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Yes. It's quite simple. There's absolutely no need from maintainers to "rush" to do anything, just do it in a comfortable timeline. And no, this is not equivale

by ratww 5y ago

Yes. It's quite simple. There's absolutely no need from maintainers to "rush" to do anything, just do it in a comfortable timeline. And no, this is not equivalent to giving people the finger. Only dishonest people would say so.

wpietri 5y ago
Ah, the magic "just". I don't think you've really grasped the kind of people who spend years maintaining open-source projects. This is like asking sysadmins to ignore alarms and downtime. The kinds of people who can be comfortable ignoring downtime rarely become sysadmins and don't last if they do. Feel free to prove me wrong by pointing to the major open-source project you've led for years and how good you have been at ignoring problems with it.
- ratww 5y ago
  No, the magic word is "healthy". I said "healthy, acceptable, middle ground". This means learning to say "no" or at least "later, when I have the time". I have maintained open-source projects myself for about 15 years, and it is completely different from sysadmin alarms. I can do it on my time, and even if with vulnerabilities I do it on the time I have previously allotted for doing it, since my family and my job comes first. And no, I won't dox myself. There, I "just" said "no" to you. That's a healthy way of establishing boundaries. By the way, feel free to prove that I'm wrong in saying that by pointing to any law that says I have to do otherwise. And no, just because people have unhealthy behaviours doesn't make it a rule or a law.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Oh? Which projects? I'm skeptical that they are of the scale and importance we're talking about here. And as somebody who has done open-source stuff and also done sysadmin work, I say that there are commonalities, so you can't just handwave it away. I agree that unhealthy behaviors don't make it a rule. But deep-set behaviors don't change overnight. And it's not clear to me that people who are perfectly healthy would ever put themselves in the situation of maintaining important infrastructure for free. As mentioned elsewhere, I've closed down an open-source project of mine because it grew too big and became more of a drain than a pleasure. But if everybody did that, we'd have a lot fewer open-source projects. So I think your breezy "just" only works for the kind of people who would never have ended up with this problem in the first place.
    - ratww 5y ago
      The answer is not to close open source projects, but establish healthy boundaries between your audience and yourself. And no, you don't have to be healthy to establish those boundaries, but you do need these boundaries if you want to be healthy. Rather than giving up and closing a project, my answer to abuse and unreasonable demands is to be liberal with ignoring and blocking. It's not my fault that someone chose to berate me, but it's my choice to keep giving them a way to do it. But most of the time, a simple "I will do it when I have time" is more than enough. I believe in carefully curating the online places I manage in order to maintain a healthy atmosphere. I choose health and well-being above "popularity at all costs". About the projects, I'm not gonna dox myself, and I don't think the cross-examination is warranted or even in the spirit of this site. I believe my post stands by itself. You can doubt all you want, but that only solidifies my belief I'm doing the right thing.
      - wpietri 5y ago
        I'm not saying you aren't doing the right thing. Good for you. Stay healthy. I am saying you are delusional to talk as if what's easy for you is what's easy for others. And that you're failing to consider that people who are in XKCD's "random person in Nebraska" bucket [1] are much less likely to have good habits and healthy boundaries in the first place, because people like that end up bailing much earlier. [1] https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
        ratww 5y ago
        Bullshit. I utterly and completely disagree that the boundaries I mention are hard to implement. I will also say that boundaries and limits are not only healthy, they are absolutely necessary for long-term, large-scale, open source projects, and this is why those projects survive. People on FOSS rarely get to be long-term maintainers without establishing clear boundaries, so most active long-term maintainers obviously do have the boundaries I mention. This is a lot of people. I'm clearly not taking hobby projects, I'm talking about packages with thousands to millions of weekly downloads, for example. The myth of the hero maintainer must die. Binging Netflix is completely acceptable if you're in your free time. EVEN if the package has a RCE vulnerability. And most maintainers of popular projects will agree with that.

by ratww 5y ago

wpietri 5y ago

Ah, the magic "just". I don't think you've really grasped the kind of people who spend years maintaining open-source projects. This is like asking sysadmins to ignore alarms and downtime. The kinds of people who can be comfortable ignoring downtime rarely become sysadmins and don't last if they do. Feel free to prove me wrong by pointing to the major open-source project you've led for years and how good you have been at ignoring problems with it.

ratww 5y ago
No, the magic word is "healthy". I said "healthy, acceptable, middle ground". This means learning to say "no" or at least "later, when I have the time". I have maintained open-source projects myself for about 15 years, and it is completely different from sysadmin alarms. I can do it on my time, and even if with vulnerabilities I do it on the time I have previously allotted for doing it, since my family and my job comes first. And no, I won't dox myself. There, I "just" said "no" to you. That's a healthy way of establishing boundaries. By the way, feel free to prove that I'm wrong in saying that by pointing to any law that says I have to do otherwise. And no, just because people have unhealthy behaviours doesn't make it a rule or a law.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Oh? Which projects? I'm skeptical that they are of the scale and importance we're talking about here. And as somebody who has done open-source stuff and also done sysadmin work, I say that there are commonalities, so you can't just handwave it away. I agree that unhealthy behaviors don't make it a rule. But deep-set behaviors don't change overnight. And it's not clear to me that people who are perfectly healthy would ever put themselves in the situation of maintaining important infrastructure for free. As mentioned elsewhere, I've closed down an open-source project of mine because it grew too big and became more of a drain than a pleasure. But if everybody did that, we'd have a lot fewer open-source projects. So I think your breezy "just" only works for the kind of people who would never have ended up with this problem in the first place.
  - ratww 5y ago
    The answer is not to close open source projects, but establish healthy boundaries between your audience and yourself. And no, you don't have to be healthy to establish those boundaries, but you do need these boundaries if you want to be healthy. Rather than giving up and closing a project, my answer to abuse and unreasonable demands is to be liberal with ignoring and blocking. It's not my fault that someone chose to berate me, but it's my choice to keep giving them a way to do it. But most of the time, a simple "I will do it when I have time" is more than enough. I believe in carefully curating the online places I manage in order to maintain a healthy atmosphere. I choose health and well-being above "popularity at all costs". About the projects, I'm not gonna dox myself, and I don't think the cross-examination is warranted or even in the spirit of this site. I believe my post stands by itself. You can doubt all you want, but that only solidifies my belief I'm doing the right thing.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I'm not saying you aren't doing the right thing. Good for you. Stay healthy. I am saying you are delusional to talk as if what's easy for you is what's easy for others. And that you're failing to consider that people who are in XKCD's "random person in Nebraska" bucket [1] are much less likely to have good habits and healthy boundaries in the first place, because people like that end up bailing much earlier. [1] https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
      - ratww 5y ago
        Bullshit. I utterly and completely disagree that the boundaries I mention are hard to implement. I will also say that boundaries and limits are not only healthy, they are absolutely necessary for long-term, large-scale, open source projects, and this is why those projects survive. People on FOSS rarely get to be long-term maintainers without establishing clear boundaries, so most active long-term maintainers obviously do have the boundaries I mention. This is a lot of people. I'm clearly not taking hobby projects, I'm talking about packages with thousands to millions of weekly downloads, for example. The myth of the hero maintainer must die. Binging Netflix is completely acceptable if you're in your free time. EVEN if the package has a RCE vulnerability. And most maintainers of popular projects will agree with that.