this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Technology
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Cautionary tale about why FOSS is important. Also about why Kbin lacking an official API is a problem.
I would say it’s more a cautionary tale about how people’s health is often far more important than anything we do in daily life. This focus on deliveries over life is quite worrying
True... It amazes me when people become so entitled online, especially in the FOSS community. It looks like they think devs owe them something.
They got free testing for the promise of releasing the source, then failed to fulfill that promise, so... yeah, they do owe those people something.
Case and point? If they're not being compensated, they have no obligations to anyone. "Free testing" isn't compensation unless they plan to monetize it later using improvements from that testing.
Oh, legally they have no obligations unless written so in a binding contract. Ever seen a failed Kickstarter or a cancelled Patreon? No obligations, even if they get compensated in USD. Plenty of those out there.
Morally, the people giving that free testing and community building are still owed what they were promised, no less no more.
Entitlement to not being lied to or scammed? Ok.
Okay, but there’s a line here somewhere. Pushing for new features and complaining in the issue tracker that a bug hasn’t been fixed soon enough is absolutely entitlement. Expecting someone to follow through on their word and release the source code is another thing entirely. Especially if they make the decision to stop working on it.
Go check out this EoL statement from the developer of Nomie. He open-sourced the code without even being asked too.
Why was there even pressure to deliver if the official API wasn't even out yet? I thought they were just working on UI and basic functionality until they can plug in the API, so if anything they had more time and leisure than if everyone were screaming "i need it now". It seems more likely they just bit more than they could chew and decided to give up the app development since it ended up being harder than they thought (and that's completely fine to do). You don't really make an app like this overnight, especially if you have no prior experience doing it.
Case in point, Ernest had to take a month off kbin development to handle things in his personal life. I, too, have abandoned open source projects due to lack of interest. I think people incorrectly assume that the internet offers a level of permanence unmatched by real life, when in fact it only highlights the ethereal nature of anything people build.
From a business perspective, that would be the case, also a cautionary tale about running a solo business.
However, the article says they planned to release the source, and had already managed to get a community of over 1000 people interested in the project, so I think the community perspective is more applicable.