Comment by nklow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nklow | Hacker News Reader

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>1. The software will have one less user. (Implication was potentially many fewer given “we” would uninstall.)

And what is the injury or harm of that? The developer said they wouldn't action the change and indirectly suggested the user to fork it - "it is open source after all".

>2. The software will have one more competing product (forked from their own work).

This is the very nature of open-source software. Labeling it a "competing product" makes many assumptions that aren't earned. We're talking about a user saying an opt-out feature should be opt-in. If I forked LibreOffice because it contained features I did not like, am I now making a competing product? Am I harming or injuring the repo I forked? Am I fighting the LibreOffice developers?

>Most people willing to put their time and energy into building software for others would consider losing users to be a moderate negative and having their work potentially forked and having to compete with a derivative a strong negative.

The developer didn't seem to consider it a moderate negative.

>“We will fork” is a strong threat. It is basically a statement that “we” will fight the maintainer for the effective future of the project.

You're expanding the scope of what was said. Saying "I will fork your open source software" [to make an opt-out feature, opt-in] is not "fighting" the maintainer for the "future of the project" - it's a core element of open-source software.

> And what is the injury or harm of that?

Sure. If you don’t care about whether your open source software has users, then there is no harm. People who maintain open source software for free usually do it out if a sense of pride and accomplishment that is tied to how many people use it, though.

> The developer said they wouldn't action the change and indirectly suggested the user to fork it - "it is open source after all".

They said that after the user already threatened to do so. You’re reversing the order. It was not “I recommend this” but “If you’re gonna do it I can’t stop you”.

> If I forked LibreOffice

If all you are doing is cloning the repo in GitHub then sure, you aren’t competing. But LibreOffice is a great example because it is specifically a fork that intended to and succeeded in replacing its parent project.

If someone says “we’re going to fork this because we disagree with your maintenance of the project”, they probably don’t mean “I’m gonna click ‘fork’ on GitHub.”

>Sure. If you don’t care about whether your open source software has users, then there is no harm. People who maintain open source software for free usually do it out if a sense of pride and accomplishment that is tied to how many people use it, though.

Specifically in this case, it seems the developer isn't doing it for free - their work is at least somewhat sponsored and looking at their site it seems to be their full-time work. I'm not diminishing their time and effort, but this isn't someone working late nights that is hoping their software gets its first 100 users.

>They said that after the user already threatened to do so.

There's a button on every public GitHub repo to fork it. If I say "I'm going to hit that button" (even in a particularly rude way) - is that really a threat? It is functionality built into not only the site, but also the culture and code licensing that underpins any open-source project. I struggle to see how anyone could threaten open-source code by saying they'll fork it. Go ahead - that was specifically designed into the license for any reason. It's so prevalent that it has its own button.

>If someone says “we’re going to fork this because we disagree with your maintenance of the project”, they probably don’t mean “I’m gonna click ‘fork’ on GitHub.”

What then is your expectation for what it means? By saying "we're going to fork this software" are they now starting a competing company? Making hardware products using it? Monetizing the pre-existing work? Selling subscriptions?

These are all examples that I read your comment as implying that aren't actually enumerated or described anywhere.

My expectation for someone saying "I don't like how you're running this project and will fork it" is _exactly_ that they'll hit the fork button and make their own project. That's why it's open-source, that's how open-source software works - that's what the button is for. Even if they then went and built an entirely competing business, around one minor change I specifically chose not to make - then what is the issue? The license allows it - and I chose the license.

We’re arguing hypotheticals about what the commenter meant when they said they would fork. I have no evidence they specifically meant that they would create a competitor and you have no evidence that they meant they would quietly fork and change the one thing they cared about. Fork has more than one meaning in this context. (LibreOffice project was forked from OpenOffice.org, while LibreOffice core repo has 983 forks on GitHub.)

I think we can agree to disagree because our assumptions are at odds and we have no data to bridge that gap.

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