I don't think censorship is the answer :) Look, anyone can join the mailing list and can suggest whatever they want. You can ignore them (probably the best option). If someone feels like responding they can, but just because something is generating a discussion thread does *not* mean that it's going to result in some dramatic change in direction.
Freenet has been around a *long* time, and we have a 16-year track record of *not* making hasty and dramatic changes to project direction. That's not going to change any time soon. That's not to say that we shouldn't be willing to consider out-of-the-box ideas, but there is a big difference between considering something and actually doing it. Ian. On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 7:14 PM, xor <[email protected]> wrote: > Imagine the following situation: > You're a volunteer who donated months of his spare time, and thus months of > his life, to write a plugin for a piece of software. > > Then someone comes along, and demands the parent piece of software to be > rewritten from scratch. Maybe because he doesn't like it, maybe because > $programming_language != $cool_language_of_the_year. > This would render your plugin useless, as your Java module can't be fixed > to > load into the C rewrite. > > We can assume that any human will be interested in his work of months or > even > years not being thrown away. So as a volunteer, you will be interested in > finding a way to keep your module loading. > The rewrite could go down one of the following paths, with different things > you'll have to do to keep your module usable: > > A) The fork replaces the original software. It takes over its name, its > website, its mailing lists, its IRC channel, etc. You, as someone > interested > in the original software, have to fork the original pre-write software so > you > can continue to provide your module loadable into it. You have to set up a > new website, new mailing lists, IRC channels, etc., just to keep the > original > software alive. > > B) The one who wants to do a rewrite "forks" the project, i.e. develops the > rewrite on his own. New name, new software. The original project continues > its > development as is. The rewrite happens elsewhere. You don't need to do > *anything* to keep your plugin working, as the original project still > exists. > The rewriter has the burden of setting up infrastructure for his fork. He > sets > up a website, mailing lists, etc. You're not concerned. > > Which approach is more polite towards our example volunteer who spend > months > writing code for the original software? > B obviously, as it doesn't cause any work for him. > > I would go as far as saying that "fork does not replace original project" > is > actually always the real situation anyway: You cannot force people to stop > working on a GPL software. Any full rewrite is de-facto a different > software. > > Thus, how about this new etiquette rule for the mailing lists, IRC, etc.: > If discussions about rewriting Freenet happen again, we ask people > politely to > conduct them on the communication channels of their fork; not on ours. > We're not responsible for providing infrastructure for their projects, and > this includes discussion space. > > I know this is sort of passive aggressive, but I don't think we're doing > ourselves a favor with letting the rewrite discussions happen: > They might be an intentional attack by the NSA [1]: > Disturb developers so much with outrageous demands that they spent 100% of > their time in discussing with the attacker; and 0% on writing code. > All it takes to conduct this attack is an email address (= $ 0) and a few > hours of a bored student (= $a_few_beers). > In fact the discussions are already growing so large that they could > consume > 100% of my worktime if I tried to reply to all mails. > > To avoid another huge discussion, I would recommend you reply with a simple > vote: "Yes, let's change the rules to disallow rewrite discussions." or "No > please don't." > > Greetings & thanks for reading > > [1] http://draketo.de/english/freenet/de-orchestrating-phk > _______________________________________________ > Devl mailing list > [email protected] > https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl > -- Ian Clarke Blog: http://blog.locut.us/ _______________________________________________ Devl mailing list [email protected] https://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
