This is one of my most frequent criticisms about open source software. jwz wrote about it almost 20 years ago. (It can even apply to highly polished software like Android, or Signal, or Firefox today, that for one reason or another make things really difficult to work with—if you can work with them at all.)
> People only really contribute when they get something out of it. When someone is first beginning to contribute, they especially need to see some kind of payback, some kind of positive reinforcement, right away. For example, if someone were running a web browser, then stopped, added a simple new command to the source, recompiled, and had that same web browser plus their addition, they would be motivated to do this again, and possibly to tackle even larger projects.
> We never got there. We never distributed the source code to a working web browser, more importantly, to the web browser that people were actually using. We didn't release the source code to the most-previous-release of Netscape Navigator: instead, we released what we had at the time, which had a number of incomplete features, and lots and lots of bugs. And of course we weren't able to release any Java or crypto code at all.
> What we released was a large pile of interesting code, but it didn't much resemble something you could actually use.
Safari with uBlock Origin. It could just be Safari's default configuration that for some reason strips referers. In any case I'm glad it protects me from this sort of stuff especially at work. What a dick move from JWZ (no pun intended).
In my opinion, with a couple of phase 0 devices sitting in their fancy lock-tite boxes gathering dust - while the dev workbench is littered with current-target mobile devices far in advance - the only difference is that the hardware team behind OpenMoko ran out of gumption/funding/$$$.
Hardware is much harder to do, the more you screw it up.
Designs which don't work - i.e. basic power management - will cripple early-stage hardware development, and its one of the reasons hardware, is well .. hard.
OpenMoko didn't screw up, open-source-wise, no sir. I think you are mistaken in this claim.
Where they screwed up is not getting the hardware really nailed, such that it warranted actual production in the 10's of 1000's of units. It had to work, and you have to ship in the 5x'es before you gain any traction with a new hardware platform.
OpenMoko was many things (I still have 3) .. but it wasn't a failure of open source software. Without that stack, the thing wouldn't have even gotten off the ground. It didn't reach orbit, because of that 5x traction ..
I think that jwz enjoyed a reputation beyond his deserts. I don't find him particularly insightful. I also don't seem to take your point in mentioning this? Is this really an "open source" thing? Is it a bad thing, or merely an effect of a normal software development practice?
Although I don't know what "a reputation beyond his deserts means", I do know that focusing on jwz is not relevant. Either the message is true, or it isn't. Anything else is classic ad hominem and a digression from the point, you know?
> Is this really an "open source" thing?
Well, that the source be open to hack on is something that's pretty much a precondition to the situation where some random person finds themselves attempting to contribute to someone else's project. If you know of a way that's possible with anything that isn't open source, then maybe give an example? (If you interpreted my comment as one intended to be an argument against open source—and in favor of closed source, say—then you interpreted it incorrectly.)
> Is it a bad thing
A project that seeks contributors but exists in a state where contribution is more difficult than it could be is very much something I would call a bad thing.
> normal software development
"Normal"? Maybe. Yes, even. But not an intrinsic side effect of trying to develop software or run a project.
You could have made your point yourself, but you quoted jwz at length because you felt it loaned more credibility to the idea than if you had used your own words. I guess that was your intent, and I could be entirely wrong, but I don't blame someone else for making that conclusion.
> Either the message is true, or it isn't.
This is a discussion board. People discuss ideas. He did address your point, but he also discussed a tangent you introduced.
As this is partially a matter of opinion I believe that the character and prejudices of jwz can be called into question in a relevant manner. He was once renowned as a wise and talented programmer. That was a while ago. He's most famous for negative and somewhat inflammatory opinions. I'm not going to say that I think his argument here is bad by virtue of that, which I hope excuses me from ad hominem, but I question the applicability and the degree to which his wisdom can be generally applied. There's few enough people who don't know something I don't know, but if this is one of those things then I'd like to hear a bit more corroboration of these opinions.
(apologizes for responding to you and not GP directly with some criticisms. I had a response typed somewhere...)
> People only really contribute when they get something out of it. When someone is first beginning to contribute, they especially need to see some kind of payback, some kind of positive reinforcement, right away. For example, if someone were running a web browser, then stopped, added a simple new command to the source, recompiled, and had that same web browser plus their addition, they would be motivated to do this again, and possibly to tackle even larger projects.
> We never got there. We never distributed the source code to a working web browser, more importantly, to the web browser that people were actually using. We didn't release the source code to the most-previous-release of Netscape Navigator: instead, we released what we had at the time, which had a number of incomplete features, and lots and lots of bugs. And of course we weren't able to release any Java or crypto code at all.
> What we released was a large pile of interesting code, but it didn't much resemble something you could actually use.
"nomo zilla: resignation and postmortem". 1999. https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html