16 ms·

SleepyHead Project Is Shutting Down

134 points by janwijbrand 8y ago

DiabloD3 8y ago
So, he says his software is GPL. Does this mean he has a Github repo somewhere? Why isn't the community pushing important merge requests to him?
- zimpenfish 8y ago
  This seems to be the most recent repo - https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code
nikkwong 8y ago
Sleepyhead probably saved my life (literally) when I couldn't get any sleep doctors to take my condition seriously. I can't thank him enough for his contributions. The software is quite good, too, with a better UX than a lot of enterprise apps that I use on a daily basis. Might go to show how one person's ownership can lead to the creation of great experiences in ways that the lack of ownership often found in large software projects does not.
pram 8y ago
No idea what 'SleepyHead' is but I understand the sentiment. I've felt the pain from the perception of not getting anything back after you've poured so much of yourself into a thing. Especially when it's for free, the lack of support starts to feel like ingratitude. It might or might not be true. People might actually appreciate what you're doing, but never explicitly say it. However, after a certain point, your mind becomes so toxic and awful that nothing will convince you otherwise. It's really better to walk away than become a shitty, bitter husk IMO. Good luck, guy!
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  There's a Vice article link elsewhere in the comments, and at the end of the linked post, that explains what it is and why it mattered.
CrazyCatDog 8y ago
Two innovations have revolutionized my life—CPAP and Sleepyhead. I volunteered to do a sleep study at the famous Stanford Sleep Clinic some 15 years ago hoping that they would tell me I’m superhuman and don’t need sleep. They came back and told me that I sleep very poorly. CPAP machines are (finally) wonderful, but the manufacturers don’t share any of the data that their machines collect other than basics like hours slept. For those of us with the intellectual curiosity to actually double click on your sleep numbers, Mark’s work is invaluable. I have over 1,500 nights of sleep logged in Sleepyhead...I learned the perils of drinking wine with dinner, the value in tucking in at the same time every night, and which masks work best for me—just to name a few benefits. I use sleep medicine to improve my life, the same way that I use a screwdriver to tighten screws—which is to say, I pay no attention to the sleep-apnea forums and I suspect most users are the same. I’m sharing all of this here in case Mark by chance frequents this forum—and hopefully if enough others like me discuss the value that this free product creates every night for so many millions of users, he may reconsider. I for one, would gladly pay for a Sleepyhead subscription if that meant continued support. Thanks Mark, your work is invaluable. Link to vice motherboard article about why Sleepyhead matters: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibly-alive-because-it-exists-why-sleep-apnea-patients-rely-on-a-cpap-machine-hacker https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibl...
- radar 8y ago
  Curious; what are the perils of drinking wine with dinner?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Drinking alcohol prior to sleep can cause poor sleep quality. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666864/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666864/
    - x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
      So I should day drink instead?
beck5 8y ago
Motherboard did a nice writeup of what Sleepyhead is and an overview of the Sleep Apnea echo system https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibly-alive-because-it-exists-why-sleep-apnea-patients-rely-on-a-cpap-machine-hacker?fbclid=IwAR3zfnoX_waylvse7Pdc8_ZDuZVx3dkdUqoHj7Luqs0W8T2hqaQaOaEFDno https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibl...
jonawesomegreen 8y ago
Open source is hard. Being a maintainer is hard. I've seen a lot of good people burn themselves out trying to maintain / contribute to open source software. I think this is a great blog post / talk (not mine) about the topic: https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/ https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-parti... "Here's a bit of real talk for people: I think working in OSS has made me more bitter and short-temperated". Best wishes to the maintainer, hopefully time gives some perspective on the problems in the community and perhaps some ways forward.
dmuth 8y ago
I have no knowledge of this issue, but there seems to be more background here: http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... First post is by Jedimark, which goes into more detail, and there are some comments with other sides of the story.
- quasse 8y ago
  For those who have only read the parent blogpost, I would suggest reading at least the first page of this thread. There certainly seems to be another side to this story. The author seems to take any input or effort from others to improve his open source and GPL licensed project as a personal attack. If you're an open source project maintainer who has an ever growing foes list of people who develop forks of your project or make suggestions you don't like, you might want to re-evaluate yourself.
  - zokier 8y ago
    > you might want to re-evaluate yourself. To his credit, that is exactly what he did, and the result of that evaluation is visible right here; he decided that foss world was not for him.
ZeroCool2u 8y ago
I recently read about this project in the Motherboard article. Seems like it has had a really positive impact on a lot of people's lives. Unfortunate that it has come to this. Official Project Page: https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/ https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/ Source Link: https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code
gotocake 8y ago
Mark, your work greatly improved my life. I completely understand you needed to walk away from this though, and I’m sorry the least among us have taken so much from you.
iamwil 8y ago
> If there is one tiny bit of hard learned advice I can leave behind from all this, it would be: Friends don’t let friends release full blown complex applications under the GPL – Keep it for hacks or corporate backed stuff. Anyone know what the story is behind this? Is it that GPL is hard to monetize?
- Hydraulix989 8y ago
  Yes, because it's an infectious license. Stated roughly, anything that touches GPL code must also be licensed as GPL.
- rincebrain 8y ago
  If you read the other posts in this discussion, with links to the forum discussions, it appears that he thinks people having access to the source of the program without him as a gatekeeper and sole steward is a mistake, and allowed people to steal his work by forking the project when he was perceived to be out of communication for months on end.
  - philpem 8y ago
    Looking at the whole situation from the outside... yeah. In my experience there's only one reasonable way to deal with "friendly" forks like that. Meet up with the folks who forked the project, thank them for their work and ask if they're interested in reunifying the codebase and joining the two teams. And if that fails, you switch to "Okay I respect this is GPL/BSD/xyz'd OSS, you have a right to fork the code. But can you please name it something else so people aren't confused? And do you mind if I cherrypick some of your cool features and fixes back into mainline?" Maybe I'm just turning into an old pacifist, but I just don't see the point of stoking hatred and arguments in an open community.
    - novaleaf 8y ago
      yes, but if you read those fourm threads, the author unfortunately has absolutely no inclination to reconcile. Shame for this project, it seems to be of tangible benefit to people with this disorder.
tendencydriven 8y ago
Read into this more, here http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... and here http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1-1-Release-plus-odd-posts-by-JediMark?pid=284578#pid284578 http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1... Its not as black and white as it seems
- Scaevolus 8y ago
  It doesn't look like the project was ever that collaborative, so I'm filing this under the classic "primary developer dislikes the overhead of accepting patches, occasionally loses interest": https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code/graphs/master https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code/graphs/master I've fallen into that pattern myself, and seen my code forked and extended by those that were still interested. The thing that stung was them erasing all the commit history giving me attribution!
- lima 8y ago
  Well, they should've called their fork something other than "SleepyHead". From what I could gather from these threads: - Maintainer disappeared for a while, people wanted their fixes merged. - ApneaBoard community made a "1.1.0" release of "SleepyHead" without the author's approval, rather than forking it and calling it something else. - Maintainer unhappy about them using his trademark without his permission.
  - treis 8y ago
    >ApneaBoard community made a "1.1.0" release of "SleepyHead" without the author's approval, rather than forking it and calling it something else So Mark says. The ApneaBoard folks say that it was released by Mark's chosen right hand man. As far as I can tell the ApneaBoard folks have yet to release their own version or fork the code. They seem to be organizing to do just that which is what set Mark off.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    As far as I read so far, AB did not fork the program. They mirrored the original binary. With the original donation links to the original owner. It's a mess.
jonathankoren 8y ago
From the linked blog post: > Let it be known that the hosts of the ApneaBoard forum have finally succeeded in their efforts to hijack the SleepyHead project. Sounds like it's not "shutting down" as much as forked, and he's upset. Also it looks like the reason why it's getting forked is because critical bugs went out. People are relying on this to live, and he's treating it like a hobby -- because it is to him. His post is full of recriminations and cries about being betrayed. Even the forum post someone found[0] in these comments supports this idea of a fork. > ApneaBoard's recent "release committee" initiative is illegitimate and is seeking to undermine my years of work on SleepyHead and undermine my role in my own software project." > If it's NOT SleepyHead, don't call it SleepyHead, and don't make it look like SleepyHead... it's that simple! The code is GPLed[1]. It sounds like there were other people willing to contribute. The code goes on, without him. [0] http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... [1] https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code
- cabaalis 8y ago
  > People are relying on this to live As much as I want free software and all that, it seems like medical devices have the best cause for DRM and all the protections it affords.
  - AlotOfReading 8y ago
    Speaking as an embedded developer (though not currently in healthcare), no device should be sold without the manufacturer's firmware. With that said, there are plenty of cases where the hardware is fine, but the software doesn't support things the customer needs for a whole variety of reasons. I don't see why people should be protected from themselves after the sale. Releasing more firmware as open source would be a good step towards cleaning up some of the hazmat-grade codebases out there as well.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - seabird 8y ago
goshx 8y ago
His work will be missed. It sucks that it came down to this and it reminds me of how many entitled toxic pricks exist out there just to make the work of those voluntarily trying to make the world a better place harder. It's sad that they've won this time, but his wife and daughter won big time. If you are reading this, thank you sincerely and I hope you find joy in your future endeavors.
- okmokmz 8y ago
  >how many entitled toxic pricks exist out there just to make the work of those voluntarily trying to make the world a better place harder. It's sad that they've won this time While I generally agree with this sentiment, based on what I've read I don't believe that is what happened here. The rantings and ramblings posted by Mark really do sound like he may be struggling with a paranoid personality disorder. During a period where he was seemingly absent and unresponsive the community decided to continue to work on the project and try to iron out some bugs. As far as I can tell no one tried to hijack his project or monetize the work.
czbond 8y ago
Couldn't he just get a subscriber list that pay for the software and releases? I get that it's free, and great, but ongoing support takes his time. Put up a paypal link, or your preferred method, and get 300-500 people to sign up for $100/yr (for example). If there are forums, there are paying customers.
- zokier 8y ago
  As far as I can tell, the issue was not money but control. He clearly disliked the community taking the software in their own hands without his input.
  - czbond 8y ago
    Ouch. It would seem his choices woudld be either open source with a strong hand and commercial variant (a la Rails/Ruby Sidekiq) or open source and one lets it be free.
helen___keller 8y ago
A lot of small open source projects struggle with leadership and organizational issues as they become more popular with a wider userbase (and hence wider demands, such as in the case support for more CPAP machines). It sucks but that's just how it works, and seems inevitable with the entire project focused around the primary maintainer. Seems like Jedimark is doing the right thing by removing himself from the situation to focus on his life. It's open source so hopefully the community can fork it and maybe find an organizational model that's more sustainable for continued support.
QuantumGood 8y ago
Not so Black and White, e.g. from the apneaboard forum he trashes: >The pattern goes like this: 1. JediMark asks for feedback, development help etc. 2. Folks step up to the plate and help him out. 3. The code is improved and released. 4. Time passes, bugs are found, new machines need support, so those that help Mark out try to contact him to inform him of these needful things. 5. Mark goes "dark" and drops out of any online activity for MONTHS at a time. 6. The "helpers" get frustrated and keep trying to contact Mark for direction. 7. Their requests are ignored by Mark, repeatedly. 8. The "helpers" start talking about trying to help fix the code themselves, since users are clamoring for the fixes with JediMark nowhere to be found. 9. The "helpers" actually fix a bit of the code and offer it up to those who would like to use a "fixed" version, or install a patch. 10. Suddenly, JediMark comes out of hiding, and attacks the "helpers" for not allowing him time to fix the problems himself, saying (basically) that "No one understands the code like I do, since I am the creator of SleepyHead, and your efforts to 'fix' things only messes up my progress!!!" and "You guys are trying to steal SleepyHead away!" 11. The "helpers" are stunned by Mark's attacks and slink off away into oblivion, since they're offended that Mark thinks they are a bunch of "rebels". 12. More months pass with nothing being done. 13. GOTO step 4 (1) ------------------- >I was your friend, for several years, until you decided that I was your enemy because I suggested you talk to Pugsy about things that confused new users. Things that confused them then, and things that continue to confuse them now. At that point, you decided I was out to get you" and trying to destroy sleepyhead. You've done the same with Arie, who's been helping you for far longer than I had, and now you've decided that Apneaboard is against you. The fact that people don't agree* with everything you might think DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE AGAINST YOU!. Your real friends aren't the sycophants that do nothing but shower you with praise. Your real friends are the ones that actually give enough of a shit to tell you "hey, dude, you've got a problem.", or in the case of Sleepyhead "hey, what you're doing is hurting the program, and everybody that uses it. Go ahead and let someone else work on 1.1, if you don't like it, FINE, just ignore them. There's no reason for you to go off the deep end, making posts about how everybody is out to get you. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT out to get you[/u][/i][/b], or, destroy sleepyhead. For Gods sake, you and I worked for hundreds of hours, you told me endless stories about your childhood and growing up and sent me pictures of your first Christmas tree, and you wearing the T-shirt I had custom made for you.... but when I suggested you talk to Pugsy about what confuses people... you were in one of your paranoid phases, and suddenly, I was THE ENEMY. The same thing is happening now. If I didn't care, about you... I'd just laugh and say "he's off his rocker again..." I'd really rather you get help though, so you can be a happier person.(2) (1) Apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1-1-Release-plus-odd-posts-by-JediMark?pid=284578#pid284578 (2) http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project...

134 points by janwijbrand 8y ago

So, he says his software is GPL. Does this mean he has a Github repo somewhere? Why isn't the community pushing important merge requests to him?

zimpenfish 8y ago
This seems to be the most recent repo - https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code

nikkwong 8y ago

Sleepyhead probably saved my life (literally) when I couldn't get any sleep doctors to take my condition seriously. I can't thank him enough for his contributions. The software is quite good, too, with a better UX than a lot of enterprise apps that I use on a daily basis. Might go to show how one person's ownership can lead to the creation of great experiences in ways that the lack of ownership often found in large software projects does not.

pram 8y ago

No idea what 'SleepyHead' is but I understand the sentiment. I've felt the pain from the perception of not getting anything back after you've poured so much of yourself into a thing. Especially when it's for free, the lack of support starts to feel like ingratitude. It might or might not be true. People might actually appreciate what you're doing, but never explicitly say it. However, after a certain point, your mind becomes so toxic and awful that nothing will convince you otherwise. It's really better to walk away than become a shitty, bitter husk IMO. Good luck, guy!

floatingatoll 8y ago
There's a Vice article link elsewhere in the comments, and at the end of the linked post, that explains what it is and why it mattered.

CrazyCatDog 8y ago

Two innovations have revolutionized my life—CPAP and Sleepyhead. I volunteered to do a sleep study at the famous Stanford Sleep Clinic some 15 years ago hoping that they would tell me I’m superhuman and don’t need sleep. They came back and told me that I sleep very poorly. CPAP machines are (finally) wonderful, but the manufacturers don’t share any of the data that their machines collect other than basics like hours slept. For those of us with the intellectual curiosity to actually double click on your sleep numbers, Mark’s work is invaluable. I have over 1,500 nights of sleep logged in Sleepyhead...I learned the perils of drinking wine with dinner, the value in tucking in at the same time every night, and which masks work best for me—just to name a few benefits. I use sleep medicine to improve my life, the same way that I use a screwdriver to tighten screws—which is to say, I pay no attention to the sleep-apnea forums and I suspect most users are the same. I’m sharing all of this here in case Mark by chance frequents this forum—and hopefully if enough others like me discuss the value that this free product creates every night for so many millions of users, he may reconsider. I for one, would gladly pay for a Sleepyhead subscription if that meant continued support. Thanks Mark, your work is invaluable. Link to vice motherboard article about why Sleepyhead matters: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibly-alive-because-it-exists-why-sleep-apnea-patients-rely-on-a-cpap-machine-hacker https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibl...

radar 8y ago
Curious; what are the perils of drinking wine with dinner?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Drinking alcohol prior to sleep can cause poor sleep quality. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666864/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666864/
  - x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
    So I should day drink instead?

beck5 8y ago

Motherboard did a nice writeup of what Sleepyhead is and an overview of the Sleep Apnea echo system https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibly-alive-because-it-exists-why-sleep-apnea-patients-rely-on-a-cpap-machine-hacker?fbclid=IwAR3zfnoX_waylvse7Pdc8_ZDuZVx3dkdUqoHj7Luqs0W8T2hqaQaOaEFDno https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjd4w/im-possibl...

jonawesomegreen 8y ago

Open source is hard. Being a maintainer is hard. I've seen a lot of good people burn themselves out trying to maintain / contribute to open source software. I think this is a great blog post / talk (not mine) about the topic: https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-participation/ https://snarky.ca/setting-expectations-for-open-source-parti... "Here's a bit of real talk for people: I think working in OSS has made me more bitter and short-temperated". Best wishes to the maintainer, hopefully time gives some perspective on the problems in the community and perhaps some ways forward.

dmuth 8y ago

I have no knowledge of this issue, but there seems to be more background here: http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... First post is by Jedimark, which goes into more detail, and there are some comments with other sides of the story.

quasse 8y ago
For those who have only read the parent blogpost, I would suggest reading at least the first page of this thread. There certainly seems to be another side to this story. The author seems to take any input or effort from others to improve his open source and GPL licensed project as a personal attack. If you're an open source project maintainer who has an ever growing foes list of people who develop forks of your project or make suggestions you don't like, you might want to re-evaluate yourself.
- zokier 8y ago
  > you might want to re-evaluate yourself. To his credit, that is exactly what he did, and the result of that evaluation is visible right here; he decided that foss world was not for him.

ZeroCool2u 8y ago

I recently read about this project in the Motherboard article. Seems like it has had a really positive impact on a lot of people's lives. Unfortunate that it has come to this. Official Project Page: https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/ https://sleepyhead.jedimark.net/ Source Link: https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code

gotocake 8y ago

Mark, your work greatly improved my life. I completely understand you needed to walk away from this though, and I’m sorry the least among us have taken so much from you.

iamwil 8y ago

> If there is one tiny bit of hard learned advice I can leave behind from all this, it would be: Friends don’t let friends release full blown complex applications under the GPL – Keep it for hacks or corporate backed stuff. Anyone know what the story is behind this? Is it that GPL is hard to monetize?

Hydraulix989 8y ago
Yes, because it's an infectious license. Stated roughly, anything that touches GPL code must also be licensed as GPL.
rincebrain 8y ago
If you read the other posts in this discussion, with links to the forum discussions, it appears that he thinks people having access to the source of the program without him as a gatekeeper and sole steward is a mistake, and allowed people to steal his work by forking the project when he was perceived to be out of communication for months on end.
- philpem 8y ago
  Looking at the whole situation from the outside... yeah. In my experience there's only one reasonable way to deal with "friendly" forks like that. Meet up with the folks who forked the project, thank them for their work and ask if they're interested in reunifying the codebase and joining the two teams. And if that fails, you switch to "Okay I respect this is GPL/BSD/xyz'd OSS, you have a right to fork the code. But can you please name it something else so people aren't confused? And do you mind if I cherrypick some of your cool features and fixes back into mainline?" Maybe I'm just turning into an old pacifist, but I just don't see the point of stoking hatred and arguments in an open community.
  - novaleaf 8y ago
    yes, but if you read those fourm threads, the author unfortunately has absolutely no inclination to reconcile. Shame for this project, it seems to be of tangible benefit to people with this disorder.

tendencydriven 8y ago

Read into this more, here http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... and here http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1-1-Release-plus-odd-posts-by-JediMark?pid=284578#pid284578 http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1... Its not as black and white as it seems

Scaevolus 8y ago
It doesn't look like the project was ever that collaborative, so I'm filing this under the classic "primary developer dislikes the overhead of accepting patches, occasionally loses interest": https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code/graphs/master https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code/graphs/master I've fallen into that pattern myself, and seen my code forked and extended by those that were still interested. The thing that stung was them erasing all the commit history giving me attribution!
lima 8y ago
Well, they should've called their fork something other than "SleepyHead". From what I could gather from these threads: - Maintainer disappeared for a while, people wanted their fixes merged. - ApneaBoard community made a "1.1.0" release of "SleepyHead" without the author's approval, rather than forking it and calling it something else. - Maintainer unhappy about them using his trademark without his permission.
- treis 8y ago
  >ApneaBoard community made a "1.1.0" release of "SleepyHead" without the author's approval, rather than forking it and calling it something else So Mark says. The ApneaBoard folks say that it was released by Mark's chosen right hand man. As far as I can tell the ApneaBoard folks have yet to release their own version or fork the code. They seem to be organizing to do just that which is what set Mark off.
- Tomte 8y ago
  As far as I read so far, AB did not fork the program. They mirrored the original binary. With the original donation links to the original owner. It's a mess.

jonathankoren 8y ago

From the linked blog post: > Let it be known that the hosts of the ApneaBoard forum have finally succeeded in their efforts to hijack the SleepyHead project. Sounds like it's not "shutting down" as much as forked, and he's upset. Also it looks like the reason why it's getting forked is because critical bugs went out. People are relying on this to live, and he's treating it like a hobby -- because it is to him. His post is full of recriminations and cries about being betrayed. Even the forum post someone found[0] in these comments supports this idea of a fork. > ApneaBoard's recent "release committee" initiative is illegitimate and is seeking to undermine my years of work on SleepyHead and undermine my role in my own software project." > If it's NOT SleepyHead, don't call it SleepyHead, and don't make it look like SleepyHead... it's that simple! The code is GPLed[1]. It sounds like there were other people willing to contribute. The code goes on, without him. [0] http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project... [1] https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code https://gitlab.com/sleepyhead/sleepyhead-code

cabaalis 8y ago
> People are relying on this to live As much as I want free software and all that, it seems like medical devices have the best cause for DRM and all the protections it affords.
- AlotOfReading 8y ago
  Speaking as an embedded developer (though not currently in healthcare), no device should be sold without the manufacturer's firmware. With that said, there are plenty of cases where the hardware is fine, but the software doesn't support things the customer needs for a whole variety of reasons. I don't see why people should be protected from themselves after the sale. Releasing more firmware as open source would be a good step towards cleaning up some of the hazmat-grade codebases out there as well.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- seabird 8y ago

goshx 8y ago

His work will be missed. It sucks that it came down to this and it reminds me of how many entitled toxic pricks exist out there just to make the work of those voluntarily trying to make the world a better place harder. It's sad that they've won this time, but his wife and daughter won big time. If you are reading this, thank you sincerely and I hope you find joy in your future endeavors.

okmokmz 8y ago
>how many entitled toxic pricks exist out there just to make the work of those voluntarily trying to make the world a better place harder. It's sad that they've won this time While I generally agree with this sentiment, based on what I've read I don't believe that is what happened here. The rantings and ramblings posted by Mark really do sound like he may be struggling with a paranoid personality disorder. During a period where he was seemingly absent and unresponsive the community decided to continue to work on the project and try to iron out some bugs. As far as I can tell no one tried to hijack his project or monetize the work.

czbond 8y ago

Couldn't he just get a subscriber list that pay for the software and releases? I get that it's free, and great, but ongoing support takes his time. Put up a paypal link, or your preferred method, and get 300-500 people to sign up for $100/yr (for example). If there are forums, there are paying customers.

zokier 8y ago
As far as I can tell, the issue was not money but control. He clearly disliked the community taking the software in their own hands without his input.
- czbond 8y ago
  Ouch. It would seem his choices woudld be either open source with a strong hand and commercial variant (a la Rails/Ruby Sidekiq) or open source and one lets it be free.

helen___keller 8y ago

A lot of small open source projects struggle with leadership and organizational issues as they become more popular with a wider userbase (and hence wider demands, such as in the case support for more CPAP machines). It sucks but that's just how it works, and seems inevitable with the entire project focused around the primary maintainer. Seems like Jedimark is doing the right thing by removing himself from the situation to focus on his life. It's open source so hopefully the community can fork it and maybe find an organizational model that's more sustainable for continued support.

QuantumGood 8y ago

Not so Black and White, e.g. from the apneaboard forum he trashes: >The pattern goes like this: 1. JediMark asks for feedback, development help etc. 2. Folks step up to the plate and help him out. 3. The code is improved and released. 4. Time passes, bugs are found, new machines need support, so those that help Mark out try to contact him to inform him of these needful things. 5. Mark goes "dark" and drops out of any online activity for MONTHS at a time. 6. The "helpers" get frustrated and keep trying to contact Mark for direction. 7. Their requests are ignored by Mark, repeatedly. 8. The "helpers" start talking about trying to help fix the code themselves, since users are clamoring for the fixes with JediMark nowhere to be found. 9. The "helpers" actually fix a bit of the code and offer it up to those who would like to use a "fixed" version, or install a patch. 10. Suddenly, JediMark comes out of hiding, and attacks the "helpers" for not allowing him time to fix the problems himself, saying (basically) that "No one understands the code like I do, since I am the creator of SleepyHead, and your efforts to 'fix' things only messes up my progress!!!" and "You guys are trying to steal SleepyHead away!" 11. The "helpers" are stunned by Mark's attacks and slink off away into oblivion, since they're offended that Mark thinks they are a bunch of "rebels". 12. More months pass with nothing being done. 13. GOTO step 4 (1) ------------------- >I was your friend, for several years, until you decided that I was your enemy because I suggested you talk to Pugsy about things that confused new users. Things that confused them then, and things that continue to confuse them now. At that point, you decided I was out to get you" and trying to destroy sleepyhead. You've done the same with Arie, who's been helping you for far longer than I had, and now you've decided that Apneaboard is against you. The fact that people don't agree* with everything you might think DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE AGAINST YOU!. Your real friends aren't the sycophants that do nothing but shower you with praise. Your real friends are the ones that actually give enough of a shit to tell you "hey, dude, you've got a problem.", or in the case of Sleepyhead "hey, what you're doing is hurting the program, and everybody that uses it. Go ahead and let someone else work on 1.1, if you don't like it, FINE, just ignore them. There's no reason for you to go off the deep end, making posts about how everybody is out to get you. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT out to get you[/u][/i][/b], or, destroy sleepyhead. For Gods sake, you and I worked for hundreds of hours, you told me endless stories about your childhood and growing up and sent me pictures of your first Christmas tree, and you wearing the T-shirt I had custom made for you.... but when I suggested you talk to Pugsy about what confuses people... you were in one of your paranoid phases, and suddenly, I was THE ENEMY. The same thing is happening now. If I didn't care, about you... I'd just laugh and say "he's off his rocker again..." I'd really rather you get help though, so you can be a happier person.(2) (1) Apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-SleepyHead-version-1-1-Release-plus-odd-posts-by-JediMark?pid=284578#pid284578 (2) http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project-Takeover-Attempt-by-AB.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t174687/SleepyHead-Project...