
Show HN: OSwatch – A News Aggregation Site for Open-Source Software - d99kris
https://oswatch.net/
======
purpled_haze
A problem with the domain name is that to mean OS means operating system.
Also, hardcore free software folks hate using the term "open-source" for their
free code.

But, I hope it does well and will keep an eye on it.

~~~
mattlutze
When I first noticed the headline on the HN wall, I thought it was a show-and-
tell for new smart watch software.

OP, for some reason I'm getting verification errors when trying to load the
site. My office has some rather aggressive firewall policies, but I might look
at the SSL cert.

~~~
d99kris
If you don't mind sharing the error you encountered (screenshot?) feel free to
drop me an email - address in my profile. I just got the SSL via Namecheap a
few days back, I haven't had issues with them before, but I'm by no means an
expert on certs, and may have set up something wrongly.

~~~
mattlutze
Glad to! Sent you an email.

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antstorm
It's really important to understand that the news aggregation site is not
about topic or implementation, it's all about the community around it. So
instead of forming your own, why not improve existing? Filtered by "open-
source" tag?

By no means trying to ruin your enthusiasm here, but please DO consider using
one of the existing aggregators for the same purpose.

Also Open Source seems like a very broad topic to me, covering most of the
programming languages, *nix systems and so on...

~~~
d99kris
Yes, it's all valid feedback. I kind of felt a gap for a timely updated and
focused news source focused on "open source". At this point I don't plan to
shift to an existing news aggregator, but if you don't mind sharing - do you
have any in mind that would allow such filtering?

~~~
antstorm
I don't think guys at lobste.rs would mind this approach, try starting a
discussion on GitHub.

Obvious choice here of course is Reddit, but it's a bit overblown.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks for the suggestion! Will reach out to jcs. Reddit may not be optimal
though I feel.

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raimue
The automatic postings by listbot should contain the original source URL. Some
posts are not helpful if there is no way to get to the project's website. Also
the formatting of the automatic excerpt is sometimes broken, so I would prefer
the original posts on the project's website.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks for the constructive criticism, it's a good suggestion - I've been
contemplating the same myself. I'll look into how I can obtain official
original links (currently the information is fed via email).

~~~
raimue
In some cases the List-Archive header contains a HTTP link to the mail in the
archive. But often enough it is just a link to the archive in general, so not
a general solution.

You could leverage the Gmane archive, which allows linking to mails by
Message-Id like this:
[http://mid.gmane.org/<CA+55aFx93de2f2bRbCp74uNX0LxkgpSKE8uOG...](http://mid.gmane.org/<CA+55aFx93de2f2bRbCp74uNX0LxkgpSKE8uOGFrk63xe_9YDwg@mail.gmail.com>)

~~~
d99kris
Thanks for the suggestion! Will definitely look into that!

------
smt88
I don't know what code you're using, but there's actually a great piece of OSS
that does exactly what you need:
[http://www.telescopeapp.org/](http://www.telescopeapp.org/)

~~~
wilsonfiifi
Awesome! This is great! Will try and get this running on dokku. Thanks for the
link!

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jlgaddis
Please make it possible to block/ignore postings by specific usernames (e.g.
"listbot"). That's 75% of the front page right now and I already get a number
of those in my inbox. For me, at least, it's pretty annoying.

~~~
d99kris
Good suggestion! I'm thinking I can create a tag specifically for automated
submissions. I'll look into this tomorrow.

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SunShiranui
I think your default text size is a bit too tiny (I'm on a 1920x1080 15"
display). Although that's a problem for HN as well.

~~~
d99kris
OK noted. It was also highlighted by others, will address this (tomorrow).

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petecooper
Not to be mistaken for/confused with:

[http://oss-watch.ac.uk](http://oss-watch.ac.uk)

~~~
linker3000
Nor:

[http://oswatch.org/](http://oswatch.org/)

------
magicmu
Great idea, I'll definitely follow! Is the site itself open source? If so, I'd
love to help out.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks! Actually the implementation is based on
[https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs) code at
[https://github.com/jcs/lobsters](https://github.com/jcs/lobsters) but yes,
the plan is to open source this fork quite soon.

~~~
magicmu
Cool! I'll keep an eye out :)

------
giancarlostoro
Nice work, naming aside, I would suggest maybe if possible add an IRC channel
(you don't have to host your own server or anything, Freenode or Quakenet etc
is fine). It could help build up a community whilst things are slow, and
registration is still invite only it seems.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks! I hadn't thought about having an IRC channel. I'm trying to keep up
with the invitations. Didn't honestly expect that much interest. :)

I hope the website is still usable (I'm monitoring 'top' here and ruby/nginx
is still constantly below 25%).

I'll probably not be setting up an IRC channel today/tonight as it's pretty
late where I am, but may consider it in the future.

------
andrewulrich
@d99kris I just went to the filters page, and saved filters, went back to the
home page, and the filters were not applied. I am not logged in; does it only
work when you're logged in? If so, you might want to hide that link for non-
logged in users.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks! Yes it's actually supposed to work with cookies, but I haven't tested
this properly. Will probably follow your advice and hide it for non-logged in
users until I'm sure it's working correctly.

------
vmateixeira
It may be useful, thanks, will keep an eye on it. Although, its name made me
think of a new Swatch watch and I found it a bit slow. Also you should
consider adding some font color other than gray.

~~~
vmateixeira
And please consider changing the favicon perhaps? (letters too small)

~~~
d99kris
Thanks for the feedback! It was the last item I was planning to address before
"launching" the site, but I decided to put it off for another day. It'll soon
be fixed.

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beshrkayali
Really cool to see the moderation log. Hope that it contains everything and
doesn't apply certain filters for certain actions. I'd like to see the same
thing for HN.

~~~
d99kris
I can't take any credit for that, as I forked lobste.rs implementation which
already has that feature. But yes, I like the transparency too.

------
nickpsecurity
I thought it was about about operating systems when I saw the name. Kind of
like OSnews. Probably should've been OSSwatch.

~~~
gkya
Came here for the exact same comment. And, while at it, consider also
FOSSwatch, as the free software people do not think that open soure includes
their philosophy.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yeah, we were thinking along same lines: OSSwatch and FOSSwatch came to mind
for comment. I deliberately avoided mentioning FOSSwatch due to the
ideological angle you mentioned. I figured someone from OSS or FOSS one would
be on the attack in minutes haha.

~~~
gkya
Well, there are a lot of zealots in every camp, so they'd attack even if you
named it PISSwatch. But you have spent time and put out great, useful work,
and nobody has the right to complain, as you didn't do it because you had to,
but because of your good will. Kudos for that, very nice website.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I agree. They put in the work and got the results. Anyone that doesn't like it
can have an opinion but is just talking rather than building. ;)

------
ahmedfromtunis
I find the use of two tagging systems a bit off and may harm the aesthetic and
usability of the site.

~~~
d99kris
I guess you are referring to some submission titles containing [Project Name]
and at the same time carrying a tag-"button"? The submission titles for
automated submission are taken from the email subject, and kept to make
twitter/facebook feeds have proper context. But I'll look into how I can clean
it up - especially from the oswatch.net front page itself.

------
thomasdd
I was used to check [http://osnews.com/](http://osnews.com/) daily for Years
now. But for me, they update frequency is quite poor, so i stopped visiting
the site at all. This looks promissing and nice.

~~~
d99kris
Thanks! To ensure timely updates I "cheated" and have subscriptions set up for
a bunch of open source projects announcement lists, and auto-posting them to
osnews.

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ddoolin
I like the idea but perhaps OSSwatch would be a better name?

~~~
d99kris
Yes, I realize the name clash with [http://oswatch.org/](http://oswatch.org/)
and the fact that OSS is a more proper abbreviation of open source software.
The name was picked based on the name "open source watch". May rename in the
future if it makes sense, but it's just a small side project.

------
carlchenet
what's the difference with lobste.rs ?

~~~
d99kris
OSwatch is focused on open source news, or sharing of open source projects,
while I believe lobste.rs targets broader topics/audience.

Implementation-wise OSwatch is very similar, being a fork of lobste.rs.

------
boyanpro
What is technology behind it? How do you automatically collect news?

~~~
d99kris
The base site is based on lobste.rs and the automatic news collection is just
email subscriptions to a bunch of open source projects announcement mailing
lists.

I may need to extend it to poll websites or github for release notes in the
future, as some (still relevant) projects do not have mailing lists.

------
unixhero
I dig the innovative user interface metaphor. It's refreshing.

~~~
d99kris
I'm by no means a UI expert nor an English native speaker so I'm not sure if
you're sarcastic. Would you mind elaborating on the feedback?

~~~
unixhero
English is not my first language either. Sarcasm has no place here on Hacker
News, and I was not being sarcastic. I guess I could have elaborated.

I think the way you have placed the category/categories, website domainname on
each row is interesting. Also how comments are moved to a separate area which
I find a fresh take!

------
brudgers
Thought provoking [0] .

How will the site will filter for informational value? There are huge numbers
of releases on a vast array of software most people won't care for following
even if it is important, e.g. the Linux kernel, Hadoop, Spring.

The hard problem is determining what votes _confirm_. That is, what
distinguishes a good submission from a bad submission is what makes a
community. If it's just votes without standards then me and my friends and our
sockpuppets can make it all about the LOL's.

Others have touched on the hard problem of community in regard to the name.
From a community standpoint, there's no big tent uniting all open source
communities any more than there's a big tent uniting all political
communities.

There are three big approaches to contributions: copy left, any use allowed,
and assign copyright to the project. [1] It's politics by any other name. Some
people play the game hard. A few play it for keeps. And most people don't
really care very much except when there's titillating gossip or a bare
knuckled knife fight. And on the internet, my money would be on people tuning
in for an unending stream of unreconciled battles royale.

The term "free and open source software" is a way institutions sluff off
accusations of having taken a stance even though the institutions have -- for
adamant copy leftists there's no disjunction between "free" and "open source"
that requires the "and". As the institutional view has come to mainstream
development, there's been an opportunity for institutions to collapse the
terminology down to "open source" which is a property not a community. It's
only cold calculation and good manners that keep technology CEO's from saying
"Richard Stallman, who the fuck are you and who pays you?"

Catering to the open source community suffers from the problem that it's hard
to capture a market segment and build a community around it. Rationalizing
along the lines of "There are one billion people in China and all we need to
do is charge each of them $1.00" is easier even though it doesn't work for any
institution other than the government of China and even then not so much.

My advice:

\+ Scale back the idea where it is clearer who might use it and what value
those people will get from investing in building a community. More
importantly, it needs to be clearer who might almost be the right fit but:
fail to see the attraction, not abide by community standards, lurk, go off and
clone it on a different topic.

\+ Start with something clear and narrow and with some semblance of an
existing community, e.g. projects under the Apache foundation. Even better if
there is some buzz, e.g. Microsoft's open source efforts.

\+ Building around enterprise is actually congruent with the idea of "open
source". It also may be easier to impose higher standards of behavior than are
typical of the internet.

Finally, I doubt that the look and feel of Hacker News is the secret sauce. I
suspect that it's mostly what I don't see that makes it work.

This turned out to be more of an exercise than I expected. Imagine that.

Good luck.

[0]: To state the obvious.

[1]: I'm not not advocating one position over the other. I'm just coarsely
modeling. Like all models it's wrong, but it may be useful.

~~~
d99kris
Much valid points and interesting view. I did think about a few of these
aspects - in particular community fostering and whether to focus on a specific
project or area. It was all becoming a pretty complex problem to figure out,
so I decided to just put it out there and see what happens - and make changes
and iterate as needed.

In essence I created the website because I wanted a HN focused on open source
news, sharing, discussions.

I'll take some more time to digest all your feedback, it's late here
(midnight), but I do value the comprehensive feedback a lot!

~~~
brudgers
It's free random advice from the internet and probably worth twice what you
paid for it...or at least half.

But I had fun writing it.

------
CrowFly
A search for "Erlang" showed zero results.

