Hulk Sam Smash!
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https://meta.discourse.org/t/markdown-table-support-in-a-discourse-topic/13546/61?u=accalia
I don't think i've ever seen @sam that upset. this new developer really got off on the wrong foot.
calling @riking a "couch theorist" was also not a good move by that developer.
Interesting times on meta.d.... interesting times.
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got off on the wrong foot
haha, no, he's been putting thinly-disguised ads for his paid Discourse plugins on meta.d for a while (~1.5 weeks?) now, and we're not quite sure what to do about it besides steam about it in private
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wellll.....
you could always acquire a copy of the plugins and then figure out how to subtly change discourse to stop them working...
not that i'm recommending that course of action of course, merely observing that it's technically possible.
you could also actually put some rule in writing about paid plugins only being allowed in the marketplace and it may not be a bad idea to split the market place off into a different instance. so that you can keep meta.d a about discourse/support instance and marketplace.d be for third party plugins and other solutions.
of course if you do that you'd have to be more communicative about your ABI/API changes so plugin/bot/userscript developers can make sure their plugins/bots stay up to date with the latest and greatest that discourse has to offer. and that sounds like work.
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you could always acquire a copy of the plugins and then
figure out how to subtly change discourse to stop them working...release them to the public, because they're GPLof course if you do that you'd have to be more communicative about your ABI/API changes so plugin/bot/userscript developers can make sure their plugins/bots stay up to date with the latest and greatest that discourse has to offer. and that sounds like work.
Yeah, there's no stable external API interface, which is why I hold the opinion that plugins are tightly coupled enough to Discourse that the GPL takes effect (and others share that legal outlook)
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@accalia said:
you could always acquire a copy of the plugins and then
figure out how to subtly change discourse to stop them working...release them to the public, because they're GPLalso an option.
but i suspect mucking about with software licenses will involve far more lawyer than i'm comfortable being around.
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Yeah, there's no stable external API interface,
you know.... I really wish there was. it would make my job with the SockDrawer projects a lot easier.
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Also an option: Fold the functionality into Discourse proper as a site setting, because that's actually more in line with the development philosophy - everything you really need to set up a complete community should be included out of the "box".
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/me starts seriously considering trying to make heads or tails of ruby well enough to wade through all the configuation by convention and put in a PR for a sockbot that's part of core
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This post is deleted!
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if you're going to be mean like that do it somewhere else. I'm not in the mood for that sort of thing this week.
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This post is deleted!
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Interesting tactic, using a paid plugin as leverage like that.
I must remember it.
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Diff looks weird. Did you delete-Then-undelete your post?
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The diff always looks weird.
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Yeah, but worse than usual. I do love how it merged the two versions...
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you could always acquire a copy of the plugins and then figure out how to subtly change discourse to stop them working...
We don't need to do that, we can buy them, get the source under GPL as we are entitled to and then re-release them to the public under GPL, but really I can't be bothered to pull such a dick move quite yet.
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such a dick move quite
A move which is also likely to end all paid development. Quite the nuclear option.
What if he refuses to sell to you? Then you have no rights under the gpl, do you?
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I don't have any qualm about someone trying to sell a plugin. Even if it is trivial, core decided it was valueless at the moment.
But the place of marketing it is wrong though. If people want to buy it as a plugin, they could browse the marketplace.
And insulting others is probably not a good idea unless he wants to isolate himself into a corner.
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@sam said:
Plugging your paid plugin and submitting zero PRs to improve Discourse core is definitely not in the spirit of this project.
@sam said:
we are not going to invest any time on this in the forceable future unless pushed by a paying customer
So the spirit of the project is "we'd love you to work for free on our product, because open source ideals, but we're not doing this boring stuff unless we see money in it"?
Come on, guys. Either you're a for-profit venture (which means no hiding behind values and spirits), or you're fighting for open source ideals (which means "there's no money in it" sucks as an excuse). Picking one or the other as you see fit is pure unadulterated bullshit.
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So, honest question: What - besides a @riking, obviously - is a "couch theorist" anyway? I am apparently too lazy to google and am in dire need of useless knowledge!
Filed Under: Also: Finally basic support, yay!
Also Filed Under: Maybe we should file all bugreports and feature requests as paid plugins?
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"couch theorist"
Presumably someone who just lays on the couch and theorizes about stuff instead of actually, you know, doing something about it.
(Open source projects attract a lot of these, so the description makes sense to me. But probably not in this particular case.)
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Why in private. I haven't checked, but I am guessing that the marketplace is just another discourse thread/tag?
If so, you can comment upon the plugin. If a plugin is sold for 20$ but with a staff comment saying "this is six lines of code, does not work in the following circumstances, and is ioho not worth the money", then buyers beware, I'd say.
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if i'm reading it right this plugin is $60/instance
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Well, that's what you get for using such a horrible license.
On a related thought, the discussion on meta.discourse just shows again how "regular" languages like BBcode or HTML are much better than Markdown. Adding a tag to BBcode is trivial since the parser doesn't change, adding a new feature to Markdown can be impossible.
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Well, that's what you get for using such a horrible license.
Ultimately Discourse the company maintains full copyright over the code in addition to the GPL. This means we could, in theory, have closed source plugins released. Or sell Discourse into a GPL phobic corporation. Neither of these things has happened.
@Maciejasjmj I guess the thing that got on my nerves is pretending that the whole GPL thing is not there and that you can just start an ecosystem out of nowhere, plug it everywhere and be very dismissive about our software and hostile to open source.
Its just weird.
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Its just weird.
So is what you're doing any better? You offer a free product, someone else offers a paid product. You don't like them for reasons. You make a version of their product with fewer features and give it away for free. Sounds like Microsoft in the 90's.
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This is not what lead me to build the rudimentary table support, as much as it upset me it was completely unrelated.
I am working on an import for western digital, they use tables a lot, I needed basic table support for the import. I am not going to force them to buy a new plugin just to get my import going, I was blocked on it, so I unblocked myself.
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Hooray for Western Digital!
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it was completely unrelated.
That's cool, but the thread on meta.d made it look like you did it out of spite.
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The spite is just generally there between me and that guy, I did not roll it out of spite, just necessity.
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It's OK, you can let the spite for WTF customers / users / contributors flow around here.
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Thanks to this thread I have learned that posts on this forum can be composed in HTML. That makes it much more comfortable, thanks.
I support the idea of whitelisting HTML tables. The github syntax with lots of -------- ||||| ----- looks terrible and exhausting to write. No need to reinvent the wheel and replace it with an ugly square wheel that does not turn.
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if i'm reading it right this plugin is $60/instance
Then caveat idiot, instead. :-)
My point is (since I've actually got one for a change) is that what people do to/with your product is outside your control, and if they are able to charge ridiculous fees for a very minor feature and make a living out of that, then there is nothing you can do about it. You can advice your valued customers about the offered sale, however, but it is ultimately up to them to decide what to do with that information.
Other than that, I'm on @sam 's side: keep marketing out of feature discussions (except perhaps a brief mention).
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Ultimately Discourse the company maintains full copyright over the code in addition to the GPL. This means we could, in theory, have closed source plugins released. Or sell Discourse into a GPL phobic corporation.
Or release under the LGPL! Which AIUI is like the GPL but without the "virus clause" where everything it touches also has to be GPL.
And if for whatever reason you ever decide to shut down CDCK, Inc and quit development of Discourse forever, I beg you, release it under the MIT license so another company can pick it up and sell it if they want.
Restricting distribution and modification of software that is nobody is ever going to profit from ought to be a crime against humanity.
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I support the idea of whitelisting HTML tables. The github syntax with lots of -------- ||||| ----- looks terrible and exhausting to write. No need to reinvent the wheel and replace it with an ugly square wheel that does not turn.
I don't like HTML tables. They are way more verbose than you likely need in a forum.
github syntax would be a non-starter for me as well. wikitables are a little bit better, but I'd prefer not to have to newline each column.Header 1 Header 2 Header 3 row row row your boat - seems simple enough. If need new moar features, then use html.
Or just give a damn wysiwyg UI.Anyway, I don't need it and I'm not paying.
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You can advice your valued customers
Maybe you know the difference, and it's just a simple typo, but this set my teeth on edge anyway. For the benefit of our members for whom English is a second or third language (and those for whom it is their primary language, but their spellar/gramming skillz are deficient), one can advise one's customers; advice is what one offers when one advises them.
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Thanks. TIL.
Filed under: cueue lojban comment in 3...2...1
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Thanks to this thread I have learned that posts on this forum can be composed in HTML.
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Come on, guys. Either you're a for-profit venture (which means no hiding behind values and spirits), or you're fighting for open source ideals (which means "there's no money in it" sucks as an excuse). Picking one or the other as you see fit is pure unadulterated bullshit.
Discourse is open source because it advances the company's mission to do so. What is the mission? Jeff explains it better than what I just typed out and deleted: "to raise the standard of civilized discourse on the Internet through seeding it with better discussion software".
If you want, I can post what I was typing out. But it was essentially my response to the elevator test (another Jeff blog post).
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It's OK, you can let the spite for WTF customers / users / contributors flow around here.
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So the spirit of the project is "we'd love you to work for free on our product, because open source ideals, but we're not doing this boring stuff unless we see money in it"?
Hey when I post stuff like that, I get yelled at. Just FYI.
But yeah. Why pick open source if you didn't want open source? Don't hate the playa-- hate the game. And you, @Sam, chose the game's rules!
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"to raise the standard of civilized discourse on the Internet through seeding it with better discussion software".
If Jeff honestly believes that a few orange toasters are capable of turning gamergate swatters into decent human beings, he's in la la land.
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"to raise the standard of civilized discourse on the Internet through seeding it with better discussion software".
http://www.modernworkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/bullshit.jpg
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version 2?
what was version 1 of the license?
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It's in a Git repo. You can see history.
[spoiler]Clause 1 was added in v2.[/spoiler]
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Who adjudicates clause 0 disputes?
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Obviously since it's a license, you would go to court and a judge would decide if you were an asshole.