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I don’t know this person but there’s a fork button on github. “Pressing need” —> fork Seems to be an ego thing.

by beders 8y ago

dmitriid 8y ago
The you have to maintain your own fork. And keep up with changes upstream. And reconcile the two forks. And... And... I'm not even mentioning the potential split in the community.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  You can fork, fix the issue, and issue a pull request and/or start a discussion about the issue and potential fix. That is the core of open source - not demand that others fix the underlying issue for your problem.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    How is this different from having a pull request that will go unmerged for potentially years? You still need to maintain your fork etc.
    - Aeolun 8y ago
      So it’s worth it for you to have other people fix your problem for you (for free!), but not for you to do it yourself?
      - dmitriid 8y ago
        A PR on GitHub cannot be made without a fork to begin with. Then what?
      - threatofrain 8y ago
        No, he's saying a person who is thinking about results for the Clojure community wouldn't take things that way. Not everyone wishes to fork the community. Politicians step down from issues just because the timing is wrong and would be factious, not because the issue is wrong. Also the person in question is also a well-received volunteer, which is why this is getting traction to begin with, which is why Rich Hickey would even take the time to tell someone that they aren't worth the time of the very response they're reading.
        andyfingerhut 8y ago
        "which is why Rich Hickey would even take the time to tell someone that they aren't worth the time of the very response they're reading" I think you are misrepresenting what Rich wrote. He said you are not "entitled" to a response. That is not an evaluation of someone's worth, but a statement about what they are owed, or not owed.
- josephg 8y ago
  Yes; it’s definitely less convenient to write and maintain your own software compared to having someone else do it for you. As a project maintainer I’ve made the mistake several times of being too permissive with pull requests. Someone comes along with a feature they’re excited to add to my project. I don’t need the feature myself. They exuberantly make a PR, and I eventually merge it. Before long it turns out there’s a bunch of bugs with that feature, and the original author is gone. Do I waste my time fixing their code, for a feature I never wanted and don’t use? Or do I ignore the bugs and let the smell of low quality work waft over my code base? These days I default to refusing most feature requests, even if they have decent PRs. I write most software for fun, or to scratch an itch. I don’t do it because I want to manage a community. If you want to add features and build a community around a project I’ve written, great. I’m happy to link to your fork in my readme. Forking is not a symptom of failure. Maintaining a fork is sometimes just the ticket price to control your destiny.
- beders 8y ago
  If it is for his pressing need, he can maintain a fork. And it is not difficult to maintain a clojure fork given its release cadence.
- grigjd3 8y ago
  So you're asking someone else to do that work for you. Look, the user has a few choices: 1) find a work-around (maybe unwind his or her own mess) 2) manage a fork 3) work with the existing process I've worked around people doing all three of these options but what I've regularly found was that taking a look at unwinding your own mess is the right approach for the vast majority of cases.

I don’t know this person but there’s a fork button on github. “Pressing need” —> fork Seems to be an ego thing.

by beders 8y ago

I don’t know this person but there’s a fork button on github. “Pressing need” —> fork Seems to be an ego thing.

The you have to maintain your own fork. And keep up with changes upstream. And reconcile the two forks. And... And... I'm not even mentioning the potential split in the community.

hvidgaard 8y ago
You can fork, fix the issue, and issue a pull request and/or start a discussion about the issue and potential fix. That is the core of open source - not demand that others fix the underlying issue for your problem.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  How is this different from having a pull request that will go unmerged for potentially years? You still need to maintain your fork etc.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    So it’s worth it for you to have other people fix your problem for you (for free!), but not for you to do it yourself?
    - dmitriid 8y ago
      A PR on GitHub cannot be made without a fork to begin with. Then what?
    - threatofrain 8y ago
      No, he's saying a person who is thinking about results for the Clojure community wouldn't take things that way. Not everyone wishes to fork the community. Politicians step down from issues just because the timing is wrong and would be factious, not because the issue is wrong. Also the person in question is also a well-received volunteer, which is why this is getting traction to begin with, which is why Rich Hickey would even take the time to tell someone that they aren't worth the time of the very response they're reading.
      - andyfingerhut 8y ago
        "which is why Rich Hickey would even take the time to tell someone that they aren't worth the time of the very response they're reading" I think you are misrepresenting what Rich wrote. He said you are not "entitled" to a response. That is not an evaluation of someone's worth, but a statement about what they are owed, or not owed.
josephg 8y ago
Yes; it’s definitely less convenient to write and maintain your own software compared to having someone else do it for you. As a project maintainer I’ve made the mistake several times of being too permissive with pull requests. Someone comes along with a feature they’re excited to add to my project. I don’t need the feature myself. They exuberantly make a PR, and I eventually merge it. Before long it turns out there’s a bunch of bugs with that feature, and the original author is gone. Do I waste my time fixing their code, for a feature I never wanted and don’t use? Or do I ignore the bugs and let the smell of low quality work waft over my code base? These days I default to refusing most feature requests, even if they have decent PRs. I write most software for fun, or to scratch an itch. I don’t do it because I want to manage a community. If you want to add features and build a community around a project I’ve written, great. I’m happy to link to your fork in my readme. Forking is not a symptom of failure. Maintaining a fork is sometimes just the ticket price to control your destiny.
beders 8y ago
If it is for his pressing need, he can maintain a fork. And it is not difficult to maintain a clojure fork given its release cadence.
grigjd3 8y ago
So you're asking someone else to do that work for you. Look, the user has a few choices: 1) find a work-around (maybe unwind his or her own mess) 2) manage a fork 3) work with the existing process I've worked around people doing all three of these options but what I've regularly found was that taking a look at unwinding your own mess is the right approach for the vast majority of cases.