Ask Slashdot: Spreading the Word About At-Risk Open Source Projects? 115
An anonymous reader writes "There is a piece of software, released under the Modified BSD license, that risks becoming abandonware and, IMHO, is worth being saved. Where can I post an announcement to find people than can take care of it?" This seems like a problem that a lot of projects run into; is there a clearinghouse for open-source projects at risk?
Taking Care of Open Source Software (Score:2)
Create a project on one of the FOSS repos. Flag it as needing a maintainer.
You may need to GPL it.
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To the submitter, one way of getting the word out is to actually name and link to the at-risk software in question.
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No, you can sublicense it.
If you don't want to continue the project as BSD, you *can* make a GPL fork.
But many GPL trolls seem to think the ability to make closed source derivative works, somehow prevents this.
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Huh? Relicensing the code would violate the license. even with BSD only the.copyright owner can relicense it. Yes it can be integrated with.proprietary code, but that doesn't mean it's been relicensed.
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True. Although it wouldn't violate the license but the law.
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Which definition of the word "troll" are you using here? Is it trolling to state a plain fact?
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No version of the BSD license allows any such thing. Clause 1 of all versions of the license explicitly forbids such a thing, in fact. You may make it difficult to separate the BSD code from GPL or propriety code by thoroughly intertwining it, or not even distributing it at all if it's proprietary, but you cannot actually change the license of the BSD licensed code.
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the bsdl requires you to do some things. The gpl requires you to do just the same plus some additional stuff. Nowhere in the bsdl is said, you cannot make additional rules, its only forbidden to make less. But it is hard to have less rules, because bsdl does not have so many rules.
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GPL it? Why? Maybe let the new maintainer decide, rather than deciding for them?
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Which repo requires GPL? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Which repositories require specifically the GPL as opposed to GPL-compatible free software licenses in general?
GNU Savannah just says "Use a license compatible with the GNU GPL, and use the "or any later version" formulation in your license notices."
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Which repositories require specifically the GPL as opposed to GPL-compatible free software licenses in general?
GNU Savannah just says "Use a license compatible with the GNU GPL, and use the "or any later version" formulation in your license notices."
So GNU Savannah does NOT require specifically the GPL as opposed to GPL-compatible free software licenses, in fact the passage you quoted explicitly states that.
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So, the new maintainer can maintain a fork, have the original mention the fork as the successor application, and GPL the fork.
Not a challenge.
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There are people who are reluctant to put effort into a project, which can be just taken by a company and put into a closed source product. And looking at the size of GNU/Linux world, compared to xBSD world, I'd say there are more of these people, than people who'd rather contribute to BSD licensed project. So switching to GPL might improve chances of the project staying alive.
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But if you aren't going to maintain it yourself, why make that choice for the future maintainer? Leave the option up to them. Especially since the reverse change is a lot harder to manage.
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Yeah, if just putting the source out there, then sure, best leave it up to the hypothetical future maintainer.
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Any new maintainer will do as they please with it, regardless of what you do. The point is to advertise that an existing project needs maintainers.
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There are people who are reluctant to put effort into a project, which then may not be usable by them in some future situation. And, looking at the number of active contributors to LLVM, compared to GCC, I'd say there are more of these people than people who'd rather contribute to a GPL'd project. Sticking with the BSDL might improve chances of the project staying alive.
See? It works both ways. Oh, and for the record I get paid to write BSDL code fairly often, but I've never been paid to write GPL'd co
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I was talking about the entire (partially overlapping, of course) ecosystems, you're taking an individual piece of software, so I'd say my case is stronger. But of course if a company is going to adopt an abandoned open source project, then they are more likely to prefer BSD license. It depends on a type of the software, and whether an individual or a business is expected/hoped to pick it up.
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Looking at Postgres (or, at least from its activity, SQLite) vs. any GPL-licensed RDBMS project, I'd say the reverse -- looser license are better at attracting effort.
OTOH, its more likely that the import
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The idea being that the technically inclined want their tools to be used as much as possible, whereas the apps are many, and people like the extra protection GPL gives their contribution.
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The problem with GPL is that nobody can take the code private and make money selling it. Many people like me think this is unfair and tend not to provide unpaid work. I sometimes send bug reports to a GPL project, but would never even consider contributing any code. GPL people feel the same way about my MIT licensed projects. So before you change the license, be sure you are on the side you want to be on. I have no numbers, but you should not just assume one side is larger than the other.
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You are aware, of course, that numerous projects (GPL or MIT or BSD) are developed by paid-for people, right?
If I develop an open source project, I'd rather have people use it than people not use it. I feel it will be more useful to have real-life users that contribute in feature wishes and bug reports rather than a few users that either violate the GPL and don't contribute or dump me some code blob from time to time that will take ages to incorporate and may violate my guidelines / prectices to the point w
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Your reasoning is totally inapplicable to a choice between BSD-type and GPL licenses. With either, you can refuse to accept code contributions from users. With neither is a user who modifies your code obligated to give their changes to you.
Which is not to say that a BSD-type license is not a better fit for you, though that too has nothing to do with explaining why you feel it wrong for you to contribute code to GPL'd projects.
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you feel it wrong for you to contribute code to GPL'd projects.
Huuuu, where did you get that from?
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Admittedly, I leapt from your declaring you'd never consider contributing code to you thinking it was wrong to contribute code, but that's pretty implicit, I think.
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Admittedly, I leapt from your declaring you'd never consider contributing code to you thinking it was wrong to contribute code, but that's pretty implicit, I think.
That was not me though.
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Oh. Sorry :)
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Yeah, I know, thanks. But not an idiot nearly as dumb as you are. Of course. you probably know that by now.
Not having to maintain your private patch (Score:3)
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You don't know much about the GPL, do you? You were almost right about one thing: "nobody can take the code private." Only the copyright holder has the right to change the license. Anyone else, however, can make changes to the software, not provide those changes back to the copyright holder AND make money by selling GPL software. Any modifications you make to the software are also licensed under the GPL and you are not required to share the source code with anyone except the people that use your modificatio
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You are forgetting one crucial difference: the GPL does not allow any restrictions to be placed on redistribution of the software other than the ones explicitly mentioned in the license (such as the source code availability requirement). When you purchase a proprietary program you are not allowed to give it out for free to anybody. You are not allowed to uplo
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You aren't seeing the full picture. Yes, you're right, physical media is obsolete, and charging a fee for making physical copies won't make much money. But you don't think support and service works either, and Red Hat has made it work. You didn't mention ad revenue, and that's fine. Ad revenue cannot start projects, it can only help projects that have already achieved some popularity.
So what do you suggest for a solution? Copyright it and hope that respect for the law will persuade enough people to p
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Of course it will work. It has been working just fine for pretty much every company making software since there was software. It has made Bill Gates a very rich man and allows countless one-man shareware shops to eke out a decent living. Closed source is the only way to go if you want to sell. Don't look for a solution where there is no p
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MySQL
RedHat
etc.
Yes, you can make money with the GPL, even if you can't make closed source derivatives.
Personally, I want a license that says:
- If you release your derivative open source, changes made in the derivative can be back-ported to the original project, without modification of the original project license
- If you release the derived work for compensation (either of the derived work or related services), you must make an agreement with the original to properly compensate the original author/project t
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So you want a license that will scare off any.commercial company from touching it? with those terms most companies will stick to a proprietary solution instead.
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Why would it scare off any commercial company?
They check the desired price, come to an agreement, and pay it, as with any other proprietary solution. They don't have to release their code open source, so they can keep modifications under their hats if they want, but they do get the benefit of back-ported OSS softwawre. In other words, they pay as they would proprietary software, but they get some extra developmental effort as well, and don't need to release their source if they don't want to.
Each side contr
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The problem with GPL is that nobody can take the code private and make money selling it.
There are several companies that have no problem making a wad of cash from GPL software without changing the license. At least one has two or three other groups giving away the same software for free, and yet is still doing just fine.
Typical miss-understanding of the GPL(2) features. (Score:2)
You don't have to take the code private to sell the product.
Under the GPL (2)
#1 You can make your own changes to the product source code
#2 You can build that product
#3 You can sell that product for any price you want.
#4 You -do not- have to publish the src code on the web.
If your customer requests a copy of the GPL source code, you give them a copy. You can charge a reasonable fee for making the copy. You can provide the copy as regular text source,
Oh I get it (Score:2, Insightful)
You're trying to find someone who will work for free to maintain a piece of software with dubious usefulness just because you like it.
You got 2 options:
1. Learn to program it and maintain it yourself.
2. Pay someone to do it for you.
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Most likely, although I do come across projects from time to time that have been abandoned for years that would have been useful if they had made it to critical mass. And those sorts of projects can easily die if they don't attract enough attention early on to handle the lead developer leaving.
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I agree, look at FreeNX, this is great software but it has been dead for quite a while.
Re:Oh I get it (Score:5, Insightful)
When I come across a project like that, I ask myself the question "Why did this project not make it to critical mass?" Chances are very good it's one of the following:
1. It really wasn't that useful, just a fairly good idea that turned out to be not worth the effort.
2. It's handled better or at least well enough by a larger more established project.
3. It's targeting a problem that's only a problem to a tiny number of people.
I'm not saying there isn't some project infancy mortality due to failure to publicize, but if it's really that good, either the original developer will want to keep working on it (because it's useful to him), or that developer will be enamored of it enough to show to his / her friend, who finds it useful enough to keep working on it.
And GP is right that if your problem is that there's only a tiny number of people who need the project, and you are a part of that minority, the right thing to do is either take it on yourself or pay somebody to help you out.
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Of course it could also be that the software was ahead of it's time or the original developer was too hard to work with. It could also be that the developer wrote it for a specific need and then put it out there in case someone wants it but has no time/interest to maintain a public project.
But it is useful to ask oneself if it's 1-3 first.
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You're trying to find someone who will work for free to maintain a piece of software with dubious usefulness just because you like it.
You got 2 options:
1. Learn to program it and maintain it yourself.
2. Pay someone to do it for you.
I'll take this opportunity to point out that, if this had been a piece of commercial software where the corporation behind it was gone, your options would be:
1.
2.
This is the power of OSS. You still have options when things don't go the way you'd hoped.
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3. learn about RE and code injection.
It is used in extreme case...
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3c) fail to read "where the corporation behind it was gone"
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Oh, someone somewhere probably owns it. If you declare bankruptcy, all your stuff (including IP) goes up for auction.
I'm just guessing, but I imagine very few businesses large enough to have IP close without a fight ending in bankruptcy.
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If it's been bought out of bankruptcy by someone else, then there is still a corporation behind it... it is changed, not gone.
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hate to say it, but for the most part this is true.
if it were useful for everyone, in general, it would survive on it's own. Sort of one of the points of open source really.
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Bit of a shame this was posted anonymously, because it's 100% true yet many readers filter anonymous cowards. There are few better ways to find out how interesting a software project is to the world at large than releasing it as F/OSS and seeing who - if anyone - picks up on it.
It's something that many of us who advocate F/OSS need to be careful of.
If a company goes to the wall, the idea that all their customers are guaranteed to be SOL is just plain wrong. The likelihood is that some other company will buy
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If a F/OSS project goes to the wall, however, you're pretty much on your own.
Only if you're the only user of the project. If you're the only user of a piece of proprietary code, no one is going to care about you when the company goes bust - the best you can hope for is being able to buy the code outright from the receivers. If you're the only user of a piece of F/OSS code, then you may want to invest some money in maintaining it.
If there are lots of users, then you won't be the only one with a vested interest in seeing it not die. At least some of these would probably find it c
what's the name? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you want to spread the word but won't even give out the name?
Re:what's the name? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:what's the name? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes there are idiots who would do that. So what? If the guy wants help he's going to have to give out the name. I'd be interested but if the guy won't say the name it'll be a bit hard to help them.
Its not about that project - its more general (Score:2)
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True but for someone interested.in helping the question asker I can't do so without the software's name.
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That's all fine and dandy but if I don't know the projects name how will I know which request.for.help is his? As I said if help him with maintaining the project but I can't help without knowing its name. I'm offering to help here and now. If I'm going to have to wait forever for him to post his request on some other site then I'll just move on. No big loss for me.
Universities? (Score:3)
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This seems like a good suggestion and isn't getting much play.....commenting because I don't have mod points and hoping this gives more credence to this answer.
Uwe Hermann? (Score:2)
He runs the Unmaintained Free Software archive. It's currently down but the best thing would seem to be to contact him and get the project listed.
The next step would be to get the aforementioned students interested in picking up projects listed on his site. There are A LOT. Some probably deserves junking, but other projects are of high importance and should be picked up.
It would be great if Google's Summer of Code could involve not just proven teams working on proven projects, but could also include revival
Fork it (Score:3, Informative)
Well, first of all, there's no such thing as "abandonware" in open source. The term is used to describe closed source program in which was offered at one point and then largely forgotten about by its developers and therefore not ported to newer operating systems and/or architectures despite having an active or semi-active user base.
With open source software, the code is always available so anyone who wants to continue maintaining it can always do so. If you, as a user, care enough about the project, and the maintainer seems to have left town, then it's up to you to continue maintaining it and/or fork your own version. If you're not a developer, then hire one. You can't just rally the community and say, "hey there, somebody please support this software for me! It's BSD-licensed so I don't have to pay you!"
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Of course you can. It's just that you'll most likely not be very successful.
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Not true, I'm afraid. VSIPL++ was GPLed for some time by CodeSourcery. When they were bought up by Mentor Graphics, the GPL version ceased to be available. Anywhere. It is not on their site, requests for information reveal only that it was funded by the USAF and that when the funding stopped so did the project.
I know of nobody who possesses a copy of that last GPLed VSIPL++ library. I know of no repository hosting it. I know of no developer attempting to maintain it. There will be binaries out there, since
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No, that's the reference implementation. Code Sourcery developed a much more powerful, much more rounded version up until about 2009-2010. Whilst the 2005 reference version could certainly be used, you lose all of the (GPLed) developments over the half decade since then. And in the digital signal processing world, that's a hell of a lot of development.
VSIPL++ is a signal processing library. I track it (and about a hundred other pieces of science/engineering projects) in part because this kind of stuff in th
Worth Saving? (Score:1)
Isn't that for it's hundreds or thousands of users to decide, one of which might be willing to save it himself/herself?
Software that doesn't get used, dies.
Social engineering (Score:4, Funny)
Try sending the project a DMCA Cease and Decist notice, and then post a story in slashdot about some patent troll bullying an open source project.
Then watch as the streisand effect does its magic.
Open Source Software (Score:3)
Generally open source software are scratch projects, ie I have an itch so I scratch it. If something isn't maintained, it either works well enough as it is or isn't used. If you want to keep work going on it and are not a programmer you have 3 real solutions, ie pay to have it worked on, try to interest others in working on it by advertising via websites(slashdot / freshmeat / sourceforge / github /etc), personal emails to people that might want to work on it, or any other means of communication, eg attend a local Lug, etc, the last option of course is to learn how to program and scratch the itch yourself.
The biggest issue is the license the software is released under. If GPL, just fork the code and get to work. If under a more restrictive license your hands are pretty much tied. Proprietary software dies quite frequently, opensource might get mothballed for years and then get pulled back out when someone has an itch to scratch.
Gotta encourage developers (Score:1)
Ack, "that risks becoming abandonware?" How do you know?
It might be pretty insulting for the current maintainer to find out that you think the software is not advancing quickly enough. I mean, if there's really nothing going on, new patches aren't being incorporated, etc., then, yeah, it might be a good time to look at some options. If it is just that the current maintainer isn't doing what you want, working hard to support your current platform, is doing this on weekends when they have some spare time,
Where OSS goes to die (Score:4, Insightful)
Lots and lots of dead/abandoned Open Source projects at sourceforge.net, codeplex.com, etc.
I don't think we need a new service for this, just go look for projects that haven't been updated in 3+ years, you'll find lots of them.
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Too late. Uwe Hermann has been running a service since around 2002 for abandoned Open Source software, maybe longer. And, yes, it's been on Slashdot a few times (thank you Google).
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2000, actually, since he posted on /. in 2002 saying "Pretty exactly two years ago I started to work on the Unmaintained Free Software site.(...)"
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Is it even up? The site says it will "be back soon" for a while.
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Talk to the current project lead? (Score:1)
Request a search feature on freshmeat (Score:3)
Send a request to freshmeat.net for a search feature allowing you to search for projects that haven't been updated for a long time.
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Better yet, they can set up a new website that has all the projects that haven't been updated. It could be called...Deadmeat!
Abandonware? (Score:2)
This is not "abandonware". Certainly not when it comes to open source software that is still freely available and not at all hard to acquire. "Abandonware", traditionally, has referred to closed source software that, over time, either has no known copyright holder (but is not public domain so is still illegal to redistribute) or has literally been "abandoned" by the copyright holder (but is also not public domain so is still illegal to redistribute). Thus making the ability to find a legitimate copy of the
Reddit /r/programming (Score:1)
Describe the details in a post to http://www.reddit.com/r/programming
There's quite a concentrated community in some of the sub-reddits -- you are bound to find a kindred spirit with a passion for the application that may not realize it is at risk. The community is very interactive and may be helpful in finding a home for the ailing project...