8 ms·

Opensource your abandonware (2010)

157 points by app4soft 6y ago

mjomaa 6y ago
Would be someone interested in an UML editor that looks like VS Code? Here is the Angular+Electron version with the Visio logo: https://imgur.com/a/UDkitDm https://imgur.com/a/UDkitDm The newer version is written in React+Electron using the official Microsoft Fluent UI framework and has an original logo. The core drawing framework/lib is a TypeScript version of draw.io/mxgraph. I didn't work on it since the W2020/2021 YCombinator rejection tho.
StavrosK 6y ago
Relatedly, consider adding them to https://www.codeshelter.co https://www.codeshelter.co.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  Woah, never knew about codeshelter. Thanks!
ksec 6y ago
Open Source Flash from Adobe would be great.
- merlinscholz 6y ago
  I would love Opera's Presto engine to be open sourced. A few days ago I've read taht there are extreme memory optimizations so that it could be run on centralized servers for their Opera Mini variant. Also we really need more browser engines.
  - zinekeller 6y ago
    Too late, probably (open-sourcing, not the threat of monoculture). The owners of Opera AS (a Chinese VC as of now) aren't probably interested in that. It would be much more probable that Microsoft will release IE under MIT over open-sourcing Presto.
  - ksec 6y ago
    I remember they couldn't do it because they had some proprietary code inside Presto and had contract obligation with many embedded system still using the Opera's Presto rendering engine. May be another 5 years.
  - miscoinceptions 6y ago
    Presto is already open source if you know where to look. But you didn't hear that from me ;)
    - merlinscholz 6y ago
      While the source is... Accessible... You sadly cannot incorporate it into your own open source browser, which is the main problem. Maybe I'll tinker around with the "open source" version someday
- zinekeller 6y ago
  I would want to also, but I imagine that third-pary components used will be problematic (plus the "Ha! That's why its insecure!" comments from some parts of the computing community).
- fsflover 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Open_source
- miscoinceptions 6y ago
  You might be interested in this little bit of history: https://github.com/open-source-flash/open-source-flash/issues/54 https://github.com/open-source-flash/open-source-flash/issue...
phantom_oracle 6y ago
Anecdotally, the .tk domain is a great idea in principle for giving so many people the opportunity to have their very own namespace for free. But like so many free things, bad actors(spammers, et. al) ruin it for the rest of us.
- cpach 6y ago
  IMHO, .tk is a bit cheesy but on the other hand, who cares really? This article is just a simple rich text document, in principle it could just as well has been served over FTP or Gopher, or hosted on Tripod or Angelfire or whatever. (Yes, those still exist!) I’m a bit of a tin foil hat kind of a guy and for my own personal websites I prefer serving them with HTTPS and HSTS, but it’s more of a best practices thing and it’s not really a matter of life or death for my (very few) visitors.
zinekeller 6y ago
Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code, but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components like the colour management system, font renderer and media framework). This can be worked around on actively-developed software or if the community wants to be involved on open-sourcing that software, but if it is being abandoned I don't see the incentive to replace these components. Moreover, comments. From expletives to actual trade secrets, a company needs to audit the code to ensure that at least the trade secrets have been removed from the source code. For example, even though Microsoft does not release the Windows/NT code widely, there are checks to ensure that expletives and comments that might cause severe repercussions (i.e. political statements) are not inserted. However, this is definitely a lesser concern to individual or small-group developers. (Plus tooling issues etc, but considering that the massively-popular and ported Doom exists, it might be solved by the community. However, software which no longer has a community will encounter these issues.)
- fsflover 6y ago
  > but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. Just release everything else. Someone can write their own library for that or maybe even find a replacement in the open-source world.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Unless it's something wildly popular, to a first approximation, no one is going to go to the effort to get a discontinued game or other software into a usable state given missing libraries, build systems, developer docs, etc. And, as parent noted, it's still quite a bit of work to open source proprietary code even if a company has a genuine interest in doing so. I have first-hand knowledge of situations where a company wanted/needed to open source acquired code and it took a good year of concerted effort to do so.
harha 6y ago
On the software side, it would be nice of the developers to do so, no harm to them and a great benefit to those still using the program. Now on the hardware side[0] there's a mismatch in incentives: an otherwise functioning piece of hardware is unable to perform certain tasks (some that even were advertised at the time of purchase) due to changes in the software or it not being compatible to updates elsewhere in the ecosystem[3], all of which could easily be fixed with software updates. The companies selling these obviously say to buy the newest version, but that feels like a waste of resources and money to me. As much as I try voting with my wallet, I think this is getting worse with more "smart" devices, where there is little choice. [0]: I noticed this post is right below a post on a GPS issue concerning a Garmin smartwatch I own [1], that might get this update because a famous blogger posted about it, but not other fixes, like podcasts since Catalina [2] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 [2]: https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software/f/garmin-express/234966/garmin-express-and-mangled-podcasts https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software... [3]: I have an iPad 3 lying around, which is mostly useless to my workflow because it doesn't sync the Safari bookmarks, can't install an alternative browser and doesn't include most icloud features. Another example are routers and other consumer networking equipment, that frequently end up not getting updates soon after release.
- Sindisil 6y ago
  "no harm to them" No harm, perhaps, but likely considerable expense (in time and labor, which are not free). Still, doing so is a public good, and I support the idea when feasible.
rzr 6y ago
May this also interest community: https://rzr.github.io/rzr-presentations/docs/abandonware https://rzr.github.io/rzr-presentations/docs/abandonware
AntiImperialis4 6y ago
Definitely don't. Nothing good will come to you from it. You abandoned it for a reason and only people who'll benefit from it are other people. That would be fine if it was not at your expense. Someone may look at the source code and contact your support or even take you to court because one of your programmers ignored license of a third party library. You could get it audited and re-write parts of it... even so, there is a non-zero risk that someone will come after you. If you're OK with that, do what you want. Otherwise, by default, don't opensource your abandonware.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  This is why many open source licenses come with explicit warranty disclaimers.
  - AntiImperialis4 6y ago
    That doesn't protect you against violating someone else's license. If you never make it opensource, nobody has to know.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      Good point, although what would cause a situation like this? Releasing source code with a modified version of a GPL-licensed library, but with an incompatible license? Wouldn't that be a problem when you're distributing software anyway, regardless of whether it's open-source or not?
FartyMcFarter 6y ago
How do you get around the niggling feeling that you'll be judged on the bad quality of your code from N years ago?
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  You remember, that everyone was a beginner once and put a note for that in the release. Laugh at yourself, so it becomes unnecessary for others to laugh about you.
- colesantiago 6y ago
  If it's abandoned who cares?
  - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
    I think it's a mixture of two things: One is a, perhaps misguided, internal fear of being judged. Another one is that prospective employers sometimes look at one's github history.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      It's not necessarily misguided. Geeks love to cut up other geeks. As the recipient of a fair bit of that stuff, over the years, it has hardened my resolve to: A) Do a top-notch job on all my code; regardless of whether or not anyone else will ever see it it; and 2) Not pass public negative judgement, in a specific way, on others' code (unless, of course, I am planning to use it). Positive judgement is all good. I will sometimes make generalized "kids, these days" or "get off my lawn" statements. I may have specific targets, but I keep things vague. As a manager for 25 years, I learned that carrots tend to yield better long-term results than sticks. If a young programmer releases something that they think will "change the world," but is, in fact, just another wheel, I see geeks pile on them mercilessly. I feel that it is better to praise the good work, and gently point them towards the previous wheels. But I'm a fairly abnormal geek. I've also open-sourced almost all my work for the last couple of decades.

157 points by app4soft 6y ago

Would be someone interested in an UML editor that looks like VS Code? Here is the Angular+Electron version with the Visio logo: https://imgur.com/a/UDkitDm https://imgur.com/a/UDkitDm The newer version is written in React+Electron using the official Microsoft Fluent UI framework and has an original logo. The core drawing framework/lib is a TypeScript version of draw.io/mxgraph. I didn't work on it since the W2020/2021 YCombinator rejection tho.

StavrosK 6y ago

Relatedly, consider adding them to https://www.codeshelter.co https://www.codeshelter.co.

axegon_ 6y ago
Woah, never knew about codeshelter. Thanks!

ksec 6y ago

Open Source Flash from Adobe would be great.

merlinscholz 6y ago
I would love Opera's Presto engine to be open sourced. A few days ago I've read taht there are extreme memory optimizations so that it could be run on centralized servers for their Opera Mini variant. Also we really need more browser engines.
- zinekeller 6y ago
  Too late, probably (open-sourcing, not the threat of monoculture). The owners of Opera AS (a Chinese VC as of now) aren't probably interested in that. It would be much more probable that Microsoft will release IE under MIT over open-sourcing Presto.
- ksec 6y ago
  I remember they couldn't do it because they had some proprietary code inside Presto and had contract obligation with many embedded system still using the Opera's Presto rendering engine. May be another 5 years.
- miscoinceptions 6y ago
  Presto is already open source if you know where to look. But you didn't hear that from me ;)
  - merlinscholz 6y ago
    While the source is... Accessible... You sadly cannot incorporate it into your own open source browser, which is the main problem. Maybe I'll tinker around with the "open source" version someday
zinekeller 6y ago
I would want to also, but I imagine that third-pary components used will be problematic (plus the "Ha! That's why its insecure!" comments from some parts of the computing community).
fsflover 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash#Open_source
miscoinceptions 6y ago
You might be interested in this little bit of history: https://github.com/open-source-flash/open-source-flash/issues/54 https://github.com/open-source-flash/open-source-flash/issue...

phantom_oracle 6y ago

Anecdotally, the .tk domain is a great idea in principle for giving so many people the opportunity to have their very own namespace for free. But like so many free things, bad actors(spammers, et. al) ruin it for the rest of us.

cpach 6y ago
IMHO, .tk is a bit cheesy but on the other hand, who cares really? This article is just a simple rich text document, in principle it could just as well has been served over FTP or Gopher, or hosted on Tripod or Angelfire or whatever. (Yes, those still exist!) I’m a bit of a tin foil hat kind of a guy and for my own personal websites I prefer serving them with HTTPS and HSTS, but it’s more of a best practices thing and it’s not really a matter of life or death for my (very few) visitors.

zinekeller 6y ago

Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code, but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components like the colour management system, font renderer and media framework). This can be worked around on actively-developed software or if the community wants to be involved on open-sourcing that software, but if it is being abandoned I don't see the incentive to replace these components. Moreover, comments. From expletives to actual trade secrets, a company needs to audit the code to ensure that at least the trade secrets have been removed from the source code. For example, even though Microsoft does not release the Windows/NT code widely, there are checks to ensure that expletives and comments that might cause severe repercussions (i.e. political statements) are not inserted. However, this is definitely a lesser concern to individual or small-group developers. (Plus tooling issues etc, but considering that the massively-popular and ported Doom exists, it might be solved by the community. However, software which no longer has a community will encounter these issues.)

fsflover 6y ago
> but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. Just release everything else. Someone can write their own library for that or maybe even find a replacement in the open-source world.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Unless it's something wildly popular, to a first approximation, no one is going to go to the effort to get a discontinued game or other software into a usable state given missing libraries, build systems, developer docs, etc. And, as parent noted, it's still quite a bit of work to open source proprietary code even if a company has a genuine interest in doing so. I have first-hand knowledge of situations where a company wanted/needed to open source acquired code and it took a good year of concerted effort to do so.

harha 6y ago

On the software side, it would be nice of the developers to do so, no harm to them and a great benefit to those still using the program. Now on the hardware side[0] there's a mismatch in incentives: an otherwise functioning piece of hardware is unable to perform certain tasks (some that even were advertised at the time of purchase) due to changes in the software or it not being compatible to updates elsewhere in the ecosystem[3], all of which could easily be fixed with software updates. The companies selling these obviously say to buy the newest version, but that feels like a waste of resources and money to me. As much as I try voting with my wallet, I think this is getting worse with more "smart" devices, where there is little choice. [0]: I noticed this post is right below a post on a GPS issue concerning a Garmin smartwatch I own [1], that might get this update because a famous blogger posted about it, but not other fixes, like podcasts since Catalina [2] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 [2]: https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software/f/garmin-express/234966/garmin-express-and-mangled-podcasts https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software... [3]: I have an iPad 3 lying around, which is mostly useless to my workflow because it doesn't sync the Safari bookmarks, can't install an alternative browser and doesn't include most icloud features. Another example are routers and other consumer networking equipment, that frequently end up not getting updates soon after release.

Sindisil 6y ago
"no harm to them" No harm, perhaps, but likely considerable expense (in time and labor, which are not free). Still, doing so is a public good, and I support the idea when feasible.

rzr 6y ago

May this also interest community: https://rzr.github.io/rzr-presentations/docs/abandonware https://rzr.github.io/rzr-presentations/docs/abandonware

AntiImperialis4 6y ago

Definitely don't. Nothing good will come to you from it. You abandoned it for a reason and only people who'll benefit from it are other people. That would be fine if it was not at your expense. Someone may look at the source code and contact your support or even take you to court because one of your programmers ignored license of a third party library. You could get it audited and re-write parts of it... even so, there is a non-zero risk that someone will come after you. If you're OK with that, do what you want. Otherwise, by default, don't opensource your abandonware.

nerdponx 6y ago
This is why many open source licenses come with explicit warranty disclaimers.
- AntiImperialis4 6y ago
  That doesn't protect you against violating someone else's license. If you never make it opensource, nobody has to know.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    Good point, although what would cause a situation like this? Releasing source code with a modified version of a GPL-licensed library, but with an incompatible license? Wouldn't that be a problem when you're distributing software anyway, regardless of whether it's open-source or not?

FartyMcFarter 6y ago

How do you get around the niggling feeling that you'll be judged on the bad quality of your code from N years ago?

zelphirkalt 6y ago
You remember, that everyone was a beginner once and put a note for that in the release. Laugh at yourself, so it becomes unnecessary for others to laugh about you.
colesantiago 6y ago
If it's abandoned who cares?
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  I think it's a mixture of two things: One is a, perhaps misguided, internal fear of being judged. Another one is that prospective employers sometimes look at one's github history.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    It's not necessarily misguided. Geeks love to cut up other geeks. As the recipient of a fair bit of that stuff, over the years, it has hardened my resolve to: A) Do a top-notch job on all my code; regardless of whether or not anyone else will ever see it it; and 2) Not pass public negative judgement, in a specific way, on others' code (unless, of course, I am planning to use it). Positive judgement is all good. I will sometimes make generalized "kids, these days" or "get off my lawn" statements. I may have specific targets, but I keep things vague. As a manager for 25 years, I learned that carrots tend to yield better long-term results than sticks. If a young programmer releases something that they think will "change the world," but is, in fact, just another wheel, I see geeks pile on them mercilessly. I feel that it is better to praise the good work, and gently point them towards the previous wheels. But I'm a fairly abnormal geek. I've also open-sourced almost all my work for the last couple of decades.