixing airbags in cars is probably a > bad idea (unless you are resourceful enough to do crash tests). With > software, browser engines are a good example: surf currently uses > Webkit, because writing browser engines is inherently complicated. It's a good point, but I think the vast majority of projects are already small. A lot of the code developers deal with are libraries (or npm packages, Ruby gems, etc.) which are usually quite small and focused by nature (exceptions such as Boost apply). Even more user-oriented software software is usually fairly focused. Not as small as suckless, but still small enough for an average developer to understand if they spend a little bit of time on it (even large projects such as GNOME are modular enough to understand). Software such as browser engines is comparatively rare, and even in those cases you can contribute (although I'm not sure how useful that is in the cases of WebKit and Blink, as they seem to internal Apple/Google projects with "source provided" and little community input). Exceptions to this are projects that are simply badly designed, and hard to figure out even for experts. systemd and Docker are known examples of this. On Sun, Dec 23, 2018, at 03:53, kdsch wrote: > I remember reporting a bug to the Upspin mailing list. I wasn't expected > to fix it; the team reacted quickly and was prepared to take advantage > of my observations. This is atypical, and I'm not sure how to explain > it. Could it be significant that Upspin's core group, many of whom are > long-time colleagues of Rob Pike, has a lot of joint experience? Or that > they're mostly Google employees? When I wrote: > Open source software isn’t a service I provide to the world; it’s > something I DIY’d myself and make available to the world so everyone > can benefit and work on it with me. Then I was talking about *me*. I think there are many people with a similar attitude (many reading this for starters), but it's not everyone's attitude. Well-known examples would be Firefox or the GNU project; they both exist to make – in their view – the world a "better place". I'm not really familiar with Upspin, so I can't tell you too much about that. > A guess: the DIY ethic is an indication of how much resources are > available. Yeah, probably. If only because larger projects have different kinds of people with different motivations participating. On Sun, Dec 23, 2018, at 18:11, Thomas Levine wrote: > I am mostly interested in software that works as I want it to. > Consequently, I pretty much require that the software be freely > licensed, that the source code be short, and that the software be > developed by volunteers. The terms "free software" and "open source" > describe only the first of these points; they may suggest DIY, as they > originate from hacker groups, but they technically only describe > particular legal mechanisms that happen to be useful in the context of > DIY software. Furthermore, elegant software is often easy to > reverse-engineer based on the documentation and interface, so the free > licensing of the source code is not necessarily important. > > I imagine that "DIY" will lose meaning as companies market proprietary > products (perhaps internet of things) as DIY, but, for the moment, > I think "DIY" suggests that people are encouraged to learn, run, and > modify the software to suit their own wishes. "DIY software" is probably a much better term than "open source software". Or rather, a more specific subset of open source. Other subsets might be "free software", "source provided", and perhaps some others. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I think I will modify my article when I have some time to emphasise this neologism. Thanks! On Sun, Dec 23, 2018, at 20:00, Alessandro Pistocchi wrote: > On the other hand, regarding features and bugs, people sometimes don’t > know and they often tend to assume you are a large and evil corporation > with a lot of resources available. > > It happened to me with a small video game I have out there for free. Why would it matter if it had a "large and evil corporation with a lot of resources available"? You wouldn't go around asking rich people for free stuff, or jobless people to clean your house? > I think that people need to be told ( politely ) that they are dealing > with a single individual doing it for free in his free time. > > Then they end up being more understanding. Yeah, part of the reason I wrote this is so that I have a "standard article" to link to. Thanks again all! Martin
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
I know guys... sorry for that... ;-) Sent from my iPhone > On 24 Dec 2018, at 21:16, Cág wrote: > > Alessandro Pistocchi wrote: >> Agree :-) >> Sent from my iPhone > > Nice signature :) > > > -- > Sent from my Nokia 105 > >
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
Alessandro Pistocchi wrote: Agree :-) Sent from my iPhone Nice signature :) -- Sent from my Nokia 105
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
Hi Martin, I am pretty new to the suckless community. I appreciate what you wrote in that post :-) Regarding the diy attitude I agree with you. On the other hand, regarding features and bugs, people sometimes don’t know and they often tend to assume you are a large and evil corporation with a lot of resources available. It happened to me with a small video game I have out there for free. I think that people need to be told ( politely ) that they are dealing with a single individual doing it for free in his free time. Then they end up being more understanding. Sent from my iPhone > On 22 Dec 2018, at 01:55, Martin Tournoij wrote: > > Hey there, > > I wrote a brief article about "Open source DIY ethics", which I think > describes the mentality of open source development for many (in the > suckless community it's more explicit, but I think it's hardly contained > to suckless): > > https://arp242.net/weblog/diy.html > > I'd be interested to know what the suckless community thinks. > > Cheers, > Martin >
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
Agree :-) Sent from my iPhone > On 22 Dec 2018, at 11:26, Jan Bessai wrote: > >> On 12/22/18 8:57 AM, Hiltjo Posthuma wrote: >>> On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 01:55:51PM +1300, Martin Tournoij wrote: >>> [...] >>> I wrote a brief article about "Open source DIY ethics", which I think >>> describes the mentality of open source development for many (in the >>> suckless community it's more explicit, but I think it's hardly contained >>> to suckless): >>> [...] >> >> [...] I liked the article and the Dutch bicycle example :) [...] > > Thanks for the article. I also enjoyed it. > > You might add that keeping things small is crucial for the described way > of operating. Otherwise things are impossible to understand for casual > contributors. Suckless embodies this as a core value. In your analogy > you can DIY fix bicycles, but DIY fixing airbags in cars is probably a > bad idea (unless you are resourceful enough to do crash tests). With > software, browser engines are a good example: surf currently uses > Webkit, because writing browser engines is inherently complicated. Just > as with cars, many things are complicated instead of complex, because of > complicated standards. >
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
I find the article and the subsequent comments from Jan and Sylvain to be very accurate. They have led me to remark that "do-it-yourself" describes my software interests better than "open source" or "free software" does. I am mostly interested in software that works as I want it to. Consequently, I pretty much require that the software be freely licensed, that the source code be short, and that the software be developed by volunteers. The terms "free software" and "open source" describe only the first of these points; they may suggest DIY, as they originate from hacker groups, but they technically only describe particular legal mechanisms that happen to be useful in the context of DIY software. Furthermore, elegant software is often easy to reverse-engineer based on the documentation and interface, so the free licensing of the source code is not necessarily important. I imagine that "DIY" will lose meaning as companies market proprietary products (perhaps internet of things) as DIY, but, for the moment, I think "DIY" suggests that people are encouraged to learn, run, and modify the software to suit their own wishes.
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 11:26:19AM +0100, Jan Bessai wrote: > You might add that keeping things small is crucial for the described way > of operating. Otherwise things are impossible to understand for casual > contributors. Suckless embodies this as a core value. In your analogy > you can DIY fix bicycles, but DIY fixing airbags in cars is probably a > bad idea (unless you are resourceful enough to do crash tests). With > software, browser engines are a good example: surf currently uses > Webkit, because writing browser engines is inherently complicated. Just > as with cars, many things are complicated instead of complex, because of > complicated standards. +1 We all know that in the case of "the web", the pb comes from the html standards which carefully do not _explicitely_ define small/light profiles that would allow small web clients to "just work", or at least enlighten the "web devs" to be carefull of the burden they put on the web clients. The "html" specs is there: https://www.w3.org/TR/html/ Ofc you would have to go through the barrage of some well-know corporations which favor ultra-complex formats: Arron Eicholz (Microsoft), Travis Leithead (Microsoft), Alex Danilo (Google), etc. Those ppl hates the "small is beautiful", or at best will be hypocrits and will cleverly sabotage any work which would go along this philosophy. Another topic is "machine code generators/optimizers", aka compilers. We have the same nasty ppl there. Keep in mind that coding "proprietary programs" in the open source source world means coding a huge kludge/bloat software (if possible with complex syntax computer languages). regards, -- Sylvain
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
Martin, I enjoyed reading your article. I have limited experience contributing to open source projects. I remember reporting a bug to the Upspin mailing list. I wasn't expected to fix it; the team reacted quickly and was prepared to take advantage of my observations. This is atypical, and I'm not sure how to explain it. Could it be significant that Upspin's core group, many of whom are long-time colleagues of Rob Pike, has a lot of joint experience? Or that they're mostly Google employees? I've also interacted with SageMath, libunwind and vis. These clearly followed the DIY ethic. SageMath is so complex (using Python to glue together every existing computer algebra package) that contributing (and using) is difficult. The team was spread too thin. Libunwind, too, has a complex codebase, but much less development activity. It has no choice but to be DIY. I had some trouble building the vis editor to my liking, but it wasn't their problem. No hard feelings. A guess: the DIY ethic is an indication of how much resources are available. Best Regards, Karl Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Friday, December 21, 2018 7:55 PM, Martin Tournoij wrote: > Hey there, > > I wrote a brief article about "Open source DIY ethics", which I think > describes the mentality of open source development for many (in the > suckless community it's more explicit, but I think it's hardly contained > to suckless): > > https://arp242.net/weblog/diy.html > > I'd be interested to know what the suckless community thinks. > > Cheers, > Martin
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
On 12/22/18 8:57 AM, Hiltjo Posthuma wrote: > On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 01:55:51PM +1300, Martin Tournoij wrote: >> [...] >> I wrote a brief article about "Open source DIY ethics", which I think >> describes the mentality of open source development for many (in the >> suckless community it's more explicit, but I think it's hardly contained >> to suckless): >> [...] > > [...] I liked the article and the Dutch bicycle example :) [...] Thanks for the article. I also enjoyed it. You might add that keeping things small is crucial for the described way of operating. Otherwise things are impossible to understand for casual contributors. Suckless embodies this as a core value. In your analogy you can DIY fix bicycles, but DIY fixing airbags in cars is probably a bad idea (unless you are resourceful enough to do crash tests). With software, browser engines are a good example: surf currently uses Webkit, because writing browser engines is inherently complicated. Just as with cars, many things are complicated instead of complex, because of complicated standards.
Re: [dev] Open Source DIY ethics
On Sat, Dec 22, 2018 at 01:55:51PM +1300, Martin Tournoij wrote: > Hey there, > > I wrote a brief article about "Open source DIY ethics", which I think > describes the mentality of open source development for many (in the > suckless community it's more explicit, but I think it's hardly contained > to suckless): > > https://arp242.net/weblog/diy.html > > I'd be interested to know what the suckless community thinks. > > Cheers, > Martin > Hi, I liked the article and the Dutch bicycle example :) Thanks for posting it. -- Kind regards, Hiltjo
