3 ms·

The "social component" is a big problem in actual FOSS.

rapnie 5mo ago
People forget what FOSS is, and you get a world of unclear expectations. FOSS is code + a copyright license. How the code is created is an entirely different matter, and where FOSS projects often fall short. As FOSS projects come Forgejo is well-organized around a community governance model.
- brunoborges 5mo ago
  Indeed, the fact that maintainers didn't have until only recently the control for disabling Pull Requests tab in a GitHub repo, is what drove a lot of issues in FOSS collaboration over the past decade. FOSS and open source licenses never ever granted entitlement for contributors to have their proposals reviewed/merged by maintainers. Neither it ever offered entitlement for users to ask for free support. FOSS is about giving people access to source code so they can do with it whatever they want, and maintainers/authors should have always had the ability to "publish and forget" the source code, without having to deal with those "entitlements".
bbor 5mo ago
IDK, it's hard to criticize the community too much given how wildly, absurdly successful it is. If I arrived on Earth yesterday and you tried to tell me how much software is Free/free in an otherwise-capitalist economy, I wouldn't believe you! I really really am not trying to start a political argument, but just as food for thought: this is exactly why I have faith in socialism (read: 'prosocial institutions and norms'). And whether socialism is eu- or dys-topian, it certainly cannot happen in the first place without a "social component"!
locknitpicker 5mo ago
> The "social component" is a big problem in actual FOSS. You're confusing things. The "social component" refers to people interacting with each other. Such as two developers working on a bug or a feature. Or a tester reporting a bug. This is a big part of actual professional software development work.
- troad 5mo ago
  To be generous to OP, none of this is intrinsic to FOSS. I write a library. I put it up online, for other people to use, if they like. At what point did I assume any responsibility to play nice with others? Or work with others at all? There's FOSS licenses, and then there's the social expectations around collaborative online development, and the latter is nowhere implied in the former. FOSS was not historically weighed down with all these social expectations. Forking was not seen as some community failure, but the basic purpose of FOSS. Sites like GitHub were a major part of this shift.
  - account42 5mo ago
    Spot on. And with the slop pull request currently plaguing the open collaboration model I foresee more projects moving (back) to the take-it-or-leave-it model.
    - gchamonlive 4mo ago
      Late to the party, but you can also do KYC on contributors, no need for black and white take it or leave it return to the dark ages.
marcosdumay 5mo ago
Yes, what's one more reason to abandon the largest platform.
nozzlegear 5mo ago
What do you mean? Why is the social component a problem in FOSS?
- majorchord 5mo ago
  I assume they are referring to the large number of open source users and developers that are particularly bad at people skills and acting calm and rational. Or maybe they mean there aren't good collaboration platforms in general, not sure.

People forget what FOSS is, and you get a world of unclear expectations. FOSS is code + a copyright license. How the code is created is an entirely different matter, and where FOSS projects often fall short. As FOSS projects come Forgejo is well-organized around a community governance model.

brunoborges 5mo ago
Indeed, the fact that maintainers didn't have until only recently the control for disabling Pull Requests tab in a GitHub repo, is what drove a lot of issues in FOSS collaboration over the past decade. FOSS and open source licenses never ever granted entitlement for contributors to have their proposals reviewed/merged by maintainers. Neither it ever offered entitlement for users to ask for free support. FOSS is about giving people access to source code so they can do with it whatever they want, and maintainers/authors should have always had the ability to "publish and forget" the source code, without having to deal with those "entitlements".

bbor 5mo ago

IDK, it's hard to criticize the community too much given how wildly, absurdly successful it is. If I arrived on Earth yesterday and you tried to tell me how much software is Free/free in an otherwise-capitalist economy, I wouldn't believe you! I really really am not trying to start a political argument, but just as food for thought: this is exactly why I have faith in socialism (read: 'prosocial institutions and norms'). And whether socialism is eu- or dys-topian, it certainly cannot happen in the first place without a "social component"!

locknitpicker 5mo ago

> The "social component" is a big problem in actual FOSS. You're confusing things. The "social component" refers to people interacting with each other. Such as two developers working on a bug or a feature. Or a tester reporting a bug. This is a big part of actual professional software development work.

troad 5mo ago
To be generous to OP, none of this is intrinsic to FOSS. I write a library. I put it up online, for other people to use, if they like. At what point did I assume any responsibility to play nice with others? Or work with others at all? There's FOSS licenses, and then there's the social expectations around collaborative online development, and the latter is nowhere implied in the former. FOSS was not historically weighed down with all these social expectations. Forking was not seen as some community failure, but the basic purpose of FOSS. Sites like GitHub were a major part of this shift.
- account42 5mo ago
  Spot on. And with the slop pull request currently plaguing the open collaboration model I foresee more projects moving (back) to the take-it-or-leave-it model.
  - gchamonlive 4mo ago
    Late to the party, but you can also do KYC on contributors, no need for black and white take it or leave it return to the dark ages.

marcosdumay 5mo ago

Yes, what's one more reason to abandon the largest platform.

nozzlegear 5mo ago

What do you mean? Why is the social component a problem in FOSS?

majorchord 5mo ago
I assume they are referring to the large number of open source users and developers that are particularly bad at people skills and acting calm and rational. Or maybe they mean there aren't good collaboration platforms in general, not sure.