6 ms·

This is the sort of non-consensual change that is the hallmark of proprietary software and drives me towards using free and open-source software every chance I

This is the sort of non-consensual change that is the hallmark of proprietary software and drives me towards using free and open-source software every chance I get. I love WordPad's simplicity, and I'll miss it.

snapplebobapple 3y ago
This happens in opensource too, its just more rare. Terraform relicencing comes to mind, but there has been many, many other times too.
- forgotmypw17 3y ago
  It happens, but there's a way out: forking. With proprietary software, the option of forking does not exist.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    ffmpeg had a schism just over a decade ago and the splinter group forked off into libav. One of the splinter group members happened to be the now-former ffmpeg maintainer in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and switched them from ffmpeg to libav. Yes, this was done purely for ideological reasons.[1] So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world. In a way, I would argue it's even worse in the open source world because when it happens the driving factor is oftentimes ideological dogma instead of something simpler like lack of money or interest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libav#Fork_from_FFmpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libav#Fork_from_FFmpeg
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      ffmpeg kept being available and developed. It is a good example that shows that whatever reasons are behind, it is never worse in the open source world.
    - mostlylurks 3y ago
      The crucial difference is that with FOSS, unless a piece of software has some particularly gnarly and/or finicky dependencies, you can easily bypass whatever is in your package manager's repositories and just use the version you want (by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility), regardless of what the maintainers of the aforementioned repositories do. With proprietary software, you simply do not have this option.
      - hilbert42 3y ago
        "(by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility)," This is fine for those of us who know how to compile the source or find a ready-to-use version. Trouble is, I've often been in situations without updated sources being available and or where maintainers haven't been contactable. Ordinary users are in a worse position as most wouldn't know how to go about compiling code even if available. It's a significant problem.
        forgotmypw17 3y ago
        It's a problem, and the solution is not free, but there is a way where otherwise there is none at all.
        mrob 3y ago
        If ordinary users don't want to learn they have the option of paying somebody to do it for them.
        forgotmypw17 3y ago
        I think that there is a lot of room for compassion and donated time and effort here. I have helped family and friends adopt foss on many occasions, and it has been worth my time.
        troupo 3y ago
    - capableweb 3y ago
      > So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world. The detail is what happens after this happens. In a closed source world, most of the cases, that's it. No more builds for any reason, it's dead. You want to change it? Then first reverse engineer it. But if it's open source, I can if I must, pull down the source code myself and build it. It can continue to live, if someone wants.
    - forgotmypw17 3y ago
      I don't see this as "bullshit", but the opposite: Instead of going from one useful software to zero, we've gone from one to two.
      - hilbert42 3y ago
        Absolutely true. This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation. I've the same problem in supermarkets when confronted with dozens of brands of an item in that they all seem the same.
        KronisLV 3y ago
        > This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation. This is probably a good thing for those who want something very particular. For example, something like Ubuntu for the desktop, but without snaps everywhere - that'd be Linux Mint. Or maybe something like RHEL, but without necessarily having to (or being able to) pay - that'd be Rocky Linux or Alma Linux. On the other hand, this also means that the community's efforts are spread thin, there's lots of fragmentation and the whole experience is just way more messy. Instead of writing install instructions for The One True Linux Distro, you now need to write those for many, deal with multiple packaging formats and repositories, or just live with the reality that something available in one distro won't be available in another. I even had that issue with WireGuard, where it worked in Ubuntu but not Debian for a particular use case, shortly after it came out. For as niche the types of BSD OSes are, they feel more coherent. I wonder what things would be like if we'd have similarly focused efforts for Linux, even stuff like one audio solution that's made to always work everywhere, one display server/compositor, one desktop that scales back to run as fast as XFCE or be as pretty as KDE. But that's not how humans work and instead we'll just get new packages replacing older ones, sometimes for the better, but not always. The very same thing applies to many FOSS software packages out there, but in a sense it's still better than some closed source package being abandoned and nobody ever being able to do anything about it.
        trelane 3y ago
jzb 3y ago
There are many arguments for FOSS. This isn’t one of them. Plenty of open source apps are abandoned. The maintainers get tired, too busy, or whatever. Few users, if any, are depending on this app that hasn’t been getting attention for years. There’s plenty of replacement apps as good or better, including FOSS ones. If it was open source, the odds are no one would care to take over maintenance (though they could) since it’s basically redundant at this point.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  On the contrary, the difference is precisely that an abandoned FOSS program can be picked up by someone else; that this ability is not always used is beside the point.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Not always is a misnomer. It rarely if ever is. Anyone remember PhantomJS? It took years before a replacement emerged and nobody was willing to take in the project, and this was a critical piece of tech at the time
    - gaganyaan 3y ago
      Rarely isn't a good term either. I use a fair number of open source apps that were picked up by a different maintainer after the original one got bored. I have no idea what the overall rate is, but it works well enough for me. Maybe PhantomJS wasn't as critical as you thought it was? Or maybe the JS ecosystem doesn't lend itself towards this model because JS developers have the attention span of a goldfish
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      > It rarely if ever is. You can always pay someone to maintain it. Not every thing has to be free.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
vbezhenar 3y ago
Just copy latest available wordpad.exe into your new OS. I'm 100% sure it'll work for the following century. It's Windows.
heavyset_go 3y ago
WINE ships with a WordPad clone.
- canucker2016 3y ago
  Source code: https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/programs/wordpad https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/programs/wor...
emodendroket 3y ago
It seems strange to call it "non-consensual" for them to not maintain a now-little-used application in perpetuity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- forgotmypw17 3y ago
  They are actively removing it from existing installations, if I understand correctly. But even if that was not the case, it is a change in a user's workflow that they did not request. Is this a high bar I have set for the developer? Yes, perhaps it is. And yet I believe in it and stand by it in my projects. I consider it my responsibility to accommodate the user, and not the other way around.
zogrodea 3y ago
Microsoft did choose to open source WPF a few years back [0], but I don't fully remember the situation there. I remember hearing discontent about the decision on /r/dotnet. The opposing reactions (discontent MS did open source something, discontent that they didn't) are odd. I don't fully remember the details there though so can't make a meaningful comment. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-told-were-not-happy-by-github-contributors-to-open-source-net-core-wpf/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-told-were-not-happy-...

snapplebobapple 3y ago

This happens in opensource too, its just more rare. Terraform relicencing comes to mind, but there has been many, many other times too.

forgotmypw17 3y ago
It happens, but there's a way out: forking. With proprietary software, the option of forking does not exist.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  ffmpeg had a schism just over a decade ago and the splinter group forked off into libav. One of the splinter group members happened to be the now-former ffmpeg maintainer in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and switched them from ffmpeg to libav. Yes, this was done purely for ideological reasons.[1] So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world. In a way, I would argue it's even worse in the open source world because when it happens the driving factor is oftentimes ideological dogma instead of something simpler like lack of money or interest. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libav#Fork_from_FFmpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libav#Fork_from_FFmpeg
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    ffmpeg kept being available and developed. It is a good example that shows that whatever reasons are behind, it is never worse in the open source world.
  - mostlylurks 3y ago
    The crucial difference is that with FOSS, unless a piece of software has some particularly gnarly and/or finicky dependencies, you can easily bypass whatever is in your package manager's repositories and just use the version you want (by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility), regardless of what the maintainers of the aforementioned repositories do. With proprietary software, you simply do not have this option.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      "(by compiling it from source, or by using a ready-to-use version provided directly by the maintainers of the software itself, which is often, if not always, a possibility)," This is fine for those of us who know how to compile the source or find a ready-to-use version. Trouble is, I've often been in situations without updated sources being available and or where maintainers haven't been contactable. Ordinary users are in a worse position as most wouldn't know how to go about compiling code even if available. It's a significant problem.
      - forgotmypw17 3y ago
        It's a problem, and the solution is not free, but there is a way where otherwise there is none at all.
      - mrob 3y ago
        If ordinary users don't want to learn they have the option of paying somebody to do it for them.
        forgotmypw17 3y ago
        I think that there is a lot of room for compassion and donated time and effort here. I have helped family and friends adopt foss on many occasions, and it has been worth my time.
        troupo 3y ago
  - capableweb 3y ago
    > So this bullshit happens in the open source world just like in the closed source world. The detail is what happens after this happens. In a closed source world, most of the cases, that's it. No more builds for any reason, it's dead. You want to change it? Then first reverse engineer it. But if it's open source, I can if I must, pull down the source code myself and build it. It can continue to live, if someone wants.
  - forgotmypw17 3y ago
    I don't see this as "bullshit", but the opposite: Instead of going from one useful software to zero, we've gone from one to two.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      Absolutely true. This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation. I've the same problem in supermarkets when confronted with dozens of brands of an item in that they all seem the same.
      - KronisLV 3y ago
        > This is why we have hundreds of Linux distros, which is fine for us who can sort our way through but average users throw their hands up in desperation. This is probably a good thing for those who want something very particular. For example, something like Ubuntu for the desktop, but without snaps everywhere - that'd be Linux Mint. Or maybe something like RHEL, but without necessarily having to (or being able to) pay - that'd be Rocky Linux or Alma Linux. On the other hand, this also means that the community's efforts are spread thin, there's lots of fragmentation and the whole experience is just way more messy. Instead of writing install instructions for The One True Linux Distro, you now need to write those for many, deal with multiple packaging formats and repositories, or just live with the reality that something available in one distro won't be available in another. I even had that issue with WireGuard, where it worked in Ubuntu but not Debian for a particular use case, shortly after it came out. For as niche the types of BSD OSes are, they feel more coherent. I wonder what things would be like if we'd have similarly focused efforts for Linux, even stuff like one audio solution that's made to always work everywhere, one display server/compositor, one desktop that scales back to run as fast as XFCE or be as pretty as KDE. But that's not how humans work and instead we'll just get new packages replacing older ones, sometimes for the better, but not always. The very same thing applies to many FOSS software packages out there, but in a sense it's still better than some closed source package being abandoned and nobody ever being able to do anything about it.
      - trelane 3y ago

jzb 3y ago

There are many arguments for FOSS. This isn’t one of them. Plenty of open source apps are abandoned. The maintainers get tired, too busy, or whatever. Few users, if any, are depending on this app that hasn’t been getting attention for years. There’s plenty of replacement apps as good or better, including FOSS ones. If it was open source, the odds are no one would care to take over maintenance (though they could) since it’s basically redundant at this point.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
On the contrary, the difference is precisely that an abandoned FOSS program can be picked up by someone else; that this ability is not always used is beside the point.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Not always is a misnomer. It rarely if ever is. Anyone remember PhantomJS? It took years before a replacement emerged and nobody was willing to take in the project, and this was a critical piece of tech at the time
  - gaganyaan 3y ago
    Rarely isn't a good term either. I use a fair number of open source apps that were picked up by a different maintainer after the original one got bored. I have no idea what the overall rate is, but it works well enough for me. Maybe PhantomJS wasn't as critical as you thought it was? Or maybe the JS ecosystem doesn't lend itself towards this model because JS developers have the attention span of a goldfish
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    > It rarely if ever is. You can always pay someone to maintain it. Not every thing has to be free.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

vbezhenar 3y ago

Just copy latest available wordpad.exe into your new OS. I'm 100% sure it'll work for the following century. It's Windows.

heavyset_go 3y ago

WINE ships with a WordPad clone.

canucker2016 3y ago
Source code: https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/programs/wordpad https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/tree/master/programs/wor...

emodendroket 3y ago

It seems strange to call it "non-consensual" for them to not maintain a now-little-used application in perpetuity.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
forgotmypw17 3y ago
They are actively removing it from existing installations, if I understand correctly. But even if that was not the case, it is a change in a user's workflow that they did not request. Is this a high bar I have set for the developer? Yes, perhaps it is. And yet I believe in it and stand by it in my projects. I consider it my responsibility to accommodate the user, and not the other way around.

zogrodea 3y ago

Microsoft did choose to open source WPF a few years back [0], but I don't fully remember the situation there. I remember hearing discontent about the decision on /r/dotnet. The opposing reactions (discontent MS did open source something, discontent that they didn't) are odd. I don't fully remember the details there though so can't make a meaningful comment. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-told-were-not-happy-by-github-contributors-to-open-source-net-core-wpf/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-told-were-not-happy-...