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by phoogathrw 3846 days ago
I really like this guy's approach to open source projects: http://runtimelegend.com/abitopen.txt

Assuming this approach would relieve a lot of the stress I've experienced on my more popular projects. I'm seriously considering it.

3 comments

What I appreciate most is that he is upfront and honest about it so nobody needs waste time making changes that won't be accepted. (Or if they do, they know that they're forking). As an approach it is understandable for something that solves your problem but which you have no intention of maintaining but it won't help a project be successful.
reads like a kind hearted psa, the last time he touched the code was in 2011

    (i just added the Win32 backend and the last time 
    i touched the code before that was at January 2011). 
seems like he just released the code for the benefit of others stead some goal to develop it

i wonder what sorts of projects he created it for

Not sure where you're quoting from, but January 2011 is the oldest entry in the fossil repository:

http://runtimelegend.com/rep/lforms/timeline

ha! my bad, i pulled the quote from the readme and posted before checking out the history

http://runtimelegend.com/rep/lforms/artifact/5c9b5b527c2b37e...

which was commited in july of 2011, so he was excusing a 6 month break from developing it

Most of the benefit of open source projects is that they are open to collaboration, I would avoid even using a project with policies like that if I knew about them.
That seems to be in line with what the author wants. Plenty of people prefer open source to mean "you can copy my code," and not "let's build something together". You using, or not using, the author's code will likely have no impact on him.

I have a variety of open source projects, and some fall towards each end of the spectrum.

Thats what you get from it, it doesn't mean that how other people feel.

I think one of the major advantages of open source is that you can fix a bug or add a feature that you want.

understandable, athough I can also understand his position.

Actually I think he himself just wants to not collaborate, but I don't see anything saying that you can't copy his code and then collaborate with others.

There are also other benefits of open source other than collaboration, such as security from being able to review the code, and being able to run in a totally free system.