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Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

You can put effort into all that, observe all the best practices, follow all the rules, try your very best and still end up with literally nothing to show for it simply because the other guy doesn't want to.

Always fork the project and customize it for yourself. Don't argue with others, don't try to convince them, make your version work better for you. It doesn't matter if they want it or not. You don't even have to publish it.

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I wish more people attempted to actually grasp their dependencies by the scruff of their neck and got to know them deeply.

Eh, most of the time you do have to publish it. MIT/BSD/Apache allows you not to, but most big projects are using LGPL or another share-alike license. With those, if you're making a project that you do publish (e.g. a commercial product that uses that library/language/etc.) you do kinda legally have to share that modified source code. It's of course different if you're scripting for your own sake, but the moment you publish anything using them you also have to publish your modified versions of libraries and other stuff.

I do agree with the "fork and make it better for you", but I also think it's common courtesy to throw up issues for the bugs or missing features you encounter, as well as pull requests. If for no other reason then as "prototypes" or "quick fixes" that others can cherry-pick into their own forks. They may get rejected, they may get closed, but you still don't have to sit there arguing about it since you have your own version. From a slightly Kantian angle you have your working version and you've now fulfilled your social duty by offering solutions to problems. You've got no need to campaign for the solutions if they get rejected.

It's virtuous and you get to ignore the github flame wars. There's really no downside beyond taking 5 minutes to be nice and at least put your solution out there. Also fulfills your reciprocal legal duty under LGPL and such.

If you don't distribute to others you don't need to distribute your own changes even for copyleft licenses. That's why the AGPL license was written, because if you're doing something as a service you won't need to distribute any sources even with GPL license.

I think the best way to go (if you're the "Good Samaritan Who Wants to Do His Civic Duty but Also Doesn't Want to End Up Spending the Week in Nerd Court") is to fork it, fix it, and leave a brief comment in the issue thread that says "hey, I fixed this in my fork".

That way, people with the same issue who come in to the issue thread through a search aren't reduced to combing through all the forks to see if one happens to fix the issue. Then instead of spamming up the thread with "me too, this is soo frustrating, fix asap pls", they can spam it up with "merge this fork into the main project asap pls" :-)

> you do kinda legally have to share that modified source code

I'm using the license exactly as intended. Upstream developers literally don't matter. Free software is not about developers, it's about users.

Free software licenses say the user gets the source code. They're about empowering the user, in this case me, with the ability use and modify the software as I see fit. If I customize something for my personal use, then I'm the only user of the fork and license terms are fulfilled. People would only get to demand source code from me if I started distributing compiled executables to other users.

> You've got no need to campaign for the solutions if they get rejected.

I used to feel that need. Caused me significant anxiety. I thought upstreaming patches was the Right Thing to do. Mercifully I've been cured of this misconception.

> There's really no downside beyond taking 5 minutes to be nice and at least put your solution out there.

I have no problem with that. My point is getting involved with upstream is often more trouble than it's worth. Let them do their thing. Just pull from them and rebase your changes. Enjoy life.

People should think twice before trying to cram their unsolicited code down other people's throats. Even when they ask for the code, chances are deep down they don't actually want to deal with it.

Usually better start with small scale fixing typos and improving docs. That’s great canary for me. If it’s accepted within day or so, that’s project which I willing to learn. I would say you can select projects for your value and you would be fine contributing there. Eventually people will learn you and will trust you more

I understand your point and it's good advice. Typos and documentation though? That's boring... I want to do interesting things. Ever wondered why some program can't do something? Surely someone much smarter would have thought of it, right? And then you code it up and it actually works? That's the kind of thing I like to do.

I once tried to retrofit a library system into GNU bash of all things. Let's just say it didn't go well.

Your patch sounds horrible, no wonder people reject them.

Works for me. I can easily organize and reuse functions now. Made scripting much more pleasant. Even made a package out of it so I could install it alongside the upstream version.

That is exactly why I said that that only comes in once you publish something. The legal argument isn't as strong as the moral one is for me anyway, I never publish anything. I think making a PR isn't forcing code on someone, they're not obligated by anything to read and consider it, but if they do want to they can. I'll make one, and then I'll stop responding, because that's where my personal moral obligation ends. Whoever wants the code can now easily discover it, whoever doesn't can throw it away as they like. Including the upstream maintainer.

Those are great guidelines for never achieving anything relevant.

Also, the same ideas applied to dating rather than to code are what we call "incels/redpillers" and so on, so you might want to calm down a bit I think.

> Those are great guidelines for never achieving anything relevant.

Relevant to whom? Everything I've done is extremely relevant to me. I wouldn't have done those things if I didn't care about them.

> Also, the same ideas applied to dating rather than to code are what we call "incels/redpillers" and so on

I'd say it's more like MGTOW.

MGTOW are incels/redpillers though.

They're related but not the same. In this context, an "incel" would be someone who's incapable of contributing to projects despite wanting to. That's not my case.

If your contributions have all been rejected, it could be that they weren't as good as you think they were?

I've certainly made people angry when I rejected their buggy "improvements".

> If your contributions have all been rejected

They haven't.

I see your point though:

> it could be that they weren't as good as you think they were

Who knows. Maybe. Asked myself that question many times. Asked others.

It doesn't matter anymore. Now I only wonder if they are good enough for me.

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