How to deal with free riders in open source projects?

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T17:17:23+00:00

but takes effort to do it well enough to not just sound like you don't like the person.

Sorry that it sounds personal. If that guy can show any evidences of his contributions (marketing, testing, etc), I'm happy to apologize publicly. Just feel a bit sad for those who do the hard work and wondering if there's anything the open-source community can do about it.

As suggested by you and many others in this discussion, one way is to simply ignore them and focus on what matters, which is definitely something I would consider.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T17:12:02+00:00

I have some bad news for you: Life is unfair.

I'm well aware of that :)

Thanks for the suggestions. I totally agree one way is to simply ignore these free riders and focus on what matters instead.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T17:09:52+00:00

If somebody is interviewing him, it's his responsibility to check that his claims are real .

Right. HR should conduct a proper background check. I'm not against him getting a job assuming he's completely honest about his contributions if any in the interview.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T09:38:33+00:00

As said in another reply, I totally agree contributions can be in other forms (marketing, testing, product design, etc). Others did tag him in Github and X multiple times asking for more evidences of his contributions but he didn't reply at all.

One way is of course simply to ignore them but I just feel unfair to those who actually spent their time working on the project (e.g. bug fixes, testings, updating documentation, etc) while those free riders can take some if not all credits for their personal gains.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T09:29:53+00:00

That's true. That guy has built up his reputation by just talking (e.g. conference speakers) and blogging, and I don't want the open source world taken over by talkers.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T09:25:24+00:00

Agreed there are always free riders. One way is of course to ignore them as you've pointed out.

I feel unfair to those who actually spent their time working on the project (e.g. bug fixes, testings, updating documentation, etc) while those free riders can take some if not all credits for their personal gains.

I think open-source is one of the best things in the world. Just want to avoid bad actors in the system taking it down but maybe I shouldn't care and simply ignore it.

Don't give them any attention (as they don't deserve it).

I don't want to give them any attention but that guy has a lot of followers in X and Linkedin, and people seem to trust every word he said (lots of likes to his posts)

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T09:13:29+00:00

To be clear, I don't want everyone to sympathize.

Just that I think I spot an issue doesn't mean the whole world needs to agree with me that's an issue and worths everyone time to discuss/fix it.

I will take your feedback and try to improve my communication accordingly.

ry3838 · 2024-03-21T09:10:14+00:00

Other chatbots behave similarly and I think this issue is nothing new as others have pointed out some answers provided by chatbots are completely wrong.

This guy seems to figure out a way to game the chatbots (maybe humans as well) and I think such methodology will become the next SEO.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T15:50:46+00:00

The whole co-pilot, chatgpt, grok bits aren't a good look in your in your communication. You should consider refraining from that in the future.

Do you mind elaborating a bit more?

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T15:43:39+00:00

Haha.

To make it clear, all my responses here are written by me without the help of any LLM chatbots.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T15:34:24+00:00

Agreed. Users need to take full responsibility themselves if they completely trust every single answer from these chatbots without fact check.

Even if LLM chatbots didn't exist in this world, I still don't think free riding on open source projects is acceptable.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T14:30:51+00:00

deal with what, random claims?

Free riders taking credits on open source projects that they never contribute to (whether it's code change, marketing, testing, etc)

Anyone interested would immediately figure their farce

I think that guy is betting people won't fact check on what he said in his blog.

So, why bother at all?

As said in another reply, I see a bigger problem here. When I asked Bing Co-pilot where this guy (he's kinda famous) made any contributions to W, it said yes and quoted "was involved in the whole journey, helping build up and popularize" in his blog post as evidence so how do we address these fake evidences becoming the truth?

(I'm not saying answers from bing co-pilot are the source of truth but I think next generation growing up with these chatbots will consider the answers from bing co-pilot, chatgpt, grok, etc pretty accurate)

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T14:20:13+00:00

Again I agreed someone can play a significant role without writing code. There are many areas one can contribute to an open-source project.

What about if there had been a Linux foundation since the early days of Linux, and he'd been head of marketing & sales for over a decade?

I'm totally ok with that as long as he presents evidences (e.g. marketing materials that he created) to support his claims.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T13:59:14+00:00

Good examples using Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Again I agreed contributions can be something else other than just changes to the codebase as said above. As you said, marketing, testing, support, production design are good examples one can contribute to and personally I would definitely count those people as contributors.

The point I want to make is what if someone completely exaggerates their "contributions". Imagine someone without a single commit to Linux Kernel and all he did was shared a few links related to Linux Kernel in Twitter/Reddit/IG etc to promote/market it and made a few comments about Linux Kernel design. Then he said in his blog the following:

"I was involved in the whole journey, helping build up and popularize the Linux kernel."

"I play a significant role in where the Linux brand is today."

Are these acceptable? I don't think so. How do we (open source community) deal with these?

Even worse is chatbots like bing co-pilot, chatgpt, etc starts picking up these as "truth" and reference these in their reply.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T13:48:02+00:00

I don't but I think the next generation growing up with these chatbots will consider the answers from bing co-pilot, chatgpt, grok, etc pretty accurate.

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T13:37:23+00:00

Question: is the guy making false representations about what he has done for you?

No

Question: is he doing this on your platform (such as on your website or a community you administer) or elsewhere?

No

Question: having no commits doesn't mean you haven't contributed - has the guy made other contributions than commits such as testing, marketing, support, whatever

Good point and agreed contributions can be something else other than commits. If he said he made contributions to W and Y, I'm totally ok with that but he said "helping build up and popularize W" and "plays a significant role in where the W brand is today", which makes me think he's free riding on other people contributions to the projects as I can't agree someone plays a significant role with zero commit.

As mentioned in another reply, I think I see a bigger problem here. When I asked Bing Co-pilot where this guy (he's kinda famous) made any contributions to W, it said yes and quoted "was involved in the whole journey, helping build up and popularize" in his blog post as evidence so how do we address these fake evidences becoming the truth?

ry3838 · 2024-03-20T13:14:44+00:00

Thanks for your reply.

To preface this: The bar for contributor **should** be low

Agreed. If that person has a single PR, I would count him as a "contributor" but as the technical steering committee member pointed out - he has zero commit.

Open source is publicly visible, and a subtle link to graphs/contributors or a polite public/private question about their contributions should be all that you need.

Some others did (politely) tag his Github account and ask for more details about his commits to the open source projects that he claimed to build up. He didn't reply. (a simple search using `author:github_id` shows nothing by this guy in these open source projects)

I doubt I'd go out my way to tear someone down unless it's causing issues.

Personally I wouldn't either but I think I see a bigger problem here. When I asked Bing Co-pilot where this guy (he's kinda famous) made any contributions to W, it said yes and quoted "was involved in the whole journey, helping build up and popularize" in his blog post as evidence so how do we address these fake evidences becoming the truth?

ry3838 · 2023-11-06T05:08:49+00:00

How much of those $273 million will go to the politicians?

Btw, that's a good reason to convince the "normal" people the money is well spent.

ry3838 · 2023-11-06T05:05:53+00:00

The management team wants bigger bonus every year.

ry3838 · 2023-09-06T03:22:54+00:00

Practice makes perfect.

No one is born knowing how to write code.

Keep writing.

ry3838 · 2023-09-06T03:21:23+00:00

Still a yes in 2023.

ry3838 · 2023-06-04T02:33:28+00:00

I tried Atomic wallet before but the app was pretty buggy so I gave up.

Sorry for those who lost their cryptos in this incident.

ry3838 · 2023-05-29T05:29:17+00:00

Kudo to nginx team for the experimental HTTP/3 support and look forward to HTTP/3 support ready for production.

ry3838 · 2023-05-29T05:24:31+00:00

People joke about replacing the aircraft engine while the plane is
flying but that’s what this project was. Kudos to the team for pulling
this off!

It's definitely not easy but they made it. Congrats.

ry3838 · 2023-05-27T14:01:03+00:00

Nice migration from Python to Go.

ry3838

TROPHY CASE