Someone starts a new #FOSS project as a hobby activity.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

Someone starts a new #FOSS project as a hobby activity. "No one bossing me around like at work, just having fun, do as I wish." they write in the README.

After some time the project starts to get noticed, people request new features, and some Pull Requests are contributed and merged. There's a good vibe with similarly interested devs.

One year later. An unhappy community has formed. People complain about the #BDFL and harsh words circle the social channels.

Is the label of "BDFL" justified?

Irenes (many)

@smallcircles insufficient data

Laxystem

@smallcircles the "BDFL" label is purely descriptive. Hobby projects are a good thing. Want to make it community driven? Soft/hard fork it.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

Suppose that during the project a best-practice was followed of:

- Clearly communicate your intent with the project, so people can set their own expectations accordingly.

And you made this painstakingly clear in all project communication, emphasizing a "hobby project".

Are people in the wrong when they throw the BDFL criticism card?

[level 100] mir

@[email protected] a BDFL is fine as long as they are indeed benevolent.

Pixelcode 🇺🇦

@smallcircles Every developer whose decisions are not based on democratic voting is a BDFL. At least, that's the way I intuitively understand the term. Also, I'm not aware of any projects that are not led by dictators or oligarchs.

Laxystem

@mir @smallcircles imo if they founded or forked the project then it's fine for them not to be benevolent. Of course, it would be preferred, but it's better to have a read-only, forkable foss project, over no project at all.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

Now image the situation where the popularity of the #FOSS project grew unnoticed, and the expectation of "hobby project" was never well conveyed.

Even the maintainer at this point considers the project "more than hobby". They want to keep working in the way that motivated them to start, despite people demanding differently. They still want #JoyOfCoding and to build what they want, thus decide to retain full control of contributions.

The label #BDFL is slammed broadly about in harsh criticism.

Jenniferplusplus

@smallcircles How does the project accrue all of this attention? That's not really something that happens on its own

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@mir I agree, if the #BDFL 'governance model' as it were, were well enough communicated so that everyone involved has the right expectations of the project.

Probably the best case study of where expectations clash, is the #Mastodon project. It can be very frustrating to see the "important" feature (to you) sit idle on the backlog for 5 year, or to see the maintainer rewrite your PR's rather than merge them directly.

Yet, while not communicated properly, Mastodon is clearly on a BDFL track.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@ireneista I added some more polls drilling a bit deeper into the subject.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@laxla I agree.

This is about the criticism one gets from outsiders who expect you to set a certain path with your project. One aligning with their path.

So there's this implicit boundary where a hobby project crosses over into something where people slam the #BDFL label on and start making all kinds of demands.

When are those justified, and when not? That was the gist of my toot about.

Laxystem

@smallcircles they're never justified because you don't deserve anything beyond what the license, a legal and ethical contract, describes.

abekonge

@smallcircles good questions. I think there is an interesting conundrum here. On the one hand most people value personal freedom - and whatever you do that does not do harm is fine. But when you offer something up for usage in the commons and at the same time insist that you have all the power - there is a potential conflict. I think we culturally have a weird obsession with ownership and absolute power over the thing. In another view it is mad to expect to be able to own anything that is shared. And maybe it’s this madness that leads to conflict. …

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@pixelcode

If that were true, it wouldn't seem attractive to me to expose my pure hobby project codebase as #FOSS.

#BDFL is a loaded term. It conveys a commitment, and moral and ethical duties. And that for your hobby project, you bestowed as a gift to others, so they might also have fun with the code.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@jenniferplusplus yes, I made the third poll in the thread about that case, with a case study being masto.

abekonge

@smallcircles and maybe the expectation that you want someone to use a thing, without having agency is also a bit mad. You would not want e.g. a friendship to be based on this - or a family. Or a society. Or a workplace (!).

abekonge

@smallcircles to be fair there is a side to this that involves people expecting to consume foss projects and having free support that is a big part of these conflicts as well. The dedication to the commons cuts both ways - if you want agency and governance you’re also responsible … but I think people often do not know how to do this - and maintainers do not know how to offer this. So I guess I’m saying we need new models. (Or maybe old ones we need to rediscover :)).

Billy Smith

@smallcircles @laxla

If outsiders don't like the way that thinngs are done, then they can fork the project, and build it for themselves.

It's a hobby project first and foremost.

If the outsiders have expectations, then that's the outsider's problems to deal with, not the hobbiest.

We are choosing to share our work.

If someone doesn't like the flavour of the recipe, they are welcome to go create their own meal.

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@abekonge exactly.

An analogy, maybe. Say I live in a small communal group where we do collective gardening. My hobby is to chop wood, with the precious axe my late father gave me.

So, I joyously chop wood for myself.. and also for my neighbors. A kind gesture.

Then neighbors come:

"We need more wood"
"I want thinner splices"
"There should be a rack for people's orders"
"I need a truckload for my friends"

And then:

"This jerk gatekeeps his wood"
"Yea, suck big time."
"This guy is a BDFL!"