First of all, sorry to hear that WiringPi is deprecated, and I would like to thank the author for all the effort he put into this project.<p>When I read his blog post on his reasoning, I can't help but be reminded of the feud between xscreensaver's author and Debian maintainers. Debian maintainers refused to upgrade the app's version and refused to remove the 'For support contact the author's email' notice. The author's fed up with all the support emails he gets from Debian (outdated) installations' users and put in a message prompt blasting Debian. It was very ugly for both sides.<p>I think that there can be an extension on GPL that says, if you bundle this library and is not using the latest official version from the author, you are not allowed to include the author's contact information. If you insist on bundling the author's email with your outdated software, then you are in violation of GPL.<p>As for people stealing his code. Sorry to hear this. I got nothing except to try to contact EFF.
The author owes nobody anything. He's already done enough. If you've given away something for free, don't expect support or anything free in the future. It's literally like taking a gift from someone and then complaining that it doesn't have enough for you to act indignant to people who give things away for free. Don't like it? Don't use it or improve it and contribute back. Want more? Pay them to build it and add it to what's available for everyone as a way to say thanks.
I haven't used this library but I maintain a couple moderately well-used python libraries and completely sympathize with these frustrations. The absolute worst was a guy who asked for all sorts of changes then, when I had made it clear I was going a different direction, he tried to start a public shaming on Twitter, this site, Reddit, and even the Wikipedia page (since removed at my own request). It was un-believable. He was the cto of a company, too, at least at that time.<p>It is sad that there are people out there who will try to ruin your day if you don't do what they want. Especially considering the work we put into these libraries.
The complaint about leaving the author's email as the support contact reminds me of sqlite having to change their temp file prefix to "etilqs_" because they were getting support calls and abuse for unrelated applications [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d/src/os.h#L52-L66" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d/src/os.h#L52-...</a>
I've used WiringPI, it's a solid library, and - like a lot of people - I'm glad it exists.<p>But here's a contrarian view - I'm not sure why someone offering a project for free <i>in the educational space</i> would expect users to act like paid professional customers. Or expect them to be non-noob experts who can modify and build the project without hand-holding.<p>Or assume that email would be a viable line of support for a project with literally tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users.<p>Or even expect them to be adults.<p>So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - the terms you set for its use.<p>All open source projects comes with politics included. You have to have an understanding of the space you're working in, the kinds of users who inhabit it, and the kinds of relationships they're likely to have with them.<p>You need to know what your support boundaries and support technologies are. And if you work in a space where some of your users are likely to be assholes, you need to have a plan for that - even if it's just knowing that it's fine to ignore them.<p>Edit: to be clear, I think this is more of a general open licence problem than the failing of this one specific author. Open licences don't encourage authors to define boundaries, or even to understand that boundaries are necessary and terms need to be defined. So it's not quite a surprise that things like this happen.
If you read this Gordon, thank you for all you did for so long, it was way more generous than we deserved. I'm sorry for how unappreciative it all turned out, I appreciated your work and you're right you definitely should not put up with that shit. Best of luck =)
I have used WiringPi along my side of work and I am thankful to the author for creating and maintaining it, but honestly I don't understand the motivation behind offering a free product with email support.<p>There are many different people on the Internet with different cultural backgrounds, experience levels and work ethic and unfortunately it's not realistic to expect each of your users to share the same values as you do. Anecdotally, charging a license fee for your library/tool is a very good way to filter out 90% of the unprofessional behavior.<p>Also if you rely on your free product to promote your consulting business, I would highly recommend creating a community forum where users can advice each other, and maybe offering paid support on top of that. Also using an open-source helpdesk app to semi-automatically send canned replies to commonly repeating inquiries saves a ton of time and keeps the assholes off your back, as long as the canned replies are reasonable and polite.
I also make free software. It's a battle dealing with folks who want both free code AND free work! Making code GPL is both a blessing a curse. Tales lakie this make me stop and double-check my choices
Creating or running an open source project can be a thankless task, made worse by the sheer number of entitled jerks who can find you and your project via the Internet.<p>If you're selling software for pay, at least there's money in your pocket to compensate you for having to deal with the various types of a<i></i>*oles in the human race, but without that it can rapidly become a chore to maintain even a small or niche package. That's why lots of software becomes orphaned.<p>I salute anyone who has ever had the courage to try to write, maintain, or organize development for open source software.
I can empathize with most of this, but I can't say I understand the "last straw" bit. How is there anything wrong with DanielK's request?
This is why I stopped thinking unfriendliness in hacker circles is unwarranted. It's massively frustrating when you get people berating/harassing/stealing from/etc you when the reality is there really isn't a product, just a passion or hobby.<p>This is why any open software I author comes with the express warranty of "Help: No." If no is misunderstood then any reply will be along the lines of FOAD.
Sad to see it go like that.<p>Yet another example how ungrateful many people are towards free software.<p>The only difference to piracy, is that not only do they not give back anything, they feel entitled to all kind of requests.<p>So the result ends always being the same, moving to something else.
Or just open a ticket on the package and inform the user one "has 'technically' done all one could do given time constraints"?<p>I get the frustration, but this looks like a case of improper idiot handling that just escalated...
Step 1. Person A makes some piece of software under an open source license. (GPL)<p>Step 2. This piece of software becomes widely used, <i>primarily since</i> it's open source licensed<p>Step 3. (Modern variation) Person A feels cheated for not getting rich and creates some kind of drama.<p>This doesn't make any sense at all, to me.
I read this and still don’t understand what is the issue behind the drama. If you don’t want to support it, then don’t; if someone stole your public domain work, contact the EFF or more realistically just understand it’s cost of doing business.<p>We all get tired at some point and move on, you don’t owe anyone anything. And thanks for the library!