6 ms·

Calling all open source maintainers

20 points by donutshop 4y ago

tra3 4y ago
I hate the fact that this is going to sound so cynical and it’s the first question that I have — how are they going to monetize this?
- viraptor 4y ago
  And why would I want as an open source maintainer to connect with peers in a private space controlled by GH? What's wrong with public spaces where everyone can benefit?
photonbeam 4y ago
EEE
DanHulton 4y ago
A _private_ open-source maintainer community _really_ sounds like an oxymoron, right?
- Animats 4y ago
  Is this related to being an MSDN member?[1] Is this another marketing channel to get devs to build for Microsoft target platforms? [1] https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/profile https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/profile
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Does it? I mean this particular offering doesn’t interest me much, but I definitely have private conversations in the course of maintaining open source projects. In some cases it’s just because the conversation itself is private and not everything in my life is public just because the project is. In other cases privacy is important for responsibly handling sensitive issues and giving appropriate time and resources for affected parties to prepare. Even in the spirit of what GitHub seems to be offering here, sometimes projects with some promise fail when they’re blasted all over the web before they’re ready. Having a space to “soft launch” or whatever and get feedback from people who are… you know… not gonna immediately start tearing them down before they even have anything to tear down ahem… might be beneficial for solidifying things before they’re destroyed in their nascent state.
jraph 4y ago
Sure, let's lock the open source community in GitHub, a private company owned by Microsoft (who loves open source as long as it's not for its flagship products), even more. We need this. The open source community isn't already too locked in as is. GitHub perpetually seems to praise open source developers and community but can't seem to want to put their actions where their words are by making their flagship product open source. It's cool as long as it's not us. I'm sick of this hypocrisy. Of course they should propose such a private space. They'd be stupid not to. But don't be dumb yourself and stay out of this prison. I'm done ranting. Happy day everybody.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I’m a full time open source maintainer/dev, and I have no particular gripe with GitHub or Microsoft’s management of it. That’s it, I’m not ranting. Cheers to you too though!
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  This "lock-in" you are speaking of is "building useful things that people voluntarily want to use, who then need these things so much that they don't want to leave". Okay it's within your rights to define lock-in this way. But it seems odd to me to blame Github for this. The reason why switching costs are high is because alternatives aren't as good. What do you want Github to do? Stop buding useful things so that they're not better than alternatives? There was a time (before acquisition by MS) that Github was exactly like that. Gitlab was threathening to eat its lunch. But I can't say that those were better times.
  - atoav 4y ago
    Lock-in is if the amount of work you need to put in to transfer your stuff to $competitor is big when you want to leave. When there is one company that maintains a rooms media tech rack with media switchers and DSPs of another company that only provides access to "certified" companies and the first company sits on the source code they programmed for you, so you have to run to them with any slight change of the system you use, because you neither own the source code, nor do you have access to the softwar used to program the devices, that is lock-in. Yeah you could swap out that media switcher with one from a more open company, but then you'd have to swap out 50k€ of other gear, that is "compatible" to that switcher (and to nothing else). I am sure github is making it totally easy to migrate all of what you do on their platform to e.g. gitlab. /s
sneak 4y ago
Step 2: Extend. (Note: they did precisely the same thing with VS Code. All the best bits are proprietary.)
- drewcoo 4y ago
  I'm no MSFT fanboi, but how exactly did they do the same thing with VS Code? Does it have some invite-only open source maintainer mode I haven't unlocked yet? GitHub is already closed source, more locked down than VS Code.
- AraceliHarker 4y ago
  NET 6, which limited hot reloading to use from Microsoft without notice, is not a more appropriate example?
0x69420 4y ago
i stumbled across an invite-only social network a while back. the front-facing branding was all about change, being the face of tomorrow, yadda yadda. like some 20th century industrialist's idea of a eugenic utopia where they summon scientists and artisans to a remote island to make a new humanity or what-have-you at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, why does it feel like this would appeal to the same people?
acidburnNSA 4y ago
Ah yes, the spirit of open source, manifested harmoniously in a private members-only forum.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  I would definitely welcome a "private" space to connect with other actual maintainers without having to here "I requested this feature 2 weeks ago, where is it?"
  - atoav 4y ago
    That private space exists. It is emails.
    - motoxpro 4y ago
      Awesome, do you have a list of the few thousand maintainers that might be relevant and actually maybe just the ones that similar to the repos I maintain? Also just the ones that are interested in connecting? Also when someone new comes in, should I forward all the previous emails? That way it's not even more closed than a random company community?
      - atoav 4y ago
        > Awesome, do you have a list of the few thousand maintainers that might be relevant and actually maybe just the ones that similar to the repos I maintain? Which one should your message be: A) to "a few thousand" maintainers B) private Sorry, but I don't believe a project that size doesn't already have private channels in which they communicate with each other. And when you are on the outside of these channels, writing a mail to the person that it might concern the most is absolutely a thing you can do, so they can privately communicate it to the relevant people. This is also a feature because it keeps their internal discussion boards free from a ton of requests.
  - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
    Some programmers make no better requests, and whiny people also happen to be vocal.
juanbyrge 4y ago
This is just a sad attempt at marketing to OSS maintainers. Whoever came up with this idea has no idea how OSS maintainers operate.
vander_elst 4y ago
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between what's a joke and what's not. I thought at first this was an April's fool, but it actually seems real.
musicale 4y ago
The most effective way to help open source maintainers is probably to pay more of them.
poisonborz 4y ago
I think this is just the marketing team acting. "We're losing points with a community! Quick, what could we do? Exclusive VIP memberships, private events, goodies!" They're just out of touch with their target market.

20 points by donutshop 4y ago

tra3 4y ago

I hate the fact that this is going to sound so cynical and it’s the first question that I have — how are they going to monetize this?

viraptor 4y ago
And why would I want as an open source maintainer to connect with peers in a private space controlled by GH? What's wrong with public spaces where everyone can benefit?

photonbeam 4y ago

EEE

DanHulton 4y ago

A _private_ open-source maintainer community _really_ sounds like an oxymoron, right?

Animats 4y ago
Is this related to being an MSDN member?[1] Is this another marketing channel to get devs to build for Microsoft target platforms? [1] https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/profile https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/profile
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Does it? I mean this particular offering doesn’t interest me much, but I definitely have private conversations in the course of maintaining open source projects. In some cases it’s just because the conversation itself is private and not everything in my life is public just because the project is. In other cases privacy is important for responsibly handling sensitive issues and giving appropriate time and resources for affected parties to prepare. Even in the spirit of what GitHub seems to be offering here, sometimes projects with some promise fail when they’re blasted all over the web before they’re ready. Having a space to “soft launch” or whatever and get feedback from people who are… you know… not gonna immediately start tearing them down before they even have anything to tear down ahem… might be beneficial for solidifying things before they’re destroyed in their nascent state.

jraph 4y ago

Sure, let's lock the open source community in GitHub, a private company owned by Microsoft (who loves open source as long as it's not for its flagship products), even more. We need this. The open source community isn't already too locked in as is. GitHub perpetually seems to praise open source developers and community but can't seem to want to put their actions where their words are by making their flagship product open source. It's cool as long as it's not us. I'm sick of this hypocrisy. Of course they should propose such a private space. They'd be stupid not to. But don't be dumb yourself and stay out of this prison. I'm done ranting. Happy day everybody.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
I’m a full time open source maintainer/dev, and I have no particular gripe with GitHub or Microsoft’s management of it. That’s it, I’m not ranting. Cheers to you too though!
FooBarWidget 4y ago
This "lock-in" you are speaking of is "building useful things that people voluntarily want to use, who then need these things so much that they don't want to leave". Okay it's within your rights to define lock-in this way. But it seems odd to me to blame Github for this. The reason why switching costs are high is because alternatives aren't as good. What do you want Github to do? Stop buding useful things so that they're not better than alternatives? There was a time (before acquisition by MS) that Github was exactly like that. Gitlab was threathening to eat its lunch. But I can't say that those were better times.
- atoav 4y ago
  Lock-in is if the amount of work you need to put in to transfer your stuff to $competitor is big when you want to leave. When there is one company that maintains a rooms media tech rack with media switchers and DSPs of another company that only provides access to "certified" companies and the first company sits on the source code they programmed for you, so you have to run to them with any slight change of the system you use, because you neither own the source code, nor do you have access to the softwar used to program the devices, that is lock-in. Yeah you could swap out that media switcher with one from a more open company, but then you'd have to swap out 50k€ of other gear, that is "compatible" to that switcher (and to nothing else). I am sure github is making it totally easy to migrate all of what you do on their platform to e.g. gitlab. /s

sneak 4y ago

Step 2: Extend. (Note: they did precisely the same thing with VS Code. All the best bits are proprietary.)

drewcoo 4y ago
I'm no MSFT fanboi, but how exactly did they do the same thing with VS Code? Does it have some invite-only open source maintainer mode I haven't unlocked yet? GitHub is already closed source, more locked down than VS Code.
AraceliHarker 4y ago
NET 6, which limited hot reloading to use from Microsoft without notice, is not a more appropriate example?

0x69420 4y ago

i stumbled across an invite-only social network a while back. the front-facing branding was all about change, being the face of tomorrow, yadda yadda. like some 20th century industrialist's idea of a eugenic utopia where they summon scientists and artisans to a remote island to make a new humanity or what-have-you at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, why does it feel like this would appeal to the same people?

acidburnNSA 4y ago

Ah yes, the spirit of open source, manifested harmoniously in a private members-only forum.

motoxpro 4y ago
I would definitely welcome a "private" space to connect with other actual maintainers without having to here "I requested this feature 2 weeks ago, where is it?"
- atoav 4y ago
  That private space exists. It is emails.
  - motoxpro 4y ago
    Awesome, do you have a list of the few thousand maintainers that might be relevant and actually maybe just the ones that similar to the repos I maintain? Also just the ones that are interested in connecting? Also when someone new comes in, should I forward all the previous emails? That way it's not even more closed than a random company community?
    - atoav 4y ago
      > Awesome, do you have a list of the few thousand maintainers that might be relevant and actually maybe just the ones that similar to the repos I maintain? Which one should your message be: A) to "a few thousand" maintainers B) private Sorry, but I don't believe a project that size doesn't already have private channels in which they communicate with each other. And when you are on the outside of these channels, writing a mail to the person that it might concern the most is absolutely a thing you can do, so they can privately communicate it to the relevant people. This is also a feature because it keeps their internal discussion boards free from a ton of requests.
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  Some programmers make no better requests, and whiny people also happen to be vocal.

juanbyrge 4y ago

This is just a sad attempt at marketing to OSS maintainers. Whoever came up with this idea has no idea how OSS maintainers operate.

vander_elst 4y ago

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between what's a joke and what's not. I thought at first this was an April's fool, but it actually seems real.

musicale 4y ago

The most effective way to help open source maintainers is probably to pay more of them.

poisonborz 4y ago

I think this is just the marketing team acting. "We're losing points with a community! Quick, what could we do? Exclusive VIP memberships, private events, goodies!" They're just out of touch with their target market.