Ask HN: Lifehacker mentioned my app & traffic boosted. How to keep momentum? - <AUTHOR>

I've launched my app back in November and had insignificant user acquisition. I had only one (very helpful) user subscription coming from my HN post (which fell way to the bottom in a matter of minutes).
This was my first web project ever, and while I was proud about what I have achieved (launching a product), I was also disappointed with the lack of response.
Now, on Christmas Eve, I started getting a lot of new subscriptions after a period of relative inactivity. Through Google Analytics I saw the traffic came from Lifehacker. You can see the piece here: http://lifehacker.com/5870288/top-10-under+hyped-web-apps-2011-edition
My app is number 9 - Aherk!, and you can access it @ http://aherk.com. It's pretty simple and unpretentious.
Now, although I'm enjoying my 15 minutes of fame, glory & unspeakable success, I'm wondering what steps I should take to keep things moving. How can I not waste this precious opportunity?
Any input is more than welcome! Thanks a lot. <comment><USER2> 1\. contact a Lifehacker writer and offer to: do an interview and give them some 'promo' codes as a 'thank you' for their readers taking a look at your app

2\. write a blog post introducing the app, thanking all the new users and lifehacker.

3\. spend some money on advertising (facebook/google/maybe even on lifehacker) for two weeks.

4\. update something in the app and release a 1.x version update for free. then start working on v2 with the goal of shipping as soon as possible. keep your blog updated on a weekly basis with a simple 'status' of how the new version is coming along, with teasers about new features or speed or whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think this is a really great step-by-step script that works perfectly for someone really new to this, like I am.

Can't say how much I appreciate you spending your time to give me (a complete stranger) such great feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats!

This app has tons of PR potential, but you have to do the work. The lifehacker piece is a nice bit of social proof that you can use when contacting folks. I'd email a few dozen productivity blogs/bloggers with the new years resolution angle ("How to give your new years resolution some teeth!").

Building an app is step one. Step 2-10 is figuring out how to acquire users. Try spending literally 40 hours a week trying things on this front. Facebook ads? 2 sided referral program? Linkbait on your blog? PR hustle? Find lifehacker-y folks on Twitter and give them discount codes for their followers? Viral loops (could you get users Facebook friends to sign up?)?

Don't touch the code for 1-2 weeks and see what you can pull off! :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback!

I must confess that I'm a (unhappy) lawyer by profession and decided to change paths this year (when I turned 37, so I'm probably one of the oldest guys around here ;)

Being so, the technical part of things, which is what I've just learned and am experimenting with, is where I focused. No marketing, SEO, social media, etc. I was just enjoying learning to code with a project that interested me. I don't even have a blog setup for Aherk!

I loved your ideas, especially the cold-emailing productivity blogs/bloggers, and I think this is one of the things that I'll focus on over the next few days.

Once again, thanks a lot!

<comment><USER4> > I turned 37, so I'm probably one of the oldest guys around here

Nope! You're not... Keep pushing hard :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm really sorry that I haven't been able to respond to all these thoughtful comments in a timely fashion. I feel like a bad mannered host that leaves the party while the guests are arriving to celebrate his birthday.

Just so that you all know what's going on (and without trying to justify my bad behavior, which is in itself unjustifiable), I'm a divorced dad from Brazil, and all this happened while I'm in the middle of a road trip alone with my 6 year old son. This is the only time of the year when we can spend a few days together, and I can't (and wouldn't) abandon it. Furthermore, infrastructure here is not 100% and wireless/3g internet access is not ubiquitous to say the least.

Anyway, please know that I'm attentively and thankfully listening. This community always surprised me and today you really made me feel welcomed here.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess you aren't looking for app critique but my thought is that most web users see "Facebook" and "compromising photo" as part of the app requirements and no matter what your privacy policy or mechanisms you have, most average users will not go for this

<comment><USER6> I disagree. This is the thing that gives this app "teeth". It makes it controversial and keeps it in people's thoughts after they've read the blurb on lifehacker. It's interesting enough to make someone mention it at the pub during a "new years resolutions" conversation etc etc etc. Maybe it doesn't appeal to everyone and would put alot of people off, but at the same time that exact thing is what makes it interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly how I feel! Glad to see there are some mad people like me ;o)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations! That's a huge achievement!

One nice way to keep the momentum going is to provide ways to encourage users to tell others about your product. I don't mean just a "Share" button either.

Right now, you have a form of "virality" if a user does not fulfill his/her goals. But presumably, if users use your app well, they'll never have their embarrassing photo shared, and thus, the success of your app prevents your app from being shared. So are there ways to encourage users to want to promote your app?

For example:

I'm going to take a step back and think about what Aherk is really doing. Aherk is a useful tool using negative reinforcement to encourage goal achievement.

Ah, goal achievement. Is that something an individual would share with others? Perhaps. Some people like to brag about the goals they've achieved. Perhaps you can give users awards or badges for goals they've successfully done, then allow those awards to be shared on Facebook, Twitter, their blogs, etc. Ego gratification can be a good motivator too (albeit in a positive reinforcement kind of way, which is ironically diametric to your current system).

Also, what if a happy user of yours knows a friend who could use Aherk as well? Instead of just emailing your URL to the friend, what if there was a way to post Aherk to that friend's Facebook page or something? This could be accompanied by a playful taunt that the user could type in, such as, "I'll bet you're too chicken to Aherk yourself if you don't finish your paper by next week!" (This feature could potentially be abused, so if you consider this one, think it through some more.)

Hope this helps. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for your input! A lot of your ideas are close to either things that are planned for the future or ideas that I have discussed with friends.

Badges, for instance, are something that I'm definitely going to implement. And although I think goal-achievement is important, it appears to me that it shouldn't be the only "metric".

For instance, I thought that it would be nice to let a user's friend verify if the picture posted is really compromising, and if it is, award a badge to the user.

Another feature that is definitely coming and that I think will improve "virality" (and that is also similar to something you mentioned) is the ability to set goals (and "bombs") for your friends. Of course they would depend on the friend's approval, but it would be a way to spread the word.

Oh, and honestly I don't think that failed goals are bad marketing. As I see it (and said earlier), I think that fun is our product, not productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You should break your problem into pieces, the more your understand your problems, the easiest it will be to improve:

Here 3 subproblems to begin with:

1\. How to bring new visitors to your service

2\. How to convert new visitors into subscriptions

3\. How to retain the users

With no traffic sources, even if you convert all the incoming visitors, you will still have 0 subscriptions. It is not your case, you have the some visitors and a PR momentum so you should have enough visitors to tracks your performance on subproblems 2 and 3. Your product has a viral mechanism. That means that all your active users will expose their facebook friends (throught the vote) to your app. So you should be able to get some organic growth. (that means you shouldn't waste time on traffic acquisition)

Thus 3 success factors: \- convert your new visitors into active users

\- push your users to promote their "goals" to their friends

\- make it easy and appealling for the friends to become user

To be sure you are working on the most important task, use google analytics and track the bottle neck. Even if most of the suggestions you've got there are good marketing tactics, if you are alone, focus on only a few tasks so you can execute them well.

Good luck !

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! You really managed to help me see my problem much clearer!

I'll definitely spend some time trying to come out with mechanisms to achieve these 3 goals.

I think I can actually focus on the last two, since you need to register to vote (that's how we keep track of who already voted).

Thank you very much! I cannot even begin to tell you how much this "methodical" approach helped me to see my problems clearer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are getting a flood of traffic, anything you can do to establish a connection with people is vital. Keep in mind there may be some people who aren't willing to sign up for the service today, but might be willing to subscribe to your blog, sign up for a contest, etc.

Also your site is something that people may be willing to share with their friends more than they are willing to sign up for it themselves. You might consider making the social media buttons a bit more prominent. I might not be willing to login with Facebook, but may be willing to click "share this on Twitter" because my friends will think it is funny. (Obviously you should test this. My assumption may be wrong and the social buttons hurt things.)

You might also consider adding a bit of social proof to the site. A testimonial of a user or something like that. My first reaction is "I don't know if I'm comfortable adding their facebook application." A headshot and "wow this is wonderful" from a user might lessen that feeling.

By the way, you said you got a subscriber. Is this a paid service or are you referring to people to add your facebook application?

<comment><USER9> Some other suggestions:

1\. Add your logo to your Twitter account and get some additional content up there. People aren't going to follow you if you haven't posted anything.

2\. Create a G+ page as well.

3\. If people are tweeting about your app, you might want to have a running list of those tweets on the front page of your site.

4\. Fix the app. I'm getting a "sorry but something went wrong" when I try it.

<comment><AUTHOR> About points 1 to 3, I think e acknowledged above with enough emphasis my complete lack of social wisdom so far... :(

Regarding 4, just as the app said automatically, I'm also sorry that something went wrong... ;) Can you tell me where, on the flow of the app, you experienced this? I'm on Heroku using their free tier for now, so maybe you just experienced a lack of server resources... =O

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lifehacker featured my app a few years ago too. The wave lasted for a few weeks and then petered out as you might expect.

My best advice is to start worrying about user retention in a hurry. 99% of people who come to your site from Lifehacker aren't going to keep using your app, but that's okay. If your scenario is anything like mine was, you'll have a steady (albeit much smaller) stream of traffic to your site from now on.

\- Is your signup process as frictionless as possible?

\- Are you collecting email addresses (for a newsletter or followup emails– Twitter does a great job of this with their "We notice you haven't posted anything lately" emails)?

\- You now have some users. Get in touch with them and find out how it falls short!

Specifically, I have a lot of goals I'd like to achieve, but I don't have any compromising pictures of myself. I also don't like the idea of apps posting on Facebook on my behalf.

Congratulations and good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I cant thank you enough! It's great to talk to someone who had the same experience. Now The Next Web has also done a piece on us too and things are moving.

You point to something that sounds obvious, but truth is I have barely interacted with my users so far. Need to start doing this in a hurry.

I think I also need to improve my sign up process, making it happen on a pop up window through Facebook JS SDK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are you looking to turn this into a viable business? It's great you're featured in LifeHacker but I don't see how this app can provide thicker value, alone as it is.. I think just attaining more users won't help you find a business model, so you should perhaps broaden the scope... as it is, it sounds like a cool feature. So my contrarian advice is to focus on making this of thicker value, rather than just leave it alone as it is

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for taking the time to provide me with your insights!

With all honesty, I don't have a business model. Aherk! was the project I used to learn how to program, and I think it did more than well!

Of course it would be fantastic if I could make money out of it, though...

Hey... you may have just given me the idea of a business model... Being a cool feature... for someone else?!

I know an exit strategy is not a promising game nor the sexiest choice... But this started just as a game, so..

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Turn on re-marketing as quickly as possible. You don't have to start paying for it right now but at least setup the tags so you can start cookie-ing new visitors - you can do this with Google Adwords. Feel free to contact me if you need help setting this up.

Press is the best way to leverage re-marketing.

<comment><USER13> Great idea on re-marketing, it is really cost effective - downright cheap to do. If you are not sure what is is - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting> but basically a banner follows a user that has come to your site for 30/60/90 days and keeps your brand in their focus.

A better (cheaper) solution is <http://adroll.com>, I use them for my corporate site at <http://www.webheat.com> and they are pretty cheap and easy to setup.

The only thing you need before you sign up is a banner, any banner - even if it gets rejected you can still have the tracking pixel on your site and then target your users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll try to figure out what this re-marketing thing is and check out the tools you've mentioned!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hey I guess I'll be the first to say make sure your doing enough for the traffic that you already have. Make sure your nailing your conversion rates, and try and get a reasonable level of virality happening i.e. Users inviting other users. Give them a bounty (maybe?).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm trying to give a boost to my quasi non-existent social efforts and I think this is helping! :) I have to let go of my wallet too and pay for some extra server power. I have to admit the site is too slow...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Demand creation- On your front page it would be cool to see "Jane D. lost 10 lbs by using our service", etc.

2\. Get social! Tweet with people. Engage. Tweet examples, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much! I really think your first idea is amazing, and the homepage is presently too static and oh-so-boring...</comment></comment>


Show HN: GigNGood. List and Bid on Services(Gigs) and Items(Good) for free - <AUTHOR>

I was a little bummed out that something like Exec, TaskRabbit, AirTasker, etc. wasn't available in my area (Atlanta) as I'm broke and could use the spare cash, so I spent the past few weeks creating GigNGood. People can list and bid on services worldwide in an auction style format. The lowest bid wins.<p>This naturally extended itself to items, so I added those in there as well, for those things you want to sell in an auction format but don't want to pay ebay listing fees. I've really strived to keep the interface as drop-dead simple as possible. I am open to constructive and destructive criticism before I start promoting this heavy, so fire away! <comment><USER2> Very interesting concept. I do like that you're very global (places like Oceania are underserved). If I were you, I would do two things: 1. Pair up with a designer to lend some eye-candy to your functionality. I like that it's a simple UI but good visuals go a LONG way to sparking interest. 2. When you start marketing, approach websites/bloggers that are in those underserved markets that I mentioned. You never know where you'll be a hit. Just as you've seen yourself, there are lots of underserved areas in tech... Good luck!</comment>


Find Vine videos without an iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://throughthevine.me

<comment><USER2> Good work, y'all.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been waiting for vine search. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Google will soon display your Google+ photo when you call an Android phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/06/google-profile-photos-android-calls/

<comment><AUTHOR> What bothers me most about this is not the caller's privacy (he chose to upload his photo into a public profile after all), but the called person's.

The called Android phone has to obtain the "correct" photo in some way. The least horrible implementation I can see for this is a local query to the G+ app installed on the phone, to check if the caller is in your circles.

However, any online photo check, as implied by the article, will send a caller's phone number to Google, allowing them to collect data about all the people you receive calls from.

 __Update: __the original source [0] writes that G+ is queried both for incoming _and_ for outgoing calls! Time to call your data protection commissioner!

[0] [https://plus.google.com/+AttilaBodis/posts/E6Z77tkr78r](https://plus.google.com/+AttilaBodis/posts/E6Z77tkr78r)</comment>


Show HN: Got roommates? Vanquish apartment filth with 27 lines of Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rogueleaderr/zone-clean

<comment><USER2> Nice system, but hiring the cleaning service at $150 creates a moral hazard by incentivizes neglecting your zone if you value your time at more than 150 dollars per hour for every hour spent cleaning.

<comment><AUTHOR> If your time is worth more than $150 hour (but you still want roommates!), feel free to adjust the penalty upward and add some other communal benefit to the kitty threshold. For example, you could buy a new original Monet to hang next to the rocket car. :)

If I ever develop this into a full system, I'll make sure to make the penalty configurable.</comment></comment>


How to use jdk7 multi-cache block for exception handling - <AUTHOR> http://javarevisited.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/how-to-use-jdk7-multi-cache-block-with-example/

<comment><USER2> Looks Nice and clean but I for one would not be touching JDK7 unless the issues mentioned here ( <http://markmail.org/thread/kulrw4sm2nsshrta> )are resolved .</comment>


Twitter, algorithms, crowdsourcing used to spot truthiness - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/09/combing-twitter-for-signs-of-political-truthiness.ars <comment><AUTHOR> Featuring the website me and my coworkers just launched today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736952></comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendations for sharing project information between teams? - <AUTHOR> Our team of ~30 engineers is starting to struggle w/ sharing information / documentation for our products. Email and basic share drives are no longer enough to keep everyone in sync. Any recommendations for tools or strategies to keep information organized and easily accessible by all members of the team? We are also looking to organize customer inquiries / responses if anyone has suggestions. <comment><AUTHOR> We have a lot of disparate information. So, you will have design information from Engineering (performance documentation, known issues in simulation) Testing information from Operation and then customer observations and resolutions from Sales / Application support.

We also want to improve how we track lessons learned in product development so that when a new project is kicked off the designers can look back at previous dev jobs.

We have used wikis and ticket systems but they are mostly in house built tools. Just wondering if there are more professional grade tools that you have used.

</comment><comment><USER2> We've been working on a solution to this problem at - [http://scenery.is](http://scenery.is). Let me know if you'd be interested in testing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I'd love to test it out. Just sent my email address to the splash page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One classic tool is an issue tracking system, particularly when it is synchronized to version control, wikis, file repositories, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> What sort of information are you trying to share? Just documentation? Specs? Something else?</comment>


Eric Raymond: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4386 <comment><USER3> We need people like RMS. He marks one side of the Overton Window framing the debate on freedom and software.

(Overton window: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window> )

This doesn't mean he's _right_ but what he does is _necessary_. If he didn't exist we'd need to invent him (or someone like him).

(Oh, and he is indeed a fanatic, but of the pacifist variety -- not the kind who's interested in killing people to enforce his views -- and therefore worth debating with.)

<comment><USER4> No.

The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree. Both the free software movement and the open source movement believe that open system are good, and the more open they are the better they are. The difference is in their answer to the question of "why?"

RMS and his adherents believe in inalienable human right to tinker, and consider limitations to that right, such as closed source technology, to morally offensive. ESR and his followers believe that open technology is _better_ technology and that the benefits of technology are more fully realized when it's possible to tinker with it. RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality.

The key thing here is that there's no spectrum with the RMS on one end, Steve Jobs on the other end and ESR somewhere in the middle. The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful.

Now perhaps you mean that the FSF serves an important function, in that their fanaticism makes the open source movement look more reasonable and thus more acceptable to the mainstream. But I think the very fact that actual positions held by free software and open source advocates are so similar make it hard for mainstream observers to appreciate the distinction.

So no, we don't need people like RMS.

[edited the last line for clearer rhetoric]

<comment><USER5> _The difference between RMS and ESR is one of kind, not one of degree_

Yes.

 _RMS is concerned with morality, ESR with practicality._

Also yes, for some definition of "practicality."

 _The open source movement is just as ardent, just as committed and just as "extreme" as the free software movement, but more successful._

I don't know how to measure commitment, but I agree that the open source movement is more successful in the sense that it is more popular.

But what else should we expect? If you take two groups with similar ideas, but one thinks of moral arguments as a way to achieve practical goals, while the other thinks that practical arguments are a way to achieve moral goals, you should almost always expect to see the "practical" group be more successful than the moral group.

I see this in school, where students who study how to pass tests get higher marks than students who study the material to learn. I see this in business. I see this in politics. Why would we expect to see anything else in software?

 _no, we don't need RMS_

I think that's a fine statement to make if you qualify who "we" are. If you mean people concerned with practical objectives, you may be right. I caution against rhetoric that might be mistaken for suggesting that your point of view encompasses everyone reading your arguments.

<comment><USER4> _I think that's a fine statement to make if you qualify who "we" are. If you mean people concerned with practical objectives, you may be right. I caution against rhetoric that might be mistaken for suggesting that your point of view encompasses everyone reading your arguments._

Fair point. That line was actually meant as a direct response to cstross's "We need people like RMS," but I botched the parallel construction. The "we" there should be the same "we" that cstross was talking about.

 _one thinks of moral arguments as a way to achieve practical goals, while the other thinks that practical arguments are a way to achieve moral goals_

That's an interesting way to think about it, but for me at least, neither of those characterizations is accurate. I think practical arguments are a way to achieve practical goals. I oppose the philosophy of the FSF, because AFAICT, they're making moral arguments to achieve moral goals. You seem to consider morality and practicality to be two sides of the same coin, where I see them as quite separate.

What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results. (That "we" is very broad by they way. Users of technology and humanity in general.)

[turns out I can still edit the gp, so I fixed that line]

<comment><USER6> _What I dislike about the RMS position is that it seems to consider tinkering, and perhaps geek culture in general, as inherently good and goals in their own right. I take a more utilitarian view: tinkering is good insofar we benefit from the results._

I disagree; his position, as I perceive it, is that _having the right to_ tinker is inherently good, not so much tinkering itself. Much like many of us consider Free Speech to be inherently good, even if we find some speech abominable.

And the advantages of Free Software aren't limited to tinkering, of course.

<comment><USER4> Sure. The right to tinker is required for actual tinkering, and a right that's never exercised is pointless. Regardless, I don't consider the right to tinker an end in its self. The pleasure of tinkering is utterly unimportant compared with the good that a tinkerers work can bring into the world.

As for freedom of speech, I think the analogy is flawed. The technology equivalent of speech is invention, and the freedom to invent doesn't require anything like the GPL. The freedom to tinker is more like the freedom to copyedit somebody else's work. And hey, I'm for it! Remix culture is great stuff. But it's not in the same league as freedom of speech.

When it comes right down to it, though, I don't consider freedom of speech an end in its self either. The value of free speech is the sort of society it produces, not the speech its self. I favour limits to speech when the effect of that speech is _not_ a net good to society. Now, those situations are few and far between, but they do exist. Yelling "fire" and all that; our legal system has a long and nuanced tradition of weighing the issue in various situations.

The point is that dogma and fanaticism are counterproductive, whatever your goals are. The FSF is certainly not alone in this.

<comment><USER5> _The value of free speech is the sort of society it produces, not the speech its self._

With great respect, I urge you to think this kind of thing through very, very carefully. Consider freedom in the general sense, such as freedom to vote. Many post-colonial countries have freer citizens but worse economies. If freedom is useful only inasmuch as it is a means to some other practical end, we could say that these countries would be better off with colonial masters running them.

America threw off colonialism and prospered, but it is the exception. Freedom often has costs, ask anyone who has chosen to start a company instead of taking a job with BigCo. Some people, myself included, consider freedom a worthwhile thing whether it makes us rich or healthy or happy or not.

<comment><USER4> I thank you for the respect you show when you disagree. I hope I can do the same. I do indeed think about this kind of thing often and as carefully as I can.

The thing is, freedom in the general sense _does_ produce happiness. If you doubt that, consider the contrary case, how we suffer when our freedom is taken away. In its most general sense, freedom is our ability to pursue happiness and avoid suffering. Of _course_ our well being requires it. Freedom is good, in spite of its costs, _because_ it makes us happy. If it didn't, why would we risk our lives and livelihoods to obtain it?

Nevertheless, I think it's important, when making moral judgements, to focus on happiness and wellbeing rather than a proxy like freedom. In a world of maximum freedom, where everyone is completely unfettered, we actually find ourselves less happy. We immediately form groups and establish social norms. We make laws. We constrain freedom in order to maximize wellbeing.

The suffering that I experience at the loss of my freedom to take what I want from those around me is exceeded by the security I feel knowing that the same protection is afforded to me. So yes, freedom is good, but so is security. So is prosperity — taxation robs me of my freedom to spend my income as I see fit, but the benefit I receive more than makes up for it. The only way I can see to measure the trade-offs between freedom, security, prosperity, health, etc is to value them for the wellbeing they bring to us, rather than try to assign value to them directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The problem with it is the same problem with messianic religions in general; for people who are not flipped into true-believer mode by any given one, it will come off as at best creepy and insular, at worst nutty and potentially dangerous (and this remains true even for people attached to a different messianic religion)."

I fit into neither of the caricatures of either a 'true believer' or someone scared of RMS. I see him as someone who truly believes in something and has stood by it no matter what. His 'fanatical' language of evil etc. is because he truly believes those things to be evil. I've always used the GPL for licensing my open source code specifically because it ensures that it stays open and that improvements are given back. On one occasion I've been persuaded to use another license so that $CORP could use the code (<http://gmsl.sf.net/>) internally and I see that the non-fanatical position helped $CORP but I'm not sure it helped the greater cause of open source.

<comment><USER8> >His 'fanatical' language of evil etc. is because he truly believes those things to be evil.

Any fanatic truly believes themselves to be right.

That said, I'm a free software advocate. I see where the guy is coming from. I agree on most points. The one that I absolutely cannot get behind is that not releasing the source is evil.

<comment><USER9> >not releasing the source is evil

I believe it's a cultural necessity given how we make money as software developers. Hardware developers have a buffer in terms of actual production, which requires significant investment. You can reverse engineer any hardware you have in your hands but it's unlikely given 2012 technology that you can mass-produce it and steal revenue from the copied source (patents notwithstanding). I can't imagine a global business environment environment in which open source software is the norm, but I would really to hear some theories - can you imagine how wonderful it would be to be able to explore the source code of say, SpaceX?

<comment><USER10> Some areas where open source software is the norm:

1) Web servers

2) compilers for UNIX and embedded application development

3) ISP infrastructure

I am sure there are plenty of others. My business is trying to bring LedgerSMB to this area regarding mid-range accounting and ERP.

Open source can be effectively monatized in more ways than proprietary software. As LedgerSMB 1.4 comes along we'll be shifting from consulting company to start-up offering subscription services to do things that open source economics doesn't pay for very well. The software will still be open source but it will be monatized through subscriptions (think RHEL) which come with value added components updated in a timely manner. However the fact that it is open source also allows for me to off-set some of the development costs via consulting services (those aren't going away, but they are being de- emphasized a bit).

No I don't mind sharing the plans here. There are reasons why the revenue for these solutions, even if people know what the problems and solutions are, cannot be stolen from me. Open source is just a different game and you have to figure out what the rules are.

For the record the major areas we are going to focus on will be payroll and electronic submission to government agencies. These areas are frequently updated and the issue is that you don';t want to be the first one to ask for the feature and thus pay for everyone else's use. A subscription model lets us spread the cost around. People could try to jump in but I have a head start and a place of great privilege in the market. It would take a long time for someone to be able to challenge me.

In open source the way you get to a point where you can monetize the user base is by maximizing your downstream market (that's those who use your services and your customers' services). The closer you are to the center, the larger that base is. If anyone here says "oh that's a great idea" and tries to do this in LedgerSMB, you'll be starting near the outside, while I have the entire community as a potential user base. And if you go out and find lots of new customers, those are _also_ potential customers for me. I win there too.

The real reason for proprietary software is that it is one way of spreading around the cost of development. You have to do it differently in open source software, but there are actually a larger number of ways of doing it than are possible in the standard COTS world.

<comment><USER11> Not coincidentally, those are also areas where there's basically no longer any profit to be made. No one makes money selling web servers or compilers for Unix, because it's not possible to compete on price with "free".

The businesses that make money from open source typically do so by selling something else on top. Google doesn't sell open source. They sell services. Red Hat doesn't sell open source. They sell support to large businesses. ISPs sell bandwidth. Etc.

<comment><USER12> Too: proprietary solutions cannot (at a sustainable price point) compete with the _quality_ of free.

As someone noted -- there's a development model which shares the load among many eyes, and produces higher quality work as a result.

There are a few other mechanisms at work, but the upshot is that for utility, and even a fair amount of specialized software, there's no longer a marketplace for the software itself.

<comment><USER8> >Too: proprietary solutions cannot (at a sustainable price point) compete with the quality of free.

That depends entirely on the community behind the free solution, and what class of software it is. For instnance, I'm not aware of a FOS document management system which would compete with, say, Paperport or DevonThink (Windows and Mac systems, very proprietary).

<comment><USER12> I didn't say in all cases. Specialized, very high-value, and vertical tools particularly.

But generally the trend is that, starting with OS, development and management tools, and commodity software, Free Software is taking the financial value out of software sales.

For your example, OpenKM and LogicalDoc turn up for searches on "document management open source", though I couldn't say how they compete on functionality, scale, ease-of-use, stability, and/or management.

To shift spaces slightly: there's a pretty small market for proprietary Wiki software. Atlassian and Microsoft Sharepoint would be two that I'm aware of, though alternatives, especially MediaWiki, are very widely used (internal to the CIA even).

What's becoming more common is a service model based on free wiki software. Jimmy Wales has a startup based on offering MediaWiki pages, there's a similar offering based on TWiki that I'm aware of. I'm sure there are others. Similarly, blogging engines as-a-service. The software's free, but the service offering drives revenue.

Could be a way into the docs management market as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> RMS is what he is because, what he is.

You can't change such people, you won't be able to. And they won't change, And they must not change. If people like him, don't live like he does- Its impossible to take on entities like Microsoft and Apple single handedly.

Although you can argue that ideas from Free software were there ahead and during RMS's times. You can never debate that he gave it a sense of cause, activism with passion and enthusiasm never seen before. This man, made Free Software a purpose in his life. He never gives up, never compromises, his passion and intensity never wanes. He just seems to find infinite energy to go on and on.

Don't get me wrong. We are not just dealing Steve Jobs grade material here. He is more than Steve Jobs. This guy wrote some of the most widely used programs on earth today. And of supreme quality. He designed them, wrote them and marketed them. He is also the author of the most widely used license in software history. He is a prolific organizer, and executor.

He also holds strong views on political issues. Although he is often aggressive. I have never heard him do cheap talk or bad mouth some one, criticize, hate and bash them pointlessly without facts, or because of their ethnic origin, faith, belief or way of life.

But I see ESR as a epitome of hyperbole, bad mouthing, hating people because of their belief, faith and their way of life. Advocating violence. Yet his contributions towards are hardly few. I don't know of the last time he made a big contribution. And I don't even know if he has ever contributed something signification. All I know is has a high Blog noise to work ratio. Has written books based on some one else's work. And now feels qualified in the world to take on anybody and comment on them. People like ESR generally don't get taken seriously.

<comment><USER14> So many fallacies in one post.

1\. You conflate RMS being supremely talented programmer with his political strategy. ESR criticized the latter and never doubted - but actually emphasized - the former.

2\. Anybody who actually read ESR article knows that RMS was never criticized for his ethnic origin, faith, belief or way of life - only for his political strategy and manner of achieving this goal.

3\. Advocating violence? Care to give any proof of that? This goes so far that I actually checked the profile to see maybe this is just an anon trolling going on here. Such accusation needs serious proof.

4\. Ad hominem attacks on ESR don't add anything to your argument as they do not defend RMS in any way (even if ESR were nobody, his argument still could be valid on merits) - and they are also completely false.

5\. One does not any special qualification to comment on anything. One needs only to make sense and be able to build a solid argument. At which you seem to be failing now, since your argument seems to sum up to "RMS is great, ESR is nobody" and a bunch of factually incorrect statements. Such argument in no way can be persuasive to defend RMS's political strategy and rhetoric which ESR is criticizing.

<comment><USER13> I never said ESR criticized RMS because of the reasons, I mentioned.

ESR is long know to write blog posts advocating US military campaigns on Middle east(Remember so far no proof found about WMD's in Iraq). He also used to write extreme hate blogs against Muslims and Islam in General, I used to follow some of his posts then. But later gave up on reading it was full of too much hate for nothing. I find it difficult to offer such people audience. Hate is a dangerous thing to encourage, no matter whom its diverted towards.

He would advocate all out wars to 'defend his way of life', So you now want several millions of people bombed, killed and a generation of people with a broken national infrastructure and hope. All of this just because you like hearing to Micheal Jackson and they don't?

ESR to me is nothing more than a guy who use to write articles on controversial issues during pre blogging days. And seems to have made some name encouraging/bashing/thrashing/bad mouthing people. Such bloggers are worth dime a dozen today.

RMS on other hand has proven credentials as a hacker. Both in the MIT Lab and later writing software like Emacs and other GNU utils. His political views are more non violent and more left leaning, yet far better than that of ESR's.

<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond>

<comment><USER14> "I never said ESR criticized RMS because of the reasons, I mentioned."

Then why you mentioned those things in comment which discusses ESR's critique of RMS? Just because you had a random thought and had to express it before you forget it, no matter the topic? And why you immediately added "But I see ESR as a epitome of hyperbole, bad mouthing, hating people because of their belief, faith and their way of life. Advocating violence"?

Looks like is it you that is badmouthing people because of their beliefs, not ESR, and I also notice a lot of the same un-loving feeling in your responses that you attribute to ESR. I will ignore the attempt to derail the discussion and change topic to Iraq and Muslims, however, since it is completely offtopic (and again, contains multiple false statements). I just will notice that "advocating violence" in context of political discussion and political critique and meaning by it supporting actions (however they may seem wrong to you) of legitimate democratic government in totally unrelated case is extremely disingenuous.

You proceed to declare utter baloney and try to assign this baloney as if ESR ever said it, which also is obviously false and I wonder how you can expect such cheap rhetorical trick to convince anybody.

I think everybody here knows how ESR has made his name, and it has absolutely nothing to do with "bashing/thrashing/badmouthing people". Again, why you expect this obviously false statement to sound convincing to the informed audience is a mystery to me. However, (lack of) your personal respect to ESR is not important, as points he makes do not become less valid because you personally disrespect him.

The most sad part of your comment is however the last link. And the most sad part of this link is that incoherent drivel by some anonymous internet trolls which consists completely of "bashing, trashing and badmouthing", is presented as "Rational Wiki". Sad and deeply ironic.

<comment><USER13> I don't know who is trolling whom here.

But you find goodness in a man known for his extreme hate writings against people of certain ethnic origins(Arabs), and people belonging to a particular race and color(blacks). Or certain preference on a way of life(like marrying people of the same gender). You consider this man good.

And now you call the people who point to this as trolls.

At this point my debate with you ends. Because I don't think we are on the plane of thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a hunch that RMS will be of great interest to historians, probably more so than Steve Jobs in the long run.

The overall GNU/Linux/OSS movement/project is the only thing I can think of where a work of such magnitude has been carried out on a global scale and has not been orchestrated by a single entity such as a government of corporation.

Something that has been tested on this scale and succeeded as well as it has is likely to be spread to other areas of life. Once Stallman dies , he will be remembered much more fondly than we think of him now and it would not surprise me if he became the inspiration for some future ruler or political movement.

<comment><USER16> Yes, I agree that history will treat RMS kindly. He's a curious creature. Jobs was right for his time at the crucible of personal computing, but I think RMS will be right for many times in the future, and his mark will be clearer and longer lasting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mmm... generally speaking, I'm an ESR fan, but I think he's a bit wrong (and a bit right here. What I mean is, yes, RMS almost certainly is a fanatic. I doubt RMS himself would disagree with that characterization (although I don't know him and have never asked him; so it's just a hunch). But, the question is, is RMS _harmful_ to the F/OSS culture (to the extent that one can talk about any sort of homogeneous "F/OSS culture")? On this point, I'm unconvinced.

In fact, I'll argue that, whether despite his fanaticism or because of it, RMS has been - and remains - a positive influence on the F/OSS world. No, his position and his rantings aren't for _everyone_ but they are for _some_ and to the _some_ who are deeply inspired by his actions, the "RMS as messianic figure" thing is probably very valuable. And considering their are fanatics on the "opposing team" (if you will), like certain people who refer to the GPL as communist, I believe a certain measure of fanaticism is good, in terms of counter-balancing the opposing fanaticism.

The mainstream of culture itself will likely always hang somewhere in the middle. But one has to wonder where things would wind up without Stallman and the FSF proselytizing so strenuously for Free Software.

<comment><USER15> To be honest , most people don't even know who RMS is and that includes people who work in IT (and many people who use Linux for a living).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul." -Mahatma Gandhi

Copied and pasted from stallman.org. I understand the rationale of ESR and many others, but RMS is trying to move the centrepoint of the discussion as far as he can, and to do that he must "resist with his whole soul". Compromise is for others.

<comment><USER18> A quote I like from Stallman himself more than any of Gandhi's: "They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to learn this particular lesson."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I went ahead and donated to the FSF after reading this article instead of venting here on HN. You lose, ESR. :)

<https://my.fsf.org/donate/>

</comment><comment><USER20> I find it funny ESR thinks he or 'Open Source' have made much progress; I would have thought the existence of patent trolls - things fanatics like RMS have been warning about for literally decades and been mocked as fanatics for just as long - would force even the most obtuse to acknowledge their foresight. Guess not.

</comment><comment><USER21> An argument between RMS and ESR over who's the bigger fanatic is not likely to produce very enlightening results...

<comment><USER22> ESR doesn't strike me as particularly fanatical from what I know of him. Are you thinking of something in particular?

<comment><USER23> Are you familiar with his views about Islam or Homosexuality? Those seem pretty fanatical to me, they are completely biased and downright offensive and illiterate. He equates homosexuality with paedophilia, denies HIV is the sole cause of AIDS and believes in a conspiracy to hide the true causes, and calls for the murder of religious leaders of the middle east equating them with animals. I tried multiple times to discuss this theories with him, but he called me a "marxist anti-american fag" (sic), a label that even if undisputed gives him no logical arguments against any refutation of his bizarre theories nor justifies his calls for action or even sometimes genocide.

For some time already his mind has been drifting in a sea of obscurantist choosing of statistics and a convenient selection of right-winged american- exceptionalist conspiracy theories.

I could link to his twisted essays, but although biased the entry in Rational Wiki about him sums most of the hard facts, though I suggest you ignore their opinion and go read the compiled cited writing of ESR. <http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond>

<comment><USER24> I dislike seeing someone's name smeared in a vague way. A bit of googling brought up the essay you mentioned regarding homosexuality, pederasty, and pedophilia:

<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=26>

(Vagueness, begone!)

<comment><USER19> The rationalwiki article linked above links to that article and several others. So IMHO your charge of "name smeared in a vague way" is incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _I had long since concluded that the Free Software Foundation's moralistic rhetoric was serving us badly._

Which "us" is this exactly? ESR presumes too much.

<comment><USER26> Surprised? ESR has been doing this for years, even though he now only has a very small group of devout followers who consider his ramblings significant. It has been years since he could actually be said to speak for open source hackers everywhere. (In fact, if you ask me and quite a lot of other people, he never could.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Eric Raymond's working definition of a fanatic is, "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim".

RMS is to me the exact antithesis of this definition. He has always had a complete focus on his end objective and everything he does is geared towards it (and scraping out a meagre living so he can continue it). One could argue that the path he has chosen to his objective is incorrect but to say that he is now acting having lost sight of his objective is wrong.

RMS to me has always been very conscious of his ethical position and has been pragmatic to the extent that being so does not put him in the position of being a complete hypocrite. For example, his position of the use of the LGPL. This has never seemed to be to be the behaviour of a fanatic of any variety.

I think offering the suggestion that religious language is detrimental to his message is perfectly reasonable. I have always viewed RMS real audience as hackers, and since the hacker culture is one of using religious language tongue-in-cheek I think the language fits the audience.

</comment><comment><USER28> The problem with the 'Open Source' movement is that it stopped the free software revolution in its tracks by opening up a third way that relieved the pressure that was building up on corporations by the growing mountain of GPL code. That ultimately has allowed corporations to coopt the work of the volunteer community and turn around and attack us with even more locked down proprietary code such as the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER29> This post repeats a very weak argument over and over: RMS uses messianic language which alienates potential allies. Ok. But do you think strict adherence to the principles of the FSF are good? This piece doesn't even address the core issues of RMS's position, and just accuses him of phrasing his point poorly.

<comment><USER30> I sense that you did not read the essay.

The point is that two people can agree on a particular goal that needs to be achieved, while disagreeing -- perhaps quite strongly -- on the means appropriate and best suited to achieve that goal.

RMS' approach to a business which produces proprietary software is, essentially, "Your business is evil, you are evil, and I will crusade to end your evil."

ESR's approach is, essentially, "Your business could be so much more efficient and productive. Let me show you how."

ESR is, much as it pains me to admit this, correct as to which approach is more likely to achieve the stated goal of convincing businesses to stop producing/using proprietary software.

<comment><USER31> OK, but you have to acknowledge that businessmen and engineers are not the only people who could be interested in FOSS.

I work regularly with social scientists; they are really interested in Free Software and don't care much about Open Source. You can talk about efficiency and reduction of cost endlessly and to them it's just another "marketing speech" but if you talk about ethics and the well-being of society at large they are instantly hooked.

RMS is just a man, he can't be all things to all people. There are situations in which his rhetoric is really effective, and others in which it isn't; as simple as that. It's great to have Open Source to make an argument that businessmen will pay attention to. However, criticising the "Free Software guy" because he's not an "Open Source guy" is kind of pointless.

I think the diversity in points of view is a testament to the cultural importance of FOSS, and we should celebrate that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Aside from this being a good candidate for the dictionary definition of the kettle and pot idiom the problem with RMS is that whilst I agree with him wholeheartedly on almost all software issues I would never use him to convince any of my non-tech friends of anything because I think they wouldn't be able to get over his eccentricities. And some of these are just... unique. Which is a pity because his ideas and essays are well thought out and interesting.

I don't agree with the complaint about bringing in moral arguments in what he sees as a purely technical issue. Every human endeavour can be viewed from a moral standpoint and it's a perfectly valid perspective and doesn't exclude others.

</comment><comment><USER33> _The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man._

George Bernard Shaw - Maxims for Revolutionists - <http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26107/pg26107.html>

In my opinion Eric argues against his point simply by making it.

</comment><comment><USER34> I found ESR's comment interesting: ">In setting this stance, we push the Overton window further to our side, allowing pragmatists to be able to say, "We're not extremists, like Stallman" and gain more credibility.

This is actually reasonable. I've used Stallman this way myself – he more or less begs for it. But I don't think you're answering the usual intent of the claim "the moral viewpoint is essential", which has nothing to do with anything as cold-blooded as gaming the Overton window and everything to do with deep-seated convictions in the speaker."

<comment><USER35> I find that comment (and the comment he's replying to) more interesting than anything in the post itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think that ESR should employ a more radical license for his programs: the "do what the fuck you want to" public license.

If RMS want to dress like St Ignacious, do what the fuck you want.

If RMS wants to be the new Che Guevara, do what the fuck you want, man.

ESR is libertarian, and libertarianism is all about deploying that kind of license in your personal life.

RMS is not a fanatic. He's passionate, and I like his passion and his cause.

I don't think that engineering pragmatism is politically neutral. Sure, you can write a fine piece of software, but Who controls the software? For me, that's the crucial question, and I think is a very pragmatic question, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER37> esr has long become open source's Colonel Kurz. Being stuck somewhere in his own little piece of the cyber jungle, together with those who adhere to his peculiar view of life.

Some might know him from his work "the Cathedral and the Bazaar", or know him as contributor to "Battle for Wesnoth". And some might even know him for his contributions to GNU (yes, really! open up the documentation to various utilities some time, and his name will be there). The problem with esr is however, his fanaticism. Where rms speaks of software, he speaks of software and its impact on society only. Whether this is done in the most effective way is open to debate. To expound on the rest of his personal political ideas, he uses his homepage. In general he makes a clear distinction between his general political stance (which everyone has one), and his ideas on software (where he can speak authoritatively).

esr's views are "all in". You are either part of "the tribe" and accept him as your "silverback gorilla" alpha-male, or you're _wrong_. He's been using his notoriety as a hacker to create visibility for his ideas on other aspects of life, creating, imo, a position of false authority for himself.

You can agree or disagree with rms. But irrespective of the way he presents his ideas on software, they stand on their own, they stand up to scrutiny, and can be defended by and discussed in terms of logical arguments; meaning you are free to agree or disagree with the body of ideas behind free sofware and radically differ (from rms) in any other aspect of life.

Pitting esr's and rms's ideas on free sofware as "two sides of the same coin", needs a coin in a very non-euclidian universe.

In short. esr's influence on opensource dwindled over the years, alienating readers because of tying in his views on software with his strong political beliefs. rms's influence on free software has remained strong, not because of his persona (some might say, "in spite" of), but because they are sound and selfcontaining, and don't require people to "buy into" ideas on other aspects of life that are not strictly software related.

</comment><comment><USER38> "There is too much at stake for me to be diplomatically dishonest about this – it did immense damage to the cause of openness, and I had to spend a good many years remediating that damage."

Exactly what is at stake in Raymond's communication of his opinion about Stallman? If the answer is "nothing", is it worth pointing out how flawed his analysis is?

</comment><comment><USER39> Moralists and fanatics are principally concerned with issues of ideological purity...often to the point of being willing to sacrifice tremendous parts of society in pursuit of this purity -- even as their own slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller and even when pursuit of the practical would move the world towards their ideal much more effectively.

 _Every_ so often an event will happen where an ideological purist's rhetoric is true, and this arms them for years of ideological advocacy and warfare...while day-to-day practicalities are dismissed and pass them by. Sure, one could spend 16 hours a day praying at the alter of a particular path, but then there's no time to eat.

Interestingly, highly intelligent ideologues often (not always) follow an interesting path of massive and early creativity and productivity, while trailing off quickly into years of chasing imaginary rabbits down imaginary holes -- when simply continuing to produce would have done a better job of getting their point across.

RMS is like this. Early on he produced absolutely amazing stuff at an astonishing rate -- pieces of software which are still being actively used and developed decades later. Many developers would give their left arm to have achieved this.

And then it suddenly stops. The creative outpouring and concrete contributions to the material world suddenly end and he focuses his energies almost entirely in ideological purity.

It's akin in some ways to Newton's deeper dive into Alchemy or Savonarola's switch from medical school to religion.

Don't forget, Savonarola, despite his desire to pitch the Western world back into the Dark Ages, also fought corruption and exploitation of the poor -- he was right _some_ of the time.

The recent news of Stallman's laptop's theft makes me even sadder because of his ideological purity, the chances of him finding a replacement, and getting back to just making stuff are even further away.

<comment><USER40> "And then it suddenly stops. The creative outpouring and concrete contributions to the material world suddenly end"

Here's a more prosaic possibility: he got old and/or moved into management.

<comment><USER41> He also developed (had?) RSI. See <http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch09.html#15416>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> We live in a free society, and Stallman is free to have an opinion, and to interpret things strictly or loosely.

He is a fanatic or an extremist? Absolutely. But he continues to attract interest, and his contributions to society are real and significant.

Society needs fanatics. We need someone to question that moral righteousness of things like copyright, or to set a boundary for the meaning of "open source". If he's personally difficult for Mr. Raymond to deal with, so what? How would the world improve if everyone sat around getting along with each other?

Raymond's post is self-serving, and more about reminding us about how important he is while criticizing someone else.

</comment><comment><USER43> I find it often quite sad if people are called upon to change their behavior for public relations reasons. In many cases I feel people are asked to undermine their integrity.

I say screw public relations, stand up for what you believe is right! If free software needs a more agreeable head figure, why don't they hire Paris Hilton or whomever?

</comment><comment><USER44> It was RMS in the beginning - he built the foundations: the software (GCC, the GNU-project, Emacs), the philosophy and the values (his essays and interviews), the organisation (FSF), the copyleft legal rights (GPL).

ESR wouldn't be as recognizable as he is if he had chosen to opine on something less important and influential than RMS and his contribution.

</comment><comment><USER45> RMS is not a fanatic. People portray him as a fanatic. Is Gandhi a fanatic? But, it would be easy to portray him as a fanatic, as an enemy to corporations. We need more people like RMS.

</comment><comment><USER46> ESR's quote of Santayana is not illuminating. He might have quoted Bernard Gert, who wrote that a fanatic is someone who violates a moral rule to follow a moral ideal. A religious fanatic violates a moral rule to follow a religious command. I am unaware that RMS is violating moral rules in the name of free software.

</comment><comment><USER35> _One of my commenters reports that he showed my essay on evaluating the harm from closed-source software to Richard Stallman, who became upset by it._

Anybody have a link to this comment? I couldn't find it.

[EDIT] After an hour nobody claims to have found it. Is there a real comment, or is ESR just fantasizing about RMS caring what ESR writes?

<comment><USER47> I suspect this is the reference:

[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4371&cpage=1#comment-381328](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4371&cpage=1#comment-381328)

Luke Leighton writes:

 _i spoke to dr stallman about the assessment concepts presented here, because i think they're fantastic and should be more formalised, and adopted more widely including by the FSF. unfortunately he was sufficiently upset by the personal references that he can't possibly recommend that. what's the best way to proceed?_

<comment><USER35> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > _There are some advantages to this strategy. It taps into old, powerful > emotional responses in human beings – the same responses that give messianic > religions their power. As a way of recruiting a small hard core of dedicated > followers it's tough to beat, and sometimes – if you're, say, the Gautama > Buddha or Jesus or Mahavira – you can make it scale up. But I described it > as a trap for a reason – most such attempts do not scale, remaining tiny > marginal cults._

Is fanatism working for RMS? Well, the German Pirate Party regularly top 10% in the polls, which is rather better than you'd expect from a "tiny marginal cult", so one has to conclude that it is working.

<comment><USER6> You shouldn't mix up RMS with the Pirates. While there are obvious similitudes (particularly in terms of privacy, DRM, etc), RMS was initially opposed to their platform of reducing or killing copyright, since that would limit the effectiveness of the GPL without really fixing what he fights against - <USER2> all, lack of copyright doesn't mean you'll have access to the source, which is a precondition of freedoms 1 and 3 [1].

[1]: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>

<comment><USER48> > _You shouldn't mix up RMS with the Pirates_

Shouldn't I? RMS mixes with Pirates, seems to be broadly in favour of what they stand for, and comments a lot on internal Pirate Party mailing lists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> On a slightly related note, ESR is the mascot for my new static blog generating tool: <https://bitbucket.org/anthonyb/shithead> ;)

</comment><comment><USER50> tl;dr Eric explains reasonably well why he thinks RMS is a fanatic, but fails utterly to explain why his opinion (on that or any other subject) matters.

</comment><comment><USER51> What do you call it when the crank accuses the crank?

<comment><USER52> go back to work

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The pure pragmatism of Torvalds and the "I won't use it unless it's 100% free software" attitude of RMS are both valid viewpoints. In practice most of us mere mortals accept some state of affairs in between those two poles.

Ignoring software freedom as an issue would IMHO be a major mistake given the overall direction in which contemporary society is going. In broad terms I think RMS was right in the sense that as software becomes ever more deeply embedded into all aspects of life, who owns and controls that software, and the ability to audit it, becomes an important question. Theoretically, in the long run it may not be possible to have a free society without some amount of free software infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER54> I am biased (I've dealt with both ESR and RMS, and had a much more personable time with the former), but I think this is one of the better things ESR has written, and it nails all of my major issues with RMS (almost: I know it gets made fun of a lot but I really find his personal hygiene utterly contemptible).

</comment><comment><USER55> In my book, a fanatic is someone who unleashes diatribes on people with whom he/she is pretty much in the same camp, apart from minor differences that outsiders don't even understand. I am reminded of "The Life of Brian" and the People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front.

</comment><comment><USER56> I find this debate so very tedious. From a libertarian perspective, RMS's arguments are just utter bs. He's basically saying two independent parties have no right to enter into a contract that involves keeping secrets. That's what happens when you agree to a EULA. If you don't like the contract, don't accept it.

People have no more right to "free software" in the RMS absolutist sense than they have right to free beer, free lunch, or free anything. (And yes, I know the 'free as in speech' slogan, but my point is that I have a right to enter into a contract, or offer someone a contract that limits their rights to share certain information I want to protect.) The fact that the thing in question is information rather than something more 'real' doesn't change the morality of the situation one bit -- it's merely a practical consideration, that bits are easy to copy, and cars and lunch are not.

<comment><USER57> The parties aren't independent.

People are utterly _dependent_ on software.

Net effects mean that people aren't free to choose the software that has the agreements they agree with.

I think the question anyone should ask -- is what kind of society do we want to live in? One where everyone controls their computers and software, or one where the norm is to surrender control of this part of your life to third parties?

<comment><USER56> I think the open source movement (as opposed to the free software jihad of RMS) has worked exactly how the market should work. Some manufacturers are addicted to secrecy, DRM, draconian copy protection, and restrictive EULA's. The FOSS movement, responding to this reality, provides alternate versions of almost any type of software you care to use.

So why in the world would it be reasonable to force Microsoft, Apple, or anyone else to give you something they choose to withhold? Instead, speak with your pocketbook -- refuse to pay their tithe, and work with open software and/or with companies whose policies on this issue you accept and agree with.

TL; DR: Market forces are almost always more efficient and less prone to unintended consequences than top-down laws and regulations. Let the market work.

<comment><USER57> Firstly, claiming RMS is a jihadist is a silly ad-hominem. RMS presents a coherent principled position, and fights for it.

Secondly, you might be forced to use Microsoft products, because your government, industry standard, or other is using proprietary Microsoft formats.

I think the question to ask is what the big-picture-effect of allowing/disallowing withholding source code from users would be. We should not use a narrow benchmark of "minimal government interference" or "maximum personal rights", but a "yields best overall outcome" benchmark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> ESR needs to up his pageviews? That time of the year again? Same old "discussion" he tries to have since nsome 10 years. No new arguments, just warming up his sentiments again. RMS has ignored this for years and s should we :-)

</comment><comment><USER59> I'd say he is very passionate but not sure fanatic is accurate.

</comment><comment><USER60> Calling someone a "fanatic" and pointing out the fact that they don't fit in or that they make some people uncomfortable or angry does not in fact make them wrong. Raymond has no actual argument, so it comes across as a petty personal attack on RMS.</comment>


YAML templating tool that works on YAML structure instead of text - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/k14s/ytt <comment><USER2> These days devops workers often have no choice but to write scads of YAML for tools like GoCD, Concourse, K8s etc etc. To be efficient we turn to tools like Helm. But I recommend everyone write their own TC YAML tool - it does not take long and it's fun. If you don't have time, you can use mine.

I wrote two 'macro processor's for YAML. Yamp (in Python, [https://github.com/birchb1024/yamp](https://github.com/birchb1024/yamp)) and GoYamp (GoLang, [https://github.com/birchb1024/goyamp](https://github.com/birchb1024/goyamp)). GoYamp is fast. Some of my users have generated thousands of YAML files with them.

IMO ytt is not as good because it seems to embed its syntax in comments. You can use tools like m4 and Jinja2 but you'll be counting indentations all day. Yamp and GoYamp are 100% YAML so indentation just works. Start here: [https://github.com/birchb1024/goyamp](https://github.com/birchb1024/goyamp) !

<comment><USER3> TC?

<comment><USER2> Turing Complete

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How did we get to the point of templating YAML files when it's a superset of JSON? Why not just generate a JSON object?

At what point do we get so deep into templates that we just admit that anything short of a programming language just isn't expressive enough for a config file? I mean that probably wouldn't solve it either — people would just template the script.

<comment><USER5> > _At what point do we get so deep into templates that we just admit that > anything short of a programming language just isn't expressive enough for a > config file?_

At the point where I'm debugging configuration instead of declaring it.

There is no sweeping answer, because the scope of configuration varies according to the tool. Systems like Kubernetes or Concourse accept _records_ rather than configuration per se. At least conceptually, these are projections of an underlying model. They are not the model itself and won't be the most compact representation.

Because they are projections, they will inevitably fail to fulfill some degree of schematic normalisation. This means repetition, which for most engineers is interpreted as "I need a loop" instead of "I need a set notation".

I prefer ytt to most alternatives I've seen because it's at least trying to avoid introducing unwanted Turing completeness. Where possible, your configuration language shouldn't be an attack vector.

I'd prefer a more relational or logical style of configuration (I expect CUE folks will be here shortly), but given the continuing efforts to disguise and hide even SQL from programmers, I'm not going to hold my breath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a more useful link is [https://get-ytt.io/](https://get-ytt.io/), which includes an interactive playground.</comment>


Computers fail in courts across England as judges and CPS try to access info - <AUTHOR> http://telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/21/computers-fail-courts-across-england-judges-cps-struggle-access/ <comment><USER2> >" _We will be restoring the email history of those affected over the next few days._ "

Most "computer problems" don't result in the zeroing-out of mailboxes; unless the disk went down but, even then, you'd imagine that - if they did things the correct way - they'd have redundancy. Maybe they're leveraging a NAS and the NAS went down (in a relatively new system)? ...but, again, redundancy?

It definitely seems odd...</comment>


Jason Calacanis lets it all loose at FounderShowcase + Elon Musk - <AUTHOR> http://go.danielodio.com/foundershowcase

<comment><USER2> How to meet angels:

Email them what you've done, not what you will do

-Have Product Built

-Be Brief

-Send them a URL

If you still cannot contact them:

-Make yourself an expert in a niche

-Comment on other companies, some they have invested in

Becoming a friend of a friend

</comment><comment><USER3> Can somebody summarize what he "lets it all loose" about? I am too lazy to invest the time in watching a video unless I have a vague sketch that it will actually be something I'm interested in.

<comment><USER4> Makes me wonder if a good video transcription / summarization service would be something people like you'd pay for. Something like squeezedbooks for movies.

<comment><USER5> Nothing motivates a "free clone of X" like paid service X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was the best founder showcase that I have attended. Plus, the quality of the companies pitching has gone up and up. Very, very strong.

[of course I'm biased but it's true anyway :-)]</comment>


Show HN: A real-time Twitter clone in 300 lines of Angular.js - <AUTHOR> http://appbaseio.github.io/twitter-appbase/

<comment><USER2> Link to blog post [http://news.appbase.io/posts/222589-twitter- appbase](http://news.appbase.io/posts/222589-twitter-appbase)

</comment><comment><USER3> Impressive!</comment>


Hubble Discovery: Massive Star Booted from its Home  - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20004780-501465.html?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.11

<comment><USER2> "Astronomers have released photos of a massive star that they say was kicked out of its home about 180,000 miles from Earth."

Surely they mean light-years, but I was reading this while eating my lunch and choked.

<comment><USER3> And they report that "The 30 Doradus Nebula... is 90 times more massive than the Sun" when their own excerpt says that 30 Doradus contains several stars "topping 100 solar masses _each_ "?

<comment><USER4> I suppose that they meant to say that the traveling star was 90 times more massive than the sun[1]... this reporter seems awfully confused. A little proofreading goes a long way.

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/runaway- sta...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/runaway-star.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Weird, a 90 solar mass star is pretty heavy to get kicked to that speed. They say that 30 Dor contains several stars weighing > 100 solar masses, but those kinds of masses are very near the absolute upper limit to how large stars can form. Generally to get kicked to very high velocities, you need to interact with something more massive than yourself.

</comment><comment><USER6> Couldn't the 'kick' be attributed to passing close to a black-hole?</comment>


A quantum experiment suggests there's no such thing as objective reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/ <comment><USER2> This seems like another case where the alternate of "...or simply use the DeBroglie Bohm interpretation and most of the mysticism of this goes away."

I'm not remotely an expert in this, but non-locality always seems like the "simpliest" explanation. Like two boat floating on a lake, things you do in your boat that create waves can affect me in my boat even though our boats never touch.

The world around us has a similar lake surface which explains all of this without giving up objective reality.

Every QM article I read, I try to repicture using DeBroglie Bohm and it always gives an easier to grasp, although less sensational explanation.

It surprises me it's never presented.

<comment><USER3> The article explicitly states that non-locality could explain it:

>But Proietti and co's result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions — the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, _or the idea of locality_ — must be wrong.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that, of the possibilities, "reality we can agree on" is the _least_ likely to be wrong.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I'm in the non-locality camp myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975)

Here's Scott Aaronson arguing that the theoretical work underpinning this experiment is flawed.

</comment><comment><USER6> "There's no such thing as objective reality".

We did an experiment to prove it, so it must be objectively true!

In other news:

"This sentence is false".

<comment><USER3> You are confusing two different ontological domains. The key word is "objective" not "reality". The experiment, regardless of the interpretation, does not deny the existence of reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure what I'm missing here. "superposition" is more of an explanation of not knowing the result of a measurement until it is measured. So saying that one person performing the measurement and not telling someone else what is was, so that person sees it as in the "superposition" state vs. the measured state is not two conflicting realities. One person just has access to different facts.

If I witnessed a murder and withheld that information, and someone else thinks the person committed suicide based on the evidence they have, we aren't living in two different realities.

</comment><comment><USER8> I assume this is true for observation of a single quantum particle, but on macro scale statistically speaking everyone observes essentially the same

<comment><USER9> I really wonder how it is possible to have different realities at the quantum level that -- seemingly -- converge at a single shared reality at the macro level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We were able to deal with time and space being relative, we can deal with superposition being relative. It was kind of obvious anyway, since superposition can affect non-elementary particles as well.

<comment><USER11> So all this experiment is saying is that wavefunction collapse is observer- dependent and not a global property. It's hard to comprehend that the superposition state exists after the other group makes their measurement and says they've done so. When the wavefunction collapses for the second group, it still has to agree with the first right? So how could the superposition state continued to have existed when only one outcome was possible?

<comment><USER10> Because the second group is still in superposition relative to the first. It's kind of exactly like the schrödinger's cat, where the cat is in the same position as the second group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition.

Could anyone explain this interference measurement? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Accepting the photons' status as observers", says the paper.

In other words, this is just another experiment confirming QM predictions.</comment>


Latest viruses could mean 'end of world as we know it' - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesofisrael.com/experts-we-lost-the-cyber-war-now-were-in-the-era-of-cyber-terror/

<comment><AUTHOR> Who do you think is responsible for the virus?</comment>


Why Smule won't be developing mobile apps for Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.edibleapple.com/why-smule-wont-be-developing-mobile-apps-for-android/

<comment><USER2> Because they're very clearly an Apple-only bunch, being interviewed for an Apple news site?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't really get it. Are they claiming that "I am T-Pain" would be expensive to build on Android because they would have to test it against a bunch of different devices and UIs? As far as I can tell the app shouldn't require any fancy UI elements. You just need a microphone and a speaker right?

<comment><USER4> It doesn't 'require' fancy UI elements but that's what makes a decent app good or a good app great. Having lots of fragmented hardware to support (eg multiple resolutions) is a pain.

<comment><USER5> Multiple resolutions is not a problem, it is just pathetic excuse of Apple fanbois. Just wait, until Apple comes with iPhone using higher res, then of course it will be best thing since sliced bread and Apple will be first with such a novel concept.

<comment><USER4> Multiple resolutions is a problem compared to one resolution, you don't have to be an Apple 'fanboi' to realize that. Most artwork isn't vector and has to be recreated appropriately. Apple of course will upgrade the resolution (probably this summer) and it will create problems for iPhone developers as well. Another concern is no clear baseline of the Android hardware, considering it can run on anything from microwaves to tablets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's why:

1) they don't have the money to develop for both the iPhone and Android.

2) announcing they won't develop for Android will bring them some needed publicity as it did for that gaming company who did last time.

3) if they don't have the funds to develop for android and make money out of it, they may as well try to cash on the fact that they won't be developing for Android.

All and all, pretty pathetic PR.

<comment><USER7> I think you're trying to minimize the difficulty of the android platform:

1> Pure Compute Power between handsets varies widely. You can't do something that requires significant compute power without functioning poorly on the less powerful handsets.

2> Screen resolutions are all over the place (You have to test on 5-8 different resolutions). This is KILLER for someone doing a game or other fixed width layout. It's not like you see 15 different sizes of flash windows. MOST people can't afford to do multiple sizes.

3> Installed OS version is all over the place. While there is a supposed "upgrade to 2.1" happening later this spring for all handsets, I predict many handset owners won't do it, as it will require a data wipe.

4> The Tools Batman. Interface builder is _leagues upon lightyears_ better than hand edited XML based java container layouts. You have easily 10x the layout and positioning work for Android, and you have to test this layout and positioning on all the different phones.

5> The installer: If your app has any amount of data in it, you have to write an installer and sell the installer, which then downloads your app. This is expensive.

So yes, you're technically right, they don't have the money _or don't see it a worthwhile investment_ to try to target the crappy android development landscape.

Perhaps someone will make a unifying toolkit that does screen layouts well and is in Python or another one of the ASL toolkit, but with the current old school java development kit that is android, it's not going to be a winning target for many developers.

<comment><USER8> Re point 2. The iPad has a much larger screen then the iPhone so now you will be building apps with custom screens and layouts...

I think the biggest problem with the Android marketplace is that unless you are in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom or United States you cannot actually sell your apps since you cannot set up a Google Checkout account! No such problem with the Apple App store...

<comment><USER9> Not to mention that the hardware available to the iPad is probably going to be considerably better than the hardware on an iPhone.

All those iPhone developers who previously only had to worry about the iPhone and iPod touch now have a third to add to the mix. And as more versions of each get released the landscape gets worse and worse. Android may have come out of the gate with a more difficult landscape but the App Store will not always be immune either.

<comment><USER7> While CPU power differences could make a big issues, especially for games, I still say apple's fixed layout system is stronger.

You load up a new screen with a call that specifies the layout file (called a XIB) on iPhone. You can then feasibly have different layouts for iPad and for 320x480 phones.

I could easily support 5 of those. With a layout manager, you have to LOOK to see if it turned out well on the platforms (of which there are already 5-8 you care about, many times more than iphone).

What android needs, is a gui builder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's also a technical reason. They use their own audio toolkit which evolved out of Chuck, which Ge developed as his PhD thesis.

This would be a bear to port to Android. It would either require a complete rewrite or they'd have to use one of the weird NDK/Dalvik VM layer hacks that may or may not be officially supported.

</comment><comment><USER11> > lynch-pin

The word they're looking for is "linchpin".</comment>


I accidentally the entire heap: debugging Haskell programs with space leaks - <AUTHOR> https://www.bitba.se/i-accidentally-the-entire-heap/

<comment><USER2> Interesting slides. I wonder what the performance implications of using Pipes would have been.

</comment><comment><USER3> I learned a lot from your talk. Thanks again!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed it! See you at the next meetup.</comment></comment>


Is there any major mobile app open sourcing the entire app sourcecode - <AUTHOR>

I know that Facebook and Twitter open source the in-built libraries for iOS, but i wonder if someone goes further and open sources the whole app's codebase.<p>It is obvious that there is some security concern involved, considering the exposure of private API's and etc. <comment><USER2> You can't hide API's :-)

I took apart the Disney Parks App as I was frustrated at the fact the full information therein was only available if you're physically inside the park.

Firstly, I used an American friends App-Store account to download the app, as it was not on the UK App-Store and you need an US credit card to set up a US account (Please correct me if I am wrong here.)

Next I used Fake Location, a €3 app from the Cydia store on my jailbroken iPhone, so I could convince the app I was 4500 miles away in Florida in the sun.

Finally, I used "mitmproxy" on my Mac, to proxy the web access the Disney app was making to the server, and noted the URL's and over time worked out the structure of the API and it's JSON replies.

Hope this is of use :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> are you just looking for the source code to an app so you can amend it to produce your own app? Or was there another reason you needed the sourcecode?

<comment><AUTHOR> actually i have been developing a pretty advanced app with more than a million downloads... the main reason for me to ask was, if any company is brave enough to show what's running under the hood... It could be a good exercise for companies like Twitter to show everything.

<comment><USER3> I did not intend any offence, I too would like to see the source code for some of the apps I use to see what is going on under the hood.

Not sure how easy it would be to open them up given that cracked apps appear on jailbreak sites all the time, if the DRM can be removed there must be access to the source code.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ASCII TV – Stream ASCII movies in your terminal with curl - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/martinraison/ascii-tv <comment><USER2> Not ASCII, however a cool hack using mpv is that it can display actual videos in a terminal emulator that supports true color output [1]. Just run the following command:

      mpv -vo tct video_file.mkv

Reduce the font size to increase resolution. Also, a GPU accelerated terminal like Kitty [2] is recommended, or the video will be painfully slow.

[1]: [https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728](https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728)

[2]: [https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you can also just use telnet to see star wars:

      telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, I came across this project while googling the idea! I figured out SSL would be a nice feature to have - surely you wouldn't want your Star Wars ASCII stream to be tampered with, would you? ;)

<comment><USER4> To think that anyone on the wire could manipulate the stream so that Greedo shoots first... horrifying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now _this_ is hacker news!!

Ludicrous on the surface yet brilliant.

Kudos to the creator, and it's great that such a senior engineer with his track record and contributions still has that spirit in him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words :) I do try hard to "keep the spirit" as much as I can. Like everyone on HN I need to balance that with many other things, but I figured out a few lines of Go + a heroku app wouldn't be too time-consuming :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Practical applications are irrelevant, this is a fun, cool project. I love seeing this sort of thing on HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> Really like the format of the "movie" file. Very easy to work with:

Line 1: time.Duration

Lines 2-14: frameHeight (currently set to 13 lines in the code on this and the original[0])

Options for (1) pause/play (2) back: frame by frame (3) forward: frame by frame : could make this a pretty good presentation app, ebook tool, story- teller...

[0] [https://github.com/nitram509/ascii-telnet- server](https://github.com/nitram509/ascii-telnet-server)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is really neat!

While we're on the topic of neat things you can do with `curl`, check out:

      curl parrot.live

</comment><comment><USER9> A colleague and I did this at uni in 2001 or so. SSH to his box at home with a TV receiver and a video library that output ASCII graphics.

<comment><USER10> yes, but what about the audio?

<comment><USER9> No audio over SSH :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's surprising that with the ultra-high-resolution monitors common today, this might actually be on the verge of being practical.

<comment><USER6> I would think its compression rate would be pretty good too.</comment></comment>


Vesper for iOS is Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://inessential.com/2016/12/21/vesper_open_source_3_the_ios_app <comment><AUTHOR> GitHub link: [https://github.com/brentsimmons/Vesper](https://github.com/brentsimmons/Vesper)

A huge kudos to Brent Simmons for putting this up! While large parts of the codebase might be antiquated, it's still fantastic that people can freely learn and benefit from the years of work that went into this app. I wish more companies did this when sunsetting their products.</comment>