Will's blog

Posted by Lee Joramo on Wed Aug 18 12:34:23 2004
This is an area that I still feel that open source falls short in, motivating developers to work on projects past the developers own initial needs. Society typically achieves this via the exchange of value between parties. Value is typically measured in terms of money.

I would love to contribute code to pybloxsom, but it is a matter of having the time and skills. (I use python all of the time, but consider myself a "scripter" more than a "programmer") However, if there was a workable way to contribute money to a OSS project, I would personally be willing to contribute to the continuing development of pybloxsom.

To date, I have only seen paying for OSS code to work for large organizations that can effectively sponsor a large part of a project, or for the largest OSS projects who can create a non-profit foundation.

In any case, if you and the other leaders of the pybloxsom effort ever put out a request for financial contributions I will write you a check for $100.

Posted by will on Wed Aug 18 12:54:52 2004
Hmmm....  I think Open Source is about community--people are encouraged to step up to the plate and solve their own needs and have those fixes merged into the codebase.  I don't see why all the responsibility should fall on a few developers to solve everyone's needs.  Wari, Blake, Ted and I didn't do any usability studies.  We didn't create any surveys.  We asked people about how they use pyblosxom, but certainly don't have enough informatino to go on to do any development beyond what our needs were.

I think the common misconception in regards to Open Source is that most people continue to think of it like they think of commercial products.  They assume the mission of the project is to fill their needs and that the core developers are working towards this mission.  In most small Open Source projects I've worked on, this is wholly not the case.

I don't think most people are equipped to do development, though.  So they're at the mercy of the core developers or other people floating around to do the work for them.  I'm not sure how that sort of transaction should work.  Now that I'm re-reading your comment, I think that's what you're getting at as well.

In regards to contributions...  I only sort of want to work on pyblosxom.  Ultimately, I don't want to work on at it at all, but I feel like no one else is working on it, so I should step up somewhat to keep it on "life support".

I'll think about this some.  Maybe there's a good way to do feature-based contributions or something.  But I feel like the quality of the code and work done needs to be a lot higher before I feel comfortable accepting payment.

Posted by Vito on Wed Aug 18 13:23:22 2004
What is wrong with PyBlosxom being declared "done"?  It's a featureful codebase, the plugin system is apparently robust, it does everything it needs to do (based on the original Blosxom), such that it's even a 1.0 release.

It's okay to finish a project; the code isn't going to rot, and if something in a future Python breaks it, it's likely someone will contribute a patch that keeps it working before the original authors realize something was wrong.

I'm currently using PyBlosxom as a base for a new back-end I'm toying with.  Writing plugins for an existing system has made my work faster and easier.  I chose PyBlosxom because it did what I needed it to do, and it appeared stable and robust and unlikely to change.  I didn't not pick it because development was no longer ongoing.  Just because it hasn't been touched in a few months, doesn't mean it's not any good.

I've seen posts about the internal issues with PyBlosxom, and once I'm done with my high-level features, I intend to go back and read through the PyBlosxom code and the mailing lists and see if there are any low-hanging fruit.  I have no desire to "take over" the project, however, and if I did, what would I accomplish?  Slowly rewriting it to be equally poor code, just in different places?  Turning it into what I need it to do, instead of releasing my work under a different name?

I think if PyBlosxom is "done," then it should be left that way.  There's no shame in finishing a project.  It's quite good enough.