
Why I Haven’t Fixed Your Issue Yet - s_severus
http://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/blog/529/why-i-havent-fixed-your-issue-yet
======
Wintamute
I agree with most of those, although I'd add a bullet point to the agreement:

\- If I don't have the time or interest to support the project any longer I
agree to reach out to trusted contributors and give them commit rights, or put
a clear notice on the readme: "This project is not actively maintained" so
users can make an informed choice

~~~
verytrivial
That said, the is a fork button.

~~~
Wintamute
True, but there are problems with GitHub forking: namely that its often non-
obvious which is the best fork to use, since too much prominence is given to
the original project. Also if the maintainer doesn't even put a note on the
readme "This is dead, use XXX fork" you have even more problems. Also maybe
the original project was published to a package manager ... forking is one
thing, but publishing and maintaining your fork on a package manager too?

~~~
mgbmtl
It can take some effort to feel comfortable giving the keys of a project to
someone else. In one project that I had abandoned, I encouraged others to fork
and rename the project.

They can advertise it as a fork of the original project to attract stranded
users, I would even have promoted it, but I think that it would have been very
misleading to our users if suddenly the project changed hands. (the project
was a management tool often used by non-profits, it stored personnal data and
security was important. I had received a ton of very shady non-sense
proposals, to this day, 10 years later, I still get the occasionnal weird
message or request for support)

------
mamurphy
It's not clear whether this is getting sincere upvotes despite that the page
is currently failing to load or ironic upvotes because the page is currently
failing to load.

In any event, he's not fixing your issue yet because he has limited free time
and, apparently, has issues of his own to fix.

~~~
inglor
You need to click the link - here is the actual article
[https://archive.is/t9oKw](https://archive.is/t9oKw)

~~~
smarx007
Better one [http://archive.is/j8zAk](http://archive.is/j8zAk)

------
Uptrenda
Thought the blank page was the point he was trying to make in that a blank
canvas, editor, notebook, etc is daunting when you first get started and you
can easily find excuses to keep putting it off. But apparently there's a
technical issue here. Or is that intentional?

~~~
tomhallett
It's making an ajax request for the blog post and that page is returning a 500
error because of a Database connection issue (assumed because of higher
traffic).

[http://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/api/wp-
json/posts/529](http://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/api/wp-json/posts/529) Error
establishing a database connection

------
Shizka
Cached version here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?site=&source=hp...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelbromley.co.uk%2Fblog%2F529%2Fwhy-
i-havent-fixed-your-issue-
yet&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelbromley.co.uk%2Fblog%2F529%2Fwhy-i-
havent-fixed-your-issue-ye)

~~~
ivank
This worked when you posted it, but it looks like Google updated their cache
to cache the blank page instead.

Anyway, thanks to Bing's cache:
[https://archive.is/t9oKw](https://archive.is/t9oKw)

~~~
dingo_bat
Archive.is is bing?

~~~
yxlx
No, but parent archived the page from Bings cache.

------
franciscop
I feel the pain. I maintain a couple of slightly popular repos and the issues
are sometimes overwhelming, even more when I have to debug some issue in an
environment I don't own (iOS) or when the issue runs deep (PhantomJS issue =>
testing issue => now my issue).

------
lifeisstillgood
So the Bing cache is good and the article worth reading

This is however the money shot:

>> how many parts of your company’s product are coupled to the lifestyle and
priorities of some lone, unpaid package maintainer? It’s something I have to
think about too – in my day-job I build software on top of many FOSS
libraries, many of which are probably maintained by people in similar
circumstances to my own.

Given that my day job builds on (last count) 953 npm packages, most of which
are probably different authors, not to mention servers, backend etc etc, I do
really worry we are finding OSS backwards.

Good luck to the OP and his young family. And perhaps GitHub can set up a "pay
me a days freelance rates work for issues fixed" feature

------
rwmj
He misses another way to get bugs fixed in open source software: Pay a
developer to fix them. However that does raise the problem that it's hard to
find a competent developer to do piecework (easy to find an _in_ competent
developer of course). All the good open source developers are employed.

~~~
mgbmtl
All of my published work clearly states that commercial support is available
(and when other companies actively contribute, I list them too). Then again,
most of my projects are work-related, not hobbies, so I don't mind developing
a funding plan to keep the projects sustainable.

In some cases, however, it can also attract poor quality patches from
contractors working on gigs, and make life hell for the maintainers. I
personally prefer if people contract me directly (as the project/component
maintainer).

Tangential anecdote: a while back I helped maintain a caching module for a
CMS. I was once asked by a user to look into the performance problems of their
website. They were a big media company from the Middle East. I had no idea
they used my module, which was usually for small websites on cheap hosting.
Their contractors had enabled every possible caching module in the world. I
basically disabled a few modules, including mine, tweaked their Varnish
config, and things ran smoothly afterwards.

------
some1else
Tangent: Looking forward to the resurgence of static page generators.

~~~
takno
Why? Everything else being equal that would just mean you'd get a completely
blank page because the database connection would have died in the initial
request rather than the ajax request

~~~
timv
No, because a static page generator would mean that there is no database
connection.

------
Bahamut
Heh, I have an issue filed in a repository of his too, but I had a suitable
workaround.

As a maintainer of a major library myself, I completely concur with the
article - while I don't have a baby, I am a long distance runner, as well as
someone who directs albums of music. I also like to socialize as well, and
every now and then I give talks (oftentimes traveling to give them), interview
(even having excessive time lost to take home projects), and experiment with
new technology or contribute to other open source projects.

I think one thing people need to do is help us help you. It saves us a lot of
mental energy, as well as speeds things up. If you can, filing a pull request
would be great too if you understand the parameters of the problem

------
nraynaud
Funny, I had exactly the reciprocal experience with Fritzing, I spent 3 weeks
(I know, I'm slow) developing a significant improvement in one of the most
important part on a software they make money on. And one year later, the PR is
still not merged.

~~~
hugs
Have a link to the specific PR?

~~~
nraynaud
[https://github.com/fritzing/fritzing-
app/pull/3203](https://github.com/fritzing/fritzing-app/pull/3203) (it's not
mine because someone else is trying to carry the work)

~~~
hugs
Thanks. I'm a fan of Fritzing, but am also concerned by the pace of its
development process. I hope it improves!

------
demircancelebi
I think money might be a good motivator in such circumstances. Maybe Github
should think about integrating "paid requests". I think we would definitely
have more open source software at better quality.

~~~
nicky0
I don't think it would. I have had people offer to pay for features etc. They
always offer tiny amounts as if I'm going to jump up in gratitude and get to
work in it straight away. TBH I see it as an insult.

~~~
refriedbeans3
What if I offered you $5,000 to fix it?

~~~
nickpsecurity
I'll escrow that for a mere 10%.

------
chippy
I think this could be a valid reason - I know there are issues in some of my
projects that I won't get around to because I may have lost interest in but
which if someone would pay me to fix an issue or two I'd glady fix it:

"Because you are not offering me any money to fix it"

------
hkjgkjy
Another good reason to have your blog be static pages compiled and served from
FS. Worse is better.

~~~
__s
If by FS you mean File System then the truth is that keeping static files in
RAM to never touch hard drive beyond first load is much better

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I would think OS would keep the static files in RAM after first load. Saying
"FS" would imply "use RAM if available" even if not stated.

------
danra
Why not pass over management of the repository to someone else? Sounds like
all sides would benefit.

~~~
jakobegger
Unfortunately the number of people lining up to maintain neglected OSS
software is not very big.

------
BinaryIdiot
I was pretty confused to be given a cursor on a web page with no content just
a basic layout. Oh well.

------
nickpsecurity
It's nice except for the one part where he says he has some responsibility to
his users. He doesn't. Not at all. That would be a one-way relationship or
responsibility. If his users were paying him, then I could see some
responsibility. If it's free and/or incomplete, it's the users that have
responsibility when they download it: be grateful for work done so far, make
sure it works as intended, and so on.

FOSS developers shouldn't feel guilty or responsible in the slightest for
their users unless their users' success is part of the developers' lifelong
goals. For instance, protecting liberty by making sure Tor and GPG work
properly. Otherwise, screw them if they want something done but won't
contribute anything back.

~~~
suprjami
Came here to say this. The GPL says no warranty.

------
s_severus
Sorry, gonna try to fix...

~~~
s_severus
Well, mysql is dead and I have no chance to fix it right now because my son is
crawling all over me and demanding my atttention.

working cached copy: [https://archive.is/t9oKw](https://archive.is/t9oKw)

Sorry about my poor devops skills, everyone.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Lol. Kind of the point of the post. No worries.

~~~
s_severus
Yeah, true! Anyway, the kids are asleep now and I just had time to actually
fix it - it works! Should be able to handle the reduced traffic now..

~~~
nickpsecurity
Only to be hit with a blank page on NoScript. Jeez. Of course, my opinion
was...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11696969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11696969)

...that you shouldn't feel responsible for that or anything else unless people
pay you to. So, feel free to ignore NoScripters inconvenience. :)

First time I've seen your apps, though. Shooter didn't work on my Firefox.
Chromata did, though. I like both it and the name you chose for it. The
fractal example that loaded reminded me of drawings of a neuron. The others
were trippy with one almost looking like an old snake game. Overall impression
reminds me when I used to watch the visualizations of Winamp, esp tunnels and
stuff, while trying to think of next solution to a programming or system
problem. Your stuff might even moonlight as a decent screensaver if the CPU
use is low. :)

~~~
s_severus
Re: you other comment - perhaps this is just my own take on it. I have
actively promoted some of my libs, so in that regard I feel a small
responsibility for the resulting decisions people take on my advice. That's
why I included that note at the end.

Re: noscript - yeah, it's an Angular app. Unnecessary? Sure! I used my site as
a way to learn Angular a while back, that's all.

Re: my other projects. Glad you like them! I'm actually just working on a
music visualization app whenever I get time. The idea is that it will be a
native (electron) app, which can read any output from your sound card, and
then use JS to write visualizations for it (so anyone can write their own if
they like).

~~~
nickpsecurity
"I have actively promoted some of my libs"

Makes sense.

"I'm actually just working on a music visualization app whenever I get time."

Sounds neat. I look forward to seeing that one.

------
lwhalen
Heh, looks like HackerNews hugs hard these days :-)

------
ReFruity
Someone has to write a script that archives pages automatically when they
appear on HN.

~~~
hk__2
The HackerNew Chrome extension adds a link to a cached version under each
post.

------
chubot
Off topic, but to me this indicates a dev tool issue:

"Do you know what I like to do in that time? Unfortunately for you, the answer
is not "fire up my IDE, get the build pipeline going, start a local dev
server, ..

I pick my tools carefully, so that my hobby projects don't feel like work. If
I have to suffer through slow tools, then they feel like work, and then what's
the point in doing them? It's supposed to be fun.

So I basically use vim and bash as the IDE and shell scripts for the build
pipeline. Everything works quickly and reliably, on any machine.

I realize that not every project has that luxury. But for personal projects,
if it requires shitty tools, I'm just not even going to bother in the first
place, and then there are no bugs to fix.

------
awinter-py
> fire up the build pipeline

He's not lying about the role of weird build pipelines in making it harder to
dive into a project (though it may not be the point he intended to make).
Simplicity & repeatability yields surprising dividends.

------
rhabarba
Empty page on my Android.

------
underscoremark
A (perhaps) related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686139)

------
ps4fanboy
FOSS, like paid software cant escape the economics of incentives.

------
tudorw
If it's that important hire someone who can and pay them to fix it, job done,
everyone happy, move on :)

------
homero
Yes you're coding

------
kbar13
because the database is down?

------
boombip
I'm getting a 500 error when the page tries to load the blog. I can't see any
text at all.

------
chvid
Because you have been making some silly JS-animation on your blog instead?

~~~
Sir_Substance
If he'd used HTML, the thing designed for formatting text on the internet, his
site probably wouldn't have been hugged to death. I wish people wouldn't use
javascript like this.

~~~
hk__2
He’s using a database connection to retrieve his blog post; the issue here has
nothing to do with JS.

~~~
nickpsecurity
It does for NoScript users. I told him not to worry about us, though, cuz we
aren't paying him. The HTML comment up thread applies, though, because I never
had these sorts of problems serving HTML/CSS for text parts out of, say, web
servers instead of databases. The stuff that absolutely _had_ to be dynamic
was on dedicated pages back in the day often with static fall-backs.

These JS and database-powered sites have issues we simply didn't have on
mostly HTML sites. Probably one reason static site generators are making a
comeback. ;)

------
sdx23
Why I haven't read your blog post yet: Won't show anything without javascript
→ meh, close that tab.

~~~
xupybd
Is there a reason you don't tolerate js?

------
pmontra
Opera Android: empty page with blinking cursor. That could be a reason for not
fixing issues, the blank page syndrome :-) but I guess there is some technical
problem going on.

~~~
tuvistavie
If you look at the console, you can see the AJAX request fails with 500, and
says it cannot connect the DB, so it's not a browser or JS issue.

This link seems to work for now.

[https://archive.is/t9oKw](https://archive.is/t9oKw)

~~~
pmontra
Hard to look at the console on Android.

------
ensiferum
Is it just me or is this website really buggy/confusing. Some of the menus
blog/projects open to a blank page (with a cursor that does nothing?) and the
other ones are just way to slow at producing the content... The time it takes
for some page to artistically produce the readable content I've already
clicked back button about 24 times.

I fail to see why this is on hacker news in the first place? Is this a
demonstration of some web developers failing in new creative ways? (I saw some
other interactive CV stuff that was also not only buggy but also just creative
in a _bad_ way few days before...)

And oh yeah, if this is supposed to be some kind of "recruiting" tool to
advocate the creator of the website in question.. If I was the recruiter, I
would consider this website against him. Just my 2 € cents.

~~~
wopian
Further adding to this it's now a blank page with awful positioning on mobile
with a link to a plaintext archived copy of the page.

------
merb
I dislike such posts.

Since mostly an issue is nothing but. Even if it won't get fixed (directly).

Also some people in Open Source are akward. They tell me that they have
limited resources in their project and they can't fix it or won't fix it or
whatever. They don't even think that I could try to fix my own issue. They
better start a conversation that they have too less people and that this
particular issue will be closed. They don't even care if you've done some open
source contributions already (even minor one's) on another project / language.

It's like some people just don't want your help, even if they told you.

~~~
Hondor
Isn't that why Github has forking? If people recognize that you'll accept more
updates to your fork than the original, then maybe your will become the
defacto proper one. If not, at least you fixed it for yourself and all your
friends who trust you.

If you don't like that you'll then have to include the original author's
future changes in yours, then, well, you're doing just what he was - not
wanting to spend time managing other people's things.

