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Ask Slashdot: Spreading the Word About At-Risk Open Source Projects?
An anonymous reader writes "There is a piece of software, released under the Modified BSD license, that risks becoming abandonware and, IMHO, is worth being saved. Where can I post an announcement to find people than can take care of it?" This seems like a problem that a lot of projects run into; is there a clearinghouse for open-source projects at risk?
Create a project on one of the FOSS repos. Flag it as needing a maintainer.
You may need to GPL it.
You're trying to find someone who will work for free to maintain a piece of software with dubious usefulness just because you like it.
You got 2 options:
1. Learn to program it and maintain it yourself.
2. Pay someone to do it for you.
The problem with GPL is that nobody can take the code private and make money selling it. Many people like me think this is unfair and tend not to provide unpaid work. I sometimes send bug reports to a GPL project, but would never even consider contributing any code. GPL people feel the same way about my MIT licensed projects. So before you change the license, be sure you are on the side you want to be on. I have no numbers, but you should not just assume one side is larger than the other.
So you want to spread the word but won't even give out the name?
Your high horse doesn't let you do unpaid work, but you are willing to use these projects for which you send bug reports? Don't you feel morally tainted by encouraging other people to do unpaid work like that? How about you consider use of the end result as your payment.
Depending on the size of the project you may want to see if any students looking for a graduation project would want to pick it up
Well, first of all, there's no such thing as "abandonware" in open source. The term is used to describe closed source program in which was offered at one point and then largely forgotten about by its developers and therefore not ported to newer operating systems and/or architectures despite having an active or semi-active user base.
With open source software, the code is always available so anyone who wants to continue maintaining it can always do so. If you, as a user, care enough about the project, and the maintainer seems to have left town, then it's up to you to continue maintaining it and/or fork your own version. If you're not a developer, then hire one. You can't just rally the community and say, "hey there, somebody please support this software for me! It's BSD-licensed so I don't have to pay you!"
The OP's situation involves software under what appears to be a 3-clause BSD license, which is a GPL-compatible free software license. Which repositories require specifically the GPL as opposed to GPL-compatible free software licenses in general?
Isn't that for it's hundreds or thousands of users to decide, one of which might be willing to save it himself/herself?
Software that doesn't get used, dies.
The reward for contributing your code to a GPL program is not having to maintain your private patch against the program's source code for as long as you use the program.
You are aware, of course, that numerous projects (GPL or MIT or BSD) are developed by paid-for people, right?
If I develop an open source project, I'd rather have people use it than people not use it. I feel it will be more useful to have real-life users that contribute in feature wishes and bug reports rather than a few users that either violate the GPL and don't contribute or dump me some code blob from time to time that will take ages to incorporate and may violate my guidelines / prectices to the point where I won't even want to incorporate the code.
That's me. Your mileage may vary. So I tend to prefer BSD-type licenses nowadays.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Try sending the project a DMCA Cease and Decist notice, and then post a story in slashdot about some patent troll bullying an open source project.
Then watch as the streisand effect does its magic.
Generally open source software are scratch projects, ie I have an itch so I scratch it. If something isn't maintained, it either works well enough as it is or isn't used. If you want to keep work going on it and are not a programmer you have 3 real solutions, ie pay to have it worked on, try to interest others in working on it by advertising via websites(slashdot / freshmeat / sourceforge / github /etc), personal emails to people that might want to work on it, or any other means of communication, eg attend a local Lug, etc, the last option of course is to learn how to program and scratch the itch yourself.
The biggest issue is the license the software is released under. If GPL, just fork the code and get to work. If under a more restrictive license your hands are pretty much tied. Proprietary software dies quite frequently, opensource might get mothballed for years and then get pulled back out when someone has an itch to scratch.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
If the poster had given the name, the focus might have been on how to safe that particular project whilst the question is more general (and more important). What infrastructure has open source got in place to safe abandoned software projects in general?
Ack, "that risks becoming abandonware?" How do you know?
It might be pretty insulting for the current maintainer to find out that you think the software is not advancing quickly enough. I mean, if there's really nothing going on, new patches aren't being incorporated, etc., then, yeah, it might be a good time to look at some options. If it is just that the current maintainer isn't doing what you want, working hard to support your current platform, is doing this on weekends when they have some spare time, etc., then perhaps you should think about ways to encourage and help the current maintainer. Getting them a set of patches for whatever functionality you want to add is a lot more effective than posting to Slashdot.
Again, there aren't enough details to know which kind of problem you have (real abandonware or a cranky user), but it would be good to think about this before proceeding.
Lots and lots of dead/abandoned Open Source projects at sourceforge.net, codeplex.com, etc.
I don't think we need a new service for this, just go look for projects that haven't been updated in 3+ years, you'll find lots of them.
- chrish
Have you already tried to contact the project lead(s)? Maybe they'd help you take it over, or your interest could encourage him/her/them to get going again, etc...
You don't know much about the GPL, do you? You were almost right about one thing: "nobody can take the code private." Only the copyright holder has the right to change the license. Anyone else, however, can make changes to the software, not provide those changes back to the copyright holder AND make money by selling GPL software. Any modifications you make to the software are also licensed under the GPL and you are not required to share the source code with anyone except the people that use your modifications. If you sell object code (binaries) of the software to customers, you are required to provide the source code to your customers upon request. The price you charge for the software is only limited by what your customers are willing to pay and you can't charge anything more for the source code.
It's not difficult. Reading the GNU project's philosophy on selling GPL software might help you better understand how it works. Looking up "selling GPL software" on Google is also an option.
No, you can sublicense it.
If you don't want to continue the project as BSD, you *can* make a GPL fork.
But many GPL trolls seem to think the ability to make closed source derivative works, somehow prevents this.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Send a request to freshmeat.net for a search feature allowing you to search for projects that haven't been updated for a long time.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
MySQL
RedHat
etc.
Yes, you can make money with the GPL, even if you can't make closed source derivatives.
Personally, I want a license that says:
- If you release your derivative open source, changes made in the derivative can be back-ported to the original project, without modification of the original project license
- If you release the derived work for compensation (either of the derived work or related services), you must make an agreement with the original to properly compensate the original author/project team.
This means that you fairly compensate the original team, but can release your derived work with whatever mechanism you like (closed or open source, for or without compensation).
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
The problem with GPL is that nobody can take the code private and make money selling it.
There are several companies that have no problem making a wad of cash from GPL software without changing the license. At least one has two or three other groups giving away the same software for free, and yet is still doing just fine.
You don't have to take the code private to sell the product.
Under the GPL (2)
#1 You can make your own changes to the product source code
#2 You can build that product
#3 You can sell that product for any price you want.
#4 You -do not- have to publish the src code on the web.
If your customer requests a copy of the GPL source code, you give them a copy. You can charge a reasonable fee for making the copy. You can provide the copy as regular text source, or a paper printout, or a pdf file etc..
#5 If you use GPL(2) code in a product you build, you don't have to share the code you yourself created - IF IT MEETS EITHER ONE OF THESE TWO REQUIREMENTS:
#1 The GPL code you use is LGPL and all you do is link to it.
OR
#2 you structure your code so that it is only dynamically linked to the GPL(2) code. I need to double check on this one and i dont have time right now. I'll try to get back to y'all on this.
Huh? Relicensing the code would violate the license. even with BSD only the.copyright owner can relicense it. Yes it can be integrated with.proprietary code, but that doesn't mean it's been relicensed.
So you want a license that will scare off any.commercial company from touching it? with those terms most companies will stick to a proprietary solution instead.
Why would it scare off any commercial company?
They check the desired price, come to an agreement, and pay it, as with any other proprietary solution. They don't have to release their code open source, so they can keep modifications under their hats if they want, but they do get the benefit of back-ported OSS softwawre. In other words, they pay as they would proprietary software, but they get some extra developmental effort as well, and don't need to release their source if they don't want to.
Each side contributes as each side recieves.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
This is not "abandonware". Certainly not when it comes to open source software that is still freely available and not at all hard to acquire. "Abandonware", traditionally, has referred to closed source software that, over time, either has no known copyright holder (but is not public domain so is still illegal to redistribute) or has literally been "abandoned" by the copyright holder (but is also not public domain so is still illegal to redistribute). Thus making the ability to find a legitimate copy of the software much tougher than it needs to be, and (ignoring abandonware sites and other such forms of "piracy-preservation") increases the likelihood of a work being lost forever.
FC Closer
He runs the Unmaintained Free Software archive. It's currently down but the best thing would seem to be to contact him and get the project listed.
The next step would be to get the aforementioned students interested in picking up projects listed on his site. There are A LOT. Some probably deserves junking, but other projects are of high importance and should be picked up.
It would be great if Google's Summer of Code could involve not just proven teams working on proven projects, but could also include revival of projects with a high probability of value by teams formed for the purpose. Yes, I know, they have to balance the risks and the potential for returns, but some of the abandonware is already of amazingly high quality, it just has to be maintained. That's relatively low risk for a Google.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You aren't seeing the full picture. Yes, you're right, physical media is obsolete, and charging a fee for making physical copies won't make much money. But you don't think support and service works either, and Red Hat has made it work. You didn't mention ad revenue, and that's fine. Ad revenue cannot start projects, it can only help projects that have already achieved some popularity.
So what do you suggest for a solution? Copyright it and hope that respect for the law will persuade enough people to pay for a license? Sorry, I don't think that will work. Copyright evokes precious little respect any more, thanks in part to the crusade waged against millions of ordinary citizens, with lawsuits, 3 strikes laws, and DRM. Even if the reputation hadn't been ruined, we can see that copyright is too costly. It's insane the way businesses have to keep records of all their software purchases for each computer, in case they are audited. When we have to spend 10x as much solely to comply with copyright, we're going to question it. Evading copyright is actually easier than complying, and often results in a better product. People simply aren't going to jump through a bunch of pointless hoops. We can't force them to do it either, not through the law, and not through technological means. Even if you wrote some successful software and managed to sell access to it, it only takes a few people to duplicate its functionality, without breaking any laws, and then where are you? Sidelined, unless your software is so much better that it's worth the price. But when that software gets better than your own, then what? Resort to lock in and inertia, as MS has done? That can't last.
We need some other system. I think I know what it must be: some form of patronage. Exactly how it will be organized, operated, funded and its revenues distributed is wide open. I am thinking we will want many diverse organizations all working a little differently than any other, as that has the best chance of covering as much as possible so that no deserving software writer is left out.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Which definition of the word "troll" are you using here? Is it trolling to state a plain fact?
Describe the details in a post to http://www.reddit.com/r/programming
There's quite a concentrated community in some of the sub-reddits -- you are bound to find a kindred spirit with a passion for the application that may not realize it is at risk. The community is very interactive and may be helpful in finding a home for the ailing project...
"There *IS* no patch for stupidity" -www.sqlsecurity.com
True. Although it wouldn't violate the license but the law.
Dilbert RSS feed
Your reasoning is totally inapplicable to a choice between BSD-type and GPL licenses. With either, you can refuse to accept code contributions from users. With neither is a user who modifies your code obligated to give their changes to you.
Which is not to say that a BSD-type license is not a better fit for you, though that too has nothing to do with explaining why you feel it wrong for you to contribute code to GPL'd projects.
Just use 2 licenses. It's called dual-licensing and is done all the time (QT does a similar thing). The only time you run into issues is with code others have submitted to the project, since those authors technically own those patches, you need to make sure they release it under both licenses as well.
you feel it wrong for you to contribute code to GPL'd projects.
Huuuu, where did you get that from?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Of course it will work. It has been working just fine for pretty much every company making software since there was software. It has made Bill Gates a very rich man and allows countless one-man shareware shops to eke out a decent living. Closed source is the only way to go if you want to sell. Don't look for a solution where there is no problem.
RedHat is a large corporation and has the resource to provide service and support to other large corporations. You don't. If you are a programmer, you also likely lack the skills for that job and would suck at it even more than an Indian call center while having to charge twice as much to stay above the poverty line. Large corporations are the only ones who will buy support contracts. Regular users never do because they know tech support is worthless. Companies only buy it to have somebody to blame. Since you have no net worth to steal in a lawsuit, you are largely worthless even as a scapegoat. So no, selling service and support will not work for you unless you are a large corporation like RedHat.
If your project is GPLed, nothing stops people from rewriting the URLs in your code to point to their ads or their malware. If that spreads and users get infected, you'll be buried in lawsuits.
Ha ha ha ha. You obviously have never tried to do that. Any substantial program will require a serious amount of work on the implementation. It's not enough to just come up with the idea; I have great ideas every day. It's the great implementation that turns a great idea into great software. Writing good code takes time. If it takes you a year to write your program, it is going to take at least that long to make a knockoff. Sure, being free would tend to steer my customers to the copycat, but he is the one taking a loss here, with all that development time. And I can always come up with some way to improve something, while he'll be stuck playing a catch-up game with no pay. How much self-sacrifice for the public good do you think he's capable of?
So you want to replace a system rewarding good programmers with a system rewarding well-connected bootlickers? A system where you would have to beg for a job and beg and mooch to keep it? That's what they do in the academia, you know, with the government being the patron dispensing grants. Or maybe you're talking about the venture capitalists who will be happy to patronize your project as long as they get to keep all the profits and all the control. Or maybe you'll come to your senses and realize that having your own business and selling closed source software really is the right way to go.
Naturally, all this only applies if you want to make money from your project, which was the beginning of this thread. The GPL is the license you choose if you don't want to make any money and don't want anybody else (except possibly large corporations like RedHat) to make any money from it either. On the other hand, if you just want to release code for whatever other reason, choose the MIT license.
Admittedly, I leapt from your declaring you'd never consider contributing code to you thinking it was wrong to contribute code, but that's pretty implicit, I think.
Admittedly, I leapt from your declaring you'd never consider contributing code to you thinking it was wrong to contribute code, but that's pretty implicit, I think.
That was not me though.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Oh. Sorry :)
Yeah, I know, thanks. But not an idiot nearly as dumb as you are. Of course. you probably know that by now.
Write boring code, not shiny code!