6 ms·

Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question. The reason I'm asking, while I was wri

Is it really the source code that has value, or your continued expansion and development of said code? Genuine question. The reason I'm asking, while I was writing the article, I was considering including the youtube-dl fiasco (when the RIAA took it down from GitHub) as an example. People were concerned not because the code was gone (lots of mirrors popped up quickly), but because they were worried that the contributors would stop further development. I think that's another indicator that the code itself carries little value. However, the problem space you've loaded and mapped to code in your own head, does have lots of value. Of course the fact that you're sharing it with the world in the best format we know so far (code) for free is much appreciated :)

ghaff 6y ago
I think both can be true. A snapshot of source code can be useful as a basis for some other project. However, you're also correct that, if the source code is abandonware and you/others have no interest in maintaining it, it almost certainly becomes less useful over time and at some point just breaks.
gpm 6y ago
Youtube-dl is an app chasing a moving operating of trying to interact with other sites APIs... many of which don't really even want to let youtube-dl do that. Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever.
- cloogshicer 6y ago
  > Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever. Sadly, this doesn't match my experience. Software that isn't actively maintained always dies, sooner or later.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    Even if the project is 'dead' it still runs, particularly on Windows. I'm running the final release of Winamp as I type this. I organize my hard disk with the 1.0 of Spacemonger, which was free before it went paid. I edit audio files with Sound Forge 11 (up to 14 or so now) and before that I had a pirated copy of 6.0 that worked pretty well. I have a 'programs' folder full of stuff that runs without installation, some of which hasn't been touched in 5 or 10 years, and everything still runs when I try it. Code is eternal.
    - 1996 6y ago
      > Code is eternal. Especially win32 apps, thanks both to windows and wine > Even if the project is 'dead' it still runs, particularly on Windows. For software I want to run long term, I always get the win32 version.
    - asciident 6y ago
      You are my software twin. I'm using Winamp 2.95 this very moment, and Spacemonger 1.0 which still works fantastically. Both have slight crashes in rare edge cases now but perfectly usable day-to-day. You wouldn't perchance also be using an old version of UltraEdit before the heavy focus on subscriptions?
      - tomc1985 6y ago
        Hah, no I paid for Sublime Text way back when, and before that I was big on Notepad++. I rarely update either though :)
  - navanchauhan 6y ago
    AutoDock Vina[0] is one of the most popular molecular-docking softwares used (if we go by papers citing it). It was last updated on May 11, 2011. I personally hold the opinion that if the project is not being maintained, giving away the source code allows someone else to pick it up. [0] http://vina.scripps.edu/download.html http://vina.scripps.edu/download.html
  - btilly 6y ago
    Whether this is true depends on what you do. The last update to TeX (widely used in math and computer science for typesetting) was 12 January 2014. A lot of payment processing systems are still running on code written in the 1960s and 1970s. Frequently untouched since Y2K. I have a friend who went to work in the mid 2000s for a company she had worked for in the early 1970s. Out of curiosity she looked up her old programs. They were still running, unchanged. She asked why and was told, "They never broke." One of the reasons for the survival of FORTRAN is that there are trusted software packages that people rely on which were written decades ago and still run. There is an active emulator community for people who want to run games that are decades old, unchanged. No, your old Netscape browser won't work in the modern web. Nor are early mobile apps going to run. But you'd be amazed at how many places you can find old software still happily running today.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      Good modular design is helpful here. Properly segregating responsibilities means that portions of your code base can become "finished", while other portions remain in near constant flux. For an emulator, for example, if you separate the rendering from the hardware emulation portion, you can leave the hardware emulation portion untouched for years at a time while changing just the rendering code to port to new platforms. The best "old" (30+ or 40+ years) code I worked on did this. The worst, which forced total rewrites, mingled everything together "for performance" but prevented the software from being easily ported to a new OS (Windows 3.1 hasn't been supported for a long time) or extended to support new capabilities.
    - lmm 6y ago
      > The last update to TeX (widely used in math and computer science for typesetting) was 12 January 2014. But if you want to actually use it you'll install a much more recent distribution - probably texlive from 2020.
      - btilly 6y ago
        Yes. You'll install a bunch of recent stuff around it. But the heart of it, TeX, is still the same old version.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
Your youtube-dl example doesn't make sense because youtube-dl wasn't wiped from everyone's computer nor from package managers nor from the internet. So of course losing youtube-dl wasn't the concern. The thing at threat was the thing the team was using to maintain it, so that's what people were concerned about. You don't care more about your garage than your house just because you're crying about your garage when a tornado wrecks it but not your house.
bennysonething 6y ago
Thanks for writing the article, see my comment else where in this thread. It's really helped me. I just been througha rough ride of a handover.

ghaff 6y ago

I think both can be true. A snapshot of source code can be useful as a basis for some other project. However, you're also correct that, if the source code is abandonware and you/others have no interest in maintaining it, it almost certainly becomes less useful over time and at some point just breaks.

gpm 6y ago

Youtube-dl is an app chasing a moving operating of trying to interact with other sites APIs... many of which don't really even want to let youtube-dl do that. Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever.

cloogshicer 6y ago
> Most apps aren't in such a difficult space and keep working basically forever. Sadly, this doesn't match my experience. Software that isn't actively maintained always dies, sooner or later.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Even if the project is 'dead' it still runs, particularly on Windows. I'm running the final release of Winamp as I type this. I organize my hard disk with the 1.0 of Spacemonger, which was free before it went paid. I edit audio files with Sound Forge 11 (up to 14 or so now) and before that I had a pirated copy of 6.0 that worked pretty well. I have a 'programs' folder full of stuff that runs without installation, some of which hasn't been touched in 5 or 10 years, and everything still runs when I try it. Code is eternal.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > Code is eternal. Especially win32 apps, thanks both to windows and wine > Even if the project is 'dead' it still runs, particularly on Windows. For software I want to run long term, I always get the win32 version.
  - asciident 6y ago
    You are my software twin. I'm using Winamp 2.95 this very moment, and Spacemonger 1.0 which still works fantastically. Both have slight crashes in rare edge cases now but perfectly usable day-to-day. You wouldn't perchance also be using an old version of UltraEdit before the heavy focus on subscriptions?
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      Hah, no I paid for Sublime Text way back when, and before that I was big on Notepad++. I rarely update either though :)
- navanchauhan 6y ago
  AutoDock Vina[0] is one of the most popular molecular-docking softwares used (if we go by papers citing it). It was last updated on May 11, 2011. I personally hold the opinion that if the project is not being maintained, giving away the source code allows someone else to pick it up. [0] http://vina.scripps.edu/download.html http://vina.scripps.edu/download.html
- btilly 6y ago
  Whether this is true depends on what you do. The last update to TeX (widely used in math and computer science for typesetting) was 12 January 2014. A lot of payment processing systems are still running on code written in the 1960s and 1970s. Frequently untouched since Y2K. I have a friend who went to work in the mid 2000s for a company she had worked for in the early 1970s. Out of curiosity she looked up her old programs. They were still running, unchanged. She asked why and was told, "They never broke." One of the reasons for the survival of FORTRAN is that there are trusted software packages that people rely on which were written decades ago and still run. There is an active emulator community for people who want to run games that are decades old, unchanged. No, your old Netscape browser won't work in the modern web. Nor are early mobile apps going to run. But you'd be amazed at how many places you can find old software still happily running today.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    Good modular design is helpful here. Properly segregating responsibilities means that portions of your code base can become "finished", while other portions remain in near constant flux. For an emulator, for example, if you separate the rendering from the hardware emulation portion, you can leave the hardware emulation portion untouched for years at a time while changing just the rendering code to port to new platforms. The best "old" (30+ or 40+ years) code I worked on did this. The worst, which forced total rewrites, mingled everything together "for performance" but prevented the software from being easily ported to a new OS (Windows 3.1 hasn't been supported for a long time) or extended to support new capabilities.
  - lmm 6y ago
    > The last update to TeX (widely used in math and computer science for typesetting) was 12 January 2014. But if you want to actually use it you'll install a much more recent distribution - probably texlive from 2020.
    - btilly 6y ago
      Yes. You'll install a bunch of recent stuff around it. But the heart of it, TeX, is still the same old version.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

Your youtube-dl example doesn't make sense because youtube-dl wasn't wiped from everyone's computer nor from package managers nor from the internet. So of course losing youtube-dl wasn't the concern. The thing at threat was the thing the team was using to maintain it, so that's what people were concerned about. You don't care more about your garage than your house just because you're crying about your garage when a tornado wrecks it but not your house.

bennysonething 6y ago

Thanks for writing the article, see my comment else where in this thread. It's really helped me. I just been througha rough ride of a handover.