That response is quite…hostile?
Someone spent their time to report a bug they found but close it because they didn’t pay the dev? Isn’t that a kind of contribution?
It is totally acceptable to ignore it but closing the issue with hostility is a questionable practice.
I’ve been checking that repo for many years. The guy is pretty chill, but several companies have taken advantage. They use the stack, post massive integration issues and demand free labor. Building a commercial product on top of a free open source software is pretty awful practice tbh
Everything is built on top of free open source software.
Oh boy the face once he realizes that Linux is foss and who uses it.
But TBF, many of the big players also contribute to Linux
That took time though.
Ssh only started getting major industry support after heart bleed and it’s been the go to secure shell for at least over a decade before that.
Well most big distros offer tech support for companies, if they pay for their time, right?
You said:
Building a commercial product on top of a free open source software is pretty awful practice
But as @Deleted said, a lot of stuff you use daily is based in some form on FOSS. Linux was just one big example.
I agree that building a commercial product on top of FOSS without giving back in some form is pretty awful practice. But the bold part is important. Simply taking something that’s free and open source and using it for your commercial product is not bad, it’s more common than you might think. But if you do that, you should give something in return.
every website is built on layers and layers of FOSS libraries. The really stupid move is building a commercial product on top of free proprietary software or APIs, as all the 3rd party app developers for reddit learned recently.
Most distros, even German ones, don’t flame companies who post bug reports either. (My bad they’re in Austria)
Usually companies that use open source software in their products contribute actively to the projects. And with “actively” I mean sponsoring the project and/or contributing to the development with PRs. Considering the “rude” reply, it seems that there were already other arguments between the dev and the one that reported the bug.
You live in a fantasy realm. I’d bet less than 5% of companies are actively contributing to OSS.
Really? Because there’s only one issue in the repo…
That repo is for a plugin for a larger product, but I couldn’t find many other examples of this stuff.
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you open your code under a licence that means other people can use it, that means other people can use it
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reporting a bug is not demanding free labor
Like how do you think this is supposed to work?
A) That everyone who wants to use open source stuff needs to be a programmer and contribute?
B) That if someone posts code under GPL or some other licence permitting commercial use, that it’s not permitting commercial use anyway?
C) That you need to pay to report a bug?
Come on. If the dev wants to only fix particular things and wants payment for fixing other things, fine, but don’t say this is the only way foss should work.
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To me that sounds like a feature request, and not a bug.
I’m a bloodsucking corpo dev and honestly my read of this was very sympathetic to the FOSS dev.
Pretty much all of my FOSS contributions have been to software that I’ve integrated into my for-profit projects. I will find a nice helpful tool, see it doesn’t have all the flexibility or functionality that I need, I’ll improve it, write tests, submit a PR, and do my best to fulfill the requests of the maintainer.
INEVITABLY I will start getting messages from MY COMPETITORS saying “hey we saw you added this feature to this tool, that’s great but doesn’t quite integrate with our software, can u plz fix?” It’s comical. Like, I’m already leveling the playing field by making my improvements to the FOSS tool freely available to you, and now you want to pay me zero dollars to improve your competing product? This happens all the time, it’s a funny nuisance to me, and I expect a massive headache for popular maintainers. Nobody is under any obligation to help you with integration problems - you can ask, but you aren’t entitled. Fix it yourself, adhere to the maintainer’s standards, and put it out for everyone to benefit from.
Well, there is a difference between an Average-Joe asking for a fix and Big-Tech knocking on the door with a list of issues.
I can imagine that it is frustrating to see people making money off your voluntary labor and just reporting back with problems. Depending on how many times this has already happened, I can absolutely see even a levelheaded person eventually snapping. And given the remark in the comment, it has happened multiple times.
I checked their service, and they offer support for business customers. For a price, of course.
It is, to find and report a bug is time contributed to make the software better. This maintainer is an asshat and probably has never had the luxury of knowing how expensive and time consuming QA really is.
:) maybe i should’ve given more history.
the guy is super helpful with issues i’ve had, or, issues that other ordinary users have had. but a bunch of companies are leeching off the stack and they really don’t actually contribute. they try to implement stuff, which break stuff, and then innocently post help requests. they build a commercial product on top of a free stack. what developer wouldn’t be pissed
Sure, but that’s the sort of things that is hashed out by lawyers in a private meeting room. Not in the GitHub’s public issue tracker. A simple “Report doesn’t meet criteria” would’ve sufficed. The rant is out of place and it makes him seem hostile.
What lawyers 😂 it’s a small repo of a pretty handy tool.
rant, i’m imagining, comes from a place of years of abuse the poor guy suffered
What lawyers?
Nymea is a commercial company too. This isn’t someone’s hobby project.
There are pro-bono FOSS lawyers. There are foundations that help with these things. There are lots of free legal resources made available. If it hurts him so much, then he should just archive and make the repo private, then re-release under a private license, or maybe step back from maintaining a public repo. No piece of software is worth mental health and peace of mind. Nobody is forcing him to participate. I mean, fuck private companies that suck the life out of open source projects. But suffering abuse is never an excuse to dish out abuse. And when it comes to the public sphere, it is a rant in the end. Composure is important in the eye of the public. No one will want to be sympathetic with someone who lashes out in public. It is only hurting him, not the person who received the reply.
i’m actually posting this cause he is actually going to stop maintaining, exactly because of the reasons you listed. it’s sad cause he is a pretty chill dude
Why would the Senior Software Engineer at nymea quit his paid position?
You really should’ve gotten permission from him to post this. You’re all over this thread basically laughing with emojis at his disgrace. It’s a couple of small developers doing home automation stuff. They don’t need this kind of diss. You should delete this post, and if you really want to say something about open source culture, maybe get permission and actually put effort into anonymizing the image.
not gonna fix bugs for free for someone leeching off our stack to build a commercial product
I don’t know, this sounds like there’s some history between developers and the reporter. If not, then somebody indeed had enough.
Yeah, but OP is not exactly bringing useful context. Whatever the history might be. The public tracker is not the best place to air these kind of grievances.
Reading the notes this appears to be an ongoing issue with them. This isn’t their first rodeo with the customer. Closing the ticket is fine since it’s already handed in another request.
Red Hat moment
Actually, reporting issues is not considered a bad practice in open source. If the corporation expects the dev to work for free, that’s a problem. But I found the original bug report, and it’s just a normal report. It doesn’t read entitled, doesn’t demand “Fix it NOW!!!”, simply explains an issue.
the issue is about integrating a third party device, owned by a corporation to an open source platform.
Agreed. Its a good bug report.
But open source developers are human, the developers were just having a bad day maybe. Not great to close a known issue, instead of keeping it on the backlog. The frustration of a company using your work to make money, while you dont get any is going to eat at anyone… Especially if they are reporting (valid) issues… it would feel like unpaid labor (which it is).
So I get it. LGPL copyleft is designed just for this… at least the people making the money can’t keep it closed.
link to the issue in the screenshot: https://github.com/nymea/nymea-experience-plugin-energy/issues/18
Which project is that?
i kept it anonymous on purpose, i don’t want to advertise. didn’t ask the guy if it’s ok to screenshot his comments
If you don’t want to dox people, you shouldn’t quote them/post them at all… anything can be sufficient to find out. There is so much information here… its just a matter of time
“JsonRPC flooeded with Energy.T”
bd64726 (commit?)
nymea (Related project? dependency?)
Consolinno (User, or corporation?)
Issue 18 Iheiz (Lheiz)
The problem seems to be related to bd64726. The behavior does not occurr with nymea 1.5.1
I can only confirm this problem with simulated devices, as I have not tested v1.8.1 with real devices.
As stated in other reports from consolinno, this is now how open source works.
Either you pay our license fees or buy support packages and we’ll look at your issues, or you actually start contributing upstream with fully completed, tested and clean merge requests and act upon our reviews.
But we’re not gonna fix bugs for free for someone leeching off our stack to build a commercial product and barely adhearing to the open source licenses.
damn i’m dumb. i’ll get in touch with the guy, if he wants me to delete the post
You forgot to censor a company name in the reply, which can be easily used to find the exact issue on Github
i honestly did not know that. can you pm me if you can actually find the repo. i will repost.
Found the issue and the repo
https: //github. com/nyXXX/nyXXX-XXX-XXX-energy/issues/18
Editing the post image, censoring both the username ----z and the company name -------ino should be fine. No need to repost
yep, i’m dumb. i’ll ask the guy if he is ok with me posting. will take the post down if he is not ok
I just found it using the issue text - only one result. The name of the repo appears alongside a version number as well ;)
kinda like the comment section of every socialmedia.comments but no contributions. i see a pattern.
Judging from the comments, I feel like even with an explanation there’s not enough context for people to tell who was right/wrong here…It feels like everyone is talking over one another…
i’m afraid that’s the exact case, and i’m considering deleting the post and never posting again.
Bugs are bugs
deleted by creator
“Give us free labor or buy something, will ya?”
Actually dipshit, that’s not how it works.
it’s the other way around honestly. the guy is pretty solid when an actual user inquires or opens an issue. the bug reported is from a company that is trying to integrate their custom commercial product on top of the open source platform. it’s pretty shady practice if you ask me
If companies follow the license it’s legal.
Yes, it would be good if the companies shared some of the wealth they generate back to the free projects that power the company.
i cannot agree more with you.
i’ve been following that project for some time and this is not the first time something similar has happened. never mind his helping, there has never been any trickle down to him 😂 i kinda feel for him
That’s the open source life though :/
Almost nobody gets rich from open source. You’re explicitly granting rights that people usually pay for.
It’s noble, but it sucks.
i guess someone can take advantage off you for only so long before you snap
