5 ms·

I don't agree with everything here. Open source really does mean that you just have all the code to rebuild the thing from scratch under the right sort of licen

by btilly 7y ago

I don't agree with everything here. Open source really does mean that you just have all the code to rebuild the thing from scratch under the right sort of license. Open source doesn't mean anything else, like having access to design decisions. That is acknowledged in the article. But the fact is that you can BE open source without doing the things that make open source WORK. [...] Elm users who are not happy should fork the code --- everything, including the ecosystem's dependencies on an ELM internet domain --- and maybe produce something that is completely self-contained. Software that relies on "phoning home" is a risk regardless of where that is hosted and whether the people are nasty or nice. Why should unhappy Elm users do this instead of going to a language+environment that they don't have to fork to get something usable for them? Leaving, even leaving with a long essay like this one, requires a lot less energy and commitment. And being in an environment where you can benefit from the future work of others is part of what makes open source work.

kazinator 7y ago
> Why should unhappy Elm users do this instead of going to a language+environment that they don't have to fork to get something usable for them? Of course they can do that, but then they are not Elm users, which makes them off-topic to the question of what Elm users should do to move forward as Elm users. > requires a lot less energy and commitment. We don't actually know that for sure without looking at the size of someone's Elm code base. Maybe some users also think that Elm is otherwise fantastic and want to stick with it. For various reasons, changing tooling is not like changing what shampoo you use, except for some language-hopping butterflies who are experimenting with a new thing every week.
- btilly 7y ago
  > > Why should unhappy Elm users do this instead of going to a language+environment that they don't have to fork to get something usable for them? > Of course they can do that, but then they are not Elm users, which makes them off-topic to the question of what Elm users should do to move forward as Elm users. The topic was someone saying in detail, "Here is why I have chosen not to be an Elm user, and why you shouldn't be either." Which means that the experience of people who are not committed to being Elm users is on topic. > > requires a lot less energy and commitment. > We don't actually know that for sure without looking at the size of someone's Elm code base. Fair enough. Of course in this case he says that he is walking away from an 8000 line project that can't upgrade to 0.19 because of the native code issue. So we know how much code he is talking about, and also know that a rewrite in a new language is simpler than trying to upgrade. In this case maintaining a fork certainly exceeds the benefit of the project. > Maybe some users also think that Elm is otherwise fantastic and want to stick with it. I am sure that there are. > For various reasons, changing tooling is not like changing what shampoo you use, except for some language-hopping butterflies who are experimenting with a new thing every week. No, it is not. However if you will have to make the change some day, then it is probably better to bite the bullet and accept the pain now rather than adding to it for a future date. And if the leadership problems described continues, it is clear that the Elm community is going to fall apart and any project in Elm will dead end. Therefore if you are an established Elm user, you should be ready to accept that tooling change pain as a question of when, not if.
  - philh 7y ago
    > The topic was someone saying in detail, "Here is why I have chosen not to be an Elm user, and why you shouldn't be either." When someone is saying divisive things, I think it's important to be clear and precise about what they're actually saying. Some of the burden rests on themselves, and some of it rests on the commentators. And so I think it's important to note here, that I don't think he said the "you shouldn't either" bit. He specifically denies saying it: > I should also note “Your Mileage May Vary” etc. It would be entirely possible to use Elm and find it adequate for your needs, and therefore never bump into the things I hit very quickly.
    - btilly 7y ago
      Thank you for the correction. What he actually said was, "I definitely cannot recommend it to anyone else." Which is fairly translated as, "You probably shouldn't either." But he explicitly didn't say that it was inappropriate for anyone.
      - kazinator 7y ago
        I agree with you. The obvious, implicit motivation behind an article like this is to help other users make the same decision. Denying it only constitutes a reinforcing acknowledgement. It's just a rhetorical device. If someone says "I don't mean to be rude, but you're an ass", they in fact mean to be rude. A good chunk of everything you hear and read revolves around people trying to get others to be like them and do as they do, implicitly so. (Another good chunk is made up of people justifying, explaining and defending themselves.)
        philh 7y ago
        > The obvious, implicit motivation behind an article like this is to help other users make the same decision. This is not obvious to me. Why do you assume the motivation is "to help other users make the same decision" and not "to help other users make the decision that's right for them"? I promise you that some people have sometimes written with that motivation in mind. If any denial is taken as proof of guilt, how do you tell those people apart?
- wolco 7y ago
  It still makes them not practising elm users. Who have a voice and a say within the community.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Apparently practicing Elm users don't have a voice and say within the community either. That's kind of the whole problem.
diggan 7y ago
If you're using/contributing to a open source project that is famous for it's non-community development and BDFL leadership style, it should come as no surprise when that continues. The call for "If you're not happy you should fork the code" comes because this is a explicit expectation of the Elm core team and Evan. What does "open source work" really mean? Open Source talks strictly about the licensing and distribution of the code itself, not the community and everything around. It feels like everyone are having two conversations at the same time. Open source as we currently know it, is just about the code. Open communities (or whatever you want to call it) is a separate discussion, and not needed to "make open source work" as you just have to license your code in a specific way to be open source. Then we can discuss what makes open communities around open source code work, but I think that's a separate thread.
- btilly 7y ago
  If you're using/contributing to a open source project that is famous for it's non-community development and BDFL leadership style, it should come as no surprise when that continues. That's pretty much the central thesis of the article. With detail and examples on exactly what the leadership problem is and why it causes challenges for users. The call for "If you're not happy you should fork the code" comes because this is a explicit expectation of the Elm core team and Evan. And yet any attempt to do so is described by them as knifing Elm in the back. What does "open source work" really mean? Open Source talks strictly about the licensing and distribution of the code itself, not the community and everything around. What I mean by "work" is that it leads to successful projects. By a variety of metrics for success. It feels like everyone are having two conversations at the same time. Open source as we currently know it, is just about the code. Open communities (or whatever you want to call it) is a separate discussion, and not needed to "make open source work" as you just have to license your code in a specific way to be open source. Then we can discuss what makes open communities around open source code work, but I think that's a separate thread. You have it exactly backwards. You are right that "what is open source" is a different discussion from "what makes open communities around open source work". But this is the appropriate place for the second conversation. And more specifically for discussion of what it is that the Elm leadership is doing that leads to failure, and what it is that users should or shouldn't do given that Elm is being so badly lead.
pd-andy 7y ago
Because every single one of these posts is "I like Elm, I don't like Evan('s style of leadership)." All of these leavers could've maintained that fabled community fork they want with the features they want if they all got together.
- btilly 7y ago
  True. But "if they all got together" is waving away the difficulty of getting them all together, cooperating, and working together. Open source projects are a lot more difficult to run than you might expect.
  - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
    > Open source projects are a lot more difficult to run than you might expect. Indeed. You pour thousands of hours of work into something and give it to the world for free, only to be met by “give us synchronous IO or we will throw our toys out of the pram!”
    - kazinator 7y ago
      That specific example would just be laughable. "I gave you awesome asynchronous I/O; just write the five lines of code around a semaphore if you want it synchronous."
- StreamBright 7y ago
  I am sure this moment is coming when somebody creates a fork and gets rid off the artificial hypocritical limitations imposed by the current core team.
- bsder 7y ago
  And if it worked, they either A) split the userbase in half and make Elm LESS likely to be useful or B) get most of the userbase and make Elm totally irrelevant. Forking a language isn't like forking a tool. Forking gcc doesn't make C any better or worse. Forking C (if you could) would make the C worse.
- 7y ago

by btilly 7y ago

kazinator 7y ago

> Why should unhappy Elm users do this instead of going to a language+environment that they don't have to fork to get something usable for them? Of course they can do that, but then they are not Elm users, which makes them off-topic to the question of what Elm users should do to move forward as Elm users. > requires a lot less energy and commitment. We don't actually know that for sure without looking at the size of someone's Elm code base. Maybe some users also think that Elm is otherwise fantastic and want to stick with it. For various reasons, changing tooling is not like changing what shampoo you use, except for some language-hopping butterflies who are experimenting with a new thing every week.

btilly 7y ago
> > Why should unhappy Elm users do this instead of going to a language+environment that they don't have to fork to get something usable for them? > Of course they can do that, but then they are not Elm users, which makes them off-topic to the question of what Elm users should do to move forward as Elm users. The topic was someone saying in detail, "Here is why I have chosen not to be an Elm user, and why you shouldn't be either." Which means that the experience of people who are not committed to being Elm users is on topic. > > requires a lot less energy and commitment. > We don't actually know that for sure without looking at the size of someone's Elm code base. Fair enough. Of course in this case he says that he is walking away from an 8000 line project that can't upgrade to 0.19 because of the native code issue. So we know how much code he is talking about, and also know that a rewrite in a new language is simpler than trying to upgrade. In this case maintaining a fork certainly exceeds the benefit of the project. > Maybe some users also think that Elm is otherwise fantastic and want to stick with it. I am sure that there are. > For various reasons, changing tooling is not like changing what shampoo you use, except for some language-hopping butterflies who are experimenting with a new thing every week. No, it is not. However if you will have to make the change some day, then it is probably better to bite the bullet and accept the pain now rather than adding to it for a future date. And if the leadership problems described continues, it is clear that the Elm community is going to fall apart and any project in Elm will dead end. Therefore if you are an established Elm user, you should be ready to accept that tooling change pain as a question of when, not if.
- philh 7y ago
  > The topic was someone saying in detail, "Here is why I have chosen not to be an Elm user, and why you shouldn't be either." When someone is saying divisive things, I think it's important to be clear and precise about what they're actually saying. Some of the burden rests on themselves, and some of it rests on the commentators. And so I think it's important to note here, that I don't think he said the "you shouldn't either" bit. He specifically denies saying it: > I should also note “Your Mileage May Vary” etc. It would be entirely possible to use Elm and find it adequate for your needs, and therefore never bump into the things I hit very quickly.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Thank you for the correction. What he actually said was, "I definitely cannot recommend it to anyone else." Which is fairly translated as, "You probably shouldn't either." But he explicitly didn't say that it was inappropriate for anyone.
    - kazinator 7y ago
      I agree with you. The obvious, implicit motivation behind an article like this is to help other users make the same decision. Denying it only constitutes a reinforcing acknowledgement. It's just a rhetorical device. If someone says "I don't mean to be rude, but you're an ass", they in fact mean to be rude. A good chunk of everything you hear and read revolves around people trying to get others to be like them and do as they do, implicitly so. (Another good chunk is made up of people justifying, explaining and defending themselves.)
      - philh 7y ago
        > The obvious, implicit motivation behind an article like this is to help other users make the same decision. This is not obvious to me. Why do you assume the motivation is "to help other users make the same decision" and not "to help other users make the decision that's right for them"? I promise you that some people have sometimes written with that motivation in mind. If any denial is taken as proof of guilt, how do you tell those people apart?
wolco 7y ago
It still makes them not practising elm users. Who have a voice and a say within the community.
- btilly 7y ago
  Apparently practicing Elm users don't have a voice and say within the community either. That's kind of the whole problem.

diggan 7y ago

If you're using/contributing to a open source project that is famous for it's non-community development and BDFL leadership style, it should come as no surprise when that continues. The call for "If you're not happy you should fork the code" comes because this is a explicit expectation of the Elm core team and Evan. What does "open source work" really mean? Open Source talks strictly about the licensing and distribution of the code itself, not the community and everything around. It feels like everyone are having two conversations at the same time. Open source as we currently know it, is just about the code. Open communities (or whatever you want to call it) is a separate discussion, and not needed to "make open source work" as you just have to license your code in a specific way to be open source. Then we can discuss what makes open communities around open source code work, but I think that's a separate thread.

btilly 7y ago
If you're using/contributing to a open source project that is famous for it's non-community development and BDFL leadership style, it should come as no surprise when that continues. That's pretty much the central thesis of the article. With detail and examples on exactly what the leadership problem is and why it causes challenges for users. The call for "If you're not happy you should fork the code" comes because this is a explicit expectation of the Elm core team and Evan. And yet any attempt to do so is described by them as knifing Elm in the back. What does "open source work" really mean? Open Source talks strictly about the licensing and distribution of the code itself, not the community and everything around. What I mean by "work" is that it leads to successful projects. By a variety of metrics for success. It feels like everyone are having two conversations at the same time. Open source as we currently know it, is just about the code. Open communities (or whatever you want to call it) is a separate discussion, and not needed to "make open source work" as you just have to license your code in a specific way to be open source. Then we can discuss what makes open communities around open source code work, but I think that's a separate thread. You have it exactly backwards. You are right that "what is open source" is a different discussion from "what makes open communities around open source work". But this is the appropriate place for the second conversation. And more specifically for discussion of what it is that the Elm leadership is doing that leads to failure, and what it is that users should or shouldn't do given that Elm is being so badly lead.

pd-andy 7y ago

Because every single one of these posts is "I like Elm, I don't like Evan('s style of leadership)." All of these leavers could've maintained that fabled community fork they want with the features they want if they all got together.

btilly 7y ago
True. But "if they all got together" is waving away the difficulty of getting them all together, cooperating, and working together. Open source projects are a lot more difficult to run than you might expect.
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  > Open source projects are a lot more difficult to run than you might expect. Indeed. You pour thousands of hours of work into something and give it to the world for free, only to be met by “give us synchronous IO or we will throw our toys out of the pram!”
  - kazinator 7y ago
    That specific example would just be laughable. "I gave you awesome asynchronous I/O; just write the five lines of code around a semaphore if you want it synchronous."
StreamBright 7y ago
I am sure this moment is coming when somebody creates a fork and gets rid off the artificial hypocritical limitations imposed by the current core team.
bsder 7y ago
And if it worked, they either A) split the userbase in half and make Elm LESS likely to be useful or B) get most of the userbase and make Elm totally irrelevant. Forking a language isn't like forking a tool. Forking gcc doesn't make C any better or worse. Forking C (if you could) would make the C worse.
7y ago