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It absolutely is though. Do you not see any value in bug fixes? Do you think software never needs to be updated? We all know security updates are crucial, and p

It absolutely is though. Do you not see any value in bug fixes? Do you think software never needs to be updated? We all know security updates are crucial, and pretending you can just run the old version forever is insane. If I contributed to redis in the past I did so under the assumption that I was contributing to a product that I could actually keep using. But instead they took all those contributions and gave the contributors a huge middle finger by denying them security updates and fixes. And sure, you can say "just do the bug fixes yourself". But if I knew that was going to be the case, I'd never have bothered to contribute.

evanelias 2y ago
> If I contributed to redis in the past I did so under the assumption that I was contributing to a product that I could actually keep using It sounds like you also have an assumption that the maintainers will spend the effort to maintain your contribution forever, after already spending the initial effort to review and integrate your contribution. This all takes time and money, which has to come from somewhere. You're asking "Do you not see any value in bug fixes? Do you think software never needs to be updated?" from the contributors' and users' point of view. But the same exact issue exists from the maintainers' point of view. A lot of people in this thread are commenting as if an open source contribution is a purely altruistic act by the contributor which then solely benefits the maintainers. That's far from the case in reality. Many third party contributors are writing their contributions as part of their day job (meaning they're paid to do it), and the contribution directly benefits themselves and/or their employer by fixing some problem they encountered or adding some feature that they needed.
- jillyboel 2y ago
  > It sounds like you also have an assumption that the maintainers will spend the effort to maintain your contribution forever, after already spending the initial effort to review and integrate your contribution. This all takes time and money, which has to come from somewhere. Correct, that's generally how open source works. You make a contribution, they merge it, and then the assumption is that it is maintained by the maintainers. You seem to act like this is an odd assumption, even though it is and has been the reality for pretty much every open source project ever. > But the same exact issue exists from the maintainers' point of view. Right, it's their "job". Maintaining the software. It's pretty much in the name. That's what happens when you accept contributions. They get merged into the software project, and then you (the maintainer) are responsible for maintaining it, or removing the functionality in a subsequent release. That's why code review happens where you consider the maintenance burden, and features sometimes don't get merged. If this doesn't sound appealing then don't become the maintainer of an open source project. > Many third party contributors are writing their contributions as part of their day job (meaning they're paid to do it), and the contribution directly benefits themselves and/or their employer by fixing some problem they encountered or adding some feature that they needed. Sure, and they could've kept it private so it only benefits them and/or their employer. But instead they chose to open source it in the hopes that 1) The maintainers will maintain it 2) It might benefit someone else That's the whole deal. You're essentially trading your contributions for future maintenance.
  - evanelias 2y ago
    I'm well acquainted with open source maintenance; one of my open source projects has been downloaded over 2 million times, and another is imported by over 8000 other repos on GitHub. I'm not "acting like this is an odd assumption" but rather my point was to consider the economic side from the maintainers' point of view, which many people in this thread are completely ignoring. As you said above, maintainers don't have to accept your contribution, and if they do, they always have the option of removing it in a future release. And if the maintainers use a CLA or other copyright assignment mechanism, they also have the option of changing the license for future releases. So why are you assuming you can keep using future versions of the product forever if you contribute to it and sign a CLA? > Sure, and they could've kept it private so it only benefits them and/or their employer But that doesn't actually provide a net "benefit" to the contributor, because then they have to take on the massive burden of maintaining a private fork. My point in all this is that contributing to open source often benefits the contributor more than the maintainer, and yet people act like it primarily is an altruistic gift from the contributor which solely benefits the maintainer / product owner.
    - jillyboel 2y ago
      > But that doesn't actually provide a net "benefit" to the contributor, because then they have to take on the massive burden of maintaining a private fork. Well yeah, that's the point. Trading contributions vs maintenance burden. > My point in all this is that contributing to open source often benefits the contributor more than the maintainer And yet they choose to do it... Why?
      - evanelias 2y ago
        I said it provides more benefit to the contributor than the maintainer, but I did not say that it provides no benefit to the maintainer. Your question doesn't logically follow.
        jillyboel 2y ago
        That's exactly my point: It still benefits the maintainer. So they benefited from contributors, then fucked them over later, violating the social contract (but not necessarily the software license because CLAs yadda yadda).

evanelias 2y ago

> If I contributed to redis in the past I did so under the assumption that I was contributing to a product that I could actually keep using It sounds like you also have an assumption that the maintainers will spend the effort to maintain your contribution forever, after already spending the initial effort to review and integrate your contribution. This all takes time and money, which has to come from somewhere. You're asking "Do you not see any value in bug fixes? Do you think software never needs to be updated?" from the contributors' and users' point of view. But the same exact issue exists from the maintainers' point of view. A lot of people in this thread are commenting as if an open source contribution is a purely altruistic act by the contributor which then solely benefits the maintainers. That's far from the case in reality. Many third party contributors are writing their contributions as part of their day job (meaning they're paid to do it), and the contribution directly benefits themselves and/or their employer by fixing some problem they encountered or adding some feature that they needed.

jillyboel 2y ago
> It sounds like you also have an assumption that the maintainers will spend the effort to maintain your contribution forever, after already spending the initial effort to review and integrate your contribution. This all takes time and money, which has to come from somewhere. Correct, that's generally how open source works. You make a contribution, they merge it, and then the assumption is that it is maintained by the maintainers. You seem to act like this is an odd assumption, even though it is and has been the reality for pretty much every open source project ever. > But the same exact issue exists from the maintainers' point of view. Right, it's their "job". Maintaining the software. It's pretty much in the name. That's what happens when you accept contributions. They get merged into the software project, and then you (the maintainer) are responsible for maintaining it, or removing the functionality in a subsequent release. That's why code review happens where you consider the maintenance burden, and features sometimes don't get merged. If this doesn't sound appealing then don't become the maintainer of an open source project. > Many third party contributors are writing their contributions as part of their day job (meaning they're paid to do it), and the contribution directly benefits themselves and/or their employer by fixing some problem they encountered or adding some feature that they needed. Sure, and they could've kept it private so it only benefits them and/or their employer. But instead they chose to open source it in the hopes that 1) The maintainers will maintain it 2) It might benefit someone else That's the whole deal. You're essentially trading your contributions for future maintenance.
- evanelias 2y ago
  I'm well acquainted with open source maintenance; one of my open source projects has been downloaded over 2 million times, and another is imported by over 8000 other repos on GitHub. I'm not "acting like this is an odd assumption" but rather my point was to consider the economic side from the maintainers' point of view, which many people in this thread are completely ignoring. As you said above, maintainers don't have to accept your contribution, and if they do, they always have the option of removing it in a future release. And if the maintainers use a CLA or other copyright assignment mechanism, they also have the option of changing the license for future releases. So why are you assuming you can keep using future versions of the product forever if you contribute to it and sign a CLA? > Sure, and they could've kept it private so it only benefits them and/or their employer But that doesn't actually provide a net "benefit" to the contributor, because then they have to take on the massive burden of maintaining a private fork. My point in all this is that contributing to open source often benefits the contributor more than the maintainer, and yet people act like it primarily is an altruistic gift from the contributor which solely benefits the maintainer / product owner.
  - jillyboel 2y ago
    > But that doesn't actually provide a net "benefit" to the contributor, because then they have to take on the massive burden of maintaining a private fork. Well yeah, that's the point. Trading contributions vs maintenance burden. > My point in all this is that contributing to open source often benefits the contributor more than the maintainer And yet they choose to do it... Why?
    - evanelias 2y ago
      I said it provides more benefit to the contributor than the maintainer, but I did not say that it provides no benefit to the maintainer. Your question doesn't logically follow.
      - jillyboel 2y ago
        That's exactly my point: It still benefits the maintainer. So they benefited from contributors, then fucked them over later, violating the social contract (but not necessarily the software license because CLAs yadda yadda).