So, it's just an uncharitable pot shot when the article is perfectly relatable when taken at face value.
I'd probably even add your mentality, ubiquitous on HN, to his list. People come out of the woodwork to shit on others. It seems even moreso when it's just a hobby project.
You're basically taking one last snipe at him while he exits the theater. For what? Is this what you thought the world needed more of?
I'm a bit annoyed about people running popular open source projects suddenly creating drama like this. The reason these projects got popular in the first place were often that the author didn't care for fame, glory or money; they just wanted to solve a problem.
And well, to be clear: most of us prefer to use an open source library, over a commercial library.
What I'm a bit upset over here is the bait and switch here.
Using the open source aspect of your library to get widely spread, but also somehow expecting to make money off this, somehow - this doesn't make sense.
If you find that annoying then maybe, just maybe you have a small idea how annoyed the author is from people literally abusing his work beyond the scope it was offered and causing all sorts of grief and abuse from people demanding support for a product that he never sold and never even scoped as supported.
Whilst many are great users, who use as intended, just reading his post in full outlines just some of the instances and issues that have caused what was a passion and a hobby project to become a source of abuse and mental anguish. Nobody should have to endure that, more so when they did nothing wrong.
If the code was used in an illegal way in terms of licenses; I feel for the author. Otherwise not really.
Example: If you license something under e.g. the MIT license, a company ends up using it correctly, and you feel bad about the transaction - sorry, that's on you.
I really don't get why this is controversial. You license your code under a license for a reason.
Then, when you start getting 10,000+ e-mails shitting on you for not also doing XYZ for free, because how dare you not, I'll take your opinion with a more open mind.
The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.
>I never intended for wiringPi to be statically linked either – and thanks to the incompetence of many people who have done just this, I’ve had over 10,000 emails from people who upgraded their Pi and found that code stopped working because they were reliant on a system (typically some java/javascript/node or home automation or UPS thing) which had statically linked an older version
My point is, the author intended the project to be used for X. It was used for Y. Author doesn't want to support Y. Author gets bombarded with e-mails complaining they don't support Y. This isn't "suddenly creating drama like this" or "also somehow expecting to make money off this" as you asserted.
Another pertinent part of the article you seem to be skipping is:
>Add to that the people who have “bludgeoned” wiringPi to work on other fruit Pi platforms, but left my name as the contact email …
You claiming the author is just creating drama solely because of money is a gross misreading of the situation.
The point, and the reason I've downvoted you, is that Gordon clearly spelled out that his frustration is not about money. Gordon's clearly articulated frustration is in having to deal with demanding and abusive users. By pursuing the argument that Gordon's angry about making an insufficient amount of money you're perpetuating a strawman argument.
The point is, regardless of whether the author chooses GPL or MIT, he should not be subjected to abusive 'support requests'.
No one deserved to be verbally abuse from total strangers for things beyond his control.
Yes, the author could simply ignore the requests. But we ought to aim higher than 'silently accept the harassment and do nothing,' for the betterment of everyone.
>If the code was used in an illegal way in terms of licenses; I feel for the author. Otherwise not really.
It seems like you only think the author has a right to be frustrated if the license is used in an illegal way, not if they license is followed but the users are abusive.
I've tried to be focused and responsive, but instead of responding to my arguments, people like you seem intent on hunting for quotes elsewhere in the thread, somewhat at random. This is like the third time in this thread alone.
Ages ago, I wrote and maintained some Windows open source stuff. It wasn't GPL, but it was "here's the source code, and a binary version, have fun!". I had a little niche of a certain type of tool in the Windows world, if you searched for how to do a specific thing, my tools would show up.
Most of it included my real name and email address in the executable and DLLs details tab, as well as the source code. I was the top of the little niche, and more than happy to help other developers out there. I'd help users as best as I could, but my tools were mostly geared at developers (though, users never stopped amazing me at clever unintended ways to use things)
The emails I got from this could be broken down into two categories: Actual questions about the tools, including bug reports or problems integrating it into some other project. That was about 5% of the emails I saw. The other 95% was "Program <x> stopped working! I can't find any contact anywhere expect in this one DLL, I demand you help me fix it!"
It was super disheartening, since my attempt to explain my role as someone that provided a tool or library to whoever wrote their application was responded with either "Your name is in this application, I don't care what your role is, you need to help me fix it!", or "If you didn't want to provide support, why is your email here?"
And that's, basically, how I ended up using random combinations of words on sites like this one. Maybe people with a thicker skin can deal with this crap, but I can't anymore.
Sorry if I came of suggesting that. At least in my case the only people demanding support were end-users of applications I didn't write but did use my code. Developers that contacted me were always understanding, with a rare exception, that free stuff got free support.
Learned my lesson. If I release something now I put it under MIT license and add some decent documentation and hopefully the code is well written and commented enough that any half way decent programmer can make use of it. No contact mail, no grief.
Open sourcing something is deciding to share it. It isn't committing to support it or update it or help you make money with it. It's not shocking people get burnt out by constant harassment by entitled people who demand the developer "support them" for free.
Not to be a complete ass or anything, but technically posting a comment on HN REQUIRES you to read the article before spreading complete misinformation.
Your comment completely contradicts everything written in the article. It doesn't make sense to you because you don't want it to make sense to you.
Step 1. The author doesn't use GPL.
Step 2. The author clearly intended wiringPi to have a limited audience. He doesn't want it to become widely used. He intentionally limited support to a handful of hardware devices. It was meant to be used by experienced C programmers.
Step 3 isn't about the author being cheated. Fame or money were never mentioned. The author is overwhelmed with work, whether it is caused by the open source project, a new job or caring for his family doesn't matter.
However there is a special situation happening here that generally only applies to open software projects. The vast majority of the bug reports involve problems that have already been solved in newer versions. This means that even if the author had an infinite amount of time, all of it would be wasted on already solved problems. There is no reason to work on the project anymore since the rate of progress has stalled. The project has entered a zombie stage and then one day the maintainer announces that the project will be shutdown.
First of all, sorry to hear that WiringPi is deprecated, and I would like to thank the author for all the effort he put into this project.
When I read his blog post on his reasoning, I can't help but be reminded of the feud between xscreensaver's author and Debian maintainers. Debian maintainers refused to upgrade the app's version and refused to remove the 'For support contact the author's email' notice. The author's fed up with all the support emails he gets from Debian (outdated) installations' users and put in a message prompt blasting Debian. It was very ugly for both sides.
I think that there can be an extension on GPL that says, if you bundle this library and is not using the latest official version from the author, you are not allowed to include the author's contact information. If you insist on bundling the author's email with your outdated software, then you are in violation of GPL.
As for people stealing his code. Sorry to hear this. I got nothing except to try to contact EFF.
Because jwz appears to have a very short fuse and at one point in time one or a group of users on HN didn't agree with him (as best as I can remember), referrals from HN are redirected to an image of a testicle.
Here is a wayback machine link to avoid the image:
Yeah but this guy handled it respectfully. He's even releasing a final version. So people can fork it and do what they will. You can't really blame him. 10 years is a long time to maintain something anyway.
The FSF might also be able and willing to assist with LGPL violations. Unfortunately though this may be a case with circumstantial evidence but no proof. It also often seems that the people who most willing to disregard the (L)GPL are the ones most militantly protective of their proprietary code. It's quite sad that many developers seem to think that way.
Adding an extension like that to the GPL may be problematic because it has a clause that allows users to ignore restrictive extensions (as opposed to permissive extensions).
Assuming the project stands alone (I can't check right now), the author can release it however they want. The license governs how other people use it, not the author and copyright owner.
IANAL, but fundamentally I view licenses as grants of rights to non-copyright holders. As the (I think) sole copyright holder on the WiringPi code, the author is morally, if not legally (again, IANAL) entitled to do whatever the hell they want, irrespective of any licenses the code has been released under.
The meaning of "last straw" is that each issue on its own is just a small hinderance, but at some point the sum becomes too great, and one of those small hinderances just happens to be the last straw.
Their request implies a deadline where non exists, and was inconsiderate to the charity they were benefiting from. Also their use (static linking) would have made one more product that Author would get emails about when said product wasn't rebuilt to support newer boards. Basically they're at best an entitled asshole, at worst an entitled asshole leeching profit.
"Not to be a complete ass" ... but then proceeds to be a complete ass. People love to preface statements that they know are going to be rude.
If you need to preface a statement like that, reword it so you're being polite. The bit in question just as easily could have said "Hey, Thanks for releasing this! Do you know when the source code will be available? Thanks for all you're hard work"
Aside from whether or not he was being an ass, he was incorrect. The license are rights the author grants other people. The author can release binaries without sources or under any license they desire; just because they also release it under the LGPL does not compel them to provide sources when they distribute it.
Regardless of the legal situation, it would be very unusual to release something under a GPL-like license without the source, since then no one else could comply with the license since they would be unable to provide the modified source.
I think we can agree that it would not at all be weird to expect that GPL-licensed project would provide the source. Any project with multiple contributors may be legally compelled to do so. Simply asking for it is probably not being a complete ass, even if the author was wrong about the legal ramifications.
At most it could perhaps be "annoying" or a "slight ass". Being a "complete ass" would perhaps be insisting after an initial request was rebuffed or whatever.
> Regardless of the legal situation, it would be very unusual to release something under a GPL-like license without the source, since then no one else could comply with the license since they would be unable to provide the modified source.
Each releases of the software can have different licenses. This means that if the author released a new version of the software binary without the source code nor any copyright notices (like Gorden did) it is not yet released under LGPL. So nobody need to comply LGPL until he releases the source code with the license.
Even if the binary is released under LGPL without the source code, although it is odd, people still can comply the License because it is LGPL - people just need to provide a way how to link the new binary.
This is true, as long as the "author" is a single person or someone who has been assigned the rights to all the code by everyone else who has contributed.
If you are releasing work on a (A/L)GPL project you started, but others contributed to without giving you other rights, you can't distribute their contributions without releasing the source.
Not trying to excuse this demand, just pointing out the technicalities. The most important point in my eyes is that with no evidence of intent to keep the source concealed for a significant amount of time, the idea that anyone would pursue a complaint under the GPL in this situation is nonsense.
It should have been "When will a source release for this be available", but the user decided to be an asshole instead and make a demand by invoking the license—even if this was required, it was stupid in context.
Given the multiple years various well known routers and other small dedicated devices can go without the necessary source code appearing, getting stroppy when the Pi 4's been out barely 5 weeks (this blog entry is dated 6th Aug, Pi 4 release was 24 June) is a hell of a stretch.
I don't know how quickly Gordon put up the deb file he mentioned, but just going on Pi's release I'd call it very quickly. A week or two later is more suited to an enquiry of "Glad to see pi 4 support so fast, any idea when you might get chance to put up source code?" than "hey you're REQUIRED man, get on with it already...". Better still quietly not enquiring already but just quietly checking github over the coming weeks.
I also make free software. It's a battle dealing with folks who want both free code AND free work! Making code GPL is both a blessing a curse. Tales lakie this make me stop and double-check my choices
It's not just free/libre/open source software that has this issue.
I run an email security SaaS business. It's closed source, but the suite is free of charge to use for personal, non-commercial domains.
We get numerous support requests each day of users on the free tier (who are obviously commercial users btw) that DEMAND us to fix all sorts of email problems for them. They regularly threaten that they will write a bad review on $_SOCIAL_NETWORK if we don't fix their email delivery issues for free. It's frustrating and also exhausting to try to stay professional towards these 'customers'.
Interesting observation: This behavior seems to be culture dependent. I'd say about 90% of our over-demanding free-tier users are from the same region on the planet.
Just out of curiosity: in your experience, do you think offering a free tier instead of a short time-limited trial pays off in terms of attracting paid customers?
Since ours is GPL, that's our free tier. The supported/hosted/training version is paid, first, 15 day full refund then pro-rated. 15 works better than 30 for us.
As someone who's gone back and forth on licensing for personal projects over the years, tried to engage user communities for said personal projects, and tried to use various open source projects — I totally sympathize with the maintainers. As with a lot of things in life, user engagement is a two-way street. If folks want constructive engagement from the users, there needs to be constructive engagement from the maintainers.
From the user POV it can be very frustrating to use open source projects. Gordon's highlighted some real bottom-of-the-barrel end users and it would be hard to invalidate his experience with a straight face. OTOH some projects are incredibly hostile to users. Projects like Elixir/mix, Electron/VSCode, Thunderbird, and GIMP. How are users supposed to react when the sole maintainer packs up and leaves indefinitely? Or when patches are submitted upstream and the maintainers tell the users to pound sand?
Currently I'm working on a car-related Pi project. I'm not a hardware guy though, so I've done some research and discovered a piece of hardware that looks nearly perfect for my use case. They even have the specific version I'm interested in listed on their store. The only catch is that it's listed as 4-6 weeks out (and has been for a while). Their response? Sorry, we've moved on to something more interesting to us at 3x the price. No the store hasn't been updated (same with their blog and forums). I'm ready to fork over money, but with only sporadic signs of life it's difficult.
> I'm not following the jump from some commercial product turning out to be vaporware to it being an OSS problem.
They're all open source projects. Sure, I can grab the Gerber files and try my hand at surface mount soldering. But like any open source project where the build system is too archaic it's massively beneficial to start from an already assembled version.
> Interesting observation: This behavior seems to be culture dependent. I'd say about 90% of our over-demanding free-tier users are from the same region on the planet.
Partly it's funneling, but mostly the idea is that we want to offer a 'safe' environment for evaluating the tech. We see customers who use our software for a personal domain for a while, and then introduce it at work, or tell a colleague/friend about it. Word-of-mouth marketing goes a long way.
But, due to the group of over-demanding free tier users we are considering to switch to a limited time free trial.
> This behavior seems to be culture dependent. I'd say about 90% of our over-demanding free-tier users are from the same region on the planet.
I don’t like this dog whistle and the rest of your comment was perfectly fine without it.
That said, there are entitled assholes everywhere. I got an email one time asking me for source code for a university project because the guy had found I graduated that course 2 years before him, and he didn’t want to do the work.
> I don’t like this dog whistle and the rest of your comment was perfectly fine without it.
It’s not like he called anyone out specifically. If it’s a true observation, what’s wrong with telling us about it? That it’s culture dependant is an interesting note.
I read this and still don’t understand what is the issue behind the drama. If you don’t want to support it, then don’t; if someone stole your public domain work, contact the EFF or more realistically just understand it’s cost of doing business.
We all get tired at some point and move on, you don’t owe anyone anything. And thanks for the library!
Personalty think if Debian won't change the support email then he should just put in an auto response listing the Debian's maintainers email addresses.
He wanted to let the users of his software know why he was quitting. Not everything has to be honey soaked drivel. He gave his opinion. It had a little bit of well deserved ranting in there but it did let everyone know that the library is deprecated and you're now on your own with it.
If you read this Gordon, thank you for all you did for so long, it was way more generous than we deserved. I'm sorry for how unappreciative it all turned out, I appreciated your work and you're right you definitely should not put up with that shit. Best of luck =)
Open source gets inundated by the unwashed masses. I am so glad they taught our idiots in the office how to code, but the twits can't even figure out an a simple Excel formula.
The author owes nobody anything. He's already done enough. If you've given away something for free, don't expect support or anything free in the future. It's literally like taking a gift from someone and then complaining that it doesn't have enough for you to act indignant to people who give things away for free. Don't like it? Don't use it or improve it and contribute back. Want more? Pay them to build it and add it to what's available for everyone as a way to say thanks.
I remember reading about an indie games developer who looked at his proposed user base and decided not to make his game freeware. He wrote there was an attitude of entitlement among people who get the free stuff. People who were prepared to pay, even a very small amount, behaved better.
I saw that happen on the centos forums once or twice. It could attract spectacularly selfish individuals.
As for people not RTFM'ing, I recall a small internal project I did for which I wrote up comprehensive intro, docs etc. I handed it over to the user who told me to explain it to them. I said "I wrote it all up, help and everything, there it is!". She smiled and said "but who reads those?". I came very close to blowing up at her just then.
As someone who maintains open source software, I sympathize with the author and agree that he doesn't owe users personalized help.
However, he does have to comply with the legal requirements of the license he uses. Personally, I don't use GPL/LGPL licenses, but if I did, I'd be careful to comply with the provisions of the license.
> However, he does have to comply with the legal requirements of the license he uses.
No, the author doesn't. Not really. The license governs the use of people who don't hold the copyright. That's why the author of a project can just turn around and release under a new license.
No, that's incorrect. The license governs the conduct of both parties (here, the creator and the users).
Yes, he can release new software under a new license, but any past software he released under a certain license, he has to follow those terms.
If you come to an agreement with another party (like you agree to license a movie, or book to them), you can't just unilaterally cancel that agreement. That's not how contract law works.
He can release the software under a completely different license. Even if that is the exact same software. He can remove all downloads of the software from the websites etc. He owns the copyright.
He cannot prevent people who obtained a version of the software under a license from doing what they want with it under the terms of that license.
Those terms don't apply to the original copyright holder.
The requirement to release source code is placed on those making use of the license, not on the original holder.
> For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
The original licensor receives no freedoms, as the work is theirs to begin with. It doesn't apply to them. "You" refers solely to those accepting the license.
If the original licensor hasn't release the source code with the binary at the time, they are under no obligation to do so. Using the particular license doesn't make sense, but they still aren't obligated.
There is no legal issue here, only a moral one. And as the community didn't give the developer room to breathe, that has evaporated.
Author releases software version A under GPL, source code and a binary.
Anyone can do anything they want with A under the terms of the GPL.
Author releases software version B. People cannot force him to release source code just because A was released under GPL.
Even if he says B falls under GPL but hasn't released the source code (yet), people at most can say he did not comply with the terms of the GPL and refuse to treat/use it as such , which means they cannot use or redistribute it since that is not allowed under normal copyright rules. It cannot be used to force the author to release Bs source code.
I agree completely with your interpretation of the GPL. However, from my limited understanding, it seems that the situation in question was indeed about a "version A". I'm not suggesting the author can't release a future version under another license, or none at all. Of course he can.
I'm saying, if he releases version A under the GPL, he has to comply with the terms of the GPL for that release.
In any case, I'm no fan of the GPL, so it's no sweat off my back. But I don't understand someone releasing a software version under a certain license and then getting upset because someone asks him/her to abide by the terms of that license.
> He can release the software under a completely different license
Exactly. If he's the sole contributor or if you've submitted patches and signed a CLA that gives the right to the author to change the license on your contributions they can do whatever the hell they want license-wise.
What kind of a license doesn't have to be observed by one of the parties to the license?
Would any HN lawyers like to chip in? From my understanding of contracts, that interpretation seems contrary to basic legal principles.
The obligation GPL would place on the developer would be to release the source code if the program is released under the GPL. Based on my reading of the blog post, that's exactly what one user was complaining about.
> You might be thinking of a contract, which is a binding agreement between two parties.
Nope. I'm thinking of a license, which is a contract (go look it up if you don't believe me). And contracts can be a binding agreement between two or more parties.
> which is a contract (go look it up if you don't believe me).
I've looked it up, I can't find anything. Apparently in germany GPL is a contract, as in germany contracts don't require consideration. But in the US, GPL is a license, not a contract.
Based on everything I'm reading in IP Law and contract law texts online, that is not the case. Here's one from Cornell Law School that specifically says that "Regardless of whether the parties call their transaction a license, sale, lease, or something else, the Principles would apply", where said "Principles" are those of software contract law. And then they discuss how they fall under contract law.
Here's another from UChicago Law that takes it for granted that the legal reader understands that licenses are legal contracts, since it's full of quotes like "all licenses are vulnerable to the usual attacks that can be leveled against all types of contracts".
I have used WiringPi along my side of work and I am thankful to the author for creating and maintaining it, but honestly I don't understand the motivation behind offering a free product with email support.
There are many different people on the Internet with different cultural backgrounds, experience levels and work ethic and unfortunately it's not realistic to expect each of your users to share the same values as you do. Anecdotally, charging a license fee for your library/tool is a very good way to filter out 90% of the unprofessional behavior.
Also if you rely on your free product to promote your consulting business, I would highly recommend creating a community forum where users can advice each other, and maybe offering paid support on top of that. Also using an open-source helpdesk app to semi-automatically send canned replies to commonly repeating inquiries saves a ton of time and keeps the assholes off your back, as long as the canned replies are reasonable and polite.
Yep I have a couple of anonymous MIT softwares out there with decent documentation. that's all you get from me, along with quarterly or so updates. I do it for fun not to please everyone.
I’ve been maintaining free software for a while and people have been actively hunting for my email for support, completely ignoring clear guidelines in README and ignoring GitHub issues.
I haven't used this library but I maintain a couple moderately well-used python libraries and completely sympathize with these frustrations. The absolute worst was a guy who asked for all sorts of changes then, when I had made it clear I was going a different direction, he tried to start a public shaming on Twitter, this site, Reddit, and even the Wikipedia page (since removed at my own request). It was un-believable. He was the cto of a company, too, at least at that time.
It is sad that there are people out there who will try to ruin your day if you don't do what they want. Especially considering the work we put into these libraries.
If you ask nicely, argue your situation constructively and the developer still consider the best path isn't what you described, just fork it or pay someone to do the legwork if it's that critical to your mission, jeez..
This rings a bell. I think I remember reading about it either on here or elsewhere. You probably don't need or want it, but you have my sympathy anyway: people can be extremely entitled. I've spent a lot of my career working with .NET, where similar events have occurred. Entitled, demanding, and obnoxious users effectively drove off the author of NDoc and killed the project.
Big fan of peewee (I love the interface and use it more than SQLA). I’ve reported a few bugs and each time the bug was fixed within at most a day or two, and a release was cut a few days later. As an open source maintainer myself I admire your commitment and productivity.
>He was the cto of a company, too, at least at that time.
Your mistake was not completely destroying him. This behavior exists because one side likes to be civil which further encourages the irrational ones to continue.
Creating or running an open source project can be a thankless task, made worse by the sheer number of entitled jerks who can find you and your project via the Internet.
If you're selling software for pay, at least there's money in your pocket to compensate you for having to deal with the various types of a*oles in the human race, but without that it can rapidly become a chore to maintain even a small or niche package. That's why lots of software becomes orphaned.
I salute anyone who has ever had the courage to try to write, maintain, or organize development for open source software.
I've used WiringPI, it's a solid library, and - like a lot of people - I'm glad it exists.
But here's a contrarian view - I'm not sure why someone offering a project for free in the educational space would expect users to act like paid professional customers. Or expect them to be non-noob experts who can modify and build the project without hand-holding.
Or assume that email would be a viable line of support for a project with literally tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users.
Or even expect them to be adults.
So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - the terms you set for its use.
All open source projects comes with politics included. You have to have an understanding of the space you're working in, the kinds of users who inhabit it, and the kinds of relationships they're likely to have with them.
You need to know what your support boundaries and support technologies are. And if you work in a space where some of your users are likely to be assholes, you need to have a plan for that - even if it's just knowing that it's fine to ignore them.
Edit: to be clear, I think this is more of a general open licence problem than the failing of this one specific author. Open licences don't encourage authors to define boundaries, or even to understand that boundaries are necessary and terms need to be defined. So it's not quite a surprise that things like this happen.
> So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - the terms you set for its use.
I think it's perfectly fine to expect users to understand the terms. They downloaded a piece of code for free from a website with no company or support programme other than "hey I hope this is helpful, if you run into any issues I might be able to help over email". If it turns out that the author can't or won't help, accept your loss and fix it yourself, pay someone to fix it for you or wait for another volunteer to fix it.
Alternatively, they bought some kind of product that included the code. If this product breaks, they must go to the company that makes the product, not the author of some library it uses. It's not like you're going to expect some sparkplug manufacturer to come up with a fix for your car when it breaks down, do you?
People who feel entitled to anything when they get something for free are selfish assholes and should not be defended. They know fully well that they don't have any right for support, but they will make demands regardless, hoping that the other party will break and give in.
I agree that you need to have a plan for people like this, but in most cases, that plan is "I'll just drop the project if it becomes too much of a hassle". And in my opinion, that's a fine plan.
Releasing code with a license (OSS or whatever) doesn't entitle users to support or make demands when they use it incorrectly. The author's email address is given in the source code with the expectation that some basic courtesy is exercised by the consumer of the library with regard to communication with the author and not entitled demands.
If I'm a baker and sell you a loaf of my bread, I don't expect folks to email me complaining their welsh rarebit didn't come out right from the grill. Learn to cook or, in this perhaps strained analogy, learn to program and then come back and ask a more intelligent question.
> rage quit
And there we go, the automatic assumption that because an author has basically had enough of ignorant twats you paint their actions with these lazy characterisations. I don't think this author rage quit, he's just had enough of people with "contrarian" opinions such as yours. A license !== user entitlement.
This is why I stopped thinking unfriendliness in hacker circles is unwarranted. It's massively frustrating when you get people berating/harassing/stealing from/etc you when the reality is there really isn't a product, just a passion or hobby.
This is why any open software I author comes with the express warranty of "Help: No." If no is misunderstood then any reply will be along the lines of FOAD.
I wonder what "pirating" your own software to handle the "free trial"/free tier case would be like? Weird thought, uploading your own software in a particular guise to BitTorrent or something, to allow for free usage but change the expectations of the user...
That said, I distinctly remember a number of blog posts over the years where users using obviously pirated versions demanded support, so it seems impossible to avoid entirely haha
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadStep 2. This piece of software becomes widely used, primarily since it's open source licensed
Step 3. (Modern variation) Person A feels cheated for not getting rich and creates some kind of drama.
This doesn't make any sense at all, to me.
I'd probably even add your mentality, ubiquitous on HN, to his list. People come out of the woodwork to shit on others. It seems even moreso when it's just a hobby project.
You're basically taking one last snipe at him while he exits the theater. For what? Is this what you thought the world needed more of?
And well, to be clear: most of us prefer to use an open source library, over a commercial library.
What I'm a bit upset over here is the bait and switch here.
Using the open source aspect of your library to get widely spread, but also somehow expecting to make money off this, somehow - this doesn't make sense.
Whilst many are great users, who use as intended, just reading his post in full outlines just some of the instances and issues that have caused what was a passion and a hobby project to become a source of abuse and mental anguish. Nobody should have to endure that, more so when they did nothing wrong.
Example: If you license something under e.g. the MIT license, a company ends up using it correctly, and you feel bad about the transaction - sorry, that's on you.
I really don't get why this is controversial. You license your code under a license for a reason.
Then, when you start getting 10,000+ e-mails shitting on you for not also doing XYZ for free, because how dare you not, I'll take your opinion with a more open mind.
The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.
What's your point? What do you want to say?
>I never intended for wiringPi to be statically linked either – and thanks to the incompetence of many people who have done just this, I’ve had over 10,000 emails from people who upgraded their Pi and found that code stopped working because they were reliant on a system (typically some java/javascript/node or home automation or UPS thing) which had statically linked an older version
My point is, the author intended the project to be used for X. It was used for Y. Author doesn't want to support Y. Author gets bombarded with e-mails complaining they don't support Y. This isn't "suddenly creating drama like this" or "also somehow expecting to make money off this" as you asserted.
Another pertinent part of the article you seem to be skipping is:
>Add to that the people who have “bludgeoned” wiringPi to work on other fruit Pi platforms, but left my name as the contact email …
You claiming the author is just creating drama solely because of money is a gross misreading of the situation.
groundlogic 52 minutes ago | parent | flag | favorite | on: WiringPi – deprecated
I'm a bit annoyed about people running popular open source projects suddenly creating drama like this
Followed with
but also somehow expecting to make money off this
To which I replied
The author made it fairly clear that this was not just a money situation.
To which you replied
What's your point?
And I said that my point was that this isn't about money? Or am I just going crazy?
The point, and the reason I've downvoted you, is that Gordon clearly spelled out that his frustration is not about money. Gordon's clearly articulated frustration is in having to deal with demanding and abusive users. By pursuing the argument that Gordon's angry about making an insufficient amount of money you're perpetuating a strawman argument.
No one deserved to be verbally abuse from total strangers for things beyond his control.
Yes, the author could simply ignore the requests. But we ought to aim higher than 'silently accept the harassment and do nothing,' for the betterment of everyone.
It seems like you only think the author has a right to be frustrated if the license is used in an illegal way, not if they license is followed but the users are abusive.
I've tried to be focused and responsive, but instead of responding to my arguments, people like you seem intent on hunting for quotes elsewhere in the thread, somewhat at random. This is like the third time in this thread alone.
Apologies.
Who would of thought things you said previously about a subject might be brought up later in the conversation?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Most of it included my real name and email address in the executable and DLLs details tab, as well as the source code. I was the top of the little niche, and more than happy to help other developers out there. I'd help users as best as I could, but my tools were mostly geared at developers (though, users never stopped amazing me at clever unintended ways to use things)
The emails I got from this could be broken down into two categories: Actual questions about the tools, including bug reports or problems integrating it into some other project. That was about 5% of the emails I saw. The other 95% was "Program <x> stopped working! I can't find any contact anywhere expect in this one DLL, I demand you help me fix it!"
It was super disheartening, since my attempt to explain my role as someone that provided a tool or library to whoever wrote their application was responded with either "Your name is in this application, I don't care what your role is, you need to help me fix it!", or "If you didn't want to provide support, why is your email here?"
And that's, basically, how I ended up using random combinations of words on sites like this one. Maybe people with a thicker skin can deal with this crap, but I can't anymore.
The people that contacted me were, in the majority, some of the most entitled assholes.
I quit reading the email address associated w/ my open source project, and one user tracked down my (then) work email to demand support!
Exactly. This and nothing else. I really don't understand why this is so hard to understand.
Of course it doesn't, because that's not what is explained. Read again maybe. If anything, the author asks for respect.
Your comment completely contradicts everything written in the article. It doesn't make sense to you because you don't want it to make sense to you.
Step 1. The author doesn't use GPL.
Step 2. The author clearly intended wiringPi to have a limited audience. He doesn't want it to become widely used. He intentionally limited support to a handful of hardware devices. It was meant to be used by experienced C programmers.
Step 3 isn't about the author being cheated. Fame or money were never mentioned. The author is overwhelmed with work, whether it is caused by the open source project, a new job or caring for his family doesn't matter.
However there is a special situation happening here that generally only applies to open software projects. The vast majority of the bug reports involve problems that have already been solved in newer versions. This means that even if the author had an infinite amount of time, all of it would be wasted on already solved problems. There is no reason to work on the project anymore since the rate of progress has stalled. The project has entered a zombie stage and then one day the maintainer announces that the project will be shutdown.
When I read his blog post on his reasoning, I can't help but be reminded of the feud between xscreensaver's author and Debian maintainers. Debian maintainers refused to upgrade the app's version and refused to remove the 'For support contact the author's email' notice. The author's fed up with all the support emails he gets from Debian (outdated) installations' users and put in a message prompt blasting Debian. It was very ugly for both sides.
I think that there can be an extension on GPL that says, if you bundle this library and is not using the latest official version from the author, you are not allowed to include the author's contact information. If you insist on bundling the author's email with your outdated software, then you are in violation of GPL.
As for people stealing his code. Sorry to hear this. I got nothing except to try to contact EFF.
For the curious, the post: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to-stop...
And the instigatory thread: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819703
Here is a wayback machine link to avoid the image:
http://web.archive.org/web/20190810115358/https://www.jwz.or...
It's a 'hairy egg', if you see a testicle that's on you.
I don't blame him for having a redirect.
Adding an extension like that to the GPL may be problematic because it has a clause that allows users to ignore restrictive extensions (as opposed to permissive extensions).
author-project-v3@example.com
author-project-2017@example.com
Overall, it's still phrased in a demanding way.
If you need to preface a statement like that, reword it so you're being polite. The bit in question just as easily could have said "Hey, Thanks for releasing this! Do you know when the source code will be available? Thanks for all you're hard work"
I think we can agree that it would not at all be weird to expect that GPL-licensed project would provide the source. Any project with multiple contributors may be legally compelled to do so. Simply asking for it is probably not being a complete ass, even if the author was wrong about the legal ramifications.
At most it could perhaps be "annoying" or a "slight ass". Being a "complete ass" would perhaps be insisting after an initial request was rebuffed or whatever.
Each releases of the software can have different licenses. This means that if the author released a new version of the software binary without the source code nor any copyright notices (like Gorden did) it is not yet released under LGPL. So nobody need to comply LGPL until he releases the source code with the license.
Even if the binary is released under LGPL without the source code, although it is odd, people still can comply the License because it is LGPL - people just need to provide a way how to link the new binary.
If you are releasing work on a (A/L)GPL project you started, but others contributed to without giving you other rights, you can't distribute their contributions without releasing the source.
Not trying to excuse this demand, just pointing out the technicalities. The most important point in my eyes is that with no evidence of intent to keep the source concealed for a significant amount of time, the idea that anyone would pursue a complaint under the GPL in this situation is nonsense.
It should have been "When will a source release for this be available", but the user decided to be an asshole instead and make a demand by invoking the license—even if this was required, it was stupid in context.
I don't know how quickly Gordon put up the deb file he mentioned, but just going on Pi's release I'd call it very quickly. A week or two later is more suited to an enquiry of "Glad to see pi 4 support so fast, any idea when you might get chance to put up source code?" than "hey you're REQUIRED man, get on with it already...". Better still quietly not enquiring already but just quietly checking github over the coming weeks.
I run an email security SaaS business. It's closed source, but the suite is free of charge to use for personal, non-commercial domains.
We get numerous support requests each day of users on the free tier (who are obviously commercial users btw) that DEMAND us to fix all sorts of email problems for them. They regularly threaten that they will write a bad review on $_SOCIAL_NETWORK if we don't fix their email delivery issues for free. It's frustrating and also exhausting to try to stay professional towards these 'customers'.
Interesting observation: This behavior seems to be culture dependent. I'd say about 90% of our over-demanding free-tier users are from the same region on the planet.
From the user POV it can be very frustrating to use open source projects. Gordon's highlighted some real bottom-of-the-barrel end users and it would be hard to invalidate his experience with a straight face. OTOH some projects are incredibly hostile to users. Projects like Elixir/mix, Electron/VSCode, Thunderbird, and GIMP. How are users supposed to react when the sole maintainer packs up and leaves indefinitely? Or when patches are submitted upstream and the maintainers tell the users to pound sand?
Currently I'm working on a car-related Pi project. I'm not a hardware guy though, so I've done some research and discovered a piece of hardware that looks nearly perfect for my use case. They even have the specific version I'm interested in listed on their store. The only catch is that it's listed as 4-6 weeks out (and has been for a while). Their response? Sorry, we've moved on to something more interesting to us at 3x the price. No the store hasn't been updated (same with their blog and forums). I'm ready to fork over money, but with only sporadic signs of life it's difficult.
Answers:
1) fork the project, and do a better job yourself
2) suck it up quietly
They're all open source projects. Sure, I can grab the Gerber files and try my hand at surface mount soldering. But like any open source project where the build system is too archaic it's massively beneficial to start from an already assembled version.
I wonder where this is...?!
Can you eliminate the free tier, or is that part of funneling to paid users?
But, due to the group of over-demanding free tier users we are considering to switch to a limited time free trial.
I don’t like this dog whistle and the rest of your comment was perfectly fine without it.
That said, there are entitled assholes everywhere. I got an email one time asking me for source code for a university project because the guy had found I graduated that course 2 years before him, and he didn’t want to do the work.
It’s not like he called anyone out specifically. If it’s a true observation, what’s wrong with telling us about it? That it’s culture dependant is an interesting note.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
Sometimes charging a nominal amount (like $1) filters most aberrant behavior.
We all get tired at some point and move on, you don’t owe anyone anything. And thanks for the library!
I remember reading about an indie games developer who looked at his proposed user base and decided not to make his game freeware. He wrote there was an attitude of entitlement among people who get the free stuff. People who were prepared to pay, even a very small amount, behaved better.
I saw that happen on the centos forums once or twice. It could attract spectacularly selfish individuals.
As for people not RTFM'ing, I recall a small internal project I did for which I wrote up comprehensive intro, docs etc. I handed it over to the user who told me to explain it to them. I said "I wrote it all up, help and everything, there it is!". She smiled and said "but who reads those?". I came very close to blowing up at her just then.
However, he does have to comply with the legal requirements of the license he uses. Personally, I don't use GPL/LGPL licenses, but if I did, I'd be careful to comply with the provisions of the license.
No, the author doesn't. Not really. The license governs the use of people who don't hold the copyright. That's why the author of a project can just turn around and release under a new license.
Yes, he can release new software under a new license, but any past software he released under a certain license, he has to follow those terms.
If you come to an agreement with another party (like you agree to license a movie, or book to them), you can't just unilaterally cancel that agreement. That's not how contract law works.
He cannot prevent people who obtained a version of the software under a license from doing what they want with it under the terms of that license.
And that includes getting the source code for a binary released under the GPL. That's exactly what was at issue.
The requirement to release source code is placed on those making use of the license, not on the original holder.
> For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
The original licensor receives no freedoms, as the work is theirs to begin with. It doesn't apply to them. "You" refers solely to those accepting the license.
If the original licensor hasn't release the source code with the binary at the time, they are under no obligation to do so. Using the particular license doesn't make sense, but they still aren't obligated.
There is no legal issue here, only a moral one. And as the community didn't give the developer room to breathe, that has evaporated.
Author releases software version A under GPL, source code and a binary.
Anyone can do anything they want with A under the terms of the GPL.
Author releases software version B. People cannot force him to release source code just because A was released under GPL.
Even if he says B falls under GPL but hasn't released the source code (yet), people at most can say he did not comply with the terms of the GPL and refuse to treat/use it as such , which means they cannot use or redistribute it since that is not allowed under normal copyright rules. It cannot be used to force the author to release Bs source code.
I'm saying, if he releases version A under the GPL, he has to comply with the terms of the GPL for that release.
In any case, I'm no fan of the GPL, so it's no sweat off my back. But I don't understand someone releasing a software version under a certain license and then getting upset because someone asks him/her to abide by the terms of that license.
Exactly. If he's the sole contributor or if you've submitted patches and signed a CLA that gives the right to the author to change the license on your contributions they can do whatever the hell they want license-wise.
What kind of obligation do you think GPL/MIT/BSD/Apache could possibly place on the author?
Would any HN lawyers like to chip in? From my understanding of contracts, that interpretation seems contrary to basic legal principles.
The obligation GPL would place on the developer would be to release the source code if the program is released under the GPL. Based on my reading of the blog post, that's exactly what one user was complaining about.
That's every license. You might be thinking of a contract, which is a binding agreement between two parties.
Think of a license as a grant of certain rights to the licensee. There's no binding agreement upon the licenser.
(Not an HN lawyer.)
Nope. I'm thinking of a license, which is a contract (go look it up if you don't believe me). And contracts can be a binding agreement between two or more parties.
I've looked it up, I can't find anything. Apparently in germany GPL is a contract, as in germany contracts don't require consideration. But in the US, GPL is a license, not a contract.
https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
Here's another from UChicago Law that takes it for granted that the legal reader understands that licenses are legal contracts, since it's full of quotes like "all licenses are vulnerable to the usual attacks that can be leveled against all types of contracts".
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
There are many different people on the Internet with different cultural backgrounds, experience levels and work ethic and unfortunately it's not realistic to expect each of your users to share the same values as you do. Anecdotally, charging a license fee for your library/tool is a very good way to filter out 90% of the unprofessional behavior.
Also if you rely on your free product to promote your consulting business, I would highly recommend creating a community forum where users can advice each other, and maybe offering paid support on top of that. Also using an open-source helpdesk app to semi-automatically send canned replies to commonly repeating inquiries saves a ton of time and keeps the assholes off your back, as long as the canned replies are reasonable and polite.
It is sad that there are people out there who will try to ruin your day if you don't do what they want. Especially considering the work we put into these libraries.
If you ask nicely, argue your situation constructively and the developer still consider the best path isn't what you described, just fork it or pay someone to do the legwork if it's that critical to your mission, jeez..
Your mistake was not completely destroying him. This behavior exists because one side likes to be civil which further encourages the irrational ones to continue.
If you're selling software for pay, at least there's money in your pocket to compensate you for having to deal with the various types of a*oles in the human race, but without that it can rapidly become a chore to maintain even a small or niche package. That's why lots of software becomes orphaned.
I salute anyone who has ever had the courage to try to write, maintain, or organize development for open source software.
But here's a contrarian view - I'm not sure why someone offering a project for free in the educational space would expect users to act like paid professional customers. Or expect them to be non-noob experts who can modify and build the project without hand-holding.
Or assume that email would be a viable line of support for a project with literally tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users.
Or even expect them to be adults.
So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - the terms you set for its use.
All open source projects comes with politics included. You have to have an understanding of the space you're working in, the kinds of users who inhabit it, and the kinds of relationships they're likely to have with them.
You need to know what your support boundaries and support technologies are. And if you work in a space where some of your users are likely to be assholes, you need to have a plan for that - even if it's just knowing that it's fine to ignore them.
Edit: to be clear, I think this is more of a general open licence problem than the failing of this one specific author. Open licences don't encourage authors to define boundaries, or even to understand that boundaries are necessary and terms need to be defined. So it's not quite a surprise that things like this happen.
I think it's perfectly fine to expect users to understand the terms. They downloaded a piece of code for free from a website with no company or support programme other than "hey I hope this is helpful, if you run into any issues I might be able to help over email". If it turns out that the author can't or won't help, accept your loss and fix it yourself, pay someone to fix it for you or wait for another volunteer to fix it.
Alternatively, they bought some kind of product that included the code. If this product breaks, they must go to the company that makes the product, not the author of some library it uses. It's not like you're going to expect some sparkplug manufacturer to come up with a fix for your car when it breaks down, do you?
People who feel entitled to anything when they get something for free are selfish assholes and should not be defended. They know fully well that they don't have any right for support, but they will make demands regardless, hoping that the other party will break and give in.
I agree that you need to have a plan for people like this, but in most cases, that plan is "I'll just drop the project if it becomes too much of a hassle". And in my opinion, that's a fine plan.
If I'm a baker and sell you a loaf of my bread, I don't expect folks to email me complaining their welsh rarebit didn't come out right from the grill. Learn to cook or, in this perhaps strained analogy, learn to program and then come back and ask a more intelligent question.
> rage quit
And there we go, the automatic assumption that because an author has basically had enough of ignorant twats you paint their actions with these lazy characterisations. I don't think this author rage quit, he's just had enough of people with "contrarian" opinions such as yours. A license !== user entitlement.
This is why any open software I author comes with the express warranty of "Help: No." If no is misunderstood then any reply will be along the lines of FOAD.
I get the frustration, but this looks like a case of improper idiot handling that just escalated...
Yet another example how ungrateful many people are towards free software.
The only difference to piracy, is that not only do they not give back anything, they feel entitled to all kind of requests.
So the result ends always being the same, moving to something else.
That said, I distinctly remember a number of blog posts over the years where users using obviously pirated versions demanded support, so it seems impossible to avoid entirely haha