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Comment by adlpz | Hacker News Reader

I just come from writing a comment on the other Datastar post on the home page, literally saying that I don't see the point of it and that I don't like it.

But I'm now here to defend Datastar.

It's their code, which, up to now, they built and literally given away totally for free, under a MIT license. Everything (even what "they moved to the Pro tier") should still be free and under the MIT license that it was published under originally.

You just decided to rely and freeload (as, as far as I can tell, you never contributed to the project).

You decided to rely on a random third party that owns the framework. And now you're outraged because they've decided that from now on, future work will be paid.

You know the three magic words:

Just. Fork. It.

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Calling the OP a freeloader is over the top.

The software was released as a free version, with NO expectation for it to go commercial.

The fact that they switch to a paid version, and stripping out features from the original free version, is called "bait and switch".

If OP knew in advanced, he will have been informed about this and the potential 299 price tag. And he will have been able to make a informed decision BEFORE integrating the code.

> You just decided to rely and freeload (as, as far as I can tell, you never contributed to the project).

But you complaint about him being a freeloader for not contributing to a project. What a ridiculous response.

I feel like you never even read the post and are making assumption that OP is a full time programmer.

Datastar can do whatever they want, its their code. But calling out a *bait and switch* does not make OP the bad guy.

Yeah, I agree, it's over the top. I'm just matching the over-the-top language of the original post, which pretty much calls the Datastar devs "disgraceful" and to "f them".

I did read the post. I know OP not a programmer. And that makes it even worse: OP has the audacity of saying they "make no money from the project" while it being a scheduling tool for their presumably plenty money-making clinic.

It would in fact be less shocking if they were a programmer doing a side project for fun.

This piece is not a rational, well tempered article. Is a rant by someone who just took something that was free and is now outraged and saying fuck you to those who made their project possible in the first place, not even understanding how licenses work or even being aware that the code they relied on is still there, on github, fully intact, and available for them.

This sort of people not only want to get it for free. They want their code to be maintained and improved for free in perpetuity.

They deserve to be called freeloaders.

The license makes it very clear that “no expectations” goes all round, including the right to other people doing free maintenance for you.

its not bait and switch, its main has features we are willing to continue to support given we did a whole rewrite and this is what we think you should use. Don't like it? Fork it, code is still there. I hope your version is better!

> its not bait and switch, its main has features we are willing to continue to support given we did a whole rewrite and this is what we think you should use. Don't like it? Fork it, code is still there. I hope your version is better!

It sounds like your are the dev of Datastar...

Let me give one piece of advice. Drop the attitude because this is not how you interact in public as the developers of a paid piece of software.

You can get away with a lot when its free/hobby project, but the moment you request payment, there is a requirement for more professionalism. These reactions that i am reading, will trigger responses that will hurt your future paycheck. Your already off on a bad start with this "bait and switch", do not make it worse.

I really question your future client interactions, if they criticize your product(s) or practices.

> I hope your version is better!

No need for Datastar, my HTMX "alternative" has been in production (with different rewrites) over 20 years. So thank you for offering, but no need.

>Drop the attitude

I have to be honest, I dont see what's wrong with it.

They were accused of bait and switch, which is not even half true. Old Pro code is still available under MIT. Newer version charges more. That is it.

I'll certainly defend d*'s right to do what they did, but the wisdom of doing so is going to come into question as soon as they reject a PR because it contains a feature that's in Pro. I don't think people who are concerned about that deserve to be called "freeloaders", but I guess a fork is a way out of such acidic rhetoric too.

D* has a core, which is open and will be set in stone soon when v1 is released, with the expectation that it'll barely, if ever, change again.

The rest is plugins, which anyone can write or modify. There's no need for the plugins to get merged upstream - just use them in your project, and share them publicly if you want. You could even do the same with the pre-pro versions of the pro plugins - just make the (likely minor) modifications to make them compatible with the current datastar core.

They're also going to be releasing a formal public plugin api in the next release. Presumably it'll be even easier to do all of this then.

Sounds like they put some real thought into it then, which is good news. I was picturing two different core distributions, which would create the sort of conflict I was imagining, but as long as core does stay maintained, it seems likely that fear will stay imaginary.

one might say they've put far too much thought into it all. Its very impressive

FUD is all hackernews runs on apparently

As I answered somewhere else, the over-the-top freeloader term I think is justified because OP clearly expects not only to benefit from the work already available, freely, but also to be entitled, for free, to any work and improvement that comes in the future.

This is nonsensical. Someone did something for free. Fantastic. They used it, successfully, for a production system that enables scheduling for their job.

Nobody took that away from them. They didn't force them to rebuild their tool.

The code is even there, in the git history, available for them.

If OP doesn't like what the devs decided to do with the project, just move on or fork and pay someone to help you fix any outstanding bugs or missing features.

There is a generation divide in open source ideology over the past 10 - 20 years.

The modern one is what op and lots of younger generation agree upon. It should always be open source and continue to be supported by the community.

The old folks are basically take it or leave it. Fork it into my own while taking the maintenance burden too.

Wait - what's wrong with that? It's their project, they can merge whatever PRs they want!

> Just. Fork. It.

The “outrage” is literally just people saying they’ll use a different project instead. Why would they ever fork it? They don’t like the devs of datastar they don’t want to use it going forwards. Yes the developers are allowed to do what they want with their code and time, but people are allowed to vote with their feet and go elsewhere and they are allowed to be vocal about it.

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