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From an admittedly quite outside perspective, the state of FOSS dev seems to be showing some cracks. Spending some spare time developing something useful for o

From an admittedly quite outside perspective, the state of FOSS dev seems to be showing some cracks. Spending some spare time developing something useful for others, great. Spending pretty much all your spare time doing so, seems unsustainable but you do you. Having that treated as a given rather than a special committment, with extra demands and workload placed on top, this is a problem. Having to get a second job to support your project, what the fuck is going on. If you do that and you're happy with it, don't let me interfer. But this doesn't seem like such a happy post.

miloignis 5y ago
I'm not sure if this applies to this situation - this individual was working on it full time, as a co-founder of a startup. They wanted to continue working on it in their spare time after finding a new job, but their co-founder didn't want them involved anymore. I don't think the open source nature really comes into it, they wished to continue working on their baby, which is totally understandable.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Absolutely, if they're happy with their situation (or I guess, were happy with it), I'm in no place to say its wrong. But it does seem to place streinous demands on the people working on it. Afterall, the story does end with him being forced to abandon his own baby, not entirely of his own choice. That doesn't sound like a normal side project to me, but I'm likely out of touch with big FOSS
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  That is not necessarily quite what happened either. I was more convinced by the other developers position previously on this. But that just means we and everyone else but these two people themselves are just picking sides, not necessarily actually seeing and evaluating right/wrong/good/bad/fair/unfair etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30611748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30611748 I don't mean to say I agree with that article. (Well, most of it is just reporting which is fine, but there are a few small added conclusions at the end) My own comment on that article was that I read it and arrived at an opposite conclusion from the author. And someone else supplied some enlightening background about history between these two and the author.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    The "enlightening background about history between these two and the author" mentioned above: >Keep in mind that the author [Bryan Lunduke] is not neutral here: Since he's expressed his position against trans people, and by doing that parted ways with Danielle Foré before (who previously identified as Daniel Foré and participated in his youtube videos), and also you can see that [the article] refuses to use the actual name for Danielle; it's not surprising that he wants to reach a conclusion against her. Edit: Since there seems to be some confusion, this is about the author of the OP post linked in the comment above, not the OP link of this HN thread.
    - burnished 5y ago
      EDIT: I thought you were referring to TFA, 'Farewell, elementary' and not 'elementary OS is imploding'. My mistake.
    - jamie_ca 5y ago
      Given her twitter handle is DaniElainaFore I don't think it's unreasonable that Cassidy calls her Dani in this post, after working closely together for what, 7 years? Is there more context? (edit: nvm, found the tweetstorm from last month https://lunduke.substack.com/p/elementary-os-is-imploding?s=r https://lunduke.substack.com/p/elementary-os-is-imploding?s=... that goes into some details)
      - LordDragonfang 5y ago
        Yes, that's the OP of the HN post that's linked to in the comment I'm replying to.
    - NylaTheWolf 5y ago
      I was thinking about that article and how Lunduke deadnamed Danielle just the other day. I had no idea who these people were and I was shocked that I didn't even know Danielle was trans until I skimmed through the HN comments the next day. That's...yikes.
zozbot234 5y ago
> Having that treated as a given rather than a special committment, with extra demands and workload placed on top, this is a problem. That's never been an obligation wrt. FLOSS development. If you want a supported version of some FLOSS project for your own production use, you can pay someone to be a maintainer.
Mikeb85 5y ago
>state of FOSS dev seems to be showing some cracks How do you figure? Companies like IBM/Redhat, Google, MS, Oracle, Amazon and others pay tons of devs to work on OSS. The state of OSS has never been better. Just because some people can't figure out how to monetize doesn't mean the state of the ecosystem as a whole isn't great.
Klasiaster 5y ago
The problem is money, they could have set up a foundation instead of a company and while similar it already steers things into another direction that a for-profit company. They could have still benefitted from the foundations assets in the form of contractors, or even employees, I believe, but the whole topic of being acquired is sidestepped.

miloignis 5y ago

I'm not sure if this applies to this situation - this individual was working on it full time, as a co-founder of a startup. They wanted to continue working on it in their spare time after finding a new job, but their co-founder didn't want them involved anymore. I don't think the open source nature really comes into it, they wished to continue working on their baby, which is totally understandable.

bodge5000 5y ago
Absolutely, if they're happy with their situation (or I guess, were happy with it), I'm in no place to say its wrong. But it does seem to place streinous demands on the people working on it. Afterall, the story does end with him being forced to abandon his own baby, not entirely of his own choice. That doesn't sound like a normal side project to me, but I'm likely out of touch with big FOSS
Brian_K_White 5y ago
That is not necessarily quite what happened either. I was more convinced by the other developers position previously on this. But that just means we and everyone else but these two people themselves are just picking sides, not necessarily actually seeing and evaluating right/wrong/good/bad/fair/unfair etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30611748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30611748 I don't mean to say I agree with that article. (Well, most of it is just reporting which is fine, but there are a few small added conclusions at the end) My own comment on that article was that I read it and arrived at an opposite conclusion from the author. And someone else supplied some enlightening background about history between these two and the author.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  The "enlightening background about history between these two and the author" mentioned above: >Keep in mind that the author [Bryan Lunduke] is not neutral here: Since he's expressed his position against trans people, and by doing that parted ways with Danielle Foré before (who previously identified as Daniel Foré and participated in his youtube videos), and also you can see that [the article] refuses to use the actual name for Danielle; it's not surprising that he wants to reach a conclusion against her. Edit: Since there seems to be some confusion, this is about the author of the OP post linked in the comment above, not the OP link of this HN thread.
  - burnished 5y ago
    EDIT: I thought you were referring to TFA, 'Farewell, elementary' and not 'elementary OS is imploding'. My mistake.
  - jamie_ca 5y ago
    Given her twitter handle is DaniElainaFore I don't think it's unreasonable that Cassidy calls her Dani in this post, after working closely together for what, 7 years? Is there more context? (edit: nvm, found the tweetstorm from last month https://lunduke.substack.com/p/elementary-os-is-imploding?s=r https://lunduke.substack.com/p/elementary-os-is-imploding?s=... that goes into some details)
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      Yes, that's the OP of the HN post that's linked to in the comment I'm replying to.
  - NylaTheWolf 5y ago
    I was thinking about that article and how Lunduke deadnamed Danielle just the other day. I had no idea who these people were and I was shocked that I didn't even know Danielle was trans until I skimmed through the HN comments the next day. That's...yikes.

zozbot234 5y ago

> Having that treated as a given rather than a special committment, with extra demands and workload placed on top, this is a problem. That's never been an obligation wrt. FLOSS development. If you want a supported version of some FLOSS project for your own production use, you can pay someone to be a maintainer.

Mikeb85 5y ago

>state of FOSS dev seems to be showing some cracks How do you figure? Companies like IBM/Redhat, Google, MS, Oracle, Amazon and others pay tons of devs to work on OSS. The state of OSS has never been better. Just because some people can't figure out how to monetize doesn't mean the state of the ecosystem as a whole isn't great.

Klasiaster 5y ago

The problem is money, they could have set up a foundation instead of a company and while similar it already steers things into another direction that a for-profit company. They could have still benefitted from the foundations assets in the form of contractors, or even employees, I believe, but the whole topic of being acquired is sidestepped.