Hi all,
We took on building the stand-alone .EXE functionality
only once you had
made it clear that you were not interested in taking on this
commission,
and over email in September 2022 asked us to work on it. In no way have we
wanted to take advantage or misrepresent you, and it pains me that you seem
to think that.
The fact that WMSE took this on is only awesome and I have supported that
all along. At the only point in which I feeled misrepresented, WMSE
concluded I had been and unpublished the blog post in question.
We communicated on our implementation of this both on
GitHub (issue<
https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/issues/152#issuecomment-1361324110> and PR<
https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/pull/173>) and on Phabricator.
This just illustrates my point. A quick look at the progress report reveals
that rather than collaborating and being transparent with the project WMSE
moved all decision making and underlying research to its own spaces over at
Phabricator. Since the pull request reached Pattypan WMSE hasn't worked on
its implementation at all.
We got feedback from you back in spring about our
implementation but have
not gotten any replies to our questions since then.
If someone decides to abandon work on a patch it will take months for
someone else to pick it up, that's how open source works. All the
unanswered questions are asking me if I have had the time to look at a
solution on my own.
To ensure it could still be of use to those who wish
to use it (incl. the
GLAM that commissioned it) we therefore host it separately and
take on the
task of manually syncing it to newer releases of Pattypan. In no way should
that be considered to entail a fork of Pattypan, but rather just an
independently maintained download version for some Windows users (i.e. just
a binary).
WMSE's "independently maintained download version" still points to Pattypan
for support, it uses the same version-identifier as the official version,
etc. Even though the project would have no ability to support this
"version" given that it's "just a binary". No one involved in
Pattypan was
even informed.
WMSE shouldn't have done this in the first place, it's a well known no-no
in open source, they should have either finished the work started or at
least communicated a wish to find an alternative solution. Several
solutions come to my mind directly.
Just like posting blog posts about maintainers' inabilities is abusive,
bypassing community/open source processes is abusive too. I'm not sure what
points WMSE is trying to score with these actions?
Albin
On Fri, Sep 22, 2023 at 3:05 PM <andre.costa(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> Since Wikimedia Sverige’s actions are directly pointed out as the cause
> above I feel the need to reply to that part in order to give our view on
> events.
>
We took on building the stand-alone .EXE functionality
only once you had
> made it clear that you were not interested in taking on this
commission,
> and over email in September 2022 asked us to work on it. In no way have we
> wanted to take advantage or misrepresent you, and it pains me that you seem
> to think that.
>
We communicated on our implementation of this both on
GitHub (issue<
>
https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/issues/152#issuecomment-1361324110> and
>
PR<https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/pull/173>) and on Phabricator. We got
> feedback from you back in spring about our implementation but have not
> gotten any replies to our questions since then. We interpreted your silence
> as you not wishing to merge our solution, a decision which we respect. To
> ensure it could still be of use to those who wish to use it (incl. the GLAM
> that commissioned it) we therefore host it separately and take on the task
> of manually syncing it to newer releases of Pattypan. In no way should that
> be considered to entail a fork of Pattypan, but rather just an
> independently maintained download version for some Windows users (i.e. just
> a binary).
>
> Our changes to Commons:Pattypan were intended to be minimal to inform
> users that this new functionality was available without adding any bloat to
> the page or trying to supplant any official links. While I didn’t believe
> it to be necessary at the time I can see now that we could have made it
> more clear that the .EXE distribution was inofficial/independent.
>
> That said…
>
> While it saddens me to see you stepping down I can fully understand your
> reasons for doing so. Maintenance is a largely thankless task, not made
> easier if it is someone else's codebase you have inherited or if it
> interfaces with services that keep changing.
>
> Thank you for keeping Pattypan alive these last 5 years! Doing so has
> enabled countless uploads, the lion's share of which would likely never
> have made it to Commons without your work.
>
> I’d also like to thank you for clearly communicating that you are stepping
> down. All too often maintainers quietly quit, leaving the users in limbo.
> This happens independently of if it is an individual or an organization
> maintaining the software. Your example will hopefully make it easier for
> someone else finding themselves in a similar position.
>
> If you find it valuable I would be happy to talk with you and see how to
> best move forward from here, as I assume that we will have interactions
> about Wikimedia related things in the future.
>
> With respect,
>
> André Costa (WMSE) / Lokal_Profil
> _______________________________________________
> GLAM mailing list -- glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to glam-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>