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People always complain about this, yet nobody contributes: http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1.html http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/li

People always complain about this, yet nobody contributes: http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1.html http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1....

new_realist 6y ago
That’s because the problem is hard and deep, and most open source contributors work for free and are shallow, working to satisfy their egos and need for intellectual stimulation. Paid expertise is needed here. Imagine if all doctors and surgeons were volunteers; that’s the situation you have now with a lot of OSS.
- Twirrim 6y ago
  Given the large majority of commits to the Linux kernel are done by people employed by companies to work on it, your starting premise couldn't be further from the truth, let alone the conclusions you draw from it.
  - cameronfraser 6y ago
    Given that they said most open source contributors I think they are right. Most contributors are not contributing to the Linux kernel. Most are contributing to (https://githut.info/ https://githut.info/) JavaScript packages
    - cosmojg 6y ago
      For a version of GitHut that goes beyond 2014: https://madnight.github.io/githut/ https://madnight.github.io/githut/
    - Twirrim 6y ago
      I think that's being somewhat generous of an interpretation given the thread of the conversation, which is specifically about drivers. For it to be talking about Open Source developers in general would be a serious pivot.
  - robrtsql 6y ago
    Is any company employing people to work on touchpad drivers, though?
mwcampbell 6y ago
I wonder if any of the commercial distro developers care enough about Linux on the desktop to fix this. Or, does Chromium OS use libinput? If so, then Google could fix this.
pierrebai 6y ago
Bus factor is irrelevant. It's a concept that basically boils down to "people would not be smart enough to understand the code unaided". This is plainly wrong. I speak from experience of diving into some horrible code base. It also assumes that reproducing the functionality from scratch would be hard. Looking at all the reimplementations of A where A is one of unix, X, web browser, network stack, SQL database and other complex techno, it is also clearly not true.
- japanoise 6y ago
  Disagree. Learning a codebase from scratch is tricky; it's better if you have someone to teach you. So if the one contributor gets bus'd, then it'll take time (=money) to get up to speed.
- archseer 6y ago
  My point here was that it's really easy to complain about the touchpad driver but it takes a lot more effort to actually go and write the code. There was some effort last year: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wbharding/libinput/-/commits/master/ https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wbharding/libinput/-/commits/... I also don't see bus factor the same way you do. People can be smart enough to understand the code, but unless someone actually goes and actively takes up code maintenance the project will slowly fade and disappear (for example the synaptics driver that libinput replaced https://github.com/freedesktop/xorg-xf86-input-synaptics/commits/master https://github.com/freedesktop/xorg-xf86-input-synaptics/com...).

People always complain about this, yet nobody contributes: http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1.html http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/libinputs-bus-factor-is-1....

new_realist 6y ago

That’s because the problem is hard and deep, and most open source contributors work for free and are shallow, working to satisfy their egos and need for intellectual stimulation. Paid expertise is needed here. Imagine if all doctors and surgeons were volunteers; that’s the situation you have now with a lot of OSS.

Twirrim 6y ago
Given the large majority of commits to the Linux kernel are done by people employed by companies to work on it, your starting premise couldn't be further from the truth, let alone the conclusions you draw from it.
- cameronfraser 6y ago
  Given that they said most open source contributors I think they are right. Most contributors are not contributing to the Linux kernel. Most are contributing to (https://githut.info/ https://githut.info/) JavaScript packages
  - cosmojg 6y ago
    For a version of GitHut that goes beyond 2014: https://madnight.github.io/githut/ https://madnight.github.io/githut/
  - Twirrim 6y ago
    I think that's being somewhat generous of an interpretation given the thread of the conversation, which is specifically about drivers. For it to be talking about Open Source developers in general would be a serious pivot.
- robrtsql 6y ago
  Is any company employing people to work on touchpad drivers, though?

mwcampbell 6y ago

I wonder if any of the commercial distro developers care enough about Linux on the desktop to fix this. Or, does Chromium OS use libinput? If so, then Google could fix this.

pierrebai 6y ago

Bus factor is irrelevant. It's a concept that basically boils down to "people would not be smart enough to understand the code unaided". This is plainly wrong. I speak from experience of diving into some horrible code base. It also assumes that reproducing the functionality from scratch would be hard. Looking at all the reimplementations of A where A is one of unix, X, web browser, network stack, SQL database and other complex techno, it is also clearly not true.

japanoise 6y ago
Disagree. Learning a codebase from scratch is tricky; it's better if you have someone to teach you. So if the one contributor gets bus'd, then it'll take time (=money) to get up to speed.
archseer 6y ago
My point here was that it's really easy to complain about the touchpad driver but it takes a lot more effort to actually go and write the code. There was some effort last year: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wbharding/libinput/-/commits/master/ https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wbharding/libinput/-/commits/... I also don't see bus factor the same way you do. People can be smart enough to understand the code, but unless someone actually goes and actively takes up code maintenance the project will slowly fade and disappear (for example the synaptics driver that libinput replaced https://github.com/freedesktop/xorg-xf86-input-synaptics/commits/master https://github.com/freedesktop/xorg-xf86-input-synaptics/com...).