Why only 3 years ago?

Maybe 10 years will be little more accurate?

  git shortlog -sne --since '10 years ago'
    1298  Benno Schulenberg <[email protected]>
     481  David Lawrence Ramsey <[email protected]>
     382  Chris Allegretta <[email protected]>
      28  Jordi Mallach <[email protected]>
       3  Mike Frysinger <[email protected]>
       3  Mike Scalora <[email protected]>
       2  Rishabh Dave <[email protected]>

  git shortlog -sne --since '15 years ago'
    2528  David Lawrence Ramsey <[email protected]>
    1298  Benno Schulenberg <[email protected]>
     803  Chris Allegretta <[email protected]>
     355  Jordi Mallach <[email protected]>
       3  Mike Frysinger <[email protected]>
       3  Mike Scalora <[email protected]>
       2  Rishabh Dave <[email protected]>
       1  Rocco Corsi <[email protected]>

Well, now looks little different...

2001 was when Windows XP was released. That's at least a few "eras" in computing ago.

Any open source project is only as good as it is today not what it was.

If you like to test it, I would be very interested in the result of trying to get linux running with only code written from the last 3 years. I would assume that almost a majority of the code would be there, but then I would also assume that most of the essential core is basically untouched except for security patches. It would make for a very interesting read and a HN worthy article.

Have kernel images doubled in the last years?

Then again, in many orgs XP is barely being replaced with Windows 7...

With a record like that I think he should be allowed to do whatever he pleases with the project.

I don’t think so. With that argument, anyone could take over any project just because he/she has more free time than the current maintainer.

Would you want someone who steps up and does a lot of work in a project you started to suddenly tell you that he/she will now change the vision of the project and turn it in ways you don’t like?

Let’s assume that you take your time to write clean code, do changes slowly and deliberately and think long about how to do something right before you start coding. Then someone steps up and does lots of cool things in a flurry of activity, but does not do them right and you already see the maintenance fallout from that approaching. Would you want that contributor to take over the project and use the name you established for this new kind of project?

As a non-programming example: I’m writing a roleplaying system, and it took me several years to get from EWS-2.6 to having the concepts for EWS-3.0 nailed down — though without having finished text. If someone came in and did lots of work, I would still not want to see an EWS-3.0 which violates core principles I set down for the system. People are free to do that, but they have to do that in their own space, not in the space I created.

Also changing the name all over the source code in the main version tracking repository is a pretty hostile step. It implies that the other one now considers the project his/her own.

Essentially Benno should have made a bano, but I think that just turning GNU nano into his own project isn’t OK.

Isn't that the idea of open source software? The best maintainer is the one in charge.

I don't think Linus would object to someone replacing him if anyone was more qualified for the job. Hell he even openly encourages people to fork Linux, make improvements, and follow the license (copy left).

I see nothing wrong with the most active/best maintainer having say over the project's future.

> Isn't that the idea of open source software? The best maintainer is the one in charge.

No, not really. Open source embraces the idea of forking - a hostile take over of the original project is most definitely not the idea - but it can be allowed depending on the projects charter.

Also - most active contribute =/= maintainer - I'm sure Red Hat adds more code to the kernel than Linus these days, but Linus is still the 'decider'.

To conclude, Benno is free to fork GNU Nano, but it will not be GNU Nano - he can call it 'New Nano' if he likes.

Pretty much. Especially if one i trying to introduce major changes.

Edit: That said, there seems to be more hostile takeovers happening these days. Perhaps because a new gen of devs care as much, or more, about brand as about code quality...

Arguably, if the situation is the one described, I'm not sure what "the best maintainer" is. :(

Changing name and leaving the old project eventually die or be subsumed by the fork (like egcs did with gcc) would have probably been a better choice.

> Isn't that the idea of open source software? The best maintainer is the one in charge.

There is no reason why the first sentence should imply the second.

Of course he can do anything he pleases with nano. (So can you, and so can I.) He just doesn't get to do anything he pleases with GNU nano.

Committing to an existing project doesn't give you exclusive license rights over the project.

It's free software, everybody is allowed to do whatever they please with the project. GNU doesn't have to support or endorse it, though.

I think he should have renamed the project when he forked it. This sounds disingenuous to me.

Was it really necessary to also publish their email addresses?

--

Edit: I know the addresses appear in the Git repo. But they are not accessible to web crawlers over HTTP. Most code hosting services require a login to see them as a spam control measure. Which is also why I think they should be obfuscated at least.

They are accessible over HTTP. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nano.git/commit/?id=115aeda...

They are more accessible here on HN, though, because crawlers that obey robots.txt will not see it on git.savannah.gnu.org but will see it here on HN.

I suspect that if a crawler is being used to farm email addresses for spamming, it's highly unlikely that robots.txt would be any deterrent whatsoever.

Spammers' crawlers use URLs obtained from search engines and public sources. If the whole directory is blocked in robots.txt, it WILL reduce crawling activity massively.

I did not know that about Savannah. I am mainly familiar with Github, Bitbucket and Launchpad. I guess there is no point hiding from the bots these days.

Why is everyone so uptight about their emails being public? If you're planning on doing free software development in public, your email is going to have to be publicly available anyway (otherwise people can't contact your for legitimate reasons). Spend the 15 minutes it takes to set up SpamAssassin and then get on with your life.

SpamAssassin is about as effective as wet scotch tape.

The existence of your e-mail address in public does not grant members of public permission to Republish or use however they please outside its intended purpose.

Community standards say this information is mangled before republishing to the web, Otherwise, if you post someone's e-mail address, you are aiding and abetting spammers.

At the very best, It is highly inconsiderate to republish, and in other cases, may result in legal actionw, as in suit for damages against the person who republished your e-mail address.

I mean, they're right there in the git log

Publish? It's public already.

Spammers are already using emails from git repositories, especially from Github.

For whom is spam actually a problem? Filters are absurdly good.

Depends on the email service. Colleagues of mine who work at military research lab have their emails filtered to junk in my email but then I routinely receive email notices in my inbox from university emails warning me my "Account is expired/full/overdue" and I must take immediate action by clicking on a link.

Hint: I think gmail filters are good. The rest? Not so much.

They are, if you can get them. Until recently my employer was using a mail provider that had seriously neglected their product. The spam filtering was atrocious, so I tried to avoid giving out my work email as much as possible.

(Thankfully we finally switched to another provider because the old one refused to support DKIM or even STARTTLS to other MX servers.)

It can be additional work for people self-hosting their mail. But I base that on my own experience many years out of date.

2 orders of magnitude more commits? Yes, agree. And the argument that claims "a flurry of activity" doesn't wash. This is a bit more than a flurry.

Snap