9 ms·

A cry for help

253 points by alpb 14y ago

alpb 14y ago
Sorry for reposting this guys. My blog went down and some stupid cache plugin revealed my db password, I had to remove the previous HN post and reinstalled my blog. Now it is back. I posted this again for people had no chance seeing this before I deleted the old post. Thanks for everyone proposed helping the guy I mentioned in the post with their comments in the post I had to delete.
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  FYI: https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/288684922217041920 https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/288684922217041920
  - dcurtis 14y ago
    Yeah, please don't use the Svbtle design.
    - benatkin 14y ago
      The OP is just using a theme someone else put online. Here's what they have to say about it: Isn't this unoriginal? Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal. See the original ["inspiration" for svbtle]. https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle#isnt-this-unoriginal https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle#isnt-this-unorigi... I certainly don't agree with that.
      - mnicole 14y ago
        Yup. While part of what makes Svbtle original is the admin panel, the look itself is basically just Clarus, a free Tumblr theme, without the gradient. I've stood up for Dustin on other matters, but I think he's in the wrong when he tries to call out people for stealing what essentially amounts to border-radiuses and an original, albeit poor UX, like button. That said, there is a brand aesthetic here and a reputation that goes along with it, so I do think it's pretty tacky for people to use the theme and misguide people reading their blogs into thinking they're a part of this internet cool kid's club, whatever your thoughts on invite-only blogging platforms may be.
        jlarocco 14y ago
        I'm skeptical it's being done to misguide people. I'm not sure most people even realize there is an invite only "internet cool kid's club."
        mnicole 14y ago
        Then why not sign up for it directly? Hypothetically, if you hadn't discovered it from some other tech blog using it (many of which have been linked here), the steps to find it probably went from trying to fill out the actual form on Svbtle, realizing it's an application not a registration, and then Googling an alternative. All things said, there are so many better looking minimalist WP themes out there for me to believe most folks chose this one at random. If it trended on lists and blogs, it was because enough people who recognized the potential made it so.
        scoot 14y ago
        What is "button"?
        georgeorwell 14y ago
        The sentence doesn't parse well. She is referring to the "like button" at the top right that you hover over if you want to give people kudos (on Svbtle) or likes (elsewhere).
    - thoughtcriminal 14y ago
      No offense Dustin (and of course everyone does exactly that) but I thought this post was one of the best ones I've ever read on your network - then it turns out it's not on your network. Svbtle is a killer design. A true innovation, and it's impeccable. The writers aren't meeting the same standards though. Just a thought. EDIT: Add alpb to your network. He's good.
      - alpb 14y ago
        Dustin: I shamelessly agree him! (seriously)
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - ooobo 14y ago
      Putting a "Design by @DCURTIS" tagline in the footer is really weird, to me it implies some connection (where there is none). If you are going to copy without permission, don't imply that you have permission like this. I know it probably just comes default in the WP theme, but this applies to you and the theme creator. I know many will argue it shouldn't matter, but it really makes me subconsciously think less of the blog author and the post's content.
      - kragen 14y ago
        In many cases, giving credit to the author is a necessary condition for copying without the author's permission.
    - georgeorwell 14y ago
      From the Twitter post: > This is getting ridiculous: the Svbtle design is not open source, and I have never given permission for anyone to use it with Wordpress. Dude. Without trademarks, patents, or copyright, there's not much you can do. There is no permission for you to give or not give, unless your actual code is being ripped off. There is no "open source" license that the Svbtle design could be licensed under even if you wanted to do so. You could probably get a patent on the design. Apple has patents on rounded corners and page turning, for example. Once you publish something or offer it for sale in the US, you have one year to file for a patent. You still have time, but of course, IANAL.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - mmahemoff 14y ago
        Whether he has legal recourse, he can still call people out on it. These Svbtle clones are way beyond "taking inspiration" the way one phone takes inspiration from another and incrementally improves or differentiates on it. They're blatantly, outright, misleading. I had no idea it was a clone until now. Also IANAL but I think it's more likely to be protected by copyright than a patent, which means there's no short-term limit like that.
        georgeorwell 14y ago
        What is the difference between this and GNU reimplementing the standard Unix utilities? Software and hardware cloning has always been at the heart of the tech industry.
        mmahemoff 14y ago
        georgeorwell, they didn't copy the manual and logo (or even the implementations). They just built a compatible interface. To a human, a blog with a different theme would still be a compatible interface. It's one thing to clone hardware or software, but another to misrepresent it as being from the same source as the original.
    - marekmroz 14y ago
      Please don't bring up this ridiculousness yet again...
    - jaytaylor 14y ago
      @dcurtis Why not take it as a flattering compliment and move on?
  - benatkin 14y ago
    What is the DESIGN BY @DCURTIS thing? This isn't built into Obtvse is it? Is this even using Obtvse? Did a view source. Yes the author is using Obtvse but I don't think the DESIGN BY @DCURTIS thing is from Obtvse.
  - alpb 14y ago
    I will be changing the design ASAP. I was using wp-svelte theme and today Dustin contacted me. So I must find another clean and minimalistic theme, I believe.
    - shoopy 14y ago
      I'll pick up the mantle and use wp-svbtle on my blog.
    - benatkin 14y ago
      Unless I'm missing something, ASAP would have been in about 10 minutes. Changing a theme is just a matter of selecting it in the WP admin interface, if it's installed. Worst case you have to download a theme, unpack it into wp-content/themes, and add it to your git repository before pushing it to heroku and selecting a theme.
  - runn1ng 14y ago
    FYI: https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle
artursapek 14y ago
That's an oddly personal public cry for help.
- tibbon 14y ago
  But its honest, and straightforward. I like it. If I had the capability of doing it, I'd consider helping.
- Gigablah 14y ago
  ...and already someone's made a snarky remark about PHP in the comments.
kamakazizuru 14y ago
any idea why the domain shows up as heroku? :S
- tibbon 14y ago
  It always grabs the last part of the domain. Its just a quick app hosted on heroku, so all foo.heroku.com stuff will show up on here as heroku.com. Happens with google.com, etc too.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    Heroku isn't part of the domain though (ahmetalpbalkan.com)
    - zxtang 14y ago
      It's a redirect to that domain.
      - willlll 14y ago
        Sure, but why not just post your real domain then. This is bizarre.
      - mmahemoff 14y ago
        Why does HN even allow redirect URLs to be submitted?
  - teamonkey 14y ago
    On the front page right now there's instagram-engineering.tumblr.com, erratasec.blogspot.com and tech.blog.cueup.com. It seems to be a based on a domain whitelist. Heroku should definitely be on it. Personally I'd just show the whole hostname and maybe prune a few common subdomains like "www.", "www2." or "blog."
    - robryan 14y ago
      Definitely, I would be surprised if this post would get to the top otherwise. A vague title with the heroku domain has probably attracted a lot of clicks.
Udo 14y ago
I said it before on the other thread. I'd be willing to consider taking over as project lead. I emailed the developer about this, haven't heard back yet.
- roel_v 14y ago
  I guess the first thing would be to make some, you know, contributions...
  - Udo 14y ago
    Yeah, nothing like putting people who want to help into their rightful place! Must feel pretty good. I may not be a high-profile "rockstar", but at least I was making an honest offer. But you're right, of course, I should have known I was making an ass out of myself.
    - roel_v 14y ago
      ? I wasn't putting anyone in their place, I was just saying that the natural progression in such situations is to first make contributions and 'earn' ones place as a maintainer meritocrally (if that's a word).
mikeevans 14y ago
I posted a link to this same thing about a month ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954033 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954033 Guess I should have made a blog post about it :P
- alpb 14y ago
  Haha :) I've seen this thing from a tweet from one of my friends. That's more effective for the sake of that project!
maxxpower 14y ago
I noticed that message last month when I was interested in installing it. Sadly I do not have the skills to takeover such a daunting project, hopefully others in the community will come through.
jaryd 14y ago
User of PHPVirtualBox here and I just want to say it's a wonderful piece of software that has drastically simplified my life! To the author: thank you so much for dedicating your time and effort to this project, and I wish you all the best.
- mylittlepony 14y ago
  I don't see what phpvirtualbox could be used for. Can you give me an example? How did it simplify your life?
  - jaryd 14y ago
    I'm a remote worker and I use VirtualBox as a hypervisor on a server that runs on-site on the other side of the country. I could do most management through VBoxCommand (CLI) but I've become comfortable using the GUI, and because my interaction with VirtualBox is infrequent (I usually set it and forget it) I'm more efficient that way. X-Forwarding over SSH for this use-case has been pretty annoying (mostly due to latency), and PHPVirtualBox has been a major improvement.
    - mylittlepony 14y ago
      I thought VirtualBox wasn't meant to be used for production. Is the performance good? Or are you saying that you develop on a remote VM?
brudgers 14y ago
Technical details aside, marriage counseling is among the best decisions I've ever made. Or rather "are among" since we did it twice. I haven't thought about it much recently until now. The first time was in our second year. The second was when our son was a little over a year. Now he's nearly as tall as me, and we've been married almost 17 years. Both times the stress of work and professional goals played a role. Getting our relationship working again helped with both over the long term.
- jakozaur 14y ago
  The best comment. For the rest which concentrate on technical/project issues: http://xkcd.com/309/ http://xkcd.com/309/
  - Udo 14y ago
    > For the rest which concentrate on technical/project issues: [insert random XKCD] Isn't that the actual objective of this thread? Directing people to some loosely-but-not-really related XKCD comic adds nothing to the discussion. Neither does "the best comment" about marriage counseling for that matter, but I can see how that would be controversial. Making unsolicited life-coachy suggestions to people whom you know nothing about isn't as noble as it looks at first glance. The project's developer didn't ask us to give him tips on how to improve his life, he said he was looking to hand off the project. The situation would be different if there was an intra-community Ask HN from the developer, but we're talking about a blog post where this reason was given merely to illustrate why he can't work on the project anymore.
    - sp4rki 14y ago
      I actually believe the comic has a lot to do with situations pertaining to marriage - or any relationship whatsoever even if the poster didn't think much of it. I think that was kind of the point of the original root comment and the supporting response by the parent, and seems perfectly valid to me comic notwithstanding. On your second point, there's an enormous difference between saying "I can't continue with the project, someone else want's it?" and "I can't continue, because of A, B, C...Z, someone wants?". When you add the personal touch to a question it's inevitable that someone is going to answer with a personal experience. The same rhetoric you use can easily apply on the inverse case. Making unsolicited comments about you marriage life to a crowd of technologists/geeks/whatever should not be noble (whatever this means in this context anyways) either then. If the project developer didn't want advice about his married life, he should have kept his marriage troubles out of the spotlight. In any case, there's one important distinction to make: Giving such marriage advice is worth it if at least one person that needs it reads it. The original poster probably didn't give marriage advice because of the odd chance the developer will read it; I mean lets be realistic here, the poster/blog-author is not the developer with marriage troubles, so there's no reason to believe the developer will read this. He most certainly did because maybe someone here in HN could be going through a phase in his/her marriage/relationship that could use the couples therapy, and publicly acknowledging the benefit it had for him can have an positive impact on someone that actually needs that advice and is browsing Hacker News instead of attending to his significant other.
yarou 14y ago
I don't get it. Some developer is no longer able to maintain a project, it happens. So what? As John Nagle says: " The process by which language libraries are maintained may have a bigger impact on language success than generally recognized. A common event for developers is finding a bug in some crucial library function. The big question is, what happens then? There are several models: 1. The library is commercially supported. 1. The vendor is responsive to bug reports. The user submits a bug report and the problem is fixed. 2. The vendor is not responsive to bug reports. 2. The library is supported by volunteers. 1. There is an community supporting the library, with multiple people permitted to make updates. 2. The library is supported by a single person who is active in developing the library. 3. The library is supported by a single person who is not active, and no one else can change the code." This clearly falls into his last category of 2.3...We are supposed to feel sympathy for some anonymous person on the Internet? I thought Hackernews was a venue for interesting ideas and innovative startups. (edited to include the first sentence)
- nmridul 14y ago
  It is interesting for many because they use the product and many feel it is great (see others comments). If it is not maintained, its going to affect them. And many of them are using it to support their startup's installations. And HN is not only about interesting ideas and innovative startups, its about anything interesting for a hacker. And that could include news about another hacker (or human) who has built a great product and is now in distress. And many would love to help him as a human (to reduce the suffering) and as a hacker (to keep the product alive).
  - yarou 14y ago
    I understand your viewpoint. I just don't understand why I should care about this project, out of the sea of millions of projects that are abandoned due to the personal/real life issues of the author (i.e. the LuaOS author). Since it is open source, it can be easily forked and maintained by an author that cares (based on the many varied responses to this thread, there seem to be several developers that fit the criteria).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jtreminio 14y ago
I'd love to help, but I don't think monolithic covers this: https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/lib/vboxconnector.php https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/...
noonespecial 14y ago
I think its super awesome that this guy is actually looking to hand the project over to people who care that can continue it despite the raft of personal problems he's clearly dealing with. Most projects in these circumstances would simply be abandoned. I hope the best for him.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nnq 14y ago
It's good to have a "human face for a project", but do we really need to know about your marriage problems - really, can't one just say: "Hi folks, I'm too busy to keep working/managing this and need someone to take over! Keep this project alive and make the world a better place!"
adnam 14y ago
Given the circumstances this must surely win the HN award for Best Link-bait Title.
shadonna 14y ago
I was having a boyfriend. We were known for long time only through phone. Suddenly through some event we met together and we promised we will be together for ever. Both of us are married and not satisfied with the present spouse. But because of some misunderstanding I quarreled with him and humiliated him in front of his friends. After that I realized my mistake and apologized with him like anything. He told me he will try to forget everything. After that we met once and he promised me everything happened because of misunderstanding and now we will together for ever.But after that we never met each other. when we plan to meet some hindrance will happen then it will stop. Also no proper communication. But for me he is my everything. He is the only one who gave such a good satisfaction in my life. I wanted him. I wanted him to meet me, to have sex with me, love me everything. He is very good.and l know He was made for me. But some hindrance keep keeping us apart. i tried to get close to him but nothing was working out until one day i heard about a spell caster called prophetharry@ymail. com, i decide to try his love spell and definitely it worked out perfectly for me, it never took time for the spell to start working, after some few days this guy i am loving came to me and wanted us to start dating, we are in love now, our lover is so tight that nothing can brings us apart, this love spell is wonderful shadonna
shadonna 14y ago
I was hurt and depressed when my lover of five years left me for another woman. One friend suggested the idea to contact a spell caster, which I would have never thought of myself. I contacted a few of them but prophetharry@ymail.com was the person I felt good with. he was understanding, replied all my emails promptly and patiently. Then I decided to place an order for his spell even if at that time I was still a bit skeptical about his capacity to bring my man back with me. Only 1 week after the spell was actually cast, he returned to me and since then, it seems that there is no more mistrust and no more lies between us. For that reason, I am gladly leaving a testimonial on this page, which I believe will help persons to chose prophetharry for their case.
kimbutler001 14y ago
Firstly, i want to thank Dr khakani for what he has done for me, am so happy today and i have stopped thinking and all my depression and predicament is over. After my husband steve left me for another woman, he said i was not good enough and that he hates me. I cried because i really love steve with all my heart. Then i decided to come online to look for a spell caster to help me bring back steve, all they kept doing was to collect my money and nothing was being done. Until God directed dr khakani to me. At first when i met dr khakani i was thinking he also want to collect my money for nothing, but he told me to give him a chance that what will he gain if he add pain to my pain. That all he want is my happiness. So i decided to give him a chance, and he told me that steve will be back in my arms within 48hours, and i said okay. Truly when dr khakani casted this spell, my husband steve called me that he wanted to tell me something...i was shocked. He told me that i should forgive him, that he loves me with all his heart and he promise me never to leave me again and to love me forever. Dr khakani also told me that when steve comes back to me, he's going to buy me a gift. Steve bought me a brand new car, and i also have access to his account to prove to me that he will never leave me. That was how dr khakani stopped me from crying and i got over my deppression and predicament. You can contact dr khakani for any kind of help and he will never disappiont you. His private email: khakanibestsolutioncentre12@gmail.com or cell phone number +2348062216903

253 points by alpb 14y ago

alpb 14y ago

Sorry for reposting this guys. My blog went down and some stupid cache plugin revealed my db password, I had to remove the previous HN post and reinstalled my blog. Now it is back. I posted this again for people had no chance seeing this before I deleted the old post. Thanks for everyone proposed helping the guy I mentioned in the post with their comments in the post I had to delete.

tlrobinson 14y ago
FYI: https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/288684922217041920 https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/288684922217041920
- dcurtis 14y ago
  Yeah, please don't use the Svbtle design.
  - benatkin 14y ago
    The OP is just using a theme someone else put online. Here's what they have to say about it: Isn't this unoriginal? Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal. See the original ["inspiration" for svbtle]. https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle#isnt-this-unoriginal https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle#isnt-this-unorigi... I certainly don't agree with that.
    - mnicole 14y ago
      Yup. While part of what makes Svbtle original is the admin panel, the look itself is basically just Clarus, a free Tumblr theme, without the gradient. I've stood up for Dustin on other matters, but I think he's in the wrong when he tries to call out people for stealing what essentially amounts to border-radiuses and an original, albeit poor UX, like button. That said, there is a brand aesthetic here and a reputation that goes along with it, so I do think it's pretty tacky for people to use the theme and misguide people reading their blogs into thinking they're a part of this internet cool kid's club, whatever your thoughts on invite-only blogging platforms may be.
      - jlarocco 14y ago
        I'm skeptical it's being done to misguide people. I'm not sure most people even realize there is an invite only "internet cool kid's club."
        mnicole 14y ago
        Then why not sign up for it directly? Hypothetically, if you hadn't discovered it from some other tech blog using it (many of which have been linked here), the steps to find it probably went from trying to fill out the actual form on Svbtle, realizing it's an application not a registration, and then Googling an alternative. All things said, there are so many better looking minimalist WP themes out there for me to believe most folks chose this one at random. If it trended on lists and blogs, it was because enough people who recognized the potential made it so.
      - scoot 14y ago
        What is "button"?
        georgeorwell 14y ago
        The sentence doesn't parse well. She is referring to the "like button" at the top right that you hover over if you want to give people kudos (on Svbtle) or likes (elsewhere).
  - thoughtcriminal 14y ago
    No offense Dustin (and of course everyone does exactly that) but I thought this post was one of the best ones I've ever read on your network - then it turns out it's not on your network. Svbtle is a killer design. A true innovation, and it's impeccable. The writers aren't meeting the same standards though. Just a thought. EDIT: Add alpb to your network. He's good.
    - alpb 14y ago
      Dustin: I shamelessly agree him! (seriously)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - ooobo 14y ago
    Putting a "Design by @DCURTIS" tagline in the footer is really weird, to me it implies some connection (where there is none). If you are going to copy without permission, don't imply that you have permission like this. I know it probably just comes default in the WP theme, but this applies to you and the theme creator. I know many will argue it shouldn't matter, but it really makes me subconsciously think less of the blog author and the post's content.
    - kragen 14y ago
      In many cases, giving credit to the author is a necessary condition for copying without the author's permission.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    From the Twitter post: > This is getting ridiculous: the Svbtle design is not open source, and I have never given permission for anyone to use it with Wordpress. Dude. Without trademarks, patents, or copyright, there's not much you can do. There is no permission for you to give or not give, unless your actual code is being ripped off. There is no "open source" license that the Svbtle design could be licensed under even if you wanted to do so. You could probably get a patent on the design. Apple has patents on rounded corners and page turning, for example. Once you publish something or offer it for sale in the US, you have one year to file for a patent. You still have time, but of course, IANAL.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - mmahemoff 14y ago
      Whether he has legal recourse, he can still call people out on it. These Svbtle clones are way beyond "taking inspiration" the way one phone takes inspiration from another and incrementally improves or differentiates on it. They're blatantly, outright, misleading. I had no idea it was a clone until now. Also IANAL but I think it's more likely to be protected by copyright than a patent, which means there's no short-term limit like that.
      - georgeorwell 14y ago
        What is the difference between this and GNU reimplementing the standard Unix utilities? Software and hardware cloning has always been at the heart of the tech industry.
      - mmahemoff 14y ago
        georgeorwell, they didn't copy the manual and logo (or even the implementations). They just built a compatible interface. To a human, a blog with a different theme would still be a compatible interface. It's one thing to clone hardware or software, but another to misrepresent it as being from the same source as the original.
  - marekmroz 14y ago
    Please don't bring up this ridiculousness yet again...
  - jaytaylor 14y ago
    @dcurtis Why not take it as a flattering compliment and move on?
- benatkin 14y ago
  What is the DESIGN BY @DCURTIS thing? This isn't built into Obtvse is it? Is this even using Obtvse? Did a view source. Yes the author is using Obtvse but I don't think the DESIGN BY @DCURTIS thing is from Obtvse.
- alpb 14y ago
  I will be changing the design ASAP. I was using wp-svelte theme and today Dustin contacted me. So I must find another clean and minimalistic theme, I believe.
  - shoopy 14y ago
    I'll pick up the mantle and use wp-svbtle on my blog.
  - benatkin 14y ago
    Unless I'm missing something, ASAP would have been in about 10 minutes. Changing a theme is just a matter of selecting it in the WP admin interface, if it's installed. Worst case you have to download a theme, unpack it into wp-content/themes, and add it to your git repository before pushing it to heroku and selecting a theme.
- runn1ng 14y ago
  FYI: https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle

artursapek 14y ago

That's an oddly personal public cry for help.

tibbon 14y ago
But its honest, and straightforward. I like it. If I had the capability of doing it, I'd consider helping.
Gigablah 14y ago
...and already someone's made a snarky remark about PHP in the comments.

kamakazizuru 14y ago

any idea why the domain shows up as heroku? :S

tibbon 14y ago
It always grabs the last part of the domain. Its just a quick app hosted on heroku, so all foo.heroku.com stuff will show up on here as heroku.com. Happens with google.com, etc too.
- wilfra 14y ago
  Heroku isn't part of the domain though (ahmetalpbalkan.com)
  - zxtang 14y ago
    It's a redirect to that domain.
    - willlll 14y ago
      Sure, but why not just post your real domain then. This is bizarre.
    - mmahemoff 14y ago
      Why does HN even allow redirect URLs to be submitted?
- teamonkey 14y ago
  On the front page right now there's instagram-engineering.tumblr.com, erratasec.blogspot.com and tech.blog.cueup.com. It seems to be a based on a domain whitelist. Heroku should definitely be on it. Personally I'd just show the whole hostname and maybe prune a few common subdomains like "www.", "www2." or "blog."
  - robryan 14y ago
    Definitely, I would be surprised if this post would get to the top otherwise. A vague title with the heroku domain has probably attracted a lot of clicks.

Udo 14y ago

I said it before on the other thread. I'd be willing to consider taking over as project lead. I emailed the developer about this, haven't heard back yet.

roel_v 14y ago
I guess the first thing would be to make some, you know, contributions...
- Udo 14y ago
  Yeah, nothing like putting people who want to help into their rightful place! Must feel pretty good. I may not be a high-profile "rockstar", but at least I was making an honest offer. But you're right, of course, I should have known I was making an ass out of myself.
  - roel_v 14y ago
    ? I wasn't putting anyone in their place, I was just saying that the natural progression in such situations is to first make contributions and 'earn' ones place as a maintainer meritocrally (if that's a word).

mikeevans 14y ago

I posted a link to this same thing about a month ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954033 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954033 Guess I should have made a blog post about it :P

alpb 14y ago
Haha :) I've seen this thing from a tweet from one of my friends. That's more effective for the sake of that project!

maxxpower 14y ago

I noticed that message last month when I was interested in installing it. Sadly I do not have the skills to takeover such a daunting project, hopefully others in the community will come through.

jaryd 14y ago

User of PHPVirtualBox here and I just want to say it's a wonderful piece of software that has drastically simplified my life! To the author: thank you so much for dedicating your time and effort to this project, and I wish you all the best.

mylittlepony 14y ago
I don't see what phpvirtualbox could be used for. Can you give me an example? How did it simplify your life?
- jaryd 14y ago
  I'm a remote worker and I use VirtualBox as a hypervisor on a server that runs on-site on the other side of the country. I could do most management through VBoxCommand (CLI) but I've become comfortable using the GUI, and because my interaction with VirtualBox is infrequent (I usually set it and forget it) I'm more efficient that way. X-Forwarding over SSH for this use-case has been pretty annoying (mostly due to latency), and PHPVirtualBox has been a major improvement.
  - mylittlepony 14y ago
    I thought VirtualBox wasn't meant to be used for production. Is the performance good? Or are you saying that you develop on a remote VM?

brudgers 14y ago

Technical details aside, marriage counseling is among the best decisions I've ever made. Or rather "are among" since we did it twice. I haven't thought about it much recently until now. The first time was in our second year. The second was when our son was a little over a year. Now he's nearly as tall as me, and we've been married almost 17 years. Both times the stress of work and professional goals played a role. Getting our relationship working again helped with both over the long term.

jakozaur 14y ago
The best comment. For the rest which concentrate on technical/project issues: http://xkcd.com/309/ http://xkcd.com/309/
- Udo 14y ago
  > For the rest which concentrate on technical/project issues: [insert random XKCD] Isn't that the actual objective of this thread? Directing people to some loosely-but-not-really related XKCD comic adds nothing to the discussion. Neither does "the best comment" about marriage counseling for that matter, but I can see how that would be controversial. Making unsolicited life-coachy suggestions to people whom you know nothing about isn't as noble as it looks at first glance. The project's developer didn't ask us to give him tips on how to improve his life, he said he was looking to hand off the project. The situation would be different if there was an intra-community Ask HN from the developer, but we're talking about a blog post where this reason was given merely to illustrate why he can't work on the project anymore.
  - sp4rki 14y ago
    I actually believe the comic has a lot to do with situations pertaining to marriage - or any relationship whatsoever even if the poster didn't think much of it. I think that was kind of the point of the original root comment and the supporting response by the parent, and seems perfectly valid to me comic notwithstanding. On your second point, there's an enormous difference between saying "I can't continue with the project, someone else want's it?" and "I can't continue, because of A, B, C...Z, someone wants?". When you add the personal touch to a question it's inevitable that someone is going to answer with a personal experience. The same rhetoric you use can easily apply on the inverse case. Making unsolicited comments about you marriage life to a crowd of technologists/geeks/whatever should not be noble (whatever this means in this context anyways) either then. If the project developer didn't want advice about his married life, he should have kept his marriage troubles out of the spotlight. In any case, there's one important distinction to make: Giving such marriage advice is worth it if at least one person that needs it reads it. The original poster probably didn't give marriage advice because of the odd chance the developer will read it; I mean lets be realistic here, the poster/blog-author is not the developer with marriage troubles, so there's no reason to believe the developer will read this. He most certainly did because maybe someone here in HN could be going through a phase in his/her marriage/relationship that could use the couples therapy, and publicly acknowledging the benefit it had for him can have an positive impact on someone that actually needs that advice and is browsing Hacker News instead of attending to his significant other.

yarou 14y ago

I don't get it. Some developer is no longer able to maintain a project, it happens. So what? As John Nagle says: " The process by which language libraries are maintained may have a bigger impact on language success than generally recognized. A common event for developers is finding a bug in some crucial library function. The big question is, what happens then? There are several models: 1. The library is commercially supported. 1. The vendor is responsive to bug reports. The user submits a bug report and the problem is fixed. 2. The vendor is not responsive to bug reports. 2. The library is supported by volunteers. 1. There is an community supporting the library, with multiple people permitted to make updates. 2. The library is supported by a single person who is active in developing the library. 3. The library is supported by a single person who is not active, and no one else can change the code." This clearly falls into his last category of 2.3...We are supposed to feel sympathy for some anonymous person on the Internet? I thought Hackernews was a venue for interesting ideas and innovative startups. (edited to include the first sentence)

nmridul 14y ago
It is interesting for many because they use the product and many feel it is great (see others comments). If it is not maintained, its going to affect them. And many of them are using it to support their startup's installations. And HN is not only about interesting ideas and innovative startups, its about anything interesting for a hacker. And that could include news about another hacker (or human) who has built a great product and is now in distress. And many would love to help him as a human (to reduce the suffering) and as a hacker (to keep the product alive).
- yarou 14y ago
  I understand your viewpoint. I just don't understand why I should care about this project, out of the sea of millions of projects that are abandoned due to the personal/real life issues of the author (i.e. the LuaOS author). Since it is open source, it can be easily forked and maintained by an author that cares (based on the many varied responses to this thread, there seem to be several developers that fit the criteria).

deleted 14y ago

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jtreminio 14y ago

I'd love to help, but I don't think monolithic covers this: https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/lib/vboxconnector.php https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/...

noonespecial 14y ago

I think its super awesome that this guy is actually looking to hand the project over to people who care that can continue it despite the raft of personal problems he's clearly dealing with. Most projects in these circumstances would simply be abandoned. I hope the best for him.

deleted 14y ago

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nnq 14y ago

It's good to have a "human face for a project", but do we really need to know about your marriage problems - really, can't one just say: "Hi folks, I'm too busy to keep working/managing this and need someone to take over! Keep this project alive and make the world a better place!"

adnam 14y ago

Given the circumstances this must surely win the HN award for Best Link-bait Title.

shadonna 14y ago

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kimbutler001 14y ago

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