Half-abandoned app: FileCase by CepiPerez (Matias Perez)

[Olf0]

As described in the README, I am suggesting to either adopt (i.e., fork / clone) FileCase at the SailfishOS:Chum source repository or to just compile and package it at the SailfishOS:Chum OBS.

Its source code is at GitHub, unfortunately @CepiPerez did not assign a license to it (I would suggest to default to the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0) for a multitude of reasons), but made his intention clear at OpenRepos, that all his unmaintained software shall be FLOSS (Free, Libre, Open Source Software).

The current status AFAICS:

• Cepi has explicitly handed over the maintenance to @llewelld (flypig / David Llewellyn-Jones, a sailor).
• David did quite some maintenance by himself in Q2-2021 and some additional contributions (AFAICS primarily fixes) from @ruditimmer (Rudi Timmermans) were merged in Q3-2021.
• But no new releases were being made available at the usual locations, not in the old repository or a new one at OpenRepos, or in the Jolla Store.
• Only today I found two releases from last year at GitHub, a place at which regular SailfishOS users will not discover software, and from which RPMs have to be manually downloaded and installed.
• Looking at the commit history of FileCase, it seems to be in "minimal maintenance mode" and AFAIR @CepiPerez has stated that he does not own a SailfishOS device since long.

Thus I am suggesting to make FileCase available for a broader audience, again: By offering it via the SailfishOS:Chum repository.

Side note: One topic, which is unclear to me is, if @CepiPerez wishes that his repository stays the "tip / upstream" source code repository (despite having no SFOS device AFAIR).

Opinions, suggestions how to proceed: @CepiPerez, @llewelld, @rinigus, @ruditimmer?

[CepiPerez]

Hello. It's nice to see people still using my apps. Source code is free so you can do whatever you want, same goes for FlowPlayer

[Olf0]

… Source code is free so you can do whatever you want, same goes for FlowPlayer

Do you have a preference for a specific Free Software / Open Source Software license, for example the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0) as a modern (including a patent grant clause), broadly compatible (to GPL, LGPL and AGPL), reciprocal (i.e., "copyleft") license.

Or do you want to allow for your code also being used and potentially sold as proprietary software (i.e., "closed source software" / non-free software), then I suggest the Apache License, Version 2.0 (Apache-2.0), because it is the only widely used permissive license with a patent grant clause.

Saying, "do whatever you want with my source code" would be interpreted by most lawyers as putting it into the public domain, which is a really bad choice for a multitude of reasons.

Thus @CepiPerez, please do choose a license for your software at GitHub! If you do not know and do not care what all this is about, then please trust me and simply pick the MPL-2.0. It is the best choice for your code to live on as Free Software and being broadly used, except for in closed-source software.

[rinigus]

Let me join @Olf0 and ask @CepiPerez to choose a license. Going with the suggestions of @Olf0 is fine, but some license has to be selected. Without it we cannot proceed and publish it on SailfishOS:Chum. In principle, without specified license, users cannot even use it - despite software being uploaded to OpenRepos.

It is great to see that @CepiPerez responds fast. This gives me hope that the license will be picked and we can move on with it. So, let's get that sorted first and then see what to do with the repositories.

@CepiPerez, feel free to set license for FileCase and FlowPlayer just as a reply in this issue. Then we (either @Olf0 or me) can submit licenses to your repositories as pull requests and, after PR acceptance, we can proceed with publishing at Chum.

Looking forward to your reply.

[CepiPerez]

Just merged you request. As I said, I'm happy to see my work stills usable (even when it has a lot of crap code, and I'm sorry for this). If anyone wants maintainer rights in GitHub just let me know. Regards

[Olf0]

Just merged you request.

Thank you very much @CepiPerez, now @rinigus can proceed. Side note: By adding a proper Open Source license you made it legally compelling to reuse your code.

If anyone wants maintainer rights in GitHub just let me know.

That (adding maintainers) or a transfer of maintainership does not make much sense the way git and git-based source-forges (as GitHub) are designed: Anyone can clone ("fork", i.e., make an exact copy of) any of your git-repositories at any time, which includes all commit-history etc. Only the issues, wiki entries and discussions are not cloned, but you never really used them, hence this does not matter for your repositories.

Thus I suggest that you make a clear decision, if you want to continue maintaining these six repositories (at least on a minimal level, i.e., properly reviewing, testing and commenting Pull Requests). Because that is what you ended up with (IMO logically, because "work takes the path of least resistance"), despite not owning a device with SailfishOS / MeeGo since long ago (AFAIK) and stating that you have no real interest in maintaining these repositories.

If you decide that you just want to have your code publicly available (so it can be reused), but do want to avoid the efforts of maintaining it (which is very understandable), then I suggest to put these six source code repositories into read-only mode (GitHub calls that "archive mode"). Such a situation is exactly what the "archive mode" is for, as it technically forces people being interested in reusing this source code to clone an archived repository and to maintain it by themselves. Note that "archive mode" is also easily and fully reversible, if you ever change your mind. Here is how to achieve that:

For each of your repositories at GitHub (i.e., six times), do …

• open your repository in a web-browser.
• click on the “…” entry of GitHub’s menu bar (the rightmost one) and then on the drop-down entry “Settings” (the bottommost one).
• on the “Settings” web-page, scroll down to the bottommost section “Danger zone” and click on “Archive this repository”.
• Follow the instructions displayed to archive this repository.

 

Hope that helps ("HTH") :slightly_smiling_face:

 

P.S.:

(even when it has a lot of crap code, and I'm sorry for this).

Everybody's code is "crap code" in hindsight. :wink: Functional "crap code" is far better than no code at all, i.e., missing functionality. Thus this shall never be a reason to feel "sorry for this".

[Olf0]

@CepiPerez, this is currently not working well from my perspective: Merging PRs without a thorough review and some testing created more issues than it solved in the last 6 months, see issue https://github.com/CepiPerez/filecase-sailfish/issues/16#issuecomment-1060323705

So I cleaned this up (by PR https://github.com/CepiPerez/filecase-sailfish/pull/25) and created a new release (by PR https://github.com/CepiPerez/filecase-sailfish/pull/26), but these are maintainer's tasks and hence beyond a primarily organising role I was willing to take.

To resolve this, I created the GitHub-"organisation" cepis-sailfishos-apps and invited you to it. Please accept this invitation and transfer the ownership of the FileCase repository, the FlowPlayer repository and possibly also the MyAnimeList repository to the organisation cepis-sailfishos-apps. This way you can be still in control (as you apparently do not want to "archive" these repositories), but I can also re-organise these repositories with branch protection rules etc., plus this allows to share the reviewing tasks. Thanks!

P.S.: If you want to look at examples of the result of such a transfer process to a GitHub-organisation, please take a look at the Patchmanager repository or the Storeman developers organisation. Basically this technically enables the proper sharing of work.

[Olf0]

All done, went nicely.