Given the last months; I just wanted to offer my own perspective on the nature of open source software.
I am an advocate of open source I understand the risks and traditions of said framework!
Debian > Ubuntu > Mint:- and all in-between. I understand that licence changes as lets face it no two are the same.
That was just my example! For HA (home-assistant in its many named permutations based upon installation methods) Has a core group of founders and developers. With so few actually contributing given HA’s traction in the nIOT of the world, I find myself a little dismayed that so many personal feelings were fired back at the developers.
Now I truly do understand that just like me; so many have a vested interest in HA given the time and effort we have ALL put in on our own installations and perhaps we have helped resolve others issues in the community as a whole!
As with any community there must be a leader! That leader must listen! However, to listen to everyone would be counterproductive as each individual will have their own vision of what ‘should’ happen.
I speak for myself here but even with 20+ years in IT I am no programmer. I chose HA because it has active developers! It has an active and vibrant community!
I will not always agree with where the project is going but IF I am invested so heavily that it causes me concern. Then I should indeed at least learn the skills to fork said project!
For me though; I just adjust my use case in line with the project goals. As I said am no programmer and even with my experience, I do still make rookie mistakes that take hours to solve.
I don’t bitch about it I just adjust my thinking and find an answer. Even if it costs a few quid!
For me the solution is the challenge, not the issue being the problem.
The community at least to me do not own the project:- they support it!
It is true that the core dev team here need to communicate their direction more clearly but even then some may not like the direction.
It perhaps is not so hard to comprehend; Especially given the time and learning investment that so many have given!
For this project to come to fruition and gain greater traction against the corporate world, It simply must find a common ground between the devs direction and the communities feedback.
We all; after everything is said and done; are looking to take control of our data from the nameless corporations and put it back in to our own hands!
To not be a commodity is the essence of what I see as ‘open source’!!