Beware of Open Source Software Zombies
medium.com
medium.com
If that's the barrier to entry, I suspect you'll see a lot less open source software going forward into the future. ;)
There are also people like me, the owner and sole employee of a commercial organization, and employees of a company which allows 10% time to, among other thing, work on free software or whatever else interests them.
It says "next time you embark on creating an OSS project, consider the following steps to avoid a zombie".
Let me tell you my story. In 2003 I wrote PyRSS2Gen, a Python-based RSS2 generator. It took 2-3 days. I wrote documentation and put it on my web site. It's now used in a lot of packages.
I get a support question about once or twice a year. At this point the code might as well have been written by a stranger as I don't recall the details of how it works. I don't want to put more work into it. Which means it's a "zombie" according to this essay.
Or it's a dead weight keeping me from doing other things.
The essay implies that there's an obligation that I and any other distributor of free code must maintain things in perpetuity. Like unimpressive, I do not like the implicit sense of entitlement.
I have also written plenty of other software which are dead ends, but it took experience under deployment to figure out why it was dead end. Am I supposed to somehow withdraw the software from the public eye once I no longer think it's useful?
There's still other software which I developed for a client as free software, which I made available, but which I won't develop further unless I get funded for it. I haven't touched some of those packages for 5+ years. Do I work on it for free, and not do the the consulting work that pays my bills?
A lot of times it's hard to tell if, say, there's been no dev activity for six months, whether the project is just temporarily quiescent or whether the owner has decided to move on to other things.
If there has been no development for 6 months, have you tried emailing them with a consulting or support offer? Because I've put things off for years sometimes due to lack of funding.
No, the question we should ask first is why being a zombie is bad (especially compared to not existing at all, ie. not being open sourced). I don't see it answered in the article. I don't see it asked in the article. It's simply assumed.
There are many different kinds of zombies. Most of them are essentially immortal unless shot in the head. They may move rather slowly, but they have great strength. They may become blind, but they often get a great sense of hearing. They tend to rot if left alone but can last very, very long if preserved properly. There are instances of zombies who continue to be conscious after zombification and who continue to do what they did before (think Mr. Slant from T. Pratchett books). They are unlikely to change their ways, but sometimes it's a good thing. There are zombies who retain their emotions (see Sankarea manga). And so on.
It's equally true for open source projects. Even if abandoned (for some definition of abandonment) for the same amount of time, two different projects may become two very different kinds of zombies. LiveScript, for example, is a zombie if you look at its mailing list, but is one of the most productive (for me, of course) compile-to-JS languages out there. StumpWM (a Common Lisp WM) is also nearly dead, yet it's still the best WM if you want a WM that's hackable.
On the other hand, there are projects which we'd really like to see dead, yet they refuse to die or even zombify. Projects which suck a massive amount of resources into their life support systems without any visible improvements.
> and if you find one in the wild: run!
Or you could just take a nice pump-action shotgun (ie. ability to read and write the code) with you and have a good time.
In short: this article is shallow. It reads like a generic advice written only to write something, without any deeper insight. And the author seems to know very little about zombies...
Honestly, is this guy really suggesting that when you open-source some software, you should also create "an exciting video walkthrough" and a Slack channel? Seriously?
No ad hominem here, it's entitlement. And even if you personally have a more nuanced understanding, what you've written will encourage people who do not.
http://byfat.xxx/what-is-opensource-and-why-do-i-feel-so-gui... (Skip to nineteen minutes in.)
https://github.com/wpeterson/emoji/issues/23
For larger context of these, their relevant HN threads: