Hi all, I have heard so often that on the one hand Keith is the only programmer on the site and on the other hand we have a lot of people who are experienced with coding. It seems to me as a no-brainer to make subeta an open source project where the people can contribute. It should be much easier for the Staff and for Keith to just accept changes that are handed in then to write everything by its own. Is this something anyone took into consideration?

I think there are labor laws + cost of hiring new coders as a reason why more coders haven't joined.

this is the great opportunity going Open Source can give: People can contribute in their freetime as volunteers. It is a hobby, not labour.

i don't even know where to start on how little this makes sense. for one thing, a site like subeta wouldn't want all their code openly accessible to anyone and everyone. not that there's a lot of competition in the virtual pet site world these days, but it's still not exactly a wise business decision. there are also so many logistical and security issues involved with letting random people contribute code. i feel like this kind of all goes without saying.

Have you ever contributed to an open-source project? There is no "security issue" with open-source work unless you have a bad agent involved and poor project governance. Pull requests are (or should be) reviewed by the maintainters. Being open source doesn't mean the main repo is freely editable.

Not saying I'm either for or against open-source Subeta (I'm too new here to even guess whether it's viable) but being against it on the grounds of security doesn't make a lot of sense.

@ Ambiguity yes but everything would have to be reviewed and approved (presumably by keith), and having to manually go over everything to make sure nothing erroneous or malicious slips through is pretty obviously not ideal. oversights happen, especially when going over someone else's code, and especially for a site with as many programming particularities as subeta.

[edit] to be clear, i'm not trying to suggest that this is particularly likely or should be the main concern. it was just an example of what i would imagine are the logistical implications of having a single person reviewing code from a lot of different people (all of whom probably have slightly different ways of doing things) for a site like subeta where something like building or overhauling a single feature is dependant upon the functionality of several other features that have been built and updated over many many years and therefore all have instabilities and quirks of their own, and so on and so forth. which is why keith had stated in the past that it would be unfeasible to hire programmers on a freelance basis, though i guess that quote shared down below suggests he's open to the possibility.

i think open source is great, but it's usually used for things like software and utilities and broader network-type projects, not pet sites that have been patched together over the course of 20 years. if i'm totally wrong and this turns out to be a perfectly sensible solution for subeta, then that would be just fine. but i pretty much agree with what said below.

I think it's been stated that the way Subeta works is very particular and complicated because it wasn't initially built in an optimized way, which is why the site had historically had stability issues, and why new Subeta is taking a long time to develop.

That said - I'm a big supporter of open source projects and do think they're a great way of getting large projects off the ground. I dunno if there's the expertise/labor and interest needed for Subeta to benefit from becoming open source, however, or if it'd be too complicated to update because of how the site's code currently functions. I do think the idea of a community-run, open source pet site is REALLY neat, though, and would be a cool experiment in both creativity and community development.

And, that said... Subeta should not become open source for the sole reason of fixing extant problems with its code. It'd be one thing if there were open source elements that truly functioned as hobby/strictly creative activities, but coders deserve fair compensation for their work. As it stands, I think shifting to open source would be a little like expecting a plumber to replace all the pipes for free, so they can maybe install a fountain for fun later. It just doesn't seem right.

Yes, code has to be reviewed. But often security issues appear not on purpose and most applications are vulnerable through to late or even no updates. So this is also work that has to be done, and this is usually not feasible by only one developer. In the ITSec community, open source is better regarded than proprietary software because of the redundant supervision. I could write an essay about why obscuring the code doesn't make a project secure, but I guess it's understandable that way.

Also, as said, you don't have to publish everything.
I have to admit I do not know a lot about business decisions, but as far as I understood, this is not even keiths main job. So, it doesn't bring in much money anyway. And the second thing is that companies with Open Source Projects are not necessarily broke (e.g. Wordpress by Automattic oder Ubuntu by Canonical). Likewise, a software project (in my experience) is always heavy in maintenance. I guess the main obstacle would be to plan everything out and bring it to a start. And of course the staff must choose.

totally agree. I was thinking in dimensions like renewing some Layouts e.g. the Battlecolliseum or add/fix some functions.

From posted in Jan 2022 [Quote] My email ([email protected]) is always open to have conversations about the site, and if you're a programmer we're always looking for contractors. In addition, if you have any recommendations for hires in the programming department, my email is open.[/quote] [Quote]And again, my email for anyone interested in providing programming support (javascript or PHP) is [email protected]. Or product support, or if you think you have a skill that would make the site better, my email is open. Even just a few hours here and there fixing up small site bugs can help![/quote]

I love the concept! If for no other reason than it would give me the chance to learn PHP lol. but yeah I don't think it works for an ostensibly for-profit operation like Subeta.

Subeta wasn't designed as a open-source project, so I'm extremely uncomfortable with it becoming one. We all know that the real problem is that they can't afford other coders.

", but coders deserve fair compensation for their work. As it stands, I think shifting to open source would be a little like expecting a plumber to replace all the pipes for free, so they can maybe install a fountain for fun later. It just doesn't seem right."

Yeah, this. This a thousand times.