
What is opensource and why do I feel so guilty? (2012) [video] - phowat
http://byfat.xxx/what-is-opensource-and-why-do-i-feel-so-guilty
======
mizzao
Ugh. This post and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8712035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8712035)
just gave me some incentives to do the following to these types of GitHub
issues on my OSS projects:

[https://github.com/mizzao/meteor-
autocomplete/issues/98](https://github.com/mizzao/meteor-
autocomplete/issues/98)

~~~
anthonycr
Sometimes I feel guilty closing even low quality issues like those :(

~~~
Demiurge
There should be no guilt on either side. Sometimes putting time into
investigating the stack trace isn't worth it for the user. However, reporting
it still a good idea because the developer might recognize a regression or
another angle at a bug being already experienced. If not, it's not a big deal
to dismiss.

~~~
enraged_camel
I don't agree. The reporting party should feel guilty about not putting effort
into providing system information and troubleshooting further and reporting
their findings. This is exactly why Stack Overflow works so well: low quality
questions are downvoted mercilessly, and closed if they aren't improved within
a short time period. It is also why automated reporting tools provide a good
amount of contextual information along with the error and stack trace.

Furthermore, not including a description of the issue along with the stack
trace makes it impossible for other users to determine if they are
experiencing the same issue or something else (since it is possible for two
different bugs to produce the same stack trace, or even the same error
message).

~~~
bryanlarsen
The alternative to a low quality bug report is usually no bug report. Démiurge
is spot on.

------
beloch
Answer to clickbait title found 20 minutes in:

Opensourcing a project that becomes popular induces guilt, because it needs
your time and attention to thrive, but you can't afford to give it, especially
if you're interested in creating other things.

~~~
tcdent
This claiming "clickbait" trend is getting out of control. It's like teenagers
using the word "random" as a catchall term for who-knows-what.

By definition, the title of a talk given at a conference can't be clickbait.

Furthermore, how can you claim the title's content wasn't represented until 20
mins in? The title has two parts, one of which you seem to completely ignore.

~~~
Spivak
If the title of your post is a question then by definition it's clickbait. A
more reasonable title would be, "The open source community and the pressure of
being part of it."

~~~
eropple
That simple rhetoric for some reason makes you salty does not make it
"unreasonable." And using a title to ask a question predates "clickbait" by
_thousands of years_.

------
nickpsecurity
This is one of those situations where it would be great to have slides
detailing points of the video. His are just drawings of some people's names
and time points. I love the retro, sketch-style art but it doesn't tell me a
thing. Several minutes in of rambling and I _still_ don't know what it's
about. Click the little X...

So, out of thousands of vids on the net on OSS or programming... each 20+ min
long... why watch this unless I'm already a fan of the authors work? Not even
critiquing the presentation as much as saying: give us a matching article or
slides that lets us determine if we really want to watch the video. If it
strikes a chord, people watch the presentation. Otherwise, most will just skip
it and miss out on any gems it might have had. And that's a _rational_
decision given the flood of info on the web.

This applies to a ton of videos rather than just @fat's. Anyone having to do a
lot of research or want to get most out of their time relies on summaries.
People not doing them are reducing impact of their own work.

~~~
daveidol
I enjoyed it. The entire talk isn't about the history of open source - he
eventually gets into issues about maintaining open source in modern day on
GitHub.

~~~
nickpsecurity
1 of 2 comments that help solve the problem AndyKelley and I have with it.
Appreciate it. :)

------
notwedtm
This sounds like a good article (from the title), however my company seems to
have bulk-blocked the .xxx TLD. Out of curiosity, why did you put your blog on
the .xxx domain?

Unless you are talking about open-source boobs, or something. Then I
understand completely.

~~~
nfoz
> Out of curiosity, why did you put your blog on the .xxx domain?

Maybe it helps to point out how silly it is to filter based on the TLD.

~~~
knieveltech
Or underlines how silly it is to use a TLD ostensibly intended for porn sites
for a blog.

~~~
herge
Would you prefer .com? Or .org?

~~~
knieveltech
30 years ago .com may have been intended specifically for commercial purposes
but that is buried underneath three decades of use as a generic catch-all TLD
and as such using it communicates almost nothing about the site in question.

.org is by convention and usage largely reserved for nonprofit organizations.
As such use of .org (intentionally or otherwise) communicates that the website
in question is for a nonprofit.

xxx is, at merely 4 years old, brand spanking new. There hasn't been time for
intent and practice to diverge meaningfully, ergo it's perfectly reasonable to
assume a site that uses the .xxx tld is in fact a porn site.

~~~
s1lver
In much the same was as io meaning input output and not an island!

------
tomphoolery
Regardless of how you might feel about this talk, I feel like it's awesome
because it's so entertaining :)

------
unimpressive
Skip to 19 minutes in for the content.

------
grhmc
Or you can not maintain your projects and it doesn't matter.

