2y ago

Hey guys, this time I really messed up :/

I think you should see something.

Like I mentioned many time before, this isn't my first attempt at creating an aggregator. Years ago, I built something similar, and back then I drew a lot of inspiration from Postmill. This time, to avoid starting from scratch, I get some elements from my old snippets. Originally, kbin was meant to be a project just for me and a few friends, so I didn't attribute the origin authors. That's not an excuse, though — I should have done it right away when the project became public on git. I have a point in my roadmap called "Preparing a repository for contributors," where I allocated a significant amount of time to educate myself about licenses, attributions, and so on. Unfortunately, everything unfolded in the wrong order.

https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/196

I think Emma is right. Since I share my small successes with you, I also want to be transparent about my failures and mistakes. I will push the proper attributions to the repository today along with some critical fixes.

To avoid reinventing the wheel, I took some code used in federation from Pixelfed as well. Essentially, there are two projects two projects will be marked. However, I have never concealed this fact:

https://kbin.social/m/random/p/254858/The-real-reason-why-I-haven-t-published-the-pixelfed-app#post-comment-438684

I mean that I'm not a guy who wants to steal your code. It's obvious that someone will take a look at the code of a project that is very similar to theirs. Sometimes, I just become terribly messy when I have to do many things at once. This lesson will definitely teach me to prioritize tasks better.

In the end, I can only promise that once everything settles down and I manage to extract a library for ActivityPub, I will revisit the Postmill repository, this time with a pull request proposal.

You should definitely check it out.

https://postmill.xyz/ - Project page
https://raddle.me/ - Postmill instance
https://pixelfed.org/ - Of course, everyone here is familiar with this one ;)

PS. the website should be running a bit faster. I will talk about it next time.

50 comments

This is the kind of transparent communication that buys so much goodwill and trust from the community. I've been enjoying my first experience in the Fediverse with Kbin, and the response here only makes me love it that much more. Nicely handled.
- I think we did a good choice
  
  Agreed. I had already created an account on a Lemmy instance (Lemmy.one since I wanted to avoid the two main .ml instances). I had just about settled but decided to give Kbin a try. While it doesn't seem quite as far along in it's development, it struck me as a better user experience. Combined with reservations I have about the Lemmy developers... Well, here we are. And seeing this level of involvement and dedication to doing the right thing from the developer confirms that choice. Kudos @ernest

@ernest Hey man, if it's of any help, I have a PHP (laravel) project which mostly federates fine, license is AGPLv3 as well, so feel free to reuse what you see fit.
Edit: may be more useful with the link 🤦‍♂️
https://gitlab.com/j3j5/fedibots/
- I will definitely check it out! Thanks
  
  @ernest It's still wip so not all AP activities are supported yet, but it's powering some of my bots ( @BigBoEnergy @MeteoUY @LaDiaria )

Seems just like another day with open source software.
You gotta be careful about licensing and attribution and it can get really messy, but no big deal really.
Seems like you're correcting this and acting in good faith.
It shouldn't happen, but it happens. Thanks for the transparency

Mistakes happen, what matters is how you recover from them. Keep doing what you’re doing!

You handled this extremely well, especially in the face of someone so clearly looking for things to be outraged by. LitigiousEmma had no reason to be that aggressive right out of the gate and comes off as someone that the Open Source community would be significantly better off without.

Website is definitely running faster. Thank you @ernest

It was a mistake and you went about this the right way. You're doing an amazing job!

Appreciate the transparency Ernest.

Damn emma really tore into you in that issue lol. A lot of assumptions about malicious intentions when a simple mistake seems much more likely. I mean I know they're in the right defending their work but damn idk if they needed to make such a big public stink about it lol
- It seems to me that she did it very gently ;)
- Contacting the project "officially" through the the public tracker was the right thing to do.
  As for the tone of the message - I don't think it was out of line considering the circumstances.
  Mistakes do happen (licensing is actually hard) - and I'm happy to see it got fixed fast.
  
  Mistakes do happen (licensing is actually hard)
  Which is why the tone is striking people here as over the top. Ernest is clearly not a large business trying to profit off their work so some benefit of the doubt was warranted.
  Ernest corrected it and the story is over so none of this matters, but open source devs going at other devs who make a mistake with attribution just makes the ecosystem a less nice place to be. Save that hostility for the ones trying to take advantage of others
  
  Yeah I suppose you're right. Just the little digs at earnest's character seem needlessly hostile to me. like saying he edited the code to hide its origins or saying "what would your sponsors think?"
  idk. just don't like it. I do feel for them, I'm sure having your work copied without credit sucks. just wish we could all be friends and hold hands and shit:(

Frankly, it's very refreshing to see someone running the show that has this combination of work ethic, passion without hunger for power, and honesty. Thank you for the transparency!
You've obviously got a million things going on a minute here. Like someone juggling flaming swords, I don't think anyone is going to blame you for dropping one accidentally while more fire-soaked swords keep being tossed at you. Seems like you know what to do and that there are a lot of talented folks here willing to provide help anyway they can. We're with you (me in the sentimental sense, I'm not so talented when it comes to coding)!

@ernest I thought you killed someone, based on the title 😂
I agree with the other commenter. Seems like you’re making it right. This is a new and sometimes messy frontier for a lot of people and processes. If someone is worried about protecting their IP, this isn’t the hill to die on.

Lol, she picked a hell of a username on codeberg. Very fitting.
"Hey Ernest, I see you have used my code from (project) without proper attribution as required by the license. Can you please correct the attribution or remove the infringing code?"
How hard would that have been? If she didn't get the response she wanted she could then escalate.

It's alright. I do think the actual issue was worded perhaps a bit harshly and combative, and I think you responded correctly. Very much appreciate the accountability here. To be honest if anything, this probably gives me more faith in you in the long run. There are many ways you could have dealt with it, but as far as I can see you've dealt with the issue as honorably as you could have.
Proper attribution can be tricky. We all learn. We all make mistakes. A lot of us will never release a project that makes it as far as yours has so even our issues don't become even nearly as visible.
Keep your head up and stay calm. You're doing great. We got you.
- There are many ways you could have dealt with it, but as far as I can see you've dealt with the issue as honorably as you could have
  It's certainly a far cry away from "We will remain profit driven until profits arrive" that a certain someone said in response to a legitimate question over on the other site. A breath of fresh air really.
  
  Lol, exactly what I was thinking. I can't imagine a Reddit admin posting something like this.

Cross-posting my comment:
This is one of my largest frustrations with the open source community. Everything is immediately assumed as malicious. There is no escalation, it's "you screwed me over" from the jump.
I suppose it's bred from decades of large corporations pilfering open source for profit. However, this post could easily have been, "I noticed there's some code I wrote that wasn't attributed, would you mind adding that?". Escalate from there if the appropriate actions aren't taken.
- For real, the person's name is LitigousEmma. This is one step away from a copyright troll, which imo seems to the the mortal enemy of the idea of FOSS. Did this Emma recognize all the developers of the programming languages they used, or the people who made the computer they worked on, or the pioneers of electronics in general? It's not like Emma took quarks and atoms and turned it into an web aggregator.
  
  I agree. Firstly, a public post...and secondly...a public post bashing a fellow developer with passive aggressive quotes.
  Now I may be assuming but it didn't seem like LitigiousEmma mad an attempt to privately contact Ernest and... and assumed the worst in the post.
  I'm just a reddit normie so I don't know what happens behind the scenes but so far Ernest has been earnest and honest... as long as that is the case I'll stand with you bud!
  You made a mistake and are taking responsibility for it. I respect that!
  P.S. - Notice how LitigiousEmma's post is recent. LE just wants their name out there. If Kbin flopped then no fs would be given.
  
  In LitigousEmma's defense, kbin did not comply with the license terms of the open source software, so there is a valid concern here. Unlike most programming languages which are often released under licenses which do not requite attribution.
  However, mistakes happen. The open source community is better off if we could all just start from 0 and escalate based on response.

We appreciate the transparency and hope everything can be solved without much friction. Keep it up!

Is 'LitigiousEmma' an inside joke, or an extremely relevant username? haha
Edit: For some reason this keeps bouncing around in my head and the more I think about the more I believe that Emma should have contacted you privately (at first, anyway) instead of jumping right into attempting to publicly shame you.
- Edit: For some reason this keeps bouncing around in my head and the more I think about the more I believe that Emma should have contacted you privately (at first, anyway) instead of jumping right into attempting to publicly shame you.
  The issue tracker for kbin codebase was the correct place to submit the complaint.
  Licensing issues are tricky and if you're the copyright holder there's no way to know if people stealing your code are acting in good faith or not. Best course of action is to document and report the violations "officially". You need to have a clear track record in case the other part is going to try to deny or obfuscate the situation.
  It was the right thing to do.
  As for the tone and the username.
  From what I can see, she's the main dev for that codebase and has been for many, many years. She gets to decide the tone, she's the one who's defending her rights and work.
  Having said that, ernest handled it well - and is clearly acting in good faith. So that should be the end of that.
  
  Hi Emma!
  
  I’m not a coder, so hopefully you can answer my question. When using open source code, does each instance of borrowed code need to be “tagged” and identified to attribute to the original author? My brain keeps telling me that all this code needs is a MLA reference page, but after reading this post I’m assuming it’s more difficult than that.

Seems that so long as the attribution is in place the Postmill people aren't going to push it further. I (and I hope the community) appreciate your transparency and honesty. That's the sort of thing that makes me want to stick around here and support this project.
And for fun, I will check out those other sites, since I hadn't heard about Postmill/Raddle before.
- last time i used raddle, admittedly it was about a year ago, it was a barren wasteland.

50 comments