Hackpad released as opensource, then nothing | Hacker News Reader

Hackpad released as opensource, then nothing

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117 pointsskimmas27 comments

What warrants the outrage here? An announcement doesn't create a binding obligation with a rigid timetable. The sense of entitlement is unreal.

Well, the announcement dated >2 months ago[0] does say "few weeks". It's past most definitions of "few weeks"... I think "entitlement" is too strong, but maybe it's impatience verging on concern that it will never be released.

Is it really entitled to hold someone (even a company) to their plain word, even if not legally binding? At least, in the absence of further communication I think it's reasonable to start making some noise at this point. If Hackpad were to say they need more time, that would be another issue. (I have no stake or familiarity with this project.)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9352249

> What warrants the outrage here?

Um, because marketing announcements that turn out to be lies warrant a reputational penalty?

I think Dropbox is the entity we should be disappointed in here. They clearly want to be good citizens of the community, but this is a sign of "evil megacorpdom" that rather contrasts with "employs Guido Van Rossum to work on Python and sponsors Pyston".

I hope we're able to demonstrate to their M&A team that moves like this hurt their reputation and make it harder for them to hire & acquire.

> I think Dropbox is the entity we should be disappointed in here. They clearly want to be good citizens of the community

Maybe or maybe not. I don't see any evidence (yet at least) that shows this is either Dropbox's or the original team's doing. I'm curious as to why they'd announce it then not go through with it without saying something to the community.

I'd be really careful in assuming malice.

Thanks for clarifying - this is much more likely a sign that "dropbox doesn't have their shit together, and acquiring things is hard" than "dropbox is trying to be evil".

But I would expect a company at their stage to communicate clearly and consistently about promises they make to the community, execute against them, and then issue prompt apologies with explanations and timelines when they don't follow through.

Moral of the story? Use GPL.

If only Etherpad had done so in the first place.

If EtherPad had been GPL I have my doubts Hackpad would have ever been forked from it or if Hackpad would have even been a thing.

So, maybe more people would have used and even contributed to Etherpad then… who knows

Etherpad was completely unmaintainable when it was shut down as a service and open-sourced. Its first, open-source major rewrite (etherpad-lite) didn't work. It took a second major rewrite by a profit-motivated startup (Hackpad) to become useful again.

I think that if Etherpad had been GPLed, we would still have nothing but etherpad-lite, and we would lament Etherpad as a lost technology.

I'm curious what you mean when you say etherpad-lite "didn't work". I use it fairly regularly and while I'll agree it's not nearly as refined as Hackpad, it seems to basically function.

(Note that I'm not debating the GPL point. I don't personally think Hackpad's forking the code has had any meaningful effect on etherpad-lite's popularity; there are plenty of collaborative document editors out there.)

It would corrupt its data when too many people were using it at the same time.

Wrong. The current Etherpad open source project and what you mean are not the same. The first one is the predecessor of Google Wave Java based product, and the current one "Etherpad Lite" is a JavaScript & Node.js based open source project - a reimplementation, possible as Google open sourced the original Java code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherpad

Etherpad was not a predecessor to Wave -- Wave was already released when Etherpad was acquired. They did use similar ideas, though.

You probably mean AGPL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License)? The GPL wouldn't have made a difference, as it doesn't require you to release the source of something that you run as a web service.

The Web is the Ultimate Copy Protection

http://advogato.org/article/216.html

Fascinating article, and with original comments from 2000, neat! It's interesting to see the arguments for and against protections of these sorts haven't changed in a long time.

I emailed the link to RMS. (He's very good about replying to mail.) He responded by saying that he was aware of the problem, and wanted to solve it but could not do so anytime soon.

To be clear, I mailed him the link in 2000.

I don't think that's a good reason to use GPL.

I think it's better for something to be open source when its creator wants it to be open, not because they're forced to.

GPL wouldn't made a difference here, since it's a web service. The AGPL story is different. I think you are too trusting when you say that the creator goodwill will prevail - as an author, you are better off making this enforceable, even if you don't plan to sue anyone. Also, one can go the MySQL way - dual licensing. You end up with more options in hands by using AGPL, and that's a good thing.

This is the kind of stuff that you just can't let happen if you're Dropbox. There have to be people in the company that read tech news regularly. Worst case you issue a statement that the release will be delayed indefinitely (or won't happen) due to the integration of Hackpad after the acquisition etc.

Just not answering, not answering mail etc. is the worst thing you can do.

Maybe Hackpad is a very unimportant and low-priority part of Dropbox, and marketing/PR efforts and expenses over it are so out of the question that they don't care about their open source promise. Not even replying here is a sign of total neglect; I'd attribute this neglect to persistent emergencies diverting resources and management attention, or to incompetence, but not to a deliberate "evil" intent because the only thing to "steal" is a little amount of vague goodwill.

They're probably just waiting until Dropbox Notes (which looks like a clone of HackHands now) is live.

notes.dropbox.com

Not as bad as Lightworks which has been on its way to being open source for years.

It is called "Hackpad". You might need to hack it to see it.

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