Does mholt consider it a mistake? I'm aware that it was reverted (https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/pull/1866) and that mholt found the whole thing difficult (which is my attempt to neutrally summarize https://caddy.community/t/the-realities-of-being-a-foss-main... accurately), but that is a somewhat different statement. If so, then yes, it's unkind and unhelpful to keep bringing it up, but if no then it's useful to keep previous behavior in mind when evaluating the product.
Yes, it was a mistake. (Source: I'm a Caddy maintainer, and it comes up in our discussions from time to time.) The reason it was done was because Caddy needed some source of revenue since Matt made it his full time job, and he assumed the sponsors thought they would appreciate the extra promotion (and as you can see at the bottom of that github link, he tried to alert them but received no feedback). Of course, thinking that no feedback was an implicit "sure" was a lapse in judgment, but we're all human.
Remember, this was six years ago. That's an eternity in this industry. Caddy is a very different project than it was then, and Matt has a different and more stable revenue stream than he did then. We can promise we'll never attempt the same thing again.
But seriously, this comes up in like one in ten HN threads where Matt comments, it's exhausting to keep telling people "okay can you please forget what you remember from 6 years ago and look at the project for what it is now?"
Yes, I understand the reasons why caddy did all the things I objected to; money is actually important, telemetry can be useful to devs, and the early (non) packaging decisions were clearly meant to optimize the on-ramp. But just because I understand a decision doesn't mean I agree, and doesn't mean I'm not going to include that information in my own decision to avoid a program.
> Remember, this was six years ago. That's an eternity in this industry. Caddy is a very different project than it was then, and Matt has a different and more stable revenue stream than he did then. We can promise we'll never attempt the same thing again.
I think this was meant to be reassuring, but it really makes it sounds more like it was purely a pragmatic thing. Okay, so now Caddy has stable cash flow, so no adware. Next year the economy lurches and the money goes away; is caddy going to start making awkward decisions again?
> But seriously, this comes up in like one in ten HN threads where Matt comments, it's exhausting to keep telling people "okay can you please forget what you remember from 6 years ago and look at the project for what it is now?"
You know that line about how people will forget what you do, but not how you made them feel? I remember exactly how I felt when the wonderful server software I was using decided to start shipping adware. And now, having backed off but never actually apologized, you want people to just forget about the whole thing? That's not how it works. Edit: Now that we've had this exchange, and at least you have called it a mistake and said it won't happen again, I can update my evaluation based on that. I would suggest that saying that six years ago in the announcements channel would have reduced the number of times you needed to have this conversation.
Edit2: Realized there was a much more succinct way of answering: If someone feels that you wronged them, you don't get to choose when they get over it. A lot of users felt that caddy treated them poorly. And honestly, even if the project had said then what you're saying now, some of them would still remember that.
Remember, this was six years ago. That's an eternity in this industry. Caddy is a very different project than it was then, and Matt has a different and more stable revenue stream than he did then. We can promise we'll never attempt the same thing again.
But seriously, this comes up in like one in ten HN threads where Matt comments, it's exhausting to keep telling people "okay can you please forget what you remember from 6 years ago and look at the project for what it is now?"