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Seems like there should have been some sort of response from the maintainer about the _philosophy_ of why he was doing things the was he was, and people could e

Seems like there should have been some sort of response from the maintainer about the _philosophy_ of why he was doing things the was he was, and people could either get onboard with the connecting points of that, or get lost. So far, in all of this drama, I have yet to see where any of that might have been explained. I don't use Rust, but I understand the significance of the experiment, and I think I for one, would have liked to read the author's thoughts about "why."

lallysingh 7y ago
Why is the maintainer responsible for that? They're just another dev who wrote something that became popular. It's almost like watching lottery winners having their lives ruined.
- TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
  > Why is the maintainer responsible for that? It just seems to me that there's a give-and-take to being the maintainer of a popular open source project. You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? Doesn't simple human curtesy and a modicum of wisdom suggest that you should explain your rationale in accepting or rejecting them, to manage expectations, so that it doesn't end up like this? I know, I know. I'm taking my crazy pills again. Sorry.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    And this is why I honestly don't ever want to release an open-source project. At the very least, I'm not going to make it easy for people to contribute. I'll keep the git repo private, go without a ticketing system, and just post tarballs full of code on a self-hosted website (I guess like the NetHack team used to do before 3.6, but they had a ticketing system, and I wouldn't). Maybe I'll even use a non-free license just to reinforce my "you take what you can get" policy.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Why? I mean, if you're that hostile to collaboration, why not just keep it closed source and maybe try to charge for it?
      - wolfgke 7y ago
        > Why? I mean, if you're that hostile to collaboration, why not just keep it closed source and maybe try to charge for it? - There exist open source licenses (with copyleft) that disallow making it closed source. - There exist other reasons to publish the source code: for example allowing the user to study it.
      - amyjess 7y ago
        Python is my language of choice, so posting projects means publishing the source code.
        wolrah 7y ago
        > Python is my language of choice, so posting projects means publishing the source code. Technically you could just post the .pyc bytecode as long as you didn't care about it working on anything but CPython and compatible implementations.
        JanisL 7y ago
        This might make it a bit harder for someone but wouldn't really stop people from reverse engineering it.
      - xscott 7y ago
        If I write something useful, I'm willing to share it with people when I can. It makes me happy knowing I contributed something that might make the world a smidge better. That doesn't mean I'm willing to accept your patch. As soon as I accept collaboration, I need to worry about copyright on the contributions, whether they follow my coding style, and whether I'm willing to accept additional complexity for features I don't care about.
  - ncallaway 7y ago
    > It just seems to me that there's a give-and-take to being the maintainer of a popular open source project. Sounds like a whole lotta give to me...
  - xscott 7y ago
    > You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? It seems like you're trying to make it seem like there is always a legitimate exchange, and so they owe you something. Some projects want help, others don't. In the latter case, it's just a gift from the author, and they don't owe you anything.
  - munificent 7y ago
    > You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? Any open source maintainer will tell you that many PRs, even well-intentioned ones, end up being a net negative. Often they don't further the maintainers aims, they need detailed review, take sometimes a lot of effort to manage the communication tactfully, etc. Yes, many PRs are a win and it can be really gratifying seeing your project become bigger and better than you could have made on its own. But also, many PRs are just a chore and a hassle.
kandeel4411 7y ago
I believe he already included that in the README https://github.com/actix/actix-web https://github.com/actix/actix-web
pfortuny 7y ago
There is absolutely no obligation to even reply to mails. Otherwise you fall into the trap of having to explain everything to everybody and not doing your project.
- bloodorange 7y ago
  Indeed. I am glad you point this out. The level of entitlement in the discussion astonishes me. Someone has done a lot of work and offered it for free along with a license that lets people modify it and redistribute it and that is not enough. Instead of being grateful for it, people are demanding that the giver also make the changes that these people need and take on the burden of maintaining them. To all those people: Why should he? Do it yourself or pay someone to do it. It need not be any more complicated than that.
cmiles74 7y ago
While that might have made the community feel a little better, I don't think the maintainer had to do anything, certainly they don't have to explain why they made this or that decision. People should decide if it's a big deal for them and if it is, fork the project to fix the issue or move to another library. I have had to do this many times myself, I kind of thought that's just how things worked with smaller projects. More than once I've found someone of a like mind has _already_ forked and made the change.

lallysingh 7y ago

Why is the maintainer responsible for that? They're just another dev who wrote something that became popular. It's almost like watching lottery winners having their lives ruined.

TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
> Why is the maintainer responsible for that? It just seems to me that there's a give-and-take to being the maintainer of a popular open source project. You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? Doesn't simple human curtesy and a modicum of wisdom suggest that you should explain your rationale in accepting or rejecting them, to manage expectations, so that it doesn't end up like this? I know, I know. I'm taking my crazy pills again. Sorry.
- amyjess 7y ago
  And this is why I honestly don't ever want to release an open-source project. At the very least, I'm not going to make it easy for people to contribute. I'll keep the git repo private, go without a ticketing system, and just post tarballs full of code on a self-hosted website (I guess like the NetHack team used to do before 3.6, but they had a ticketing system, and I wouldn't). Maybe I'll even use a non-free license just to reinforce my "you take what you can get" policy.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Why? I mean, if you're that hostile to collaboration, why not just keep it closed source and maybe try to charge for it?
    - wolfgke 7y ago
      > Why? I mean, if you're that hostile to collaboration, why not just keep it closed source and maybe try to charge for it? - There exist open source licenses (with copyleft) that disallow making it closed source. - There exist other reasons to publish the source code: for example allowing the user to study it.
    - amyjess 7y ago
      Python is my language of choice, so posting projects means publishing the source code.
      - wolrah 7y ago
        > Python is my language of choice, so posting projects means publishing the source code. Technically you could just post the .pyc bytecode as long as you didn't care about it working on anything but CPython and compatible implementations.
        JanisL 7y ago
        This might make it a bit harder for someone but wouldn't really stop people from reverse engineering it.
    - xscott 7y ago
      If I write something useful, I'm willing to share it with people when I can. It makes me happy knowing I contributed something that might make the world a smidge better. That doesn't mean I'm willing to accept your patch. As soon as I accept collaboration, I need to worry about copyright on the contributions, whether they follow my coding style, and whether I'm willing to accept additional complexity for features I don't care about.
- ncallaway 7y ago
  > It just seems to me that there's a give-and-take to being the maintainer of a popular open source project. Sounds like a whole lotta give to me...
- xscott 7y ago
  > You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? It seems like you're trying to make it seem like there is always a legitimate exchange, and so they owe you something. Some projects want help, others don't. In the latter case, it's just a gift from the author, and they don't owe you anything.
- munificent 7y ago
  > You get help on the project in the form of people contributing patches, right? Any open source maintainer will tell you that many PRs, even well-intentioned ones, end up being a net negative. Often they don't further the maintainers aims, they need detailed review, take sometimes a lot of effort to manage the communication tactfully, etc. Yes, many PRs are a win and it can be really gratifying seeing your project become bigger and better than you could have made on its own. But also, many PRs are just a chore and a hassle.

kandeel4411 7y ago

I believe he already included that in the README https://github.com/actix/actix-web https://github.com/actix/actix-web

pfortuny 7y ago

There is absolutely no obligation to even reply to mails. Otherwise you fall into the trap of having to explain everything to everybody and not doing your project.

bloodorange 7y ago
Indeed. I am glad you point this out. The level of entitlement in the discussion astonishes me. Someone has done a lot of work and offered it for free along with a license that lets people modify it and redistribute it and that is not enough. Instead of being grateful for it, people are demanding that the giver also make the changes that these people need and take on the burden of maintaining them. To all those people: Why should he? Do it yourself or pay someone to do it. It need not be any more complicated than that.

cmiles74 7y ago

While that might have made the community feel a little better, I don't think the maintainer had to do anything, certainly they don't have to explain why they made this or that decision. People should decide if it's a big deal for them and if it is, fork the project to fix the issue or move to another library. I have had to do this many times myself, I kind of thought that's just how things worked with smaller projects. More than once I've found someone of a like mind has _already_ forked and made the change.