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First pass at ads to try to fund some new flypray developers. Still n…
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…eed to add why page with option to donate and hide ads.
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@jordanmendler
jordanmendler committed Sep 15, 2015
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52 changes: 45 additions & 7 deletions themes/CleanFS/templates/header.tpl
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?>window.setTimeout('Effect.Fade(\'errorbar\', {duration:.3})', 8000);<?php endif ?>" class="<?php echo isset($do) ? Filters::noXSS($do) : 'index'; ?>">

<!-- Display title and logo if desired -->
<h1 id="title"><a href="<?php echo Filters::noXSS($baseurl); ?>">
<?php if ($fs->prefs['logo']) { ?>
<img src="<?php echo Filters::noXSS($baseurl.'/'.$fs->prefs['logo']); ?>" />
<?php } ?>
<?php echo Filters::noXSS($proj->prefs['project_title']); ?>
<h1 id="title">
<a href="<?php echo Filters::noXSS($baseurl); ?>">
<?php if ($fs->prefs['logo']) { ?>
<img src="<?php echo Filters::noXSS($baseurl.'/'.$fs->prefs['logo']); ?>" />
<?php } ?>
<?php echo Filters::noXSS($proj->prefs['project_title']); ?>
</a>

</a></h1>
<div id="support">
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- Flyspray App Header2 -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="2049892367"
data-ad-format="auto"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>
</h1>
<?php $this->display('links.tpl'); ?>

<?php if (isset($_SESSION['SUCCESS']) && isset($_SESSION['ERROR'])): ?>
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<div id="successbar" class="success bar" onclick="this.style.display='none'"><div class="errpadding"><?php echo Filters::noXSS($_SESSION['SUCCESS']); ?></div></div>
<?php endif; ?>

<div id="support1">
<div id="support2">
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:15px"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="3886552369"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>

<div id="support3">
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- Flyspray App Link 2 -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:15px"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="5363285561"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>
</div>

<div id="content">
<div class="clear"></div>

<?php $show_message = explode(' ', $fs->prefs['pages_welcome_msg']);
$actions = explode('.', Req::val('action'));
if ($fs->prefs['intro_message'] &&
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74 changes: 73 additions & 1 deletion themes/CleanFS/templates/index.tpl
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</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?php foreach ($tasks as $task_details):?>
<?php
$i = -1;

foreach ($tasks as $task_details):
$i++;
if ( $i == 5 )
{
?>
<tr id="support4">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan=<?php echo count($visible);?>>
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="7450624364"
data-ad-format="auto"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</td>
</tr>

<?php
}
elseif ( $i == 11 )
{
?>
<tr id="support5">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan=<?php echo count($visible);?>>
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:15px"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="5823957169"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</td>
</tr>

<?php
}
elseif ( $i == 17 )
{
?>
<tr id="support6">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan=<?php echo count($visible);?>>
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1201923297792693"
data-ad-slot="4347223963"
data-ad-format="auto"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</td>
</tr>



<?php
}
?>
<tr id="task<?php echo $task_details['task_id']; ?>" class="severity<?php echo Filters::noXSS($task_details['task_severity']); ?>" onmouseover="Show(this,<?php echo $task_details['task_id']; ?>)" onmouseout="Hide(this, <?php echo $task_details['task_id']; ?>)">
<td class="caret">
</td>
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12 changes: 9 additions & 3 deletions themes/CleanFS/theme.css
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/*border-bottom: 1px solid #6cab2e;*/
/*border-bottom: 4px solid $dominant;*/
margin: 0;
}
#title a {color: white; text-decoration: none; display: block; padding: 25px 50px; }
#title img { float: left; margin-right: 20px; height: 36px;}
width:100%;
height:115px;
}
#title a {color: white; text-decoration: none; float:left; display: block; padding: 25px 50px; line-height:65px;}
#support {text-align:right; float: right;margin-top:25px;height:90px; width:728px;}
#support1 {width:100%;}
#support2 {float: left; width:728px;display: inline-block;}
#support3 {float: right; width:728px;display: inline-block;}
#title img { float: left; margin-right: 20px; height: 65px;}
#labelpmmenu,#labelmenu1{display:none; cursor:pointer;}
#pmmenu,#menu1{display:none;}
#menu {position: absolute; top:5px; right:5px;}
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36 comments on commit b889759

@peterdd
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WTF??????

You may do ads on www.flyspray.org, but not on the software itself and turning it into adware
after all the work of volunteers done this year to shake out bugs.

If you do not revert this from github master I just leave and am forced to go my own way!

I'm really pissed off. What a pity.

@nullivex
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@jordanmendler No, this is not how opensource software should be.

Why are you doing this? I will personally remove this if I must. Please explain.

You cant take something GPL'd and then put ads on it forcing people to donate to remove them. That makes this a commercial product. What gives you the right to monetize something that is not yours? Also how are the funds being handled? How can the rest of the community benefit from this. There are much better ways to handle bounty based and funded development.

Have a look here: https://www.bountysource.com/

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@jleclanche
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@jordanmendler This is a shortsighted, very foolish move you should reconsider asap:

  • Ads alone will never make the project sustainable, let alone fund developers properly. Bountysource, as recommended by @nullivex, would net you much better and safer funding.
  • It does not even comply with AdSense terms of service. In order to serve ads on a site, you need to have a valid claim for it on your account. Best case scenario, funds will get frozen. Worst case scenario, it'll get banned and whatever you have in it now will be lost.
  • This will just piss your users off and you'll lose them to a different project. Flyspray isn't exactly unique.
  • In a few hours you seem to have pissed a few contributors off already with this move. I admit I'm not a contributor, but If the funding you need is for development, this seems massively counter-productive.

On the bright side, pissing people off is bound to attract attention. If this ends up on some press outlet, you'll end up ridiculed, which may end up bringing attention to the lack of funding on the project. shrugs

@nullivex
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@jordanmendler I am not trying to say I have the right to do anything. However, I have made some very large contributions in the past. I have used Flyspray for many years. I also helped with the move to github and closing numerous issues in the previous internal Flyspray instance.

That being said. My point is, that even though I have not contributed lately. I still care about this project and how it continues.

This is a bad move. A really bad move. Lets clean this up before it goes any further.

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@Psychokiller1888
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Wow.... Ok, let me bring my 5 cents, and I tell it directly, I agree with no one here...

First, @peterdd you're the last one to say something, you were invited, 3 weeks before, with 3 reminders, one every week, to the first call to restructure Flyspray, you decided it was a good idea to wait until 10 minutes after the call started to try to install skype and finally see it wasn't working. Cope with the effects now. It's easy to say you don't want notifications, or you can't stand Skype, that MS sucks and you Linux Mac distro is better or whatever. The reality is not that alternative world you think you are evoluting in. The proof? We were on the call, with a single click, even Jouni that hacked his way in with a phone and a computer to have both a mic and speakers...

@jordanmendler When I was talking about adding Google Ads, it wasn't that. I did add Google Ads, but for the users, they make their own money. Google frooze my account for this. This integration is not gonna work, too easy to remove and change the syndication. Plus, it violates the freeze in effect since september 13th. We have a total different vision, you believe in hiring someone for FS, I don't think it's possible. You don't believe in open source project being fully dev'd by free devs, I totally believe in it. Nothing works here because of the no coordination.

@nullivex You have the right you opinion. We have discussed about it with Flo, and everything is gonna change, including the license if it must

@jleclanche There is nothing foolish in this move. It is not implemented how I thought, but again, the total lack of coordination in this project brought this. Threatning with media is a ridiculous move from you. A press outlet? Shall I directly contact them to explain what we did and how it was discussed? Dude, common, that's non sense.

In the other hand, I don't see where/for what we need money....... Everything is free for now, but the domain maybe and the server hosting bugs.flyspray.org. Just sayin'....

So, I gonna resume now: I think it's time for me to leave this rotten atmosphere. I said I'd release 1.0, i will pack it on the planned day and that's about it. I can't work like this. I can't work right now, it's harvest time here and I have just about time to eat and sleep before work again. That's the typical community where you see whiners emerging when something they dislike is implemented but don't give a fuck about any other questions and all that. In other terms, a negative and laxist community. Hard words? Try me, I can be harder. Now, I'm up since exactly 26 minutes, from which I took about 12 to write this, and it's time to go work.

@danoh
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@danoh danoh commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015

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Hello everyone,

also my 5 cents. It is extremely unusual, to have this in GNU/GPL project. I probably never seen in in the past.

But the main problem is, it just won't work. Flyspray is on premise project, everyone will install it on own server, probably in secure environment. For security reasons we don't allow any third party content in our secure area. So there is no google analytics, facebook share buttons and any other crap on pages, where some sensitive information is presented for logged only users. If you will run Flyspray as cloud hosted project, you will take care about the code base and just allow users to use it, you can put anything to the pages and collect money for removing it. But in on premise install people will just remove it alone, or choose some other project, which is not that abusive.

It is OK to have some static text on the page, saying, this project is sponsored by Veloz, you can put the logo there, but no one will install version with dynamic ads included.

I see here only two possible results, the project will die or there will be some fork.

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@jleclanche
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@Psychokiller1888 I didn't "threaten" with media, I'm saying there's a high chance it'll get picked up. It reached me, a complete noncontributor, in less than a day.

And you seem to have skipped over the fact that you're breaking adsense TOS. If that's not foolish for a revenue stream, what is?

@peterdd
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@jordanmendler: Just revert this absolut no-go on master. No more discussion about this change, this change is just wrong. When it even violates google terms of condition too..
You may keep your own branch for such modification.

With your change you kill Flyspray and push away peoples that were willing to help before. I think that's the opposite of what we all want.

@danoh: Full ack.

@Psychokiller1888: You are always saying the project managment has no structure. I disagree.

  • We have it wonderful hosted on github.com and it is free for open source project.
  • We could use also automatic tools like travis-ci on github.com for free for open source project.
  • The mailing list is still working and we reach also people who aren't following it on github.
  • floele maintains bugs.flyspray.org and obviuosly takes the cost of webserver.
    The content on bugs.flyspray.org is well maintained in my opinion, I made my comments on the interesting tasks and everybody can take part in the task discussions.
  • Yes, volunteers come and go, try to help, choose by herself what has priority by their own needs, provide fixes if they want.

So the only non-personal cost is just for hosting bugs.flyspray.org!

And sure the time of the volunteers. (I spend parts of my free- and worktime on flyspray because I still trust in the potential power of flyspray, so it is yet "sponsored" by me and my employer)

Flyspray is sponsored by the people that volunteers to help with the project. If they do it just for fun and inspiration or indirectly paid by their employer, because they use it in their company.

Finally: "Nichts wird so heiß gegessen wie es gekocht wird." (german Sprichwort)

@nullivex
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@jordanmendler I like the fact that you continue to attack my contributions to support a bad decision. What I have not done has not hurt the project. What you are doing is hurting the project.

I would also like to point out that @jordanmendler has taken the liberty to remove me from the organization on Github even though I created the Github organization and migrated Flyspray from SVN to Github in the first place.

I guess we can see that he wants to do as he pleases with this project. RIP Flyspray.

@peterdd
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Well, as it seem jordan resists to take back his step I have no other choice:

Bye Flyspray, long live Flyflap. https://github.com/Flyflap

PS: Just in case jordans decision persists. I really hate to split such a nice project!

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@jahto
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@jahto jahto commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015

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After reading through this message chain, I can mostly agree with only one thing: that we have big unsolved problems.

Most of us seem to think that open source projects can continue on without bringing in any revenue. I'm mostly one of those, although I see this one bringing in revenue in an indirect way. It helps my and my coworkers' daily work a lot, so we get the revenue that way. This of course means I and every other developer working on this project is more prone to implement those features they themselves need, can sometimes even be implemented on paid working time, and very lazy with everything else unless it scratches some intellectual itch. Now I think that bears some relation to the lack of any organization that @Psychokiller1888 complains about. We've got no picture of what those things are, what might will be implemented by someone in the future, if it's near or long distance future etc. So in that meaning we really do lack any coordination and are just sailing by the wind to somewhere, nowhere, heaven, hell or just circulating in limbo. Although I myself think that a developer team as diverse as this one can not be coordinated in the ways and amount psycho wants, it can still be (and should be...) coordinated a lot more than currently. It just will not be as coordinated as psycho is used to, my guess is that team works with has a lot more of common goals.

Now Jordans' situation seems to be a lot different. He has, and could be doing it again, as a CIO of a company, actually put someone on his paycheck to do development. But he needs a rationale that he can explain to the other C's in the company and maybe to himself also, might be even responsible for some owner's too. It doesn't look good in a quarterly report that $500000 used to development of open source, nothing released yet, but the customers will like it (when/if we get it released). Some C's and owners just won't accept that. He also has customers that will be wanting their own features that we volunteer developers are not even slightly interested in implementing, so he must get back some revenue one way or another to have that rationale, otherwise, we've got no supporter. Also, not exactly knowing, just remembering something he said, offering Flyspray as cloud service. Perfectly good idea that just must pay for itself, either through paid subscriptions or ads. Because it needs development of some features that we volunteers do not need and so are not interested to implement, must have someone on paid time.

So can we solve these problems (if I got them even approximately right)? I think we can, but it needs a lot of thinking and especially, everyone first calming down. Hey, I'm writing this (before adding it to the GitHub discussion chain) with Kate, on Kubuntu, and I don't see any ads. Some of those developers of this software are paid, some unpaid volunteers. So it can be done! We'll just need to sit down, calm down and think how. It might take a long time.

Anyway, Jordan, your timing with that merge was exceptionally bad. After our second try of making the final feature freeze and getting beta and then 1.0 released. I too say that it must be reverted now. But I've got nothing against the patch living in special branch until 1.0 gets released and maybe even getting merged into some future version if we can get things resolved.

Now the funny coincidence with timing is that big parts of my home country is going on strike or at least having a few hours temporary stop from work so they can take part in a political demonstration against our government that was unable to achieve any compromise with the trade unions here and tried to force down our throats some very questionable decisions that might even be against our constitution. So most of this country stops on Friday. I hope this team will not be driven to the same kind of situation. Anyway, because my trade union (approximate translation "new league of engineers") is not on strike, just recommends having that few hours stop from work to participate in the demonstration, but the public transport here is, I'm probably not going to participate because it would mean more than half an hours walk (unless my boss gives me a ride, even he as an employer doesn't like the governments' decisions) (only ten minute walk between home and work by the way). So I might have a few hours on Friday available when I'm advised by my trade union not to do my work as a general demonstration against the government, not against my employer, I'm still remaining at my workplace, so if meanwhile writing some code for Flyspray to help making a temporary solution for the current problem helps, there's a volunteer.

I really want one more beer now and will answer to possible comments tomorrow. Thanks for reading this rant and my best wishes to everybody.

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@jleclanche
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@jordanmendler You might have gotten the wrong impression from me. I have no stake in flyspray. What I'm giving you is advice: Nothing good lies down the path you have chosen. I've already given you several reasons as to why. There are more. Here's a general lesson:

If putting ads on distributed web apps worked, even a little, everybody would be doing it. The situation flyspray is in is not unique. Ads are profitable in a content-based model. They require high amounts of impressions and clicks to lead to anything significant. There is no world in which Flyspray, with its current userbase, would be able to pull that even if nobody disabled those ads - What will happen however is that more or less everybody will disable those ads, if they don't switch altogether. And with the sort of demographic you are dealing with (majorly tech-literate), just how many of them do you think run adblockers?

Flyspray, in its current state, already exists and is already in use. If all development ceased, it would still be in use (for a while anyway). Adding developers to the team, even full time devs, just for the sake of having a more active project doesn't actually serve anybody if it butchers your users' and devs' trust in the project. This move has already proven controversial and done damage, as you can see from your own contributors' messages above. You're replacing volunteers who know the project, by a theoretical additional developer (paid for by an unsustainable model), that would likely not.

If an actual business model is what you need, nothing stops you from turning flyspray.org into a hosted issue tracker. Put ads on there, sure. Charge your users some money. Or you can go the sysadmin route and charge for installing flyspray on other people's servers. Or do both - see discourse.org for a successful FOSS project that uses this model.

There's certainly no world in which unwanted ads on other people's projects will net you more than a saner model. You've been given 4 alternatives now. Do you still want this?

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@Psychokiller1888
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Well, mobile industry is something else... It requires analytics to target the right audience and distribute the correct ads... A mobile app is compiled, and not to be decompiled or at least not to be re-signed when it gets to android sdk. A php website that can be forked gets that removed in about 3 seconds... Once again, what I did for Google ads, that got me kicked from Google ads, was: Adding a field in the admin panel, to let the user add HIS OWN ads to generate his OWN revenues if he ever wanted to. Adding add on bugs.flyspray.org is possible, but should be considered and not just placing blocks online. Adds could take twice the height of a bug line, and be nicely integrated, a bit like on forum where they usually take the second post place. I never meant to invade others installations.

I guess that does it. BTW, the first call was on thursday, the second one was planed on thursday too, so tomorrow, not today. Got home for about 15 minutes (22:44 here), saw Skype only then. Now to be honest, I talk a lot about coordination and all, and seeing all this mess for what, nothing, just pointed me (actually my wife asked me the right question) that I don't have time to spend for that.

@jleclanche
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The mobile app industry is rotten - SAAS is extremely different. Your demographic is different. And yes, some businesses fail... some others succeed. Look at discourse. Look at gitlab. Look at openshift.

Your project is what you make of it. You seem to be afraid Flyspray would become a footnote, yet you're unable to see that this is exactly what you're turning it into.

Like I said though, my own stakes in this are extremely low, so by all means take all this with a grain of salt. I can't speak for my own project but this is not being received well and it's looking like they'll be migrating away. Good luck resolving this.

@peterdd
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But Flyspray isn't a closed mobile app!

Flyspray is php/html open source web app and even has now a rudimentary responsive interface.

My deadline is: If this change is not reverted until Sunday I leave and am forced to continue my work on a Flyspray fork. This is enough time for @jordanmendler ,@Psychokiller1888 , floele and @jahto to discuss and get to a decision.

@jordanmendler
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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 16, 2015 via email

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@danoh
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@danoh danoh commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015

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Also if there is any need for VPS I can run one on our infrastructure for free.

@theunderstated
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I hope no one minds if I comment but as an avid user and supporter of Flyspray I feel slightly downhearted that after the great efforts made by the various contributors that the project now finds itself at a cross roads. I have watched over the past few months how the project has become more fragmented as people have struggled to meet the requirements set by the volume of work. This has had the knock on effect that the deadlines contributors have tried hard to meet have come and gone increasing the stress levels of all involved. The argument over fundraising, in this instance, using adverts has clearly hit a raw nerve and given rise to a whole heap of pent up emotions clearly showing just how much stress and frustration there is within the group. So this argument in one way or another was always going to happen. My personal feelings about this whole thing is:-

the inclusion or validation of 'ads' in the software should be consigned to a separate fork for testing out these and other ideas. I'd probably prefer that you spent the time on closer integration with Git and Subversion and doing a plugin for Visual Studio so that I don't have to keep telling people that Flyspray is better that TFS and them saying but it's not integrated with the rest of the development environment, etc,etc.

the work that people are already committed to doing needs to finished off or at tied off so that it is at least usable if not completed to the full specification.

I do also feel that some of leading contributors do actually need a 'holiday' away from the project for a week or so. Tempers are frayed currently so now would be good time to have a break and then to come back and to have the discussion about moving the whole thing forward.

In short - don't let your hard work and good intentions go to waste having invested so much time and energy and have come so far.

@scotticles
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What happened to good faithful IRC for meetings and planning, this allows everyone to be a participant and not just developers. The mailing list is fine for slow messaging but if you want input from people plan a monthly or every two month irc meetup.

I know i haven't contributed in a long time on flyspray but this is a dick move and would easily fork with a rebranding if this was left in. There are plenty of instances out there where this is not okay. Look at other projects and see how things are done for planning and communicating with the community.

Worrying about revenue is not how open source works. Set Up a donations page but dont force ad system on installs...that turns into shareware crap. I bet you could find volunteers via reddit and other social media platforms, i always see posts on looking for an open source project to work on.

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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When i was working on flyspray, i always felt it needed a rewrite. It was a mess. I haven't dived into the code or looked at it, at its current state so I can't say if its still needed or not. For me its not the being motivated to work for free, money isn't an issue its time. I had have two little kids, i broke away because it was just too much. I since then have started my own company in centralized logging and trying to figure out clustering that is easy for an idiot to install ;)

If I was to redesign the internals, I would go with Laravel LTS and start making it work with the db, get functions working again and that might get laravel devs on board as volunteers. But like i said i haven't looked at the code in years.

I do like how these update though, ajax wizardry. That would be easy to do.

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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Damnit, leave it with that money discussion.... Money isn't needed here, everything is free, but the hosting by Flo! Donations? Where did they ever go? For what?

Talking about git featuring mail listening, it works really well, just saw now that 2 of my answers don't show up here... First one being the fact I don't understand why you say I won't work for free. None of my previous projects, even own ones, ever made me any sustainable incomes. I run my own business, have 35 employees. Summer was hot, nature is early, I won't tell my producers: Hey guys, wait, don't deliver the 60 tons of grapes now, I have to release Flyspray!! So it's a matter of priorities.

Again, Google ads were meant to be implemented for users not forcing the whole population to make us money for nothing. A simple admin field to give your own private key. Ads were displayed in the bug flow, taking the height of 2 bug lines, kindda like on forums where the ads take the first reply place. Money goes to the admins that wanted their FS instance to have Google ads.

The only thing I see here is: We need money. Google ads will NEVER give you 60k a year, never! And hiring a pro dev is not a good idea.

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@jordanmendler jordanmendler commented on b889759 Sep 17, 2015 via email

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I am one of those users with no know-how to contribute and hence should probably keep my mouth shut. But I am one of those people really excited about this project and have been using Flyspray for past 5 years in 5-6 unrelated projects in our corporate intranet.

We really like the simplicity of this product. There are a truck load of free and paid bug trackers out there. Why we continue to prefer flyspray is because "this works". We are not looking for fancy features. The primary enthusiastic adopters of this product are people using spreadsheets to do their tracking. So this works just fine for them. Once there are ads, will that definition change? I am afraid it will.

I can't notice somebody talking about what a mess the bug tracking is and pitch in at the water cooler and say, gimme a webserver, lemme install flyspray for you. It is your spreadsheet, just that it is online and works much much better and has no overheads and complexity of the popular bug trackers. If they see ads, will they be as excited as they normally are?

If we are a sample of the end users that you guys are building this amazing product for, we would prefer slow rollout of features than a feature rich ad supported version. (We waited patiently updating that wiki page for years to see if that themes link start working.)

And you can say, we should be paying for it then. No doubts there.
But when I ask our Manager to approve a purchase, he will ask me for a comparison study report. Will this stand against some of the giants out there? Sell ads, but probably not this early. Get us to the point where we would rather see ads than start googling for "flyspray alternative + no ads".

You guys somehow sort out the differences, we users need all of you behind this product.

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I think that this 'ads in the software' issue 'is from the table' now, the commit is reverted from the github master and development can continue as it was before.

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I agree with your comments, Jithin. I think at the moment the project is going through 'growing pains' - on the one hand you have the free spirits who supply good will, hard work and enthusiasm for free and on the other hand we have the longer term objective of how to make the project self sustainable in a commercial sense. From a commercial point of view the only stable version of Flyspray is v0.9.9.7 and it is that version that has an active user base and it is that version that currently would be considered for any financial backing as it already established, it has many users and has proved to be stable out in the 'wild'. So far the the project has already gone past the first few difficult hurdles and I would say that the project has formed a good solid foundation upon which to build. My feelings are that until the next iteration of the product arrives that there actually isn't a product to sell at this point in time. So the focus should strongly remain on getting the next release done. Once you have a viable product then you can start to think about going out to people to ask for help with funding in whatever form that takes. That doesn't mean that the commercial aspect should be forgotten about. Instead it should be put lower down on the priority list and something for people to have in mind.

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