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Aside from over-promising and massively under-delivering, I think that one of the key issues is that free open source, decentralised social networking software

Aside from over-promising and massively under-delivering, I think that one of the key issues is that free open source, decentralised social networking software already existed long before the Diaspora team popped up out of nowhere, caught the hype and raised their $200k. Also, the creators of benchmark-setting open source projects like Linux, Apache, etc. didn't ask to be paid to write open source software - they just went and did it. None of this is doing the Diaspora team's reputations any good whatsoever, by the way.

powertower 15y ago
I have an issue with your second statement. If you look at the commit logs of any popular open-source project (whether it's Linux or Apache) you'll notice 1 thing... That the people who do the majority of the work are directly sponsored or employed to do that work by companies, who profit from the work on that project. This whole "it's made by 1000s of people who do it in their free time" is pure marketing bullshit. Your statement takes everything away from the people that drive the project and gives it all to the pure consumers, the fanboys, and the people who remove the extra space in some printf statement in the codebase.
- jackgavigan 15y ago
  > This whole "it's made by 1000s of people who do it in their free time" is pure marketing bullshit. No it's not. Projects like Linux were started by people doing it in their free time. It was only later, when people started using the software in corporate environments, and open source became acceptable, that companies started paying people to contribute to those projects because it was in the companies' interests to do so. Contrast Diaspora with something like Retroshare which is developed by people in their free time. The only difference between between Diaspora and Retroshare is that Retroshare didn't manage to catch the hype wave and raise $200k like the Diaspora team did. Sorry, I tell a lie - there's one other key difference: Retroshare works.
  - powertower 15y ago
    > Projects like Linux were started by people doing it in their free time. v0.1 of project X was not the version where 99% of the work was done, nor is the latest version just a incremental & minor update to that first one-person release. You can, at the same time, praise the founder(s) and assign credit where it is due.
    - bmelton 15y ago
      In all fairness, we're not talking about v.01 of random projects, we're talking about early versions of the Linux kernel, the GNU toolkit, the compiler that makes every Linux installation work. In short, we're talking about the core components of free operating systems. Yes, they were built for free, by people spending time in their off hours, and were not sponsored by any corporations. That much of the development is sponsored now should not diminish the efforts of those who bootstrapped the open source world with grass-roots, if any support. Furthermore though, while the majority of operating-system and application type of things might be sponsored, that typically isn't the case in web applications, which is a better comparison. Most of the components used to build diaspora (Ruby, Rails, Apache [maybe], etc.), were built without the budget that the Diaspora team has commanded. Drupal, which is a similar-level web application, though far more mature, was bootstrapped I believe. Hell, there have been entire businesses that led to multi-million dollar exits with less than $200k.
      - powertower 15y ago
        You seem to have drunk the cool aid ... its pure artificial flavor and coloring. Take Canonical for example. They have around 30-80 people working on Ubuntu. Do you really think that's NOT where 95% of the work gets done? Yet Ubuntu has this arora around it as it's some kind of a community built distro where everyone contributes a bit, and all those little bits add up to make the whole. Pure marketing bs. I'm not saying you should not praise Linus for the early work he did. Just that there is more to it. He is still and was since the early days paid to develop Linux. But an entire industy now contributes to Linux who are paid to do so. And your webapp suggestion just does not stand up at all. Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, all have corps around them that are now the primary funders and drivers of the projects.

powertower 15y ago

I have an issue with your second statement. If you look at the commit logs of any popular open-source project (whether it's Linux or Apache) you'll notice 1 thing... That the people who do the majority of the work are directly sponsored or employed to do that work by companies, who profit from the work on that project. This whole "it's made by 1000s of people who do it in their free time" is pure marketing bullshit. Your statement takes everything away from the people that drive the project and gives it all to the pure consumers, the fanboys, and the people who remove the extra space in some printf statement in the codebase.

jackgavigan 15y ago
> This whole "it's made by 1000s of people who do it in their free time" is pure marketing bullshit. No it's not. Projects like Linux were started by people doing it in their free time. It was only later, when people started using the software in corporate environments, and open source became acceptable, that companies started paying people to contribute to those projects because it was in the companies' interests to do so. Contrast Diaspora with something like Retroshare which is developed by people in their free time. The only difference between between Diaspora and Retroshare is that Retroshare didn't manage to catch the hype wave and raise $200k like the Diaspora team did. Sorry, I tell a lie - there's one other key difference: Retroshare works.
- powertower 15y ago
  > Projects like Linux were started by people doing it in their free time. v0.1 of project X was not the version where 99% of the work was done, nor is the latest version just a incremental & minor update to that first one-person release. You can, at the same time, praise the founder(s) and assign credit where it is due.
  - bmelton 15y ago
    In all fairness, we're not talking about v.01 of random projects, we're talking about early versions of the Linux kernel, the GNU toolkit, the compiler that makes every Linux installation work. In short, we're talking about the core components of free operating systems. Yes, they were built for free, by people spending time in their off hours, and were not sponsored by any corporations. That much of the development is sponsored now should not diminish the efforts of those who bootstrapped the open source world with grass-roots, if any support. Furthermore though, while the majority of operating-system and application type of things might be sponsored, that typically isn't the case in web applications, which is a better comparison. Most of the components used to build diaspora (Ruby, Rails, Apache [maybe], etc.), were built without the budget that the Diaspora team has commanded. Drupal, which is a similar-level web application, though far more mature, was bootstrapped I believe. Hell, there have been entire businesses that led to multi-million dollar exits with less than $200k.
    - powertower 15y ago
      You seem to have drunk the cool aid ... its pure artificial flavor and coloring. Take Canonical for example. They have around 30-80 people working on Ubuntu. Do you really think that's NOT where 95% of the work gets done? Yet Ubuntu has this arora around it as it's some kind of a community built distro where everyone contributes a bit, and all those little bits add up to make the whole. Pure marketing bs. I'm not saying you should not praise Linus for the early work he did. Just that there is more to it. He is still and was since the early days paid to develop Linux. But an entire industy now contributes to Linux who are paid to do so. And your webapp suggestion just does not stand up at all. Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, all have corps around them that are now the primary funders and drivers of the projects.