Taggit fragmentation (open letter)

[Simon Bächler]

I was just checking on github if there was a new version of django-taggit and was quite shocked what I saw. The original repository had not been updated for over a year. Yet there are 41 issues and 12 pull requests. There are 114 forks, 17 of which had commits within the last month. 

Shortly, it is a big mess. I'm sure some of the forks have important bugfixes while other just add features required for a certain project. But it is really necessary that either Alex Gaynor or someone else gets that app back on track.

Taggit is the most advanced tagging app. But the main repo has some major issues. Unicode being one of them, whitespace another one.

It looks like hcarvalhoalves fork is the most maintained one now.

Regards

Simon

[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Simon,

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 1:39 AM, Simon Bächler <s...@feinheit.ch> wrote:
> I was just checking on github if there was a new version of django-taggit
> and was quite shocked what I saw. The original repository had not been
> updated for over a year. Yet there are 41 issues and 12 pull requests. There
> are 114 forks, 17 of which had commits within the last month.
>
> Shortly, it is a big mess. I'm sure some of the forks have important
> bugfixes while other just add features required for a certain project. But
> it is really necessary that either Alex Gaynor or someone else gets that app
> back on track.

At this point, I feel it necessary to point out that you've missed one
very important person off the list of people that can help get this
app back on track - YOU.

I'm sure this wasn't your intention, but your message sounds like
you're demanding that someone else volunteer to fix your problems.

If Alex isn't on top of his pull requests, there's a reason. Given
that he's just graduated from college and is starting full time work,
I'm going to guess that it's because he's busy with other projects,
and his personal use case for django-taggit isn't as strong as it once
was. And while that may be very disappointing to you personally, it is
ultimately *your* problem. If you're not happy with django-taggit, I'm
sure Alex will offer you a 100% refund of everything you paid for it.

So - if you're not happy with the state of django-taggit, then it's up
to *you* -- not anybody else -- to fix the problem. Roll up your
sleeves and get involved. Start addressing some of the tickets.
Generate a private branch that merges all the pull requests. You say
the hcarvalhoalves fork is the most maintained? Start submitting pull
requests to them, instead of Alex. If they don't respond, start
publicising your own fork. And when you've put in enough effort to
show that you're serious, consider contacting Alex directly and see if
he's interested in sharing ownership of the project, or passing the
project off to you completely.

This is the beauty of open source. You have all the tools you need to
solve any problem you have. However, you have to get involved.
Standing on the sidelines complaining doesn't get anything done.

Yours,
Russ Magee %-)

[Simon Bächler]

Hi Russ

I understand that Alex is busy doing other things now. But he is the owner of the django-taggit repo. If someone is searching for django-taggit it's his repo that shows up.

What you are suggesting, creating my own fork and fixing my issues there is not the solution. It would only lead to even more fragmentation. And I'm sure some of the 114 forkers already fixed a lot. That's why they've sent out pull requests.

I believe that if you publish a repo and you are the main contributor then it is your responsibility to maintain it. If you don't have time, then hand it over to someone else or just give someone else the rights to push into your repo. I'm not asking Alex to fix all bugs himself, because most of the bugs have already been fixed by other people. He or someone with the rights to his repo just has to review the code and merge the pull requests, or deny them and guide the helper to a better solution. That would not take too long.

True, it's easy for me to just complain here without helping out. But there are others that are fare more involved in the project than me. I have several repos myself that I'm maintaining.

The approach of 'I just fix it myself' is maybe not the right one. If there are that many people working on one project it's probably better to just talk to each other first and coordinate the efforts.

Regards
Simon


Am 29.05.2012 um 01:27 schrieb Russell Keith-Magee:

> Hi Simon,

[Daniele Procida]

On Tue, May 29, 2012, Simon Bächler <s...@feinheit.ch> wrote:

>I believe that if you publish a repo and you are the main contributor
>then it is your responsibility to maintain it.

That seems to be asking a bit much, frankly.

Don't forget that one way for Alex (or whoever) to meet the obligations you set out for publishers of open source software would simply be not to publish it.

He could delete his repo, freeing himself from the responsibility to mantain it.

To whose advantage would that be?

>If you don't have time,
>then hand it over to someone else or just give someone else the rights
>to push into your repo. I'm not asking Alex to fix all bugs himself,
>because most of the bugs have already been fixed by other people. He or
>someone with the rights to his repo just has to review the code and
>merge the pull requests, or deny them and guide the helper to a better
>solution. That would not take too long.

You could do all that yourself, couldn't you?

Daniele

[Javier Guerra Giraldez]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Simon Bächler <s...@feinheit.ch> wrote:
> I believe that if you publish a repo and you are the main contributor then it is your responsibility to maintain it.

that's not how it works, fortunately.

if you (or anybody) write something, you're free to share it. that's
it. no responsibilities.

if sharing code had such "responsibility to maintain", nobody would
share anything.

--
Javier

[Marcin Tustin]

That's not quite right. Once you build up a reputation as the package to have, if you don't at least hand over the project, you expose everyone to the pain of figuring out how to either use your code, or which is best place to get a forked version. It's certainly not hard to see that there are people who want to take this over, and it's better to let *someone* do that then leave the project to moulder and splinter.

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[Daniele Procida]

On Tue, May 29, 2012, Marcin Tustin <marcin...@gmail.com> wrote:

>That's not quite right. Once you build up a reputation as the package to
>have, if you don't at least hand over the project, you expose everyone to
>the pain of figuring out how to either use your code, or which is best
>place to get a forked version. It's certainly not hard to see that there
>are people who want to take this over, and it's better to let *someone* do
>that then leave the project to moulder and splinter.

No-one needs to hand it over; if someone wants to, they can take it over.

The project doesn't need an anointed successor to carry its flame.

Daniele

[Marcin Tustin]

It does if anyone wants to be able to find the code.

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[Kurtis Mullins]

Open Letters scare me ... They remind me of the pseudo-beginning of
mainstream, non-free software :)

I'd say just do like Russ mentioned. Try to pull everything together
in one repository. Then when it's mature and you still want to take
over the project, contact the original author and see if he/she will
at least link to yours for future updates. It's not that bad of a
situation. At least the code is there, available, and the other people
who've forked the code are also sharing their changes. Just needs a
bit more work than "pip install awesome-app".

[Alex Gaynor]

Hi everyone,

You're completely right.  I haven't had the time to maintain django-taggit, and the result has been unfair to everyone.  I don't have any more free time now than I did a month ago, which means I don't have the time to try to right the ship.  If there's an interest in trying to consolidate the development that's happened in all the forks, I can try to help in any way I can logistically, but I can't review patches or do new development at this point.

Sorry,

Alex

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (summarizing Voltaire)
"The people's good is the highest law." -- Cicero

[Marcin Tustin]

Alex,

More power to you for sticking your head above the parapet in relation to this. 

Marcin

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