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One more predictionOne more predictionPosted Jan 4, 2013 17:05 UTC (Fri) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232)Parent article: LWN's 2013 Predictions I'll stick my neck out here and predict that Jon once again will not release the source code behind the LWN web site this year. I only mention it because several of us have been gently egging him on about this for about a decade, and I wanted to get this year's egging out of the way. Here's hoping LWN's 2013 is its best year yet.
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One more prediction Posted Jan 4, 2013 17:27 UTC (Fri) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
Given Jon's particular area of expertise I'm beginning to suspect that this is because the entire site actually runs as a mammoth kernel module.
One more prediction Posted Jan 4, 2013 22:46 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
You think you're joking: <http://web.yl.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~tosh/kml/>.
(I have never run this software because the mere idea of it is too terrifying to contemplate for long.)
One more prediction Posted Jan 5, 2013 21:12 UTC (Sat) by lacos (subscriber, #70616) [Link] I'll stick my neck out here and predict that Jon once again will not release the source code behind the LWN web site this year Why do you think he should? I think it's both ethical and reasonable from him not to release the source.
One more prediction Posted Jan 5, 2013 22:22 UTC (Sat) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] I agree with you 100%. "Should" is a bit strong, but the reason I still think he might is because he has indicated that he would like to for a decade. Several of us have gently encouraged him to pursue that course for two primary reasons. First, we actually wanted to help ensure LWN would stay around. The more site development/maintenance work we could take off Jon, the more he could focus on finding/creating content and generally staying afloat. Second, remember, 10 years ago, there weren't quite so many capable free off-the-shelf site management systems around, so having access to the LWN code base would have been valuable to the community. These days most of the problems with the code base have been worked out, and the community has plenty of other CMS options. Yet to some extent, both of those original motivations still hold true.Preparing a mature code base for public release is no small amount of work. Managing the resultant stream of patches (which may never materialize) is yet more work. It's doubtful the payback for Jon at this point would be worth it, and frankly if the choice for Jon's legacy is between the content he has provided over the years vs. the source code to the means he created to provide it, in hind sight I'd take the former. But if a tarball were to show up someday along with a wishlist of things Jon wanted added, I'm sure some of us would at least take a look and see what we could do to help. In any case, I wish the LWN staff a happy and successful 2013.
One more prediction Posted Jan 5, 2013 22:29 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Just because one does a open source release does not mean one has to manage the resultant patches. For instance, id releases their game engine as open source but they don't manage anything after that point. The typical way it has been taken forward is someone forks it and that fork becomes the central open source project.
One more prediction Posted Jan 13, 2013 14:19 UTC (Sun) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]
> Preparing a mature code base for public release is no small amount of work.
Jon could just dump what they have currently and add as wish list item "cleaning & generalizing the code base to the standards of a good public release".
Only things that would really need to be cleaned before publishing are things like:
LWN source Posted Jan 15, 2013 7:06 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]
Why should LWN release its source code?
Because that has been the promise for at least the decade or so I've been reading it, now. See the FAQ, which has said very close to the same thing since I first looked, way back then.
Because LWN is a flagship FLOSS community publication, and as such, it should walk its own talk. Many of the projects and hardware manufacturer's drivers that LWN was covering a decade ago as closed source have come around and are either directly open source now, or they're cooperating with the community and open source alternatives are now available, yet LWN, one of the FLOSS community would-be flagships, is still stuck with the same now rather hollow reading promise it had way back then.
It wouldn't be so bad if LWN weren't the in the highly visible FLOSS community flagship publication position it's in. Honestly, as someone else mentioned the time has passed when the LWN code would be the valuable contribution it once could have been. But by now, LWN is badly undercutting its own FLOSS message and the efforts of many others in the community as well, exactly BECAUSE it's in the highly visible flagship position it occupies, yet the code remains closed despite a decade (or more) of promising to open it.
What has the community done with others who have promised that they'd open their code for a decade, yet it remains closed? What sort of community credibility do they have? Would the community have tolerated a hardware manufacturer promising sources for the kernel and GPL software they ship, and not delivering for over a decade, or would they have been on the receiving end of a law suit well before that, with LWN's blessing as it covered the news? Of course LWN doesn't have the legal obligation, but having made the promise and as the community spokes-site they are, they certainly have the moral obligation. Why does LWN continue to get away with it?
More selfishly, not that a few subscriptions make that much difference to LWN, but while I was a subscriber for awhile and at least initially I felt good about it even when I didn't have time to read LWN because it was a way I could contribute to furthering the community, eventually I got uncomfortable enough about the discord between the message LWN promoted and its actions, that I found I could no longer in good conscience subscribe. But I'm selfish and not being a subscriber is inconvenient. I'd love to be able to read LWN's feature articles as they're published, and I miss the reply notification feature even more, but were I to subscribe just for the convenience while LWN remains closed source, it'd setup a personal moral discordance that I'm not willing to live with, so I just live with the inconvenience. If LWN would just open up its code as it has promised, it would thus eliminate a big personal inconvenience, as I'd then be able to subscribe in good conscience again, and thus have access once again to these valuable LWN subscriber features that I sure miss!
But for now, I've resigned myself to not getting reply notifications, or being able to read feature articles before they're old news. And... I guess I can still hope that in Jon's final instructions (which hopefully won't be read for decades yet, but it happens to us all!) there's provision for finally opening the code, because at this point, I've about lost hope of that promise ever being fulfilled otherwise. Not because he doesn't want to, but simply because "in real life (tm)" if something's not made a priority, as this evidently hasn't been despite the promise, there's generally always something else more important to do first...
Maybe this'll be the year that all changes. =:^)
Duncan
LWN source Posted Jan 15, 2013 8:37 UTC (Tue) by cladisch (✭ supporter ✭, #50193) [Link]
> Why does LWN continue to get away with it?
Because, apparently, users pay for the articles, not for the CMS source code.
LWN source Posted Jan 15, 2013 9:35 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> Why does LWN continue to get away with it?
Because most LWN readers apparently believe that the people who write code (including the people who pay others to write code), have the right to decide what do do with the code.
The fact that many people are willing to release the code under copyleft licenses is something that we appreciate, but we don't believe that anyone should be forced to release code (unless it's a derivative work of code where the license requires release)
This is one of the places where Free Software and Open Source Software differ.
Free Software believes that writing non-Free software is unethical.
Open Source Software believes that releasing the code is a choice, and frequently a very good choice the from purely pragmatic viewpoint.
In the case of the LWN codebase, I would rather have more articles and no code release rather than having them concentrate on the code audit and release and go under because they aren't producing articles.
LWN source Posted Jan 15, 2013 10:39 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] In the case of the LWN codebase, I would rather have more articles and no code release rather than having them concentrate on the code audit and release and go under because they aren't producing articles. The LWN.net site code was presumably written in response to the specific requirements of LWN.net and much of it is probably not directly useful unless you are, in fact, LWN.net. Personally I, too, would much rather see Jon and his team concentrate on content, which they demonstrably do better than just about anybody else, than get sidetracked by having to sanitise the LWN site code for release and running a community development project (because naturally the people clamouring for a LWN.net code release don't want them to just throw the code over the wall, Android-style, no, they want them to accept bug reports and patches, do new releases, etc. etc. on an ongoing basis). Especially since, these days, ready-made free content management systems with support and a community are a dime a dozen.
LWN source Posted Jan 15, 2013 14:46 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Why does LWN continue to get away with it?Com on. LWN.net doesn't ever distribute its source code; it is an internal product, so even under the GPL they might get away with it. As to the promise, it may have made sense some years ago, but today our beloved editors might retract their promise and very few people would feel the loss, as stated above. I am sure even Stallman keeps a closet full of code uglier than a troll's foot that he uses internally and would never release.
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