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I stopped contributing to Open Source in any meaningful way in 2004 due to the incredible amount of non-stop entitlement and toxicity. I am working on a project

I stopped contributing to Open Source in any meaningful way in 2004 due to the incredible amount of non-stop entitlement and toxicity. I am working on a project with a few other folks and the subject of “to open source or not” has come up a few times, and in principle I think we should open source, but in practice I can do without the meaningless drama in my life.

ddulaney 4y ago
You might consider a “source available” model a la SQLite. The maintainers there chose to make the code open and freely usable, and you’re welcome to fork it and use it for whatever you want, but they won’t take contributions back. It might be a good middle ground, depending on what your project looks like. https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html
- koreth1 4y ago
  My team took this approach when we open-sourced our web app. Apache licensed and anyone is free to do with our code as they please, but GitHub issues and PRs are set to employees only. But whether this approach makes sense really depends on what you're hoping to accomplish by making your code available. For us, the goals were mostly around transparency and assuring customers that if we went out of business, it'd be possible for someone else to operate our service. As a side effect, it's also nice for hiring since candidates can see exactly what our code base looks like, what kind of feedback we give each other in code reviews, etc.
strken 4y ago
You can always go the SQLite way and refuse to accept patches: https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html. Or go further and refuse to accept feature requests, or even turn down bug reports!
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The SQLite guy is a master class in ignoring the idiots complaining online. I particularly like this page https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
- fmajid 4y ago
  He doesn’t refuse feature requests, indeed he completely revised his development process to meet the mission-critical needs of Airbus or Android, just not randos on the Internet. He also followed Mitchell Baker of Mozilla’s advice to keep developers in control of the SQLite foundation.
  - strken 4y ago
    No, but you could go further than him and refuse them, if you wanted to.

ddulaney 4y ago

You might consider a “source available” model a la SQLite. The maintainers there chose to make the code open and freely usable, and you’re welcome to fork it and use it for whatever you want, but they won’t take contributions back. It might be a good middle ground, depending on what your project looks like. https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html

koreth1 4y ago
My team took this approach when we open-sourced our web app. Apache licensed and anyone is free to do with our code as they please, but GitHub issues and PRs are set to employees only. But whether this approach makes sense really depends on what you're hoping to accomplish by making your code available. For us, the goals were mostly around transparency and assuring customers that if we went out of business, it'd be possible for someone else to operate our service. As a side effect, it's also nice for hiring since candidates can see exactly what our code base looks like, what kind of feedback we give each other in code reviews, etc.

strken 4y ago

You can always go the SQLite way and refuse to accept patches: https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html. Or go further and refuse to accept feature requests, or even turn down bug reports!

Gigachad 4y ago
The SQLite guy is a master class in ignoring the idiots complaining online. I particularly like this page https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
fmajid 4y ago
He doesn’t refuse feature requests, indeed he completely revised his development process to meet the mission-critical needs of Airbus or Android, just not randos on the Internet. He also followed Mitchell Baker of Mozilla’s advice to keep developers in control of the SQLite foundation.
- strken 4y ago
  No, but you could go further than him and refuse them, if you wanted to.