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Question: why didn’t the more safety-focused developers just fork the project? I feel like fork-o-phobia causes 90% of the incidents like this.

steveklabnik 7y ago
Forking is extremely aggressive, and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project.
- spamizbad 7y ago
  Ah, point taken. But perhaps it’s better in situations like this where the original maintainer feels harangued by the community?
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Forking someone’s project because they won’t accept your PRs will definitely make them feel harangued by the community. I’m not sure if it necessarily has to be that way, but creating a hostile fork is conventionally considered very rude.
    - tomashubelbauer 7y ago
      This should change though. That's the correct course of action if a maintainer won't mainline what you want them to. Or is absent altogether.
      - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        What makes it hard is that upstream users have no attention bandwidth to dedicate to your project's (meta-project's?) internal disputes. They're just going to decide which fork they think is the main one and use that. If you look at Presto, that's a good example of how hostile forks tend to go; both sides have to insist they're the real project, the main project, because otherwise nobody will use them. Maybe there's a solution to that other than avoiding forks, but I'm not sure what it would be. It seems like a pretty fundamental challenge.
  - steveklabnik 7y ago
    In theory, but that doesn't really matter if that person doesn't exist, you know? In that case, simply moving to another project is the best option.
- sequoia 7y ago
  > Forking is extremely aggressive This is not so. If you said "forking can be perceived as an aggressive action"* I would not disagree with you, but in the context of an FOS ecosystem, forking should not be perceived as aggressive, and it definitely is not inherently so. If someone doesn't want anyone to fork their project, why release it under an open source license? Free/Open source, full control: pick one. I object to the characterization of forking as aggressive first because it's not, and second because it cuts off another potential avenue of redress or action. We already agree that "shouting on twitter and reddit" is not a good response. If you declare forking off limits or "impolite," what alternatives are left in a case like this? I acknowledge the complicated ecosystem impacts of forking a popular project (I'm from the JS world where the impacts are extreme), but I don't think "let a project stagnate or yell and shout because the maintainer has other priorities" is a better alternative. Forking a project in a case like this should be seen as "putting your money where your mouth is"/"stepping up to the plate"/taking on responsibility for change if you think a project is going in the wrong direction. Personally, I fault bitter complainers who don't fork a project for being lazy: do you care enough to actually do the maintainer's job, to take on that responsibility? If no, then what gives you the right to condemn them? If yes, great! Your problem is solved and you can maintain rather than complain. More forks please. * just as asking someone "where are you from?" can be perceived as aggressive but that doesn't make it objectively/inherently aggressive.
  - steveklabnik 7y ago
    I actually agree with you in a general sense, but our own opinions don't really matter much. What matters is the opinions in the aggregate. I wish that it wasn't perceived as such, but the reality is that it is. Ignore that at your own peril.
    - quotemstr 7y ago
      What peril? Why is everyone treating online outrage mobs as if they had any power or authority? Who cares if some unimportant anonymous commentator thinks a fork is aggressive?
      - 7y ago
- rhodysurf 7y ago
  Forking for their own use would solve their problem though wouldnt it? Just forking doesnt actually mean they are trying to take over a project.
- u801e 7y ago
  > Forking is extremely aggressive Shouldn't we disabuse ourselves of that notion? Forking a project to solve an issue is just that. We shouldn't attach any sort of emotional connotation to it.
  - rafaelvasco 7y ago
    Ah, emotion. Both the greatest strength and the downfall of humanity;
- matsemann 7y ago
  > and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project But at the same time, why should the original author do it? No one is paying for his or hers time.
- mLuby 7y ago
  Not every problem can be solved by new tech. But… are there ways forking could be made less aggressive (perhaps easy re-joining, community-based PR review and testing)? I remember this was a huge deal in the NodeJS community a few years back—it took a hostile fork to get the conservatives and progressives to agree on a way forward together.
- dbcurtis 7y ago
  > Forking is extremely aggressive, Is it really, though? It is more of an "agree to disagree" situation. Just like the maintainer doesn't owe you anything, you don't owe the maintainer blind loyalty, either.
- jraph 7y ago
  Forking can be friendly too. I wanted SimpleProtocolPlayer to be in F-Droid. This requires the author's explicit consent. Unfortunately, the author had not been seen active on the project for a while and did not respond to our questions. I forked the project so I could be the "author" and give my consent (yes, clearly a hack), told them about it, and my willing to merge back at any time. See [1] if interested. They eventually told me they were fine with the fork, and preferred having a fork for the F-Droid version of the app so we did not have to rely on their responsiveness. My fork included a fix that they merged. Some situations warrant a fork, and if communication (about the intents, the means and the expectations) is handled as best as possible, the fork can be seen as friendly by everyone. You are right though, I would not want to become the maintainer of projects I sent a patch to. And by the way, I did not really want to become the maintainer of the F-Droid version of SimpleProtocolPlayer at first, but this is fine. [1] https://github.com/kaytat/SimpleProtocolPlayer/issues/21 https://github.com/kaytat/SimpleProtocolPlayer/issues/21
- waynenilsen 7y ago
  When there is so much discontent in the community a fork is a very natural consequence. This, in my opinion, is open source working well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic
- perlgeek 7y ago
  Forking is an act of love. If you fork a project of mine, you show that you care enough about it to maintain it yourself, but your time and energy into my "original" code. Forking can be aggressive if you write deprecating things into the forked project's readme, but of course you don't have to do that. You could also talk to the old maintainer before forking; maybe they are happy to give up some responsibility, or maybe they even endorse a fork.
- jeddy3 7y ago
  > Forking is extremely aggressive We are already WAY past that line, just because people don't fork > and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project. So DON'T run a project. Fork it, fix your problems and be done with it. This seems to be at the core of the disagreements in this thread, one argument being that you shouldn't be expected to maintain a community project just because you put code on the internet. Expecting that will lead to less open sourced code, which is bad IMHO. Lastly, your last argument argument reads a little bit as "Not everybody has the desire or time to run a project, so what they want is somebody else to do it" I might be reading in to much into it though. This thread has a fair amount of pronounced entitlement.
ansible 7y ago
Forking the code is "easy" (OK, maybe not based on the other comments), but anyway... Another (persistent) problem has been the crates.io namespace. You can fork actix, but then you'll need to come up with a new name for it, and then educate the wider community of that. It is a big hassle, and slows adoption. Adding onto the issue is that crates.io does not (yet) support the username/projectname naming scheme as on github and other popular code repositories. So it isn't enough to just people to go to a different username, you must use a new project name.
- hobofan 7y ago
  I don't see that as a major problem in this situation. Given that the actix author already wanted to take a step back after the last incident, and also seems to be generally okay with giving the project away, a fork could also be officially advertised. Word also travels fast in communities, and if a viable fork does come up, people will quickly start to recommend it.
thrower123 7y ago
It is so much less work to whine and complain and poke holes in other people's work than it is to roll up your own sleeves and dive into the shit yourself.
XelNika 7y ago
I think it's worth pointing out that this is about an article and a Reddit discussion posted literally yesterday. A fork might already have been on the way. Maybe someone was working in a private repo. It's clearly a worse solution than fixing the original so even assuming someone was willing to maintain a fork, it's not surprising that they wouldn't do so at the first sign of trouble. If you do look at comments by safety-focused developers from earlier actix drama, you'll see that quite a few simply use a different project. The answer might be that actix doesn't provide enough value compared to alternatives to be worth forking for those people. The people aggressively attacking actix might not even be interested in the project for their own use, but merely there for the outrage.
hjek 7y ago
Exactly. Like the GraphicsMagick fork of ImageMagick.

steveklabnik 7y ago

Forking is extremely aggressive, and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project.

spamizbad 7y ago
Ah, point taken. But perhaps it’s better in situations like this where the original maintainer feels harangued by the community?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Forking someone’s project because they won’t accept your PRs will definitely make them feel harangued by the community. I’m not sure if it necessarily has to be that way, but creating a hostile fork is conventionally considered very rude.
  - tomashubelbauer 7y ago
    This should change though. That's the correct course of action if a maintainer won't mainline what you want them to. Or is absent altogether.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      What makes it hard is that upstream users have no attention bandwidth to dedicate to your project's (meta-project's?) internal disputes. They're just going to decide which fork they think is the main one and use that. If you look at Presto, that's a good example of how hostile forks tend to go; both sides have to insist they're the real project, the main project, because otherwise nobody will use them. Maybe there's a solution to that other than avoiding forks, but I'm not sure what it would be. It seems like a pretty fundamental challenge.
- steveklabnik 7y ago
  In theory, but that doesn't really matter if that person doesn't exist, you know? In that case, simply moving to another project is the best option.
sequoia 7y ago
> Forking is extremely aggressive This is not so. If you said "forking can be perceived as an aggressive action"* I would not disagree with you, but in the context of an FOS ecosystem, forking should not be perceived as aggressive, and it definitely is not inherently so. If someone doesn't want anyone to fork their project, why release it under an open source license? Free/Open source, full control: pick one. I object to the characterization of forking as aggressive first because it's not, and second because it cuts off another potential avenue of redress or action. We already agree that "shouting on twitter and reddit" is not a good response. If you declare forking off limits or "impolite," what alternatives are left in a case like this? I acknowledge the complicated ecosystem impacts of forking a popular project (I'm from the JS world where the impacts are extreme), but I don't think "let a project stagnate or yell and shout because the maintainer has other priorities" is a better alternative. Forking a project in a case like this should be seen as "putting your money where your mouth is"/"stepping up to the plate"/taking on responsibility for change if you think a project is going in the wrong direction. Personally, I fault bitter complainers who don't fork a project for being lazy: do you care enough to actually do the maintainer's job, to take on that responsibility? If no, then what gives you the right to condemn them? If yes, great! Your problem is solved and you can maintain rather than complain. More forks please. * just as asking someone "where are you from?" can be perceived as aggressive but that doesn't make it objectively/inherently aggressive.
- steveklabnik 7y ago
  I actually agree with you in a general sense, but our own opinions don't really matter much. What matters is the opinions in the aggregate. I wish that it wasn't perceived as such, but the reality is that it is. Ignore that at your own peril.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    What peril? Why is everyone treating online outrage mobs as if they had any power or authority? Who cares if some unimportant anonymous commentator thinks a fork is aggressive?
    - 7y ago
rhodysurf 7y ago
Forking for their own use would solve their problem though wouldnt it? Just forking doesnt actually mean they are trying to take over a project.
u801e 7y ago
> Forking is extremely aggressive Shouldn't we disabuse ourselves of that notion? Forking a project to solve an issue is just that. We shouldn't attach any sort of emotional connotation to it.
- rafaelvasco 7y ago
  Ah, emotion. Both the greatest strength and the downfall of humanity;
matsemann 7y ago
> and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project But at the same time, why should the original author do it? No one is paying for his or hers time.
mLuby 7y ago
Not every problem can be solved by new tech. But… are there ways forking could be made less aggressive (perhaps easy re-joining, community-based PR review and testing)? I remember this was a huge deal in the NodeJS community a few years back—it took a hostile fork to get the conservatives and progressives to agree on a way forward together.
dbcurtis 7y ago
> Forking is extremely aggressive, Is it really, though? It is more of an "agree to disagree" situation. Just like the maintainer doesn't owe you anything, you don't owe the maintainer blind loyalty, either.
jraph 7y ago
Forking can be friendly too. I wanted SimpleProtocolPlayer to be in F-Droid. This requires the author's explicit consent. Unfortunately, the author had not been seen active on the project for a while and did not respond to our questions. I forked the project so I could be the "author" and give my consent (yes, clearly a hack), told them about it, and my willing to merge back at any time. See [1] if interested. They eventually told me they were fine with the fork, and preferred having a fork for the F-Droid version of the app so we did not have to rely on their responsiveness. My fork included a fix that they merged. Some situations warrant a fork, and if communication (about the intents, the means and the expectations) is handled as best as possible, the fork can be seen as friendly by everyone. You are right though, I would not want to become the maintainer of projects I sent a patch to. And by the way, I did not really want to become the maintainer of the F-Droid version of SimpleProtocolPlayer at first, but this is fine. [1] https://github.com/kaytat/SimpleProtocolPlayer/issues/21 https://github.com/kaytat/SimpleProtocolPlayer/issues/21
waynenilsen 7y ago
When there is so much discontent in the community a fork is a very natural consequence. This, in my opinion, is open source working well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic
perlgeek 7y ago
Forking is an act of love. If you fork a project of mine, you show that you care enough about it to maintain it yourself, but your time and energy into my "original" code. Forking can be aggressive if you write deprecating things into the forked project's readme, but of course you don't have to do that. You could also talk to the old maintainer before forking; maybe they are happy to give up some responsibility, or maybe they even endorse a fork.
jeddy3 7y ago
> Forking is extremely aggressive We are already WAY past that line, just because people don't fork > and just because someone has the time to write a patch doesn't mean they have the desire or time to run a project. So DON'T run a project. Fork it, fix your problems and be done with it. This seems to be at the core of the disagreements in this thread, one argument being that you shouldn't be expected to maintain a community project just because you put code on the internet. Expecting that will lead to less open sourced code, which is bad IMHO. Lastly, your last argument argument reads a little bit as "Not everybody has the desire or time to run a project, so what they want is somebody else to do it" I might be reading in to much into it though. This thread has a fair amount of pronounced entitlement.

ansible 7y ago

Forking the code is "easy" (OK, maybe not based on the other comments), but anyway... Another (persistent) problem has been the crates.io namespace. You can fork actix, but then you'll need to come up with a new name for it, and then educate the wider community of that. It is a big hassle, and slows adoption. Adding onto the issue is that crates.io does not (yet) support the username/projectname naming scheme as on github and other popular code repositories. So it isn't enough to just people to go to a different username, you must use a new project name.

hobofan 7y ago
I don't see that as a major problem in this situation. Given that the actix author already wanted to take a step back after the last incident, and also seems to be generally okay with giving the project away, a fork could also be officially advertised. Word also travels fast in communities, and if a viable fork does come up, people will quickly start to recommend it.

thrower123 7y ago

It is so much less work to whine and complain and poke holes in other people's work than it is to roll up your own sleeves and dive into the shit yourself.

XelNika 7y ago

I think it's worth pointing out that this is about an article and a Reddit discussion posted literally yesterday. A fork might already have been on the way. Maybe someone was working in a private repo. It's clearly a worse solution than fixing the original so even assuming someone was willing to maintain a fork, it's not surprising that they wouldn't do so at the first sign of trouble. If you do look at comments by safety-focused developers from earlier actix drama, you'll see that quite a few simply use a different project. The answer might be that actix doesn't provide enough value compared to alternatives to be worth forking for those people. The people aggressively attacking actix might not even be interested in the project for their own use, but merely there for the outrage.

hjek 7y ago

Exactly. Like the GraphicsMagick fork of ImageMagick.