An open source developer grows up

A lot of open-source forums are full of naive and innocent people. People who honestly believe that software can be developed and media can be made by nothing more than people working for fun and for free in their free time. Indeed, people point to Linux and say "Look! This great software project made for fun and for free!"

That's not how software development works. Linux? It's very disorganized; there is no central authority to standardize on things like the Desktop interface to use, the ABI for drivers, and what not. This results in Linux being a mess: A hodge-podge of driver ABIs (sound is so bas that it's nay-to-unusable in Linux), desktop GUI interfaces (Qt, GTK, FLTK, Xaw, TCL/TK, Motif and its Lesstif clone, to name just a very few), programs at various stages of development, etc. The only thing Linux can seem to agree on at all is POSIX, which is so old and quaint, the only networking protocol it talks about is UUCP [1].

Linux makes a very good server OS for someone who knows what they are doing, but it is not and never will be an end-user desktop.

For example, the Linux sound system. What happened was that the main developer for Linux's sound system one day grew up and realized that the work needed to make open-source software compared to the reward he was getting was just not worth it. So he tried to make it commercial; other Linux kernel developers wanted to keep everything open source, so they threw out all of his work (never mind that his system was the standard system for doing sound with Linux for years) and reimplemented it, more poorly. Linux's sound is a mess to this very day, with dozens of half-baked audio systems in place, none of which works as good as the original system.

OK, let me go back to why this happened: The main developer grew up. He realized that open source software development for fun and for free is plain simply not worth it. He left the project. No other Linux developer was able to make the same quality of code he did.

Another example: Xconq, which I talked about in this blog posting. Summary: The principal author, after nearly two decades of work on the project on and off, finally lost interest in the project and development just came to a halt without any formal announcement. Many open source projects die like this; the developer loses interest, but never puts closure on the project. Instead of giving the project a proper burial, the project becomes a zombie, dead but pretending to be alive.

Another example: FVWM. Rob Nation realized one day that it was a far more productive use of his time to be with his wife and kids than to work on open-source software, so he stopped FVWM development. He handed over maintenance to other people who, IMHO, did not do as good of a job as Rob Nation developing the software; while FVWM2 has more features than FVWM1, the code is more unstable and more bloated. Indeed, I still use the last release of Rob Nation's FVWM1 today when I'm using Linux. FVWM1 ended with proper closure; FVWM2's development has slowed down but still appears to be actively development (albeit at a glacial pace); the last stable release was done in 2006, but a beta release was done as recently as last month.

Another example: People's Tactics. The developer made a free beer "grogger" wargame for Windows that simulates the old 1970s and 1980s wargames groggers played with hex maps and a zillion tiles on the maps (Squad Leader and other games from Avalon Hill, SPI, Axis & Allies which didn't use hexes but was probably the most popular wargame of this type, etc.) He realized that he should be paid for his work (software development, support, etc.), so removed the website for his older free game, and replaced it with a website for his for-pay Advanced Tactics game.

And, yes, I'm coming to the realization I need to put closure on MaraDNS. This means my next release of MaraDNS (MaraDNS 2.0) will be my last release of MaraDNS. MaraDNS 2.0 will have real Windows service support for the recursive code, in addition to a rewritten thread-free recursive core. I've done about two thirds of this work on and off for two years; I made a lot of progress in late 2007, and even more progress in the first two thirds of 2009, but come September I hit a roadblock when I hit the point of starting to implement full recursion. I have made some progress chipping away at that roadblock, but it's slow progress.

I also hit a point where I realized it is more fun to do things like research Chess variants that no one plays (openings, best opening setup, midgame strategy, etc.) than to finish up my DNS server. Indeed, I feel this software is holding me back; it's written in C (which is next-to-useless on a resume unless you also have C++ or Objective C; come to think of it, with all the companies outsourcing development to India, C development in any form might be useless at this point) in a day and age when the buzzwords people look for on resumes are things like "Java", ".net framework", "PHP", and "SharePoint".

I have been spending my time working on MaraDNS instead of getting my resume out there (it's pretty discouraging in this economy, but I shouldn't give up) or updating my skills. I have been spending my time working on MaraDNS instead of doing what it takes to reach my goals: To have a job making a living wage so I can support myself and my girl comfortably in the US (ideally somewhere where it is sunny like California, my home).

So, yeah, what I'm saying is that I'm taking a break from MaraDNS. I have every plan to finish up the Deadwood code and come out with MaraDNS 2.0. But it isn't going to be the end of 2009. Maybe I'll start work on MaraDNS again next week; maybe I'll just let it rest until 2010 sometime, just as I stopped Deadwood development for most of 2008 and only started development up again in early 2009.

Do I want to finish up Deadwood and release MaraDNS 2.0? Yes. Am I going to do it anytime soon? Probably not. I'm having fun downloading and trying out various turn-based strategy video games; I would rather do that right now (or research Chess variants) than develop a program which has only made a very little amount of money for the amount of work I've put in to the code.

I'm growing up and realize that there are more important things than making programs for fun and for free. Yes, I do want to finish up Deadwood mainly to put closure on the project, but I don't think I'll do any MaraDNS development besides basic bug fixes after MaraDNS 2.0 comes out.

- Sam

[1] UUCP: You don't want to know. I remember when an ISP I worked for dropped UUCP support; UUCP was a nightmare to configure and we simply no longer had anyone who could configure our UUCP servers. The *only* thing UUCP can be used for is email and Usenet.