>thread to call out Read the Docs for profiting from MkDocs without contributing back.
>They also point out that not opening up the source code goes against the principles of Open Source software development
I will never stop being amused when people have feelings like this and also choose licenses like BSD (this project). If you wanted a culture that discouraged those behaviors, why would you choose a license that explicitly allows them? Whether you can enforce it or not, the license is basically a type of CoC that states the type of community you want to have.
The reason is simple: they'd like to reap all the benefits of a permissive licence (many people and companies won't or can't touch GPL code), without any of the downsides; but these downsides are the very reason behind the rules in more 'restrictive' licenses like the GPL.
This usually doesn't work, and in the end all they can do is complain about behaviours that their license choice explicitly allowed.
Yes I agree completely. I am baffled why they choose that license in the first place. It just seems to engender drama when people actually follow the license they've chosen! Perhaps open source is actually powered by drama, where developers have more meaning from the drama they create than the actual things they create?
Right, my suspicion was correct. When I interacted with them a few years ago they seemed perfectly nice and friendly, but seem to have gone off the rails more recently. It's an uncomfortable situation and I've a feeling people are afraid to discuss this kind of thing but we really need to. People are a risk factor in software projects and we need to be resilient to changes they face. Forking is the right way, but places like GitHub have sold people on centralisation. We need to get back to decentralised dev.
> but places like GitHub have sold people on centralisation. We need to get back to decentralised dev.
I don’t think that’s the case. It’s more of a marketing/market incentive. It’s great pr to be associated with the most famous project, way less so to be associated with a fork, at least until the fork becomes widespread and well recognised.
GitHub does make it fairly easy to fork a project, I wouldn’t blame the situation on github.
On one hand, that account of the attempted project takeover smelled to me like Jia Tan.
On the other hand, the comments the MkDocs author is making about perceived gender grievances feel so unhinged that I wouldn't be touching anything made by them with a barge pole.
Yes, I know you can be legit, but when you first contribute a few useful things, then jump to maintainership and want keys to the kingdom, the pattern looks similar (sans the last step which is embedding some backdoor). At least in how the article described it.
>thread to call out Read the Docs for profiting from MkDocs without contributing back.
>They also point out that not opening up the source code goes against the principles of Open Source software development
I will never stop being amused when people have feelings like this and also choose licenses like BSD (this project). If you wanted a culture that discouraged those behaviors, why would you choose a license that explicitly allows them? Whether you can enforce it or not, the license is basically a type of CoC that states the type of community you want to have.
The reason is simple: they'd like to reap all the benefits of a permissive licence (many people and companies won't or can't touch GPL code), without any of the downsides; but these downsides are the very reason behind the rules in more 'restrictive' licenses like the GPL.
This usually doesn't work, and in the end all they can do is complain about behaviours that their license choice explicitly allowed.
Yes I agree completely. I am baffled why they choose that license in the first place. It just seems to engender drama when people actually follow the license they've chosen! Perhaps open source is actually powered by drama, where developers have more meaning from the drama they create than the actual things they create?
Oh i recognised one of the involved people immediately, drama person.
I still think that hijacking the mkdocs package was the wrong way to go though.
The foss landscape has become way too much fork-phobic.
Just fork mkdocs and go over your merry way.
Right, my suspicion was correct. When I interacted with them a few years ago they seemed perfectly nice and friendly, but seem to have gone off the rails more recently. It's an uncomfortable situation and I've a feeling people are afraid to discuss this kind of thing but we really need to. People are a risk factor in software projects and we need to be resilient to changes they face. Forking is the right way, but places like GitHub have sold people on centralisation. We need to get back to decentralised dev.
> but places like GitHub have sold people on centralisation. We need to get back to decentralised dev.
I don’t think that’s the case. It’s more of a marketing/market incentive. It’s great pr to be associated with the most famous project, way less so to be associated with a fork, at least until the fork becomes widespread and well recognised.
GitHub does make it fairly easy to fork a project, I wouldn’t blame the situation on github.
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Who are they?
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Drama around Starlette. Drama around httpx. Drama around MkDocs. I just hope that DRF is not next, I still have some projects that depend on it.
Per TFA, there’s similarly-shaped low-key drama around DRF too[1] although issues and discussions have been reënabled since then.
[1] https://github.com/orgs/encode/discussions/11#discussioncomm...
What's the drama around starlette? (Can't find anything)
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On one hand, that account of the attempted project takeover smelled to me like Jia Tan.
On the other hand, the comments the MkDocs author is making about perceived gender grievances feel so unhinged that I wouldn't be touching anything made by them with a barge pole.
> On one hand, that account of the attempted project takeover smelled to me like Jia Tan.
Oleh was basically the sole maintainer for many years, and the development basically stopped when he left.
Yes, I know you can be legit, but when you first contribute a few useful things, then jump to maintainership and want keys to the kingdom, the pattern looks similar (sans the last step which is embedding some backdoor). At least in how the article described it.
If this would be a tv show I probably would view it, but wow what a drama.