I highly recommend Adam Curtis' documentary "The Mayfair Set" [1],
especially Part 2, detailing the lives of Jim Slater, Tiny Rowland and
James Goldsmith who pioneered the hostile takeover, and the effect of
acquisitions and mergers on the overall global economy. Hard to
imagine that only 50 years ago this wasn't a "done thing". Today I see
these same patterns play out in development and artistic communities
oblivious to 51 percent and Sybil attacks, unaware of who is holding
what key assets, and then being surprised by takeovers and defectors.
> The release of Pandora's Box (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history. His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion".
Is this guy in fact the inventor of the annoying modern style of political documentary, where I have to listen to anxiety-inducing drones and the worst kind of movie-trailer voice, nonstop for an hour at least? The one used by shittiest propaganda tv channels? And for some inexplicable reason also borrowed by Youtube personalities that supposedly appeal to thinking, educated people in opposition to that propaganda tv.
> Since Gitea is a pure community organization without any company support, to keep the development healthy we will elect three owners every year.
> When the new owners have been elected, the old owners will give up ownership to the newly elected owners
According to CONTRIBUTING.md, this dates back to 2016. The new company represents a shift from the community model that attracted many developers and users.
The issue is that ultimately Lunny holds the trademark and isn't legally bound to uphold whatever agreement is stated in the repo.
As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I'm a contributor to gitea and have no ownership in the new organization. I genuinely would like some clarification to the points in the letter, as I'm trying to advise the owners and understand my future with the project.
It seems like the demands are:
> Implementing an intuitive and fair election process.
I think we do that now: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#...
Anyone who has contributed to the gitea project more than 2x PRs is invited to be a maintainer. Every maintainer gets 3 votes.
Maybe there are some suggestions for improving - please open a PR.
> Describing the ways in which democratic decisions are to be made.
Again, I'm just confused what's being requested. Moving on.
> Providing accessible places where all relevant information can be found.
This seems like the same request as above. Or maybe a request for better documentation. I agree. Open a PR, don't fork gitea.
> Establishing a DoOcracy that works and continue to improve it.
I agree with this and I suspect that was the intention with the original reference to DAOs, but needs to be clarified.
> A non-profit organisation owned by the Gitea community is created.
> The Gitea trademark and domains are transferred to the non-profit.
> The name of the company is changed to avoid any confusion with the non-profit.
Does anyone have experience with how this is typically handled? It seems like this is the only actionable request. What are some examples of non-profit open-source companies? Is that typical?
> A non-profit organisation owned by the Gitea community is created.
> The Gitea trademark and domains are transferred to the non-profit.
> The name of the company is changed to avoid any confusion with the non-profit.
A week ago the Gitea project was an informal community trusting elected individuals with essential assets such as the domains and the trademark. They had a clear moral bound (see https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#...) to pass on the ownership of the project to their successor.
But they thought it was ok to create a company and take the domains and trademark as if they were their property. Maybe the absence of a legal bound made them forget their promise, their moral obligation towards the Gitea community.
Creating a non-profit will avoid that kind of problem in the future and give back the domains and the trademark to the Gitea community. If the president of a non-profit was to transfer the domain name to a for-profit company they exclusively control, the members of the non profit will be in a position to sue the president for embezzlement.
If the for profit company refuses to give back the domains and trademark, that would be very damaging to the project. The post from Harald Welte on that topic in the Gitea forum is enlightening in that regard, see https://discourse.gitea.io/t/open-source-sustainment-and-the...
The other points you cite from the Open Letter are merely suggestions for future improvements (as stated in the letter), not demands.
> What are some examples of non-profit open-source companies? Is that typical?
The Apache foundation? FSF? The Mozilla foundation (which is different but related to the for-profit Mozilla Corporation)? The rust foundation? CNCF? Probably many others.
It would also probably be possible to find a suitable existing non-profit that could act as a steward of these resources.
...domains and trademarks...are one of the most important assets any Free Software project has (if not the most important)...
This rubs me the wrong way. Surely the discussion history, documentation, and the freaking code are more important than the name.
I generally don't like open source becoming beholden to comercial interests, and I don't know enough about this story to know if that's really what is happening here. Reading that the name may be more important than the code is just very off-putting.
No it’s not, because none of that is unique to an open source project. Anyone can come in and use those assets. Heck, that’s the whole point of open source.
The only thing that is unique to an open source project is its reputation, and the reputation is most strongly tied with its name and trademarks.
> I generally don't like open source becoming beholden to comercial interests
Yes, but there's the crux. Gitea Ltd having the domains and trademark and then setting project direction means exactly that. While before it appeared or pretended to be a fully community-driven exercise. If you are not part of the company, how can you still considered to be a community-elected Owner that acts as the project's custodian?
i think the point is that the code isn't really an "asset" of an open-source project, because anybody who wants to take it can have it, regardless of their affiliation with the "project".
gitea is a brand. whoever owns the domain and trademarks owns the brand.
What's been the general opinion of this change to the gitea contributors? It's difficult to match usernames to real names but I don't see overlap between the top contributors and signatories.
Gitea contributor ("maintainer") here [0] - we were blindsided by the original Gitea Ltd. announcement too, but if you look at any of answers in discord regarding clarification, it's pretty clear that this is a better situation than the gitea assets being owned by a single person, and the intention is NOT to syphon money from the project or start a shillcoin or something like that.
The general consensus from us maintainers on the "Open Letter" is that it's an overreaction. It's not supported by a vast majority of the maintainers of the project and spearheaded by folks who have contributed very little. A VAST majority of folks contributing to gitea are still onboard.
We need answers. The communication was poorly handled.
The original announcement was completely bereft of details and now we finally have a draft of updated clarifications that should be posted soon (thankfully, this time we're being consulted for feedback).
I think the original intention was "we're seeing some revenue coming in and now we're workshopping ways to get those funds back to contributors and maintain the project in a sustainable way", but a lot of poorly-chosen words were used, and panic ensued.
TL;DR: give us some time to set it all straight and if it really looks like incentives are misaligned, please provide some constructive criticism.
ALSO, WE WOULD LOVE HELP & FEEDBACK FROM FOLKS WHO HAVE MAINTAINED SIMILAR PROJECTS SUCCESSFULLY
A few of the top contributors are the one behind the company. It is fair to assume they are perfectly ok with stealing from the community as it directly benefits them...
In bicycle culture they do an unorganized event called critical mass; in the past I've seen these events hijacked by a "xerocracy" where someone shows up to the meeting point, starts handing out (xeroxed/photo copied) fliers with a map with a different route and then take off in that direction and.... most of the crowd follows them. Different kind of Do-ing but very effective in truly flat hierachies when executed well.
That was very interesting, might make a good submission on its own. I really enjoyed what seemed like an attempt at a neutral description without proselytization.
The most distasteful part about Gitea incorporating is that the overwhelming majority of the code is written by Joe Chen (unknwon) the creator of Gogs (which is where Gitea is forked from).
Is Joe part of the incorporated company?
Folks who are not happy about this should just switch back to Gogs.
my uninformed opinion is that the original effort was largely done inside the Great Firewall of China, but the code really was open so it went elsewhere over time. Famously Github itself (which was copied identically here) was purchased by an aggressive partisan, and inside China are numerous clones of Github (to the extent they could pull it off).
As a WEIRD myself, I am heavily invested in the social concepts around F/OSS and GPL, and have super hard time with the vibe coming from PRC. Those implications are beyond the scope of this topic though, for the most part. better info welcome
This is a possibility if diplomacy fails. But diplomacy and dialog should happen first. Going public and publishing this open letter is a sign that other forms of diplomacy did not work (including private messages).
Although people secretly created the company month ago, the first public hint of its existence showed when someone inadvertently mentioned being bound by an NDA. Which raised questions that they could not answer... because they were bound by an NDA.
Am I right in assuming that though lots of work has happened in gitea since the fork, at least half of the code there was still written by the guy behind gogs?
They're just going to form a for-profit based on his work and cut him out entirely?
It's MIT licensed, so anyone can incorporate based on the original author's work and turn a profit. He is not owed anything. This is an eventuality you are implicitly accepting when choosing MIT over GPL.
The issue isn't about access to the code (which is not threatened at all). The issue is about community enjoying access to the project name and domain name.
As an outsider this is not compelling. Claims aren't substantiated or given context (I would expect links to promises and explanations of how specific actors have violated them). There is also a lot of work being expected in the form of non profit companies and organizational structures and seemingly very little volunteering to do that work, which to my eye is immediately suspect.
I guess I'd expect this document to better substantiate why being elected puts this duty on these people, and why that claim is more significant than if I elected the author of this letter as Viceroy of Bringing Me Lunch?
The Gitea Open Letter has links to the two documents that have the facts you ask for, at the bottom of the page. And with links within the text. They are:
Presumably the author of this letter didn't participate in a process of deciding the person in charge of bringing you lunch is an elected position, didn't put themselves forward to it and didn't agree to the process happening at all.
The project is quite large and cannot be easily migrated without loss of data, due to rate limits in Github's API's. The preparation has been long going, but they are nearing a point where they move the project to a gitea server. That's vendor lock-in, right there.
I find it very interesting how the person who put together this open letter has a company they started to sell Gitea, and is not even a maintainer of Gitea. So he hasn't even voted. Seems like a very suspicious conflict of interest that should be taken into account, and is very likely acting in bad faith.
Update: Looking at your comment history, you seem to be a 'damage control' account, created at the announcement of Gitea Ltd. I call that bad faith pur sang.
Sounds like some sort of hostile takeover was successfully implemented. Seems kind of silly writing something like this. Hey people that beat us over the head and took our stuff, can you be nice now and do A, B, and C?
Time to walk away and let it burn if that is the case.
I get tired of community uprisings and activism that fundamentally misunderstand how open source works, fork it.
If you're not the in the top producers in a DoOcracy then you neglected your right to exert influence in the direction of the project.
I've led a few larger projects and the rate at which the least of us will have the biggest opinions about who is -owed- what is flabbergasting.
DoOcracy's are great, but they often flame out with the top contributor finding one day they have a self-appointed board of directors for a passion-project that they just wanted to share with the world.
It is a multi-step process. First you do the right thing and kindly ask to repair trust that has been breached. If that doesn't work, which is a likely outcome, discussion about forks are in order. "Just fork it" is easy to say, but with large projects require careful consideration. There's too many people saying "just fork it" all too casually, if you ask me.
Sometime people make mistakes, big ones. That happens and this open letter gives them the opportunity to make right by the community. A fork is a last resort option, when everything else failed. Patience and understanding is a good thing in Free Software communities. Even when facing what appears to be a malicious action.
This is the step right before forking. If diplomacy fails, then you fork. A silent fork is much less likely to gain traction. This letter raises awareness for the problem and is the reaction to it is a solid foundation for a fork.
Right to the source code is a completely separate issue from rights to the project name and domain name. You can guarantee decentralised access to the source code but you can't guarantee the same for the name and domain.
I’ve never participated in an open source community so this is the view of an ignorant third party. Everytime I see anything related to the open source world bubble up into the public I am only reminded of high school and college level social drama.
> Everytime I see anything related to the open source world bubble up into the public I am only reminded of high school and college level social drama.
This is entirely explained by survivorship bias. The matural social interactions which are the bread and butter of open source never bubble up to your purview because they aren't dramatic and interesting.
Every larger community (or even medium sized ones) have friction around collaboration, as they are efforts to reach a common goal but not always is the way of achieving those goals agreed upon by everyone (or sometimes, not even the goal is common).
The only difference between open source community and private ones is that the discussion ("the social drama") tends to be done out in the open for everyone to see in the open source ones, while in the private ones it happens behind closed doors or between individuals behind peoples back.
Thats because disputes tend to get a lot more attention than things that work well.
For example, it seems you never saw any of the news about how the Python community calmly and carefully discussed what they were going to do to move forward after Guido resigned as BDFL?
> anything related to the open source world bubble up into the public I am only reminded of high school and college level social drama.
That's because open source washes its dirty laundry in public. The same things happen behind closed doors in companies all the time, it's called office politics, and yes, it is exhausting.
> Everytime I see anything related to the open source world bubble up into the public I am only reminded of high school and college level social drama.
This is engineering/technical communities in general. You get a lot of strong opinions and individuals who cannot take criticism. A few, often very loud, people make a ton of noise and take up the time of the individuals actually contributing real substance to the project.
Don't like it? Fork it. Simple as that. Same with all the code of conduct nonsense that crops up a couple times a year.
If your opinions are so popular forking and moving contributors to a new project should be easy right? Yeah, turns out your opinions aren't shared by most and only the loudest of the group, no one else really cares.
Fork it and move on. Humanity has shown it’s all about control of ethno-bubbles.
Our biology seeks power and influence. Rent seeking.
Stop giving it to these ephemeral terms, logos, memes, and importing the gibberish of outsiders, giving them influence.
Don’t give them anymore attention, fork the repo. The people behind these projects are just people. They’re not owed fealty and chance after chance given this behavior happens all the time and users complain all the time when they do. Stop feeding the identity of the sorts who do this. They’re figurative nobodies and random meat bags of billions. Treat them with the same lack of respect in return. There’s no making nice with this kind of agency. Flip it off and walk away.
You can't slander them by saying they're throwing a tantrum, without even talking about what parts of the document you're referring to or why it is you feel that way, and then decry how they're not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. That is pearl clutching.
Writing them to resolve this issue in good faith, is giving them the benefit of the doubt.
nonrandomstring|3 years ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayfair_Set
aasasd|3 years ago
Is this guy in fact the inventor of the annoying modern style of political documentary, where I have to listen to anxiety-inducing drones and the worst kind of movie-trailer voice, nonstop for an hour at least? The one used by shittiest propaganda tv channels? And for some inexplicable reason also borrowed by Youtube personalities that supposedly appeal to thinking, educated people in opposition to that propaganda tv.
aargh_aargh|3 years ago
https://blog.gitea.io/2022/10/open-source-sustainment-and-th...
as discussed here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33339421
TAForObvReasons|3 years ago
> Since Gitea is a pure community organization without any company support, to keep the development healthy we will elect three owners every year.
> When the new owners have been elected, the old owners will give up ownership to the newly elected owners
According to CONTRIBUTING.md, this dates back to 2016. The new company represents a shift from the community model that attracted many developers and users.
The issue is that ultimately Lunny holds the trademark and isn't legally bound to uphold whatever agreement is stated in the repo.
kdumont|3 years ago
It seems like the demands are:
> Implementing an intuitive and fair election process.
I think we do that now: https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#... Anyone who has contributed to the gitea project more than 2x PRs is invited to be a maintainer. Every maintainer gets 3 votes. Maybe there are some suggestions for improving - please open a PR.
> Describing the ways in which democratic decisions are to be made.
Again, I'm just confused what's being requested. Moving on.
> Providing accessible places where all relevant information can be found.
This seems like the same request as above. Or maybe a request for better documentation. I agree. Open a PR, don't fork gitea.
> Establishing a DoOcracy that works and continue to improve it.
I agree with this and I suspect that was the intention with the original reference to DAOs, but needs to be clarified.
> A non-profit organisation owned by the Gitea community is created. > The Gitea trademark and domains are transferred to the non-profit. > The name of the company is changed to avoid any confusion with the non-profit.
Does anyone have experience with how this is typically handled? It seems like this is the only actionable request. What are some examples of non-profit open-source companies? Is that typical?
dachary|3 years ago
> A non-profit organisation owned by the Gitea community is created.
> The Gitea trademark and domains are transferred to the non-profit.
> The name of the company is changed to avoid any confusion with the non-profit.
A week ago the Gitea project was an informal community trusting elected individuals with essential assets such as the domains and the trademark. They had a clear moral bound (see https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#...) to pass on the ownership of the project to their successor.
But they thought it was ok to create a company and take the domains and trademark as if they were their property. Maybe the absence of a legal bound made them forget their promise, their moral obligation towards the Gitea community.
Creating a non-profit will avoid that kind of problem in the future and give back the domains and the trademark to the Gitea community. If the president of a non-profit was to transfer the domain name to a for-profit company they exclusively control, the members of the non profit will be in a position to sue the president for embezzlement.
If the for profit company refuses to give back the domains and trademark, that would be very damaging to the project. The post from Harald Welte on that topic in the Gitea forum is enlightening in that regard, see https://discourse.gitea.io/t/open-source-sustainment-and-the...
The other points you cite from the Open Letter are merely suggestions for future improvements (as stated in the letter), not demands.
thayne|3 years ago
The Apache foundation? FSF? The Mozilla foundation (which is different but related to the for-profit Mozilla Corporation)? The rust foundation? CNCF? Probably many others.
It would also probably be possible to find a suitable existing non-profit that could act as a steward of these resources.
dec0dedab0de|3 years ago
This rubs me the wrong way. Surely the discussion history, documentation, and the freaking code are more important than the name.
I generally don't like open source becoming beholden to comercial interests, and I don't know enough about this story to know if that's really what is happening here. Reading that the name may be more important than the code is just very off-putting.
rhaway84773|3 years ago
The only thing that is unique to an open source project is its reputation, and the reputation is most strongly tied with its name and trademarks.
yamtaddle|3 years ago
rileyphone|3 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_software_rebranded_by_...
rapnie|3 years ago
Yes, but there's the crux. Gitea Ltd having the domains and trademark and then setting project direction means exactly that. While before it appeared or pretended to be a fully community-driven exercise. If you are not part of the company, how can you still considered to be a community-elected Owner that acts as the project's custodian?
notatoad|3 years ago
gitea is a brand. whoever owns the domain and trademarks owns the brand.
yazzku|3 years ago
Trademarks can be a burden to FLOSS.
tinalumfoil|3 years ago
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/pulse
kdumont|3 years ago
The general consensus from us maintainers on the "Open Letter" is that it's an overreaction. It's not supported by a vast majority of the maintainers of the project and spearheaded by folks who have contributed very little. A VAST majority of folks contributing to gitea are still onboard.
We need answers. The communication was poorly handled.
The original announcement was completely bereft of details and now we finally have a draft of updated clarifications that should be posted soon (thankfully, this time we're being consulted for feedback).
I think the original intention was "we're seeing some revenue coming in and now we're workshopping ways to get those funds back to contributors and maintain the project in a sustainable way", but a lot of poorly-chosen words were used, and panic ensued.
TL;DR: give us some time to set it all straight and if it really looks like incentives are misaligned, please provide some constructive criticism.
ALSO, WE WOULD LOVE HELP & FEEDBACK FROM FOLKS WHO HAVE MAINTAINED SIMILAR PROJECTS SUCCESSFULLY
[0] https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/graphs/contributors
dachary|3 years ago
computronus|3 years ago
https://communitywiki.org/wiki/DoOcracy
(If you're like me and hadn't heard of the concept before.)
hadlock|3 years ago
Brian_K_White|3 years ago
"Why did you punch me in the face?"
"Shut up, it was free. I do all this work for free and you ungrateful parasite users just complain."
burnished|3 years ago
chungy|3 years ago
didip|3 years ago
Is Joe part of the incorporated company?
Folks who are not happy about this should just switch back to Gogs.
mistrial9|3 years ago
As a WEIRD myself, I am heavily invested in the social concepts around F/OSS and GPL, and have super hard time with the vibe coming from PRC. Those implications are beyond the scope of this topic though, for the most part. better info welcome
DandyDev|3 years ago
mhd|3 years ago
dachary|3 years ago
Although people secretly created the company month ago, the first public hint of its existence showed when someone inadvertently mentioned being bound by an NDA. Which raised questions that they could not answer... because they were bound by an NDA.
That was in July 2022.
KaoruAoiShiho|3 years ago
They're just going to form a for-profit based on his work and cut him out entirely?
Liquix|3 years ago
twawaaay|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
burnished|3 years ago
I guess I'd expect this document to better substantiate why being elected puts this duty on these people, and why that claim is more significant than if I elected the author of this letter as Viceroy of Bringing Me Lunch?
dachary|3 years ago
https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#... https://blog.gitea.io/2022/10/open-source-sustainment-and-th...
Macha|3 years ago
yazzku|3 years ago
If so, this seems like a reminder of why the GPL and its variants are important.
dpedu|3 years ago
bastardoperator|3 years ago
rapnie|3 years ago
throwaccount12|3 years ago
rapnie|3 years ago
Update: Looking at your comment history, you seem to be a 'damage control' account, created at the announcement of Gitea Ltd. I call that bad faith pur sang.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
citizenpaul|3 years ago
Time to walk away and let it burn if that is the case.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
cp9|3 years ago
aliqot|3 years ago
If you're not the in the top producers in a DoOcracy then you neglected your right to exert influence in the direction of the project.
I've led a few larger projects and the rate at which the least of us will have the biggest opinions about who is -owed- what is flabbergasting.
DoOcracy's are great, but they often flame out with the top contributor finding one day they have a self-appointed board of directors for a passion-project that they just wanted to share with the world.
rapnie|3 years ago
dachary|3 years ago
dboreham|3 years ago
solarkraft|3 years ago
twawaaay|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
nerdponx|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
lovich|3 years ago
It seems utterly exhausting to be involved
munificent|3 years ago
This is entirely explained by survivorship bias. The matural social interactions which are the bread and butter of open source never bubble up to your purview because they aren't dramatic and interesting.
capableweb|3 years ago
The only difference between open source community and private ones is that the discussion ("the social drama") tends to be done out in the open for everyone to see in the open source ones, while in the private ones it happens behind closed doors or between individuals behind peoples back.
ensignavenger|3 years ago
For example, it seems you never saw any of the news about how the Python community calmly and carefully discussed what they were going to do to move forward after Guido resigned as BDFL?
nequo|3 years ago
mariusor|3 years ago
That's because open source washes its dirty laundry in public. The same things happen behind closed doors in companies all the time, it's called office politics, and yes, it is exhausting.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
sjcoles|3 years ago
This is engineering/technical communities in general. You get a lot of strong opinions and individuals who cannot take criticism. A few, often very loud, people make a ton of noise and take up the time of the individuals actually contributing real substance to the project.
Don't like it? Fork it. Simple as that. Same with all the code of conduct nonsense that crops up a couple times a year.
If your opinions are so popular forking and moving contributors to a new project should be easy right? Yeah, turns out your opinions aren't shared by most and only the loudest of the group, no one else really cares.
MonkeyMalarky|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
freemrkt8|3 years ago
Our biology seeks power and influence. Rent seeking.
Stop giving it to these ephemeral terms, logos, memes, and importing the gibberish of outsiders, giving them influence.
Don’t give them anymore attention, fork the repo. The people behind these projects are just people. They’re not owed fealty and chance after chance given this behavior happens all the time and users complain all the time when they do. Stop feeding the identity of the sorts who do this. They’re figurative nobodies and random meat bags of billions. Treat them with the same lack of respect in return. There’s no making nice with this kind of agency. Flip it off and walk away.
lunnyxiao|3 years ago
[deleted]
itzz_amar|3 years ago
[deleted]
hrbf|3 years ago
Tellingly, it never appears to be the ones who do the actual work who throw such tantrums.
And how about just extending the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately feeding the outrage machine?
maxbond|3 years ago
Writing them to resolve this issue in good faith, is giving them the benefit of the doubt.
mariusor|3 years ago
I recognize at least 2 names in the top five as devs that I personally collaborated with in order to add features to Gitea.
rapnie|3 years ago
And how do you know that, if I may ask?
wiseowise|3 years ago
You give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.