Re: Need help with GitHub Issues migration

On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:18:50 +0100
"Yury V. Zaytsev" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 24. Feb 2025, at 01:20, David Niklas via mc-devel
> > <mc-devel-+hD5IHI5XseWCegYutOAJTiNl0CLU6MPYPYVAmT7z5s@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > 
> > I know it's probably a bit late for this, but maybe you should
> > consider that tying yourself/project to github isn't the best idea in
> > the world.  
> 
> So what is the best idea in the world?

If only I knew!

There's gitlab and sourceforge, amoung others, I'm sure. For bug reports
some projects use bugzilla. The linux kernel still does bug reports and
fixes through the ML.

What's insufficient about the current system?

<snip>
> As for Microsoft, well, on a political level, I just don't have nearly
> the capacity to fight them even if I wanted to (and I don't).
<snip>

It's not really political. MS has advocated for mixed source SW for
decades. Their AI using the code bases on GH is just the tip of the
iceberg. Then there's the Embrace Extend Extinguish compaign, which looks
to be still up and running. Basically, they're like the bully on the
street to the OSS folks.
I'm more worried about what becomes of the code bases and devs than
perturbed for any other reason.

(Jumping in on another, recent, message.)
> I'm actually pretty unhappy about interfacing with users most of the
> time. There are some rare exceptions when people come in with quality
> bug reports or even patches, are polite, respectful and helpful. Sadly,
> I don't think I've ever experienced a test other than from mooffie.
> (Thank you! You were definitely one of the best people I've ever worked
> with).
> 
> But most of the time, at best, you get garbage reports that take
> forever to deal with. I don't know what ideas users have about my or
> "our" circumstances (or if they have any ideas at all, or if it's just
> a cultural default). Somehow, not only do they come with an entitlement
> to commercial-grade support with SLAs, they are usually outright
> abusive. Any request for them to invest their time to help fix the
> problem is either ignored or met with hostility.
> 
> We get blamed for not fixing bugs fast enough and well enough, and
> otherwise not maintaining the project to a high enough standard. Which
> isn't even wrong, but it only hurts more because I would argue that I
> have at least a decade's worth of track record of doing really amazing
> things on a budget and to a high standard... but the thing is, there is
> no budget. And there is only so much that even the most gifted genius
> can do in a few hours on a weekend on a 30 year old grown and complex
> project.

From what I understand, the way OSS, not necessarily Linux, started up
was that you had mostly devs or people who understood development. Much
like with automobiles back in the day, being a mechanic (coder) was the
"cool" thing to do.

Now, the push is to bring in more "normal" users to the OSS community.
They have to be trained to understand how to code, submit bug reports,
etc. Such users tend to want one thing and only one thing from their SW,
"It just works." And when they say that, they actually mean, "It just
works the way I want it to work." Which typically means it works like
closed source SW. So why not buy the CSS's code base and then opensource
it if you love it so much???

Now the whole point of OSS was that you could hack it to "just work" and
hack it to "just work the way you want it to." But try to explain that to
a "normal" user.

> I don't know if the mere fact that the two of us are still working on
> the project is keeping all the amazing, productive, and resourceful
> developers in the world away, and if we leave with a bang, the project
> will immediately be rebooted in a way that is so much better than it
> has ever been. Somehow I'm skeptical.

Erm, no. This is a much deeper topic than that.

Think about the times of yore. When knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and
skill were transmitted from master to apprentice. Why did they do it that
way? Why not just create a school?

Because, it's a catch 22 situation. You can't create a school without
students to pay. Students can't pay if they don't have the skills to make
money. Students can't get the skills to make money if they're not
educated. It makes so much more economic sense to have a work/study
program than a pay-to-play system -- and far too many colleges do
revolve around playing/entertainment instead of studying in the USA.

The OSS ecosystem was based around people helping each other and that
inculcated charity is dying (seemingly with the death of Christianity,
the model under which RMS brilliantly based the system). Likewise,
passing on what was learned is something that isn't happening like in the
days of yore.

The OSS ecosystem's fatal flaw is revealed, it's a sterile system. It
fails to bring in both kind and talented people (and no one is born
talented).


Normally, devs would have children, and those children, having grown up
in a culture of code (instead of a culture of ignorance), would understand
and take an interest in the code bases which were developed by their
forefathers. But as each dev becomes too old, the code bases rot and die
due to lack of maintainer-ship.

New devs come along and have to put in tremendous amounts of effort to
recreate the tools (reinvent the wheel). Mistakes that were found and
fixed before, become whole new classes of security vulnerabilities and
bugs. Performance tanks in favor of coding the application in the "cool"
HLL of the day.

This intractable problem has but one solution, use known good systems (of
education, morals, and coding), to promote learning and code base
development instead of just assuming OSS will go on forever without any
"backbone" upon which the users use the system, report bugs, and code the
applications.



Sorry it's so long. I hope it helps. Thanks for the work you've done on
MC over the years.

David
-- 
mc-devel mailing list
mc-devel-+hD5IHI5XseWCegYutOAJTiNl0CLU6MPYPYVAmT7z5s@public.gmane.org
https://lists.midnight-commander.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel