Projects with bigger problems [LWN.net]

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 30, 2026 17:42 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Projects with bigger problems by marcH
Parent article: Dependency-cooldown discussions warm up

> I have never seen anyone looking for software looking for "something generic". I really don't think this is how it works.

Even if there is only one module in the entire namespace that implements $functionality, how exactly are random software developers supposed to know what its name is without first searching for "$language module for $functionality" ?

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Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 30, 2026 17:54 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

I meant no one looking for software is going to think "Oh, I can choose between 50 'generic' options for this, I'm spoiled with choice, this is great! Lucky me".

Software being all fixed costs and network effects, when you see 50 different options you immediately know that at least 47 are garbage if not more. Once you have 3 viable left, you are still depressed because now you need even more time to evaluate the 3 left, as you know dependencies are really hard to change and picking up one is pretty long-term commitment.

This is pretty much the opposite of buying "generic" stuff on Temu.

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 30, 2026 17:59 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

No, they're going to think "oh, this platform is awful - it's got 5,000 options, and I can't see how I find the legitimate ones in all the junk, so I'm not going to donate to anything on this platform at all". And thus, the platform ends up dead.