9 ms·

What I've learned about open source community over 30 years

176 points by throw0101b 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
peter_l_downs 2y ago
Extremely anodyne — given that the author has maintained FreeDOS for longer than I've been alive, I was hoping for slightly more interesting ideas than "have a website and be nice to people." Not that I disagree with his advice!
- II2II 2y ago
  I think it is better to summarize the article with: open and positive communication is at the core of collaborative open source software. While the message may seem trite, it is also a message that many open source developers need to hear.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Nostalgia. Many FOSS projects feed on collective or obsessive nostalgia. I should know having contributed to some and following many. DOS is also sister project to retro gaming, a deep well for those fuzzy feelings. That said, Hall does offer good and sensible advice to keep the community together and civil.
  - DaoVeles 2y ago
    It is astounding just how much gets done via nostalgia, especially in the gaming space. Just look at the emulation scene to see the best of this.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  > I was hoping for slightly more interesting ideas Sometimes there's a lot of value in reiterating core concepts. Maybe doubly so if they're validated by his long experience in the OSS world.
- xarope 2y ago
  “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- suprjami 2y ago
  You'd be surprised how many widely used open source projects still fail one or both of those conditions.
- emmanone 2y ago
  Great ideas are often simple, the main problem is that people consider them too simple, neglect them and then fail.
- badgersnake 2y ago
  Sure, but building a community is not easy and it’s good to reinforce that there are no shortcuts. I think I would pretty a suspicious of a blog akin to “Linus Torvlads wants this website banned - build an enthusiastic and productive OSS community in just one week with this one neat trick.”
bruce511 2y ago
Congrats to FreeDOS for 30 years. This is perhaps a good example of a project being more than the product. By which I mean, we don't really need it - it serves no practical purpose, and yet it continues. Of course I generalise, but the original premise ("I liked the command line") is amply served by Linux, Mac or Windows. The other original motivations are similarly obsolete now. All of which is irrelevant. It remains an active project "just because" and isn't that the purest form of Free Software? Sure it's "useless" but we make it because we can, and because we want to. Perhaps that's the biggest Open Source Community lesson of all- build something that the community enjoys making, unburdened by a large userbase, unburdened by popularity, or usefulness. It's gathered like-minded people who enjoy the journey more than the destination. So tip of the hat to you all. FreeDOS is an example of capturing the heart of programming - code that doesn't need a reason beyond "because we wanted to."
- transpute 2y ago
  > we don't really need it - it serves no practical purpose FreeDOS is used by PC OEMs for tech support, e.g. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9586495-9586656-16 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9586495-9586656-16 You can create a DOS-bootable USB flash drive by downloading and saving a FreeDOS operating system image. The bootable USB flash drive can then be used for testing and troubleshooting any component on your PC. FreeDOS helps sell PC hardware without the expense of a Windows license, for customers who would like to install Linux, OpenBSD, or separately licensed Windows, e.g. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02628224.pdf http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02628224.pdf
  - bruce511 2y ago
    As I pointed out the "uselessness" is a generalization, although perhaps your suggestion of use cases rather proves my point. Firstly "selling pcs without Windows". If you want to sell a machine without windows feel free to ship it with Linux or indeed nothing. Yes, FreeDOS is an option, but it's not unique. Sure, some techs find it useful as a bare-metal hardware diagnostic tool. Presenting that micro niche as a use case kinda proves the point. (I'm not sure how FreeDOS fares with supporting new hardware but I'll assume it does. My experience with BSD doesn't make me over-optimistic though.) But I think you missed my point. The main utility of FreeDOS is FreeDOS. It doesn't need to be more than that.
transpute 2y ago
FreeDOS can be used for offline word processing, e.g. reducing information leaks when writing the next "Game of Thrones". (2014) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/07/dos-boot-ars-spends-a-day-working-in-freedos/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/07/dos-b... > Twenty years ago this week, as Microsoft announced that it would end support for the MS-DOS operating system, James Hall announced to the world that he intended to create a public domain version of the OS in order to keep the universe of character-based DOS software alive. Hall’s “PD-DOS” project eventually became FreeDOS, which today supports an ecosystem of developers, retro gamers, and diehards who will give up their WordStar when you pry the floppies from their cold, dead fingers.. WordStar, George R.R. Martin's favorite word processor, also runs happily in FreeDOS.
- skydhash 2y ago
  I've installed Asahi on my Mac and so far have been happily computing with the following Emacs Firefox foot (terminal) swaywm (and the associated utilities) KeepassXC (password management) mpd (music) calibre (ebooks) mpv (for the few local videos I still watch on my computer) evince (for pdfs) various cli utilities What I like about these is how consistent it is. No sneaky updates that shuffle things around (I don't mind learning new stuff, but I don't like to have my workflows break for no sensible reason). If WordStar was everything I needed, I wouldn't want Office 365 either.
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    My personal software setup is almost identical :D. The only differences are: I use EMMS in Emacs for music, pdf-tools in Emacs for PDFs, and I also use mpv for remote videos (with pipe-viewer for YouTube).
  - arminiusreturns 2y ago
    I have spent more than a decade now working to GPL-ize as much of my stack as possible, carefully evaluating and picking my tools, and what you touch on is huge: a consistent, reliable, small footprint stack that is easily auditable is a bigger deal than people realize.
codazoda 2y ago
Off topic, but I notice FreeDOS still uses email mailing lists. What email mailing list software / platforms are people using these days? Can you get mail delivered if you install an OSS mailing list and stand up your own server (vps or whatever)?
- graton 2y ago
  The one I have seen the most is Mailman. https://list.org/ https://list.org/
- elric 2y ago
  > FreeDOS still uses email mailing lists I'm a bit surprised by this statement. Does this imply that there are now a bunch of FOSS projects that don't use mailing lists? Mailing lists are by far my preferred method of communicating with projects. Please don't tell me people are moving to github issues or some such?
  - fgHabxn 2y ago
    Yes, CPython moved to Discourse and then censored the mailing lists, which are now defunct. Discourse offers superior tracking and censoring abilities, so only those who have the right opinions and work for the right corporations can be heard. The fact that there is little real progress can be suppressed.
  - kryptiskt 2y ago
    One prominent example, Rust started off with mailing lists but shut them off a decade ago or so. Many other projects I participate in or follow have moved their communication to other means, Discord and Discourse are popular, sometimes the mailing lists remain but are silent, sometimes they are removed.
    - Gormo 2y ago
      Both Discourse and Discord seem entirely inappropriate for FOSS projects -- they are both proprietary walled-garden SaaS applications that aren't themselves consistent with FOSS principles, and they are both exclusively web-based with close coupling between the UI and the underlying functionality, which makes it difficult or impossible for users to access, log, and archive messages with tools most optimal for their own workflow. FOSS projects should communicate over open protocols with a variety of interoperable implementations -- whether with tried and true tools like NNTP, mailing lists, and IRC, or more novel solutions like Matrix -- instead of allowing a proprietary third-party web application to present a one-size-fits-all interface and function as a single point of failure for project coordination.
sufehmi 2y ago
"Maintain a Website" - this really means "publish" (your works) Because even if you do tons of very good work - if you don't publish it, then it's as if you're doing nothing. This is where a lot of non-profits fail. A lot of them are doing very, very good work - but because they suck at documentation & publication ; then people doesn't know about it at all.
arp242 2y ago
There's a whole bunch of ways to run a project. Some of them don't really involve "running a project" in the first place and are just the work of one person. Others have very different social dynamics than FreeDOS. If you want to be an asshole to everyone you perceive to be an idiot, then ... you can do that. You're allowed. I'm not saying it's the kind of project I'm very likely to contribute to, but not everything needs to suit my preferences. Besides, many social conventions "exclude" people. I was once reprimanded for using the phrase "getting shit done" because any profanity, no matter the context, is forbidden, apparently. I felt that was childish and infantile enough that I didn't really feel like being part of that. In the end all that's needed is publishing the code. You don't need to care about community or anything. You can, but don't need to.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >Besides, many social conventions "exclude" people. All social conventions exclude people. There's no way to be inclusive of everyone. For an extreme example, if you allow Nazi ideology in a place, for instance, that excludes people who won't put up with that or who the Nazis chase away. But if you disallow Nazi ideology, then you're excluding Nazis. Of course, this will devolve into Popper's paradox of tolerance, but the point is, you can't please everyone. Someone's always going to be excluded by whatever social conventions you put in place. You just have to decide which groups of people you're willing to exclude.
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    A less controversial example than nazis (sigh) might be requiring basic hygiene. If you don't exclude people who don't exhibit basic hygiene (e.g. smelling like literal shit), then a whole lot of casuals will be driven away. If you do exclude them, you exclude them. Now, you might say, "what exactly is the difference between nazis and some people who smell like actual shit? you just swapped some words out", but, you see,
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >A less controversial example than nazis (sigh) might be requiring basic hygiene. I'm not sure why Nazis are "controversial". They're generally the universal boogeymen. Although these days, it does seem like some Nazi ideology has become more popular in some places in recent years... When we test software, one thing we normally do is look for edge cases, and test those. If the program works with the edge cases, then it can handle any cases. So picking Nazis for my extreme example is just my use of an edge case to illustrate my point about the limits of inclusivity, and also points to Popper's paradox of tolerance, since the Nazis were the poster-child for intolerance. But yeah, for a workplace setting, for instance, excluding people lacking basic hygiene (smelling like shit) is a good example. I've actually had problems like this at work, unfortunately (with coworkers smelling like this, not me!).
account42 2y ago
These are great things to do if you want to buld a community around a project (which does help keep it going). But it's also OK to just build what you want and publish that and then maybe accept contributions under whatever terms you feel like. Community management really is an entirely different skillset from software developement and I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from open sourcing their software if they are not a "people person" and don't want to deal with all that. Just sharing your work already makes the world better and you are NOT required to do anything more than that.
- mike10921 2y ago
  Back in the day, Open Source projects thrived on the enthusiasm of creators who didn't view software development as a means to make money. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to build a community and create superior products through collaboration. However, the landscape has shifted. When an Open Source project becomes successful today, creators often transition the original product into a proprietary version with added features and support, available only through paid access. This practice undermines the original Open Source project, and usually end off killing the original project.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    That's fairly rare, when you consider the massive amount of open source. There's also many good examples of open core projects.
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      But the risk is always lurking. I guess this holds of some from contributing to open source projects, fearing this fate.
      - ndiddy 2y ago
        This is extremely easy to avoid in practice, just don't contribute to projects that make you sign a CLA.
kazinator 2y ago
FreeDOS is something that seems useful in manufacturing of PC's and PC-like embedded stuff. Like as a platform for running basic diagnostics and whatever not.

176 points by throw0101b 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Extremely anodyne — given that the author has maintained FreeDOS for longer than I've been alive, I was hoping for slightly more interesting ideas than "have a website and be nice to people." Not that I disagree with his advice!

II2II 2y ago
I think it is better to summarize the article with: open and positive communication is at the core of collaborative open source software. While the message may seem trite, it is also a message that many open source developers need to hear.
paulryanrogers 2y ago
Nostalgia. Many FOSS projects feed on collective or obsessive nostalgia. I should know having contributed to some and following many. DOS is also sister project to retro gaming, a deep well for those fuzzy feelings. That said, Hall does offer good and sensible advice to keep the community together and civil.
- DaoVeles 2y ago
  It is astounding just how much gets done via nostalgia, especially in the gaming space. Just look at the emulation scene to see the best of this.
CoastalCoder 2y ago
> I was hoping for slightly more interesting ideas Sometimes there's a lot of value in reiterating core concepts. Maybe doubly so if they're validated by his long experience in the OSS world.
xarope 2y ago
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
suprjami 2y ago
You'd be surprised how many widely used open source projects still fail one or both of those conditions.
emmanone 2y ago
Great ideas are often simple, the main problem is that people consider them too simple, neglect them and then fail.
badgersnake 2y ago
Sure, but building a community is not easy and it’s good to reinforce that there are no shortcuts. I think I would pretty a suspicious of a blog akin to “Linus Torvlads wants this website banned - build an enthusiastic and productive OSS community in just one week with this one neat trick.”

bruce511 2y ago

Congrats to FreeDOS for 30 years. This is perhaps a good example of a project being more than the product. By which I mean, we don't really need it - it serves no practical purpose, and yet it continues. Of course I generalise, but the original premise ("I liked the command line") is amply served by Linux, Mac or Windows. The other original motivations are similarly obsolete now. All of which is irrelevant. It remains an active project "just because" and isn't that the purest form of Free Software? Sure it's "useless" but we make it because we can, and because we want to. Perhaps that's the biggest Open Source Community lesson of all- build something that the community enjoys making, unburdened by a large userbase, unburdened by popularity, or usefulness. It's gathered like-minded people who enjoy the journey more than the destination. So tip of the hat to you all. FreeDOS is an example of capturing the heart of programming - code that doesn't need a reason beyond "because we wanted to."

transpute 2y ago
> we don't really need it - it serves no practical purpose FreeDOS is used by PC OEMs for tech support, e.g. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9586495-9586656-16 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9586495-9586656-16 You can create a DOS-bootable USB flash drive by downloading and saving a FreeDOS operating system image. The bootable USB flash drive can then be used for testing and troubleshooting any component on your PC. FreeDOS helps sell PC hardware without the expense of a Windows license, for customers who would like to install Linux, OpenBSD, or separately licensed Windows, e.g. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02628224.pdf http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02628224.pdf
- bruce511 2y ago
  As I pointed out the "uselessness" is a generalization, although perhaps your suggestion of use cases rather proves my point. Firstly "selling pcs without Windows". If you want to sell a machine without windows feel free to ship it with Linux or indeed nothing. Yes, FreeDOS is an option, but it's not unique. Sure, some techs find it useful as a bare-metal hardware diagnostic tool. Presenting that micro niche as a use case kinda proves the point. (I'm not sure how FreeDOS fares with supporting new hardware but I'll assume it does. My experience with BSD doesn't make me over-optimistic though.) But I think you missed my point. The main utility of FreeDOS is FreeDOS. It doesn't need to be more than that.

transpute 2y ago

FreeDOS can be used for offline word processing, e.g. reducing information leaks when writing the next "Game of Thrones". (2014) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/07/dos-boot-ars-spends-a-day-working-in-freedos/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/07/dos-b... > Twenty years ago this week, as Microsoft announced that it would end support for the MS-DOS operating system, James Hall announced to the world that he intended to create a public domain version of the OS in order to keep the universe of character-based DOS software alive. Hall’s “PD-DOS” project eventually became FreeDOS, which today supports an ecosystem of developers, retro gamers, and diehards who will give up their WordStar when you pry the floppies from their cold, dead fingers.. WordStar, George R.R. Martin's favorite word processor, also runs happily in FreeDOS.

skydhash 2y ago
I've installed Asahi on my Mac and so far have been happily computing with the following Emacs Firefox foot (terminal) swaywm (and the associated utilities) KeepassXC (password management) mpd (music) calibre (ebooks) mpv (for the few local videos I still watch on my computer) evince (for pdfs) various cli utilities What I like about these is how consistent it is. No sneaky updates that shuffle things around (I don't mind learning new stuff, but I don't like to have my workflows break for no sensible reason). If WordStar was everything I needed, I wouldn't want Office 365 either.
- Zambyte 2y ago
  My personal software setup is almost identical :D. The only differences are: I use EMMS in Emacs for music, pdf-tools in Emacs for PDFs, and I also use mpv for remote videos (with pipe-viewer for YouTube).
- arminiusreturns 2y ago
  I have spent more than a decade now working to GPL-ize as much of my stack as possible, carefully evaluating and picking my tools, and what you touch on is huge: a consistent, reliable, small footprint stack that is easily auditable is a bigger deal than people realize.

codazoda 2y ago

Off topic, but I notice FreeDOS still uses email mailing lists. What email mailing list software / platforms are people using these days? Can you get mail delivered if you install an OSS mailing list and stand up your own server (vps or whatever)?

graton 2y ago
The one I have seen the most is Mailman. https://list.org/ https://list.org/
elric 2y ago
> FreeDOS still uses email mailing lists I'm a bit surprised by this statement. Does this imply that there are now a bunch of FOSS projects that don't use mailing lists? Mailing lists are by far my preferred method of communicating with projects. Please don't tell me people are moving to github issues or some such?
- fgHabxn 2y ago
  Yes, CPython moved to Discourse and then censored the mailing lists, which are now defunct. Discourse offers superior tracking and censoring abilities, so only those who have the right opinions and work for the right corporations can be heard. The fact that there is little real progress can be suppressed.
- kryptiskt 2y ago
  One prominent example, Rust started off with mailing lists but shut them off a decade ago or so. Many other projects I participate in or follow have moved their communication to other means, Discord and Discourse are popular, sometimes the mailing lists remain but are silent, sometimes they are removed.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    Both Discourse and Discord seem entirely inappropriate for FOSS projects -- they are both proprietary walled-garden SaaS applications that aren't themselves consistent with FOSS principles, and they are both exclusively web-based with close coupling between the UI and the underlying functionality, which makes it difficult or impossible for users to access, log, and archive messages with tools most optimal for their own workflow. FOSS projects should communicate over open protocols with a variety of interoperable implementations -- whether with tried and true tools like NNTP, mailing lists, and IRC, or more novel solutions like Matrix -- instead of allowing a proprietary third-party web application to present a one-size-fits-all interface and function as a single point of failure for project coordination.

sufehmi 2y ago

"Maintain a Website" - this really means "publish" (your works) Because even if you do tons of very good work - if you don't publish it, then it's as if you're doing nothing. This is where a lot of non-profits fail. A lot of them are doing very, very good work - but because they suck at documentation & publication ; then people doesn't know about it at all.

arp242 2y ago

There's a whole bunch of ways to run a project. Some of them don't really involve "running a project" in the first place and are just the work of one person. Others have very different social dynamics than FreeDOS. If you want to be an asshole to everyone you perceive to be an idiot, then ... you can do that. You're allowed. I'm not saying it's the kind of project I'm very likely to contribute to, but not everything needs to suit my preferences. Besides, many social conventions "exclude" people. I was once reprimanded for using the phrase "getting shit done" because any profanity, no matter the context, is forbidden, apparently. I felt that was childish and infantile enough that I didn't really feel like being part of that. In the end all that's needed is publishing the code. You don't need to care about community or anything. You can, but don't need to.

shiroiushi 2y ago
>Besides, many social conventions "exclude" people. All social conventions exclude people. There's no way to be inclusive of everyone. For an extreme example, if you allow Nazi ideology in a place, for instance, that excludes people who won't put up with that or who the Nazis chase away. But if you disallow Nazi ideology, then you're excluding Nazis. Of course, this will devolve into Popper's paradox of tolerance, but the point is, you can't please everyone. Someone's always going to be excluded by whatever social conventions you put in place. You just have to decide which groups of people you're willing to exclude.
- Qwertious 2y ago
  A less controversial example than nazis (sigh) might be requiring basic hygiene. If you don't exclude people who don't exhibit basic hygiene (e.g. smelling like literal shit), then a whole lot of casuals will be driven away. If you do exclude them, you exclude them. Now, you might say, "what exactly is the difference between nazis and some people who smell like actual shit? you just swapped some words out", but, you see,
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >A less controversial example than nazis (sigh) might be requiring basic hygiene. I'm not sure why Nazis are "controversial". They're generally the universal boogeymen. Although these days, it does seem like some Nazi ideology has become more popular in some places in recent years... When we test software, one thing we normally do is look for edge cases, and test those. If the program works with the edge cases, then it can handle any cases. So picking Nazis for my extreme example is just my use of an edge case to illustrate my point about the limits of inclusivity, and also points to Popper's paradox of tolerance, since the Nazis were the poster-child for intolerance. But yeah, for a workplace setting, for instance, excluding people lacking basic hygiene (smelling like shit) is a good example. I've actually had problems like this at work, unfortunately (with coworkers smelling like this, not me!).

account42 2y ago

These are great things to do if you want to buld a community around a project (which does help keep it going). But it's also OK to just build what you want and publish that and then maybe accept contributions under whatever terms you feel like. Community management really is an entirely different skillset from software developement and I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from open sourcing their software if they are not a "people person" and don't want to deal with all that. Just sharing your work already makes the world better and you are NOT required to do anything more than that.

mike10921 2y ago
Back in the day, Open Source projects thrived on the enthusiasm of creators who didn't view software development as a means to make money. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to build a community and create superior products through collaboration. However, the landscape has shifted. When an Open Source project becomes successful today, creators often transition the original product into a proprietary version with added features and support, available only through paid access. This practice undermines the original Open Source project, and usually end off killing the original project.
- bdcravens 2y ago
  That's fairly rare, when you consider the massive amount of open source. There's also many good examples of open core projects.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    But the risk is always lurking. I guess this holds of some from contributing to open source projects, fearing this fate.
    - ndiddy 2y ago
      This is extremely easy to avoid in practice, just don't contribute to projects that make you sign a CLA.

kazinator 2y ago

FreeDOS is something that seems useful in manufacturing of PC's and PC-like embedded stuff. Like as a platform for running basic diagnostics and whatever not.