I've forked neofetch to keep it alive (github.com)
I just learned that neofetch, the tool for showing system information in your CLI, has been archived after years of no activity. Neofetch is a great tool, so I've created a fork to allow community development to continue.
I'm going to be working through the massive backlog of PRs on neofetch in the coming days and merging everything that is ready to be merged, plus possibly overhauling some not-yet-perfect PRs.
112 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadNot sure if it's their way of starring, or they want to make their profile look good to recruiters, or they want to create a copy they control for use as a dependency
Eventually I found that having a bunch of forked repos that I wasn’t touching and which became stale quickly only cluttered my GitHub profile, so I removed them from my profile.
Instead what I do now when I find repos that I like is I run a command on my server that adds the repo to a queue for cloning and then the server clones the repo without me having to keep the terminal open and without having to keep a specific tmux session or anything either. It works great.
The queue system I use is called task spooler
https://viric.name/soft/ts/
It’s available in packages on most systems. For example:
- https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/ts
- https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/task-spooler
On some systems it is installed as a binary named “ts” but on some other systems they install it as “tsp” to avoid conflicting with a different binary also called “ts”.
So on my systems I use it as tsp when installed as such and if it’s installed as “ts” then I create an alias named “tsp” that I use, so that I always use it as “tsp” regardless of what it’s installed as on the system.
Why the passive-aggressive tone? Especially when OP shows explicit enthusiasm in making his fork active and valuable for the community.
What is bothering you with OP's endeavour that you need to make him feel bad about it?
So yeah, pardon my lack of enthusiasm towards someone who says stuff.
If you are so unenthused, why not just... not comment?
What a weird choice to go out of your way to leave a negative comment on something you don't care about. Just trying to spread some negativity around for the fun of it?
Lol. The choice isn't between 1) be negative just for the sake of being negative; or 2) celebrate.
A third option, which I am recommending whenever you find yourself leaning into choice #1, is to just not comment.
The fact that you'd rather have me shut up speaks volume about what you consider a contribution in FOSS, and frankly I hope it's not a reflection on how you approach the real world, because you're in for a rude awakening.
If your only comment is "thanks for pressing a button", yes it's better to just shut up. I'm not the only one who thinks so -- your comment was downvoted and flagged pretty quickly.
>speaks volume about what you consider a contribution in FOSS,
How does my suggestion to not leave negative one-liner comments speak volumes? What was your contribution here again? Trying to make someone feel shitty? Awesome contribution.
>frankly I hope it's not a reflection on how you approach the real world, because you're in for a rude awakening.
Suggesting that someone not be negative to someone else purely for the sake of it? Yeah, rude awakening coming my way for sure.
That's what I meant when I said that it spoke volumes about what you consider to be a contribution in FOSS. If you think that saying 'oh, I forked a dead project to keep it alive' and posting it without having accomplished anything is anything more useful or productive than pointing out how useless that is, then I'm afraid your definition of contribution is as shallow as your understanding of constructive criticism.
On a more personal note, I'm growing weary of spoon-feeding you. It is not very complex yet you still struggle to grasp the simplest of explanations.
>On a more personal note, I'm growing weary of spoon-feeding you. It is not very complex yet you still struggle to grasp the simplest of explanations.
Love it. Personal attacks are the sign of an intelligent, well-reasoned person. Thanks for the laugh.
On another note, good to know Dylan still alive. He kinda disappeared 2 years ago.
I blogged about something related and included this anecdote part way through. https://popey.com/blog/2023/09/a-virus-for-the-bbc-micro/ - under "A short aside"
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/bought-the-farm.html
There are niche and upscale farms that grow specific things like apples and wine grapes that can do quite well, but these are well established family-run businesses that would cost millions of dollars to buy, when they come up for sale at all.
https://twitter.com/timokonkwo_/status/1785340149582143947
Genuine question, I haven't used it.
What aspect of their reply "Not even, this person is complaining about the color scheme options in multiple threads" registered as "very sinister" to you?
Do you have any other totally innocent and sincere questions I can clear up for you?
It is explicitly described as “neofetch with pride flags <3” so it isn't like the behaviour is going against what it says on the tin.
> I don't care about the *fetch authors interest in lgbtq+
I can't say I care about your lack of interest, but I've now had if waved in front of my face :)
If it bothers you that much, fork it and make “hyfetch without the pride”. Or just use one of the many other forks of the original.
I was already fine with the idea that someone has decided to pick up the original neofetch.
This comment is a response, to someone else making a suggestion. I am responding that I do not think this is a reasonable suggestion.
If your response simply stated that “this fork uses an lbgtq+ theme by default and might take some work to change that”, then your response would be more reasonable. As it is your response looks to me more like a rant that you have been wanting to vent and have found an opportunity.
Calm down, have fun being you, and let others have their fun being them.
This is the tone I'm asking about. I just don't understand why you insinuate things instead of saying them outright.
Though to answer more directly: I someone come across as a bit supersilious, partly because of big words, complex sentences, & assuming people understand, and sometimes because I just am.
> neofetch is dead; here's my fork
< there exists already a maintained fork -- ``hyfetch"
> hyfetch explicitly inserts lgbtq+ things into the software, and thus is probably not what people want when they think ``maintained neofetch fork"
seems perfectly reasonable.
But that isn't all that the (now flagged and hidden so I can't evidence this) post I was replying to said more, and a small essay elsewhere in the thread (also flagged and hidden) said more again (or repeated the same things in more ways, to be less generous).
Even if they did exist, the /explicit/ point being made is valid: hyfetch is an expressly lgbt thing, and a lot (most?) people would prefer their vanity-specification-printer wasn't intertwined with that kind of thing.
It would be like learning the currently maintained version of grep includes random Christian iconography, if that helps the point get across -- christian or not, that's not what people go to software for, and it would thus be pretty useless to mention christGrep in a discussion about maintained alternatives to the original.
Why do you accuse me of not being calm?
No, but your posts did seem to strongly imply you were carefully not saying some things.
> Why do you accuse me of not being calm?
Because short essays that amount to “as long as I don't have to see it” are, in my experience, not associated with a calm demeanour. I may have made an unfair assumption there.
Even if I have, the rest of that line is still relevant: “have fun being you, and let others have their fun being them”.
Turns out it wasn't so recent, but the ones they mentioned are;
fastfetch: https://github.com/fastfetch-cli/fastfetch
cpufetch: https://github.com/Dr-Noob/cpufetch
onefetch: https://github.com/o2sh/onefetch
ramfetch: https://codeberg.org/jahway603/ramfetch
[0]: https://linuxmatters.sh/21/
(Not saying the higher-level tools like neofetch are worthless at all, just saying they aren't a part of my workflow.)
https://beucismis.github.io/awesome-fetch/
Sampling some of them, there seems to be a wide variance of how much they show, how shiny the image next to the info is, and what kind of info is shown (e.g. one of them shows stats on your git repo).
There’s a big lgbtq+ tech community, because you can explore this stuff online more easily (people can connect and talk about it, the internet can be anonymous or pseudonymous, and there’s less risk of physical violence). So, these identities are wrapped up for lots of people—maybe not for you and me, but surely you can see that they are for other people, right?
It’s 7 colors. Just get over it. Or fork it and move on with your life.
Just like you might not appreciate seeing people celebrate their identity, others might not appreciate a bigoted diatribe in their morning reading.
What exactly do you imagine I need to "get over"?
Where did I say anything about people shouldn't celebrate their identity?
https://www.patreon.com/posts/black-turtleneck-1936799
https://www.artstation.com/kuvshinov_ilya
https://imgur.com/gallery/6EGvQvf
answer by Ilya : https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/8nntwz/black_dress_dig...
more details showing he profited from the works : https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/2uybt2/popular_patreon...
There's much more online discussion, a lot of which curiously disappeared.
They are people doing this for free. They have no obligation to pass off their work in any particular way shape or form when they no longer want to do it. They don’t owe you or anyone else a smooth handover (or literally anything else).
Maybe they just burnt out so hard that even finding a replacement is too much work. Maybe they’re just not passionate about the project anymore and can’t be bothered. Maybe life is just a lot for them right now. Whatever the reason is, it’s nobody’s business but the maintainer.
If you care so much, you are free to take it over (like this post) or just fork it and continue it yourself.
Because OSS volunteers frequently push people to use their projects. Sure, I didn't pay them, but they advertised to me and encouraged me and resulted me in expending time and resources in adopting their project. I have a valid claim that they act in a manner that doesn't rug pull me.
While you were spending your time being "advertised to, encouraged, and expending time and resources adopting their project" they did, you know, actual work to create and maintain said project.
Let's not kid ourselves here. You chose to use their project. You are free to use any other one that fulfills your needs, fork an existing one, or, hell, create one yourself. Nobody is putting a gun up to your head and saying "you must use this project or else". Strictly as a consumer, you have absolutely zero pull on what a project or its maintainers do, and you shouldn't delude yourself in thinking otherwise just because you expended a modicum of effort to use a project.
In short, get over yourself. Your time commitment is many magnitudes smaller than theirs.
For one, respect your users. If you made the decision to publish an OSS project, acknowledge that you can become a dependency in someone's workflow. While your users likely aren't supporting you financially, their usage of your projects, feedback, testing, indirect support and community building, all contribute to the success, and any status, fame, or potential employment that might come your way because of it.
Saying that you don't owe your users anything and mistreating them like you suggest is just a dickish move, and earns you no good will in the open source community. These are relationships that you should cherish, not look down upon because you get to call the shots about your project.
Everyone has difficult moments and perpetual unpaid work shouldn't be expected from anyone, but if you feel like abandoning a popular OSS project, the polite thing to do is to communicate this with your users, and find someone else willing to continue maintenance.
While a smooth exit and transfer of ownership (and politeness in general) is nice to have, it should not be the norm out of a free product with no implicit or explicit support offered. And no, publishing a project is not an implicit offer of support, as much as some might want it to be.
If someone chooses to offer something (whether that’s updates, support or anything else), awesome, but it should not be expected or demanded out of anyone you don’t pay money for. Heaping on responsibilities to people just because they created, maintained, or contributed to a project is just a recipe for burnout and eventual deterioration of a project.
Sometimes, the user is wrong. If the user is demanding and expecting things out of a free project created and maintained by volunteers doing it in their own spare time, then they are a shitty user. You may choose to interact with them out of the kindness of your heart, but it should not be the norm or expectation from every maintainer out there.
But at the same time, categorically refusing to meet a user request or expectation just because they're not paying you implies that you prioritize paying users, which corrupts how the software is built. It means that you consider people who use your software for free (gratis) to not have any voice in how the software is developed, but paying users do. This is a very reductionist point of view of OSS to provide only the barebone essential freedoms of the license you chose, without taking into account the people using the software, and the community that can develop around it.
If money is the main issue, there are ways to monetize OSS projects so that paying users effectively subsidize support and requests of non-paying users. But regardless if that system is in place or not, all users deserve a fair treatment, and maintainers should put in _some_ effort to do the right thing.
In the context of Neofetch, a popular OSS project, the right thing would've been to not ghost the community, announce your eventual departure, and start the discussion of finding a new maintainer. These are not unreasonable expectations, and require minimal effort from the maintainer. This person decided to abandon software development altogether, and that's fine, but this way of handling things would ensure that users would think twice about using any of their software in the future.
Forcing someone to do work they don’t want to do just because they are a maintainer is extremely unreasonable.
> and require minimal effort from the maintainer.
I don’t think you understand the time and effort that finding a new maintainer takes. It is far from “minimal” and this mindset that it is somehow expected and/or required to leave a project is exactly my point.
> I agree that expecting, or worse―demanding―, a specific behavior from a maintainer is out of place.
> In the context of Neofetch, a popular OSS project, the right thing would've been to not ghost the community, announce your eventual departure, and start the discussion of finding a new maintainer.
You literally just placed expectations and demands onto someone. Neofetch being a popular or well used project does not somehow make this ok.
If someone doesn’t want to continue giving their time contributing or maintaining a project, then that is entirely their decision to make in whatever method they deem right. It’s not your or anyone else’s place to tell another person how they should leave a project they no longer want to be a part of. Nothing in being a user of said project gives you that right or privilege and making it sound like “the right thing to do” is just putting lipstick on an obvious demand.
> and that's fine
The rest of your comment makes it pretty clear that you do not actually think it is fine.
If a community of users exists, it takes no effort to communicate your desire to depart the project.
If there are active contributors besides the lead maintainer (Neofetch had 206, most of them, granted, with minor contributions), starting a discussion to consider one or several people who could take over takes _minimal_ effort. Many projects do this all the time. It also takes minimal effort to mention the project in one of several maintainers-wanted lists/sites.
The difficult thing, as pointed out by a comment in an adjacent thread, is to handover the trust in the project that existing users had to someone you presumably don't trust. As the xz situation showed, this can easily be exploited.
Ultimately, if no suitable replacement can be found, then sure, shut the project down. My point is that it's not unreasonable to expect some effort before making this decision.
> You literally just placed expectations and demands onto someone.
I'm sleepy and sedated, so might not be fully congruent. :S I probably should've prefaced that first line with "unreasonable expectations".
But to save us both some time, all I'm saying is that project maintenance involves more than just releasing code as open source. It's fine for a user, paying or not, to have some basic expectations of how the project is maintained, beyond the freedoms they have from the software license. I consider communication as one of those basic expectations, and in my opinion, the author of Neofetch failed to meet them. I am allowed to judge them for it, and you are allowed to disagree.
The existing mechanism is for people to fork the project and move on. This is much better, because it doesn’t require the previous maintainer to endorse anything.
Your suggestion puts probably the hardest social task this sort of project could have, on somebody who is in the process of giving up on it. A succession strategy could be designed while the project is going along well and healthy, but at the end, this is a recipe for disaster.
I've provisionally taken Show HN out of the title; happy to put it back if I'm reading this wrong.