Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org

Arantor

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Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« on November 3rd, 2012, 12:00 AM »
Please can I ask everyone to refrain from doing this.

I was informed today that a thread had been started over there, and subsequently moved by the moderators, because they're afraid of proper competition - never mind the 'rules'. (You all know as well as I do that if we moved tomorrow to an open licence, nothing would change)

So, please, before the pissing contest gets any further out of hand, drop the subject. Don't get them any more ammunition to piss with. We have more important things to do than worry about them and their little sandbox.

Pragmatically, their pissing match has probably already backfired, since more people read Chit Chat than they do the Forks board, but I don't want to give them any ability to cause any more trouble than they can safely get themselves into.
Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #1, on November 28th, 2012, 06:05 AM »
So this is kicking off again and the licence is being examined. Yay.

Just for the record, the exclusion against vbgamer was put in place after he excluded me from using goods for which I had paid for and revoked my licence; he was apparently willing to give me a partial refund if I apologised to him for the things I'd said (though he wasn't being asked to apologise for the comments he made about me, calling me - and I quote - 'a fucking liar' except would never state what it was I'd lied about when pushed) - but since that would be yet another compromise, I wouldn't back down. I bet he didn't mention the fact that he told me I couldn't build anything based on his work - not even converters to other systems of any kind.

As for the exclusion against Akyhne, that was after a mammoth argument where he violated Aeva's licence. You can - if you wish - go through the latter half of the crap at http://arantor.org/index.php?topic=168.0

(Also, what Motoko fails to realise, yet again, that by pushing things into Chit Chat, more people see Wedge than would have otherwise. Talk about backfiring.)

Why is it every time I find the time and motivation to contribute to Wedge, something comes along and leaves a nasty sour taste in my mouth? It's been hard enough finding the time and motivation to work on it without having to deal with crap like this. As some people would remember, I'm not particularly happy writing this stuff any more, and I haven't been for months because all it's doing is making me greyer than before and leaving me feeling like I owe people. People deserve to have their faith rewarded and a lot of faith has been put in this project - and I don't want to let that down. But once I've fulfilled what I see as my obligations to this project, I'll disappear into the sunset and enjoy a less unpleasant, if quieter, life with it. I don't need this crap, but I also don't want to let people down like the way XenForo is going at the moment.
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Nao

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #2, on November 28th, 2012, 10:34 AM »
Quote from Arantor on November 28th, 2012, 06:05 AM
So this is kicking off again and the licence is being examined. Yay.
I'm not sure there was any recent discussion on Wedge in the Chit Chat board, but I did a search and found a couple of the forks board. To which I replied.
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Just for the record, the exclusion against vbgamer was put in place after he excluded me from using goods for which I had paid for and revoked my licence; he was apparently willing to give me a partial refund if I apologised to him for the things I'd said (though he wasn't being asked to apologise for the comments he made about me, calling me - and I quote - 'a fucking liar' except would never state what it was I'd lied about when pushed) - but since that would be yet another compromise, I wouldn't back down. I bet he didn't mention the fact that he told me I couldn't build anything based on his work - not even converters to other systems of any kind.
That's why I mentioned that he's the one who's been discriminating us in the first place.
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=446866.msg3444825#msg3444825
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As for the exclusion against Akyhne, that was after a mammoth argument where he violated Aeva's licence. You can - if you wish - go through the latter half of the crap at http://arantor.org/index.php?topic=168.0
It's a private topic though. I remember the gist of it though, so I'm not going to search for my password just for that. ;)
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(Also, what Motoko fails to realise, yet again, that by pushing things into Chit Chat, more people see Wedge than would have otherwise. Talk about backfiring.)
I'm not sure that's much of an issue...
SMF has lost a lot of its momentum, which has shifted to other non-SMF-based solutions.
At this point, it would probably even make more sense for SM to push smCore aside (because I don't think it's ever going to be able to replace SMF in any capacity), and ask us to rename Wedge to 'SMF 3.0' and be done with it.
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Why is it every time I find the time and motivation to contribute to Wedge, something comes along and leaves a nasty sour taste in my mouth?
Really? I didn't see anything new in Motoko's comments... He's always been a bit of a Wedge basher, or more precisely, a Nao basher. Which I'm fine with, because I don't like me that much anyway. :ph34r:
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It's been hard enough finding the time and motivation to work on it without having to deal with crap like this. As some people would remember, I'm not particularly happy writing this stuff any more, and I haven't been for months because all it's doing is making me greyer than before and leaving me feeling like I owe people.
Same here. Although I keep telling myself, two years of work shouldn't go to the bin, so let's release it... And see if we can find some renewed motivation after that.
A good decision we made was to feature-freeze it a few months ago, but it also makes it hard for us to find joy in developing when all we're doing is fixing bugs and trying to stop ourselves from implementing new features.

Actually, this is a common issue with developers: the best time is when you add a new feature. Having to actually FINISH said feature is often a PITA. Either because of language translations (for me), or documenting it, or simply leaving it be for a while and coming back and realizing you're not sure why you wrote this or that anymore... And then you rewrite it, and realize what it was for, and you have to go back, etc...
Really, it's not fun.
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But once I've fulfilled what I see as my obligations to this project, I'll disappear into the sunset and enjoy a less unpleasant, if quieter, life with it. I don't need this crap, but I also don't want to let people down like the way XenForo is going at the moment.
What do you see yourself doing in the future..?

I myself don't really see going into a different direction. I'm currently a bit unhappy with my work on Wedge (both current and future), but overall it's still a piece of software I'm proud of. I think that at the worst, I'll be creating custom websites based on the Wedge backbone, and have them go into different directions.
Somehow, I simply miss maintaining Noisen.com -- it was a simpler task, because I only had to account for French, and for MY tastes, and MY needs. I could easily write a feature with dirty code, when in Wedge I'm always rewriting stuff because it looks bad compared to some carefully written code like you, Shitiz, John etc. would usually write. I always push myself to doing things the 'right' way, and it leads me to considerably larger development times.
I'm proud of what we've done so far. I just miss being able to write shit for myself. ;)

My next project is probably going to be Deideo, my website about music thieves and homages turned wrong. But don't tell my girlfriend, she would kill me for even considering to build such a potentially lawsuit-inducing site. ;)

Arantor

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #3, on November 28th, 2012, 05:01 PM »
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I'm not sure there was any recent discussion on Wedge in the Chit Chat board, but I did a search and found a couple of the forks board. To which I replied.
Inevitably the discussions will be moved to Chit Chat rather than being in the Forks board because Wedge doesn't meet their silly little rules. I'm sure the phase tin-pot dictator is relevant here somehow.
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It's a private topic though. I remember the gist of it though, so I'm not going to search for my password just for that. ;)
It's only private because arantor.org died months ago, but was still being hit by search engines and the like and it's simply easier to just cut access than having to worry about traffic. To be honest I'd forgotten about it until you mentioned it was private... but 16 pages of arguments, yay.
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I'm not sure that's much of an issue...
SMF has lost a lot of its momentum, which has shifted to other non-SMF-based solutions.
At this point, it would probably even make more sense for SM to push smCore aside (because I don't think it's ever going to be able to replace SMF in any capacity), and ask us to rename Wedge to 'SMF 3.0' and be done with it.
Well, smCore is all but dead anyway seeing how there's almost no life in it at all (the last public post on smcore.org was a month ago, the last commit was 2 months ago according to Github) and I'm not even sure who's developing for it any more.

But there is no chance they will adopt anything from Wedge, even if we were to change the licence because it doesn't fit in with how the team do things. Seriously... we've dropped cross-DB support, the calendar as a core item, birthdays as a core item, the ability to have theme-specific preferences for users and stuff like that, and added a bunch of things that they wouldn't be interested in (they don't want a gallery in the core because that would mean it's not just a forum!)

Not to mention all the bad blood that's arisen over the years.
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Really? I didn't see anything new in Motoko's comments... He's always been a bit of a Wedge basher, or more precisely, a Nao basher. Which I'm fine with, because I don't like me that much anyway.
He's always been a Nao and an Arantor basher, often hypocritical anyway. You might have missed the previous time that this topic came up, which prompted this topic the first time around - where much the same thing happened - "Why isn't Wedge listed here?" then Motoko complains, then it gets moved to the Chit Chat board where more people saw it than would have done in the forks board.

The thing is, there's more to this story, that's happened inside PMs across multiple forums.
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Same here. Although I keep telling myself, two years of work shouldn't go to the bin, so let's release it... And see if we can find some renewed motivation after that.
A good decision we made was to feature-freeze it a few months ago, but it also makes it hard for us to find joy in developing when all we're doing is fixing bugs and trying to stop ourselves from implementing new features.
Oh, I've never harboured any 'dumping' attitude, like the work was a waste - because it's never been a waste. I just find it so tiring to have to deal with all the stuff that goes with it.
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What do you see yourself doing in the future..?
Oh, I have a bunch of stuff bubbling away in the background, though this last week without my laptop has really dampened everything down :/ Let's just say that I have another SMF-based site in development (because of the scale of changes that have been, and yet to be, made, using Wedge was something of a non-starter - I wanted primarily to build it and deploy it and not have to worry too much about maintaining the code on it)

That and writing games.
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I'm proud of what we've done so far. I just miss being able to write shit for myself.
That's a lot of it for me too. I miss being able to do something without having to consider all the possible angles.
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My next project is probably going to be Deideo, my website about music thieves and homages turned wrong. But don't tell my girlfriend, she would kill me for even considering to build such a potentially lawsuit-inducing site.
If it's true, it won't generate lawsuits.
Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #4, on November 28th, 2012, 05:48 PM »
Just a casual thought: Motoko loves pointing out the rules in the forks board. No-one else seems to care or mind. Why do we think that is?

Antes

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #5, on November 28th, 2012, 06:50 PM »
I think all those are unnecessary distraction for both sides, SMF is free so do Wedge then what? Everything is fine for me. I'm proud with all developers who tries to make quality works and give them free and its always pleasure to work for those projects as much as my time allows me.

AngelinaBelle

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #6, on November 28th, 2012, 08:12 PM »
Well, you know how it is. It can be difficult to get an entire organization to agree on everything.
On the one hand, people want to discuss all forks, and what the entire SMF-and-its-forks community can learn from them.
On the other hand, since SMF went open-source, the organization wants to promote and encourage open source projects.

The rules on the forks board were a compromise. Certainly influenced by how the members of Simple Machines was feeling at the time.

It seems to me that Motoko was simply trying to spell things out, and make clear that nobody would be penalized for talking about talking about wedge.

The rules might seem silly, viewed from here, but the rules are the rules.  Organizations make them, and then follow them in order to get on with the business of the day.

As you can see in some of the earlier topics I started myself on that board, it is not completely prohibited to mention wedge, in the context of what the SMF community can learn from wedge.  It is a fine line, though, and the SMF team decided it did not want to allow a non-open-source fork to promote itself on that board.  I hope you can understand.
I'm an SMF doc writer.

Arantor

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #7, on November 28th, 2012, 08:31 PM »
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It seems to me that Motoko was simply trying to spell things out, and make clear that nobody would be penalized for talking about talking about wedge.
Except that he's always the one who does it. No-one else really minded or cared, because our existence is a fact now, it's not like how it was a couple of years ago when the censure was near total.
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The rules might seem silly, viewed from here, but the rules are the rules.  Organizations make them, and then follow them in order to get on with the business of the day.
The rules are the rules is one of the greatest cop out arguments going. Every time the rule is accidentally violated, people question why this is the case - and every time it looks like SMF isn't trying to promote open source but that it's doing the opposite - trying to stifle anything that isn't. It's the same attitude Joomla et al has about the GPL, anything that isn't can go fly a kite.
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it is not completely prohibited to mention wedge, in the context of what the SMF community can learn from wedge.
Apparently it is, since even discussion of it is against the rules as stated. That point has been discussed before and even SMF team members have said to the effect that they can see the dichotomy; the rules state that the board is for discussion of open source forks. Wedge is not open source, therefore it cannot be discussed, though there is the apparent loophole of discussion for comparison - but the rules are sufficiently badly worded that you can easily argue either way.

I can understand why you (=team) block non open source discussion, but your users don't. And every time there's the complaint about how it doesn't fit the rules, it gets pushed to Chit Chat, which actually promotes Wedge better - so it's backfiring every single time.

The more you try to suppress such entities (given that we're the only fork that doesn't fit these rules, note) the more you actually promote us. Mind you, I'd note that after I was accused of libel, I decided that I didn't want anything to do with sm.org - and the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because it was brought to my attention elsewhere.

I should note that there have been some other interesting thoughts on the whole SMF/Wedge situation of recent times and this attitude - mostly like politicians, all talk and no do - is why that will never come to pass.

Consider: in the last two years, who has made more progress, SMF or Wedge? Isn't having an open licence supposed to nurture further growth? Because I'm not sure it is.

But again, the point is being missed. I'm spending more time dealing with this crap that was supposed to be over from 2 years ago when we branched off. As far as I'm concerned, I'd absolutely love there to be a fucking great brick wall between Wedge and SMF, so that all the BS and drama like this can't happen. And people wonder why I hate developing software like this, and why I've been trying to leave it all behind now for almost 3 years but I can't seem to manage it because of the fact that right now I feel too guilty to just throw my hands up in the air and walk away. I'd love to do that, because then SMF will do what it's been trying to do for the last 5 years and just quietly kill itself. Because that's where it's going.

smCore is all but dead (no public posts on the forum in over a month, no commits for two), 2.1's progress is modest but no doubt hampered by the same things that have crippled SMF and caused 2.0 to take 5 years to occur... all from all the same problems that lead to crazy situations like this.

I should also add, I never wanted to fork SMF in the first place. Back in July 2010, I NEVER WANTED TO FORK SMF because I knew this was the sort of BS that would come out of it. I knew back then how it would turn out, a fucking great mess. Everything SM's organisation touches ultimately becomes a mess.

On that note, I have things to do, catch you all later.

nend

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #8, on November 29th, 2012, 07:52 AM »
You mean there is a situation, I tend to ignore these type of post because I know where it is going.

Wedge isn't open source so it can't be displayed in the Forks board, however allot of the other forks are still not open source as far as I know and only claim open source. In order to be consider open source the source has to be open and the other forks don't show any source material as far as I know and should be considered closed source until they reveal their sources.

As far as progress between SMF and Wedge goes, I don't see the point of the arguments. Wedge is currently one developer as far as I know and SMF is currently a open project which in turn can mean many developers. Doesn't mean that it means many developers, but you never know, one day that special commit may come through and change everything. I have been doing allot of Android OS work lately and collaboration makes a big difference.

IMHO both projects are in fair standing and SMF is better than what it was before and in time we will see how the open source license will either work in favor or against it. If it fails then it has sacrificed its source, its seed and we will eventually see its offspring flourish or die.

AngelinaBelle

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #9, on December 5th, 2012, 04:44 PM »
"rules are rules" is hardly a cop-out.  If we stick to the rules, we don't have to discuss them endlessly, and can (hopefully) move on to other things. It does seem to be in Motoku's nature to point out and explain rules. Holding major Wedge discussions in chit-chat rather than in the Forks board seems like a compromise that is more-or-less satisfactory to everyone with a say in the rules on simplemachines.org.

The eventual success of the SMF software, community, or project is not on your shoulders.  If you quietly retired from the SMF community, it would not kill the SMF project. If you made a controversial public statement, and then retired, you could incite arguments and temporary disruption, but your actions would not kill the SMF project. 

Arantor and Nao, you started the Wedge project for several different reasons.  What were your goals then? What are they now? Which of these goals are worth pursuing in the future? Does the Wedge project bring progress towards these goals? Does it do it at an acceptable cost?   People enter and leave FLOSS projects and communities all the time for various reasons. If the product is compelling enough, there is always someone arriving interested in picking up where someone else has left off. An enduring project will have to accomodate and encourage this succession.

You may feel that the SMF project would sometimes serve itself better by making different choices than it has made.
I sometimes agree with you, and sometimes disagree with you.  I appreciate it when you test and show the results of your testing. I generally have no argument with either one of you.  I believe this to be true of many other members of the SMF project, even some members who have argued with one or the other of you in the past.

Don't stay in it out of vague "quitter's guilt" alone. Stay in it because you are working toward noble goals.  And plan to replace yourself. You are unlikely to stay in it forever, no matter how noble the goals.

Arantor

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #10, on December 5th, 2012, 08:56 PM »
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"rules are rules" is hardly a cop-out. If we stick to the rules, we don't have to discuss them endlessly, and can (hopefully) move on to other things.
It is a cop-out, because it means that they get pointed to, without thinking. It becomes a trite answer and nothing changes. The real question is why you actually need rules. Good men don't need rules. Today's not the day to find out why I have so many.

I acknowledge that the rules do not permit discussion of Wedge. But that doesn't mean that I like the rules, nor that I agree with them. The problem with having the rules as you defend them is that they don't permit negotiation or leeway, and allows people to hide behind them without saying what they really feel. Motoko doesn't have to, for example, actually find any real arguments to denigrate Wedge, he just has to point out the non-compliance with the rules. It's a form of passive aggression, when you get down to it. It allows SMF to pass judgement - both in itself and on behalf of its users - without having to actually admit to it.

The real question, though, is not whether the rules are wrong and/or need amendment, but do you need rules? I would direct you to your project's core values on the subject.

"We will treat others with consideration, high regard, courtesy and dignity; in a just, equitable and unbiased manner. We will demonstrate good manners, pay attention and treat others as we would like to be treated. We will be consistent, listen and be open to feedback, be careful making judgments about others, and treat people equally and equitably."

I'll admit to the good manners, for the most part. But I won't stand up and defend the project about the others.

Did you know that, for example, only a month or so ago I put Wedge in my signature - and it was removed a few days later? I'm not sure who removed it, but it was removed. That doesn't sound very courteous or unbiased to me.

In fact, over the last 3 years I've been dealing with SMF's community and ecosystem, I'd say there's a distinct lack of fairness across the board. I might even go as far as to suggest that nothing materially has changed in that time; there's a lot of changes of names, but nothing else.
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Holding major Wedge discussions in chit-chat rather than in the Forks board seems like a compromise that is more-or-less satisfactory to everyone with a say in the rules on simplemachines.org.
Depends on your definition of compromise. It is symbolic of everything that's happened since Wedge was formed, not to mention all the stuff that happened with me and vbgamer before Wedge happened - that every single time, the definition of compromise is woefully and inappropriately wielded. Compromise means reaching a mutual agreement on both sides - but we were never asked what we thought. In other words, it's what the team thought was satisfactory and we were expected to toe the line. There is no way this can be called a compromise, unless you're seeing it with the same rose tinted lenses that the team generally use for any matter that requires them to give up anything.
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The eventual success of the SMF software, community, or project is not on your shoulders.
I have never said it was. It's perfectly capable of shooting itself in the foot with anything from a shotgun to a tactical nuclear warhead without any assistance from me. Also, spare me the strawman.

The events of January 2010 that almost imploded SMF were done without any help from me. Even though I was approached beforehand by Amy and asked where I stood if such a line would be drawn, and I said my loyalty was to the project, not the people in it, I had left the team before it kicked off, nor was I one of the folks banned for linking to Jeff's blog. I had no meaningful part in the way that played out.

The fact it took 5 years to get from first starting 2.0 to final release wasn't impeded by me. I contributed some bug reports, I contributed some bug fixes. Three of those years passed before I even came along.

I could go on but you get my point. All the big mis-management issues with SMF, including the NPO by all accounts, had very little real input from me, and what input there was, was mostly ignored, even though I've called it pretty much correctly every time.
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You may feel that the SMF project would sometimes serve itself better by making different choices than it has made.
I sometimes agree with you, and sometimes disagree with you.  I appreciate it when you test and show the results of your testing. I generally have no argument with either one of you.  I believe this to be true of many other members of the SMF project, even some members who have argued with one or the other of you in the past.
I don't feel that's the case. I KNOW that's the case. It's gone beyond being a feeling and has been that way for years. But hey, what do I know?

Actually, let's turn that around. What do I know? Well, I read the years and years of history in the team boards while I was still a team member. Nothing that's happening now is anything new. The constant developer churn has been going on for years, because all the people that could possibly make a difference keep being pushed away, either because they get put upon by the rest of the team (who have a lot to say and not backing any of it up by action) and get burned out, or they just get pushed out by the attitude of the project as a whole, which is why I left (though the fact there are a lot of people who have a lot to say and aren't prepared to actually do anything about it)

But all those people inside the project don't appear to be able to see this. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to seems to be happy to deny that this is the case - except it is the case. Why is it that smCore is basically dead? Why Norv and Fustrate (and Spuds, as far as I can tell) have all disappeared?[1]

Why is it that SMF 2.1 is still in alpha, despite being only a few months younger than Wedge, but with far more people who have input into it?

The eventual success of SMF is not dependent on me. There was a time when I used to believe I could make a difference, when I could actually do something that might push SMF along. The last 2 and a half years have actually made me feel like Wedge has done more to push SMF along than SMF itself has.
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What were your goals then? What are they now? Which of these goals are worth pursuing in the future? Does the Wedge project bring progress towards these goals? Does it do it at an acceptable cost?
To make something cool. Now? My goal is to get Wedge to a point where it has enough developed that it doesn't need me. The project is getting there. Cost? I don't know. The amount of crap I put up with certainly doesn't make it feel worthwhile most of the time.
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People enter and leave FLOSS projects and communities all the time for various reasons. If the product is compelling enough, there is always someone arriving interested in picking up where someone else has left off. An enduring project will have to accomodate and encourage this succession.
Take a long, hard look at SMF. A very long hard look. Then tell me that there is enough people arriving into the SMF ecosystem to keep it going. Because from where I'm standing, that's just not happening, because of the aforementioned close knit coven that keeps pushing the good people out.
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Don't stay in it out of vague "quitter's guilt" alone. Stay in it because you are working toward noble goals.  And plan to replace yourself. You are unlikely to stay in it forever, no matter how noble the goals.
I stopped having noble goals months ago, mostly because of all the BS dragged in this direction by various members of the SMF community. For months I've been working on the noble goal of the ecosystem being self supportible, because once that happens, I can safely leave. You call it quitter's guilt, I call it building a viable ecosystem. But once it's built, I can move on and do something actually worthwhile, because it feels like this isn't worthwhile any more - because it is getting devalued constantly by arguments including ones like this.
 1. And yes, I had noticed the fact that Norv was able to make a commit against the wishes of the project even after leaving. I thought that was hilarious in a way.

runic

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #11, on December 7th, 2012, 02:51 AM »
For the license: Nao knows my belief on this issue ... simply great to see wedge open more but I still think the good section that should stay is in regards to our 2 favorite people :)

Also it seems you guys have more supporters on SMF Team and Simple Machines Team than you actually think, your recent wedge links ended up with the topic dieing out with no answer being decided but even the person who posted most negativity (and compared to previous posts from those that dont like wedge this was nothing) found out the poster also respects you guys, a few of us are fighting to remove the negativity that some people have and we are making progress.

Arantor

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #12, on December 7th, 2012, 03:40 AM »
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For the license: Nao knows my belief on this issue ... simply great to see wedge open more but I still think the good section that should stay is in regards to our 2 favorite people
For the record, if I could be satisfied that the two people mentioned would stay the hell away, or idiots like them, I'd be pretty amenable to an open source licence.
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Also it seems you guys have more supporters on SMF Team and Simple Machines Team than you actually think
I have spoken to a number of people on the project in recent times, and I'm hearing that same answer. The problem is much as it always was: the people who have the power to make decisions are not those people. That's how it's always been; the people who have the power want to keep everything the status quo - and nothing ever improves.
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your recent wedge links ended up with the topic dieing out with no answer being decided but even the person who posted most negativity (and compared to previous posts from those that dont like wedge this was nothing) found out the poster also respects you guys, a few of us are fighting to remove the negativity that some people have and we are making progress.
The issue I have is that the negativity is so draining because it's absolutely unnecessary.

Let me kick off with the point that was made in my above rant, though I think it was missed judging by my PMs. Why does the forks discussion board need rules? More specifically, why does it need the rule about 'no closed source forks'? It's trying to encourage open source, except in the same breath doing the absolute opposite of the spirit of open source.

Open means *open*. Means having freedom. Including, as defined, the freedom to close it.[1] We haven't closed the licence to make money off it, though I will note we discussed it. We closed the licence to protect our investment of time being abused by certain fuckwits that we'd had dealings with.[2]

If you as an organisation were truly open, you wouldn't need any rules. You wouldn't have to discourage closed source - the natural rhythm of the community should do that for you. The thing is, there's only one closed source fork of SMF, and that's us. There isn't likely to be any other closed source forks, partly because it's not the done thing and partly because most forks inevitably don't have the momentum to sustain them, though Wedge definitely does.

Someone actually suggested to me, in wake of this topic and the stuff that happened, that I should institute a ban of not discussing SMF here, except for bug fixes or security issues. It makes just as much sense as the idiotic ban that sm.org has, and it's just as practical, just as meaningful and I wouldn't even have to moderate it much. I could even pretty much automate it without even changing any code.[3]

But I don't feel the need to do that. I'm quite happy to allow that to be discussed here, to allow any and all kinds of discussion about SMF, despite the issues, because I don't have an axe to grind. To be brutally honest, I see it much as the same as the folks that go door to door to promote their specific brand of religion; they do it to convince themselves they're good little religious types. IOW, I see this as SMF saying 'Hey, we're open and we promote openness' without understanding what that actually means. Open means being able to take opposing views and understand them for what they are.

Let me make this extra clear.

SMF chose to make their licence open, but seemingly without wanting any of the bad consequences of it being open. They want people to be able to use it without limitation, until it is inconvenient to them. If that was the case, why the heck did you go BSD in the first place? This is the part that's a problem: we have a licence that as we see it protects our interests. It specifically protects us from douches that we have encountered, who can't be trusted to not act like douches. This is because we've dealt with them and know the consequences. We also acknowledge the consequences of open source licences - and in particular the fact that open source licences mean a certain amount of 'you can't take it back' once you've done it.

But that hypocrisy is not being recognised. Like a lot of things I've come to see from SMF, a lot of talk not backed up by the requisite action.

The old SMF licence, accompanied by the 'we think this is open source' was honest. It made sure that the team got their recognition. It made sure that people couldn't just blindly just reproduce it or fork it. It made no bones about this. Switching to BSD actually hampered SMF in a lot of ways, because it sounded like such a momentus move of openness, without any of the change of spirit that was needed. It's like making a New Year's Resolution, you actually have to do something with it.
 1. This is the second reason I hate the GPL, after its viral nature, because it's hypocritical.
 2. Don't even get me started. I still don't appreciate the way the SMF team handled the whole me vs vbgamer thing, and the way that the 'mediation' was like every other fucking thing I've encountered with them, me being presented with a list of conditions, and given the appearance of ability to negotiate while knowing full well that nothing was negotiable. I lost $250, sure. vbgamer managed to screw himself out of more customers because of his idiotic attempt to ban me, and the team lost most of what credibility they had in my eyes for not understanding that I don't like being called a liar when the person making the claim won't back it up. I still don't appreciate a team member flat out accusing me of libel either.
 3. Wedge Moderation Filters can prevent people posting if their post contains certain words.

AngelinaBelle

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #13, on January 3rd, 2013, 06:36 PM »
I've been away for a bit.
I take many of your points, Pete.

The compromise, of course, on "rules for the forks board" was among the at-the-time team members.
Team members are decision makers on that board.

The SMF team is different from, say, and Apache team.  On an Apache project, only the committers are the decision-makers -- that's a small number of devs.  And basically, they only make decisions about what goes into the official version of the code.  "Official" discussions don't seem to use forum software, and there aren't a lot of options for making rules about what people can discuss where.

The SMF team is different from an Apache project team, and probably from a lot of other FLOSS project teams.
The SMF team has a long history. It still contains people with a diversity of opinions on how the project should run itself.
Some team members have responded to these discussions by leaving the team (others, of course, have left for family, job, educational, and other reasons)
The team is not perfect.

I appreciate your interest in boosting the sustainability of the SMF project. That is a noble goal.
It has been my understanding that, with Wedge, you and Nao were, in part, motivated by the idea of demonstrating the benefits of certain approaches you WISHED the SMF team had been taking up to that point.

On top of that, by simply being the first to fork the BSD-licensed SMF 2.0 code, you helped the entire SMF community (including the SMF team) get their heads around what it means to have more community participation in SMF code development.

Arantor

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Re: Discussing Wedge on simplemachines.org
« Reply #14, on January 3rd, 2013, 10:17 PM »
Quote
The compromise, of course, on "rules for the forks board" was among the at-the-time team members.
Team members are decision makers on that board.
And there's the first problem: too many decision makers.
Quote
On top of that, by simply being the first to fork the BSD-licensed SMF 2.0 code, you helped the entire SMF community (including the SMF team) get their heads around what it means to have more community participation in SMF code development.
Except as we've seen, we've done it mostly in spite of SMF's attempts to engender such participation, not because of it. Yes, we've broadened awareness of what forks are, of what it means to have forks - and to have competition. But in the same breath, we've heard from a number of people who feel that - however wrongly that might be - such rules and restrictions on discussion are in fact a way to protect SMF from Wedge, because it is perceived to be a threat.

I will also note that certain other things have happened today that make my previous posts in this topic look extremely harsh, and unnecessarily so, and on the basis of that I am more amenable to it than I have been in the past. Indeed, I'm not even sure I'd describe one of the two parties ostracised from Wedge as I did above, because he has more humility than I'd ever have believed. It is not an exaggeration to say I am humbled by what I have seen today.