sirocyl

I need to fuss for a moment about the impenetrable nature of github. I see REALLY promising tools and alternatives to things like YouTube and other bigger sites that are on monopolistic rampages BUT, to the layman that shit is a different language. I can work my way around a fair bit of technology, I'm not inept but I am aware that my depth of knowledge is still pretty surface level. So, when I open something that is a possible youtube alternative and see this:

and then the install instructions are like this: Its no wonder why there isn't mass adoption for using alternatives.

I'm not saying this isn't impossible, I'm not saying its unlearnable, but as someone who is starting to look into alternatives for The Usual Suspects, it is discouraging. I know alternatives will also not have the inherent creature comforts that a lot of people are used to, but so much of the stuff that's on github feels out of reach or unobtainable cause I don't have something that can run a certain code or can't parse out which parts of code need to be edited to get something to function properly. I just dont know these things and finding people to ask feels equally impossible sometimes. Hell, even people who DO use github for stuff say it's whack how stuff is laid out sometimes.
Also, the one I used in particular, this isn't a jab specifically at them, it's just the site as a whole, I've run into so many instances of wanting to try something and being unable or incapable because I'm missing some fine print Somewhere that says I should be able to run this thing but for now it remains feeling like a 50ft wall when I have a 5ft ladder.

github was never meant to be a software distribution service. it was definitely never meant to be a product distribution service. git was never meant to be that. It's meant to share source code between developers. But, there's a few factors that muddy the waters:

1. Every other actual software distribution service is paid, for-profit, big C Capitalism

2. Open source stuff is generally "free", or at least "free" enough for the hobbyist

3. software packaging, distribution, testing, maintenance, review and documentation is easily the hardest part of writing software and 95% of your time commitment. even new developers do not understand how much of their time is rightly spent not coding. I am still probably underestimating it.

4. Hobbyists, like me, often write little "useful tools" and throw them up for free in the event they might help someone else. If another developer gets use out of it, that's awesome

5. 99.99% of things on github were never designed for non-technical users to engage with in any way, shape, or form.

6. There's nothing scarier than when a free little script or tool gets picked up by a social circle outside of the developer's and you have to rush to try and "turn it into a foolproof thing", often without help, pay, or any even vague sense of reward while users scream at you for your buggy, broken crap that they are now demanding support for

7. We mean well and want to help.

8. That lone maintainer is now so mired in technical debt and burnout that they have no time to actually add a reasonable landing page or add reasonable instructions suitable for their user's technical level. They do not have time to review any contributions from anyone that might help fix this.

9. Shit stays a big box of wires because as the demands grow, engineering capacity diminishes.

10. Everyone is so used to big, venture capital backed "free" corporate software products that the demands placed upon "also free" software are simply not possible to solve with the engineering power available to them. every last good open source project was built on crunch and crunch alone. but twitter was never profitable, it never should have existed. it was never sustainable. You're just witnessing how the level of polish and guidance you want is not possible with small teams working for free in their hobby time.

11. We (the maintainers and developers) all become so increasingly bitter and despondent that we are rightfully accused of being huge assholes by users who just don't know what they're stepping into.

12. but we still have shit we wanna get done so we trudge on with the same broken tools and websites because who has time to engineer something better on top of fixing the passion project's problems....???

13. it's so, so hard to say "no"

and to be super clear I am in the same boat even as a Professional Open Source Developer:tm:. I find most projects to be fucking inscrutable and hugely frustrating. even and especially ones I work on full time.

but I've been in the soup and I can confidently tell you exactly why they're all like this, my own projects included.

community outreach, docs and usability testing does not happen at the FOSS library level and we do not get paid or promoted for that shit.

Saw a tweet once talking about google/amazon's promotion process and how what the industry needs is "meticulous glue work" but that promotion committees specifically reward everything except precisely that and you can feel the consequences echo throughout the entire tech stack, and it's true.