I’ve read this comment on lemmy’s github repository by sbordeyne:

I closed it cause I have no interest in having to battle dessalines on minor nitpicks. Feel free to take the branch and reopen the pull request.

My thought process was that since lemmy is open source, we should be free to add new features without having to battle over philosophies, which was made apparent to me with his reviews and very strong opinions over which features to greenlight and which features to debate at length over (see infinite scrolling, and this very issue which was only approved on the condition we make it a setting that is off by default). I just don’t have the energy to contribute and be challenged on every little thing, I’ll just remain a plain user of the platform and not bother contributing to the project anymore.

Originally posted by sbordeyne in #282 (comment)

Instead of contributing to a project where only @dessalines@lemmy.ml, lionirdeadman and @nutomic@lemmy.ml dictate what gets approved, why not make a fork with the settings most people agree on?

My stance is that I wouldn’t contribute to a project hosted on GitHub, or a project that considers a few opinions more important than the majority.

Controversial takes
dessalines doesn't want SEO so we get URLs for robots

It might makes sense for the semantic web, but IMO it really doesn’t add that much value… look at how silly this type of thinking has gotten w/ reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/glenz4/cute_baby_bunnies_think_the_golden_retriever_is/

Its gotten to reddit/community/comments/post_id/weird_lengthened_post_name, when it should be just reddit/post/postid

_Originally posted by @dessalines@lemmy.ml in https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/875#issuecomment-652165036_

:::

In my opinion, open-source projects should follow a set of principles to ensure transparency, community engagement, and effective development. Here are some key points that encapsulate these principles:

  • Clear Decision-Making Process for Future Releases: Open-source projects should have a well-defined process for deciding what features and improvements make it into each release. This process should be documented and accessible to the community. (For example, you can read about how Discourse decides what goes into each release here).

  • Complaint-Driven Development: Embrace the concept of “complaint-driven development,” where user feedback and complaints guide the prioritization of issues and features to address.

  • Transparent Donation Management: Be open about how donation money is allocated. Implementing a bounty system can further enhance transparency, enabling contributors to work on specific tasks for financial rewards.

  • Inclusive Community Involvement: Encourage active participation from the community in brainstorming and voting on potential features before finalizing the project roadmap. Community input can be invaluable in shaping the project’s direction.

  • Public Roadmap: Maintain a publicly accessible roadmap that outlines what is planned for upcoming releases. This roadmap should include the status of each feature or enhancement to keep users informed.

  • User-Friendly Feature Request Process: Provide a public feature request forum where users can submit their ideas. Clearly outline the process for how these requests will be reviewed and prioritized, ensuring transparency in the decision-making.

  • Effective Communication Channels: Avoid using disorganized or private communication platforms for project-related discussions. Instead, opt for well-structured, publicly accessible channels that don’t require users to log in to access information.

  • Document with a Blog: Utilize a blog or similar documentation platform to keep users and contributors informed about important project updates, changes, and developments.

  • d3Xt3r@beehaw.org
    16·
    1 year ago

    If people really felt strongly about this, we would’ve seen it being done already. Perhaps the state of Lemmy right now is “good enough” so folks don’t care too strongly about a lack of a minor feature, or maybe they find it easier to just migrate to something like Kbin instead and still be federated to Lemmy. Or maybe they prefer to just write a simple patch, which can be maintained and distributed separately, instead of forking the entire code. Afterall, it’s easy enough to make a fork, but a PITA to maintain one. Much more easier to just make a separate patch set or standalone utilities or something.

    Also, frontend features, like the infinite scrolling one which was quoted, are basically non-issues, considering so many good alternative frontends exist, such as Photon, Alexandrite, mlymm, LemmyBB etc. There’s no rule you have to use the default frontend. In fact many Lemmy instances have decided to host these frontends on their own servers, and if they wanted to, they could easily switch to it and make it the default landing page.

    • Die4Ever@programming.dev
      12·
      1 year ago

      so many good alternative frontends exist

      don’t forget the mobile apps are frontends too, which shows how flexible we can be while keeping the backend intact

    • Neshura@bookwormstory.socialEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I think a large reason for why there are no forks (yet) is that so far we’re still in the “let’s try to make this work without a fork” part. Widespread interest in Lemmy is only pretty recent but there are already a lot of bad experiences when it comes to contributing to the project. If the two lead devs keep being as inflexible as they have been so far when it comes to popular requests I think a fork is sort of inevitable.