freshmeat's Stance on "Trivial" Software
Every freshmeat submission bin warrior quakes at the thought of that one submission each day that sits on the edge between clearly in and clearly out. Sometimes it's a script for automating the ripping of an audio CD; sometimes it's a PHP class to display the current date in Roman numerals.
The reason for this fear is not retribution from the offended contributor (although my spam rate increased dramatically after rejecting one person's script for bulk emailing), but rather the fact that we feel that we're sending the message "You are not worthy of contributing to freshmeat, and, by association, not worthy of contributing to Free Software". This is probably the worst aspect of the job. Sometimes it's a 10-year-old who has written his first Python program, and sometimes it's a seasoned business programmer who has had her first try at Web programming. In any case, we are going to hurt their feelings by rejecting their work.
How do we decide what is trivial?
Well, there are 3 categories of triviality that programs tend to fall into:
1. It does something that's obvious to a programmer who knows the language.
A BASH script which performs a command on each of the files in a directory might seem useful to someone who has just learned BASH, but any seasoned BASHer would have no hesitation in writing
# for i in /usr/* # do # command $i # done
directly on the commandline. Another common example of this is a PHP script that formats numbers.
2. It reimplements an existing tool without any convincing advantage.
A C program which is equivalent to tr, while an
interesting exercise, shouldn't go on freshmeat unless it can do
something that tr doesn't or outperforms tr by a significant margin.
The older an existing tool is, the harder it is to accept a new
version. In this case, we first ask authors if they can clearly
explain the advantages and that they try to merge their enhancements
into the existing code. We only accept the code if they have made an
effort to try merging or can give convincing reasons for the two to
remain separated.
Remember: the reason for this is not that we are tainted by the power
of the delete button (well, usually not) and not because we are
anti-freedom of speech (or software or furniture porn), but because
the cost of introducing a new tool in the place of a well-loved one is
very high. Just think of the cost of having to learn to use
less after using more for many years.
Unless there is a significant advantage to the new tool, it won't be
used.
3. It proves a point but doesn't provide a use.
This category includes programs which attack a specific version of a program (which really belongs on bugtraq) and programs written in obscure languages without an advantage over existing programs (this is related to the previous point; a program written in another language which outperforms an existing tool might be reasonable).
We have received numerous exploits for programs such as Sendmail, Apache, and wuftp. Once a security hole has been identified, these programs should be sent first to the author, and then to bugtraq (if the author doesn't provide a fix in a reasonable time). freshmeat is about constructive code, not destructive code.
Occasionally, we get programs which can be reformulated into a much smaller program in a more appropriate language. One such example might be a 300-line C program which is functionally equivalent to a 10-line Perl program. Again, unless there is an advantage, we would consider this too trivial. Some good advantages include small memory footprint (not requiring an interpreter), significantly higher performance, ease of maintenance, or guaranteed realtime execution.
What should be done
In the future, there should be no reason for the editors to reject software, instead letting the community decide. To do this, there needs to be some work done on more powerful expression of software's capability, on better distributed merit assessment, and on improving the search engine.Some work has been done in academic circles on program classification, but automated classification is probably AI-complete (and hence just as subjective as the existing system). Another approach would be to select trustworthy leaders for categories of software to write comparative reviews about programs' strengths and weaknesses and provide that information along with searches.
Distributed merit assessment could be performed in a style similar to Advogato, but the number of dimensions of specialty would require significant changes. While Advogato measures "guruness", a software repository would require, for example, "PHP guruness" or "serial programming guruness", and there are an infinity of skills between any such categories.
scoop is putting a lot of work into freshmeat's search engine, and recent changes have certainly been a big improvement (especially boolean operators and license exclusion), but an experienced Free Software user will still have to read around to find the right questions to ask to find software. Perhaps a Q and A forum for software solutions might work.
Although editors rejecting software is perhaps not an ideal solution to this problem, it is the best solution we have come up with. If we allowed all software to enter the database, freshmeat would quickly fill up with troll software (there to elicit a response rather than fill a need), once-off programs (that were written for a job and should have been left there), and script kiddie noise that would make searching for useful tools well nigh impossible.
If your program gets rejected as too trivial, don't despair. Often, it is a matter of rewriting the description and homepage more precisely, and sometimes it is a matter of distilling the problem you are trying to solve and writing a more general solution. In other cases, you may find that your code can be combined with existing code to produce a better program for everyone, or that an existing tool fills your own task better than your original code.
Besides being half the graveyard shift operator for freshmeat, Nathan is a PhD candidate researching constraint system applications at Monash University (Australia). His other main interests are mathematics, gardening, photography, and computer-environment interfaces. He enjoys playing piano with his small jazz band, Desafinado. His homepage is at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~njh/ and he can be contacted at njh@freshmeat.net .
Agreed
After some attempts to post trivial software such as more or less advanced shell scripts to make life easier for the crowd of us, I realized this is not right for freshmeat.net. Freshmeat.net is, after all, an index site for software with some meat on the bones. Thus, I registered freshbones.net (http://freshbones.net/). The site is not yet online, though I'll try to see to that. This is - no meat - just bones. Shell scripts and the like.
I do not plan to make this project some competitor to freshmeat or any like that. I just want a trivial software index as well. If anyone want to join this, please post me a message.
Regards
Roy
Trivial Software
I really do understand that you have to screen the submissions since they have increased so much during the last 6 months.
However it really breaks my heart to learn about rejecting a 10-year olds first attempt at python or some other language. In such a case couldn't you just make a nice note that reflects this situation so we don't send him hate-mail about making silly programs. I wouldn't mind peeking into such code and give feedback if I understand that it's a kid.
Please try to find a way to resolve this for our junior programmers.
//Gunnar Isaksson
What about dead software?
Freshmeat rejecting software? I don't think so, but now it's too late. Actually, the main problem with Freshmeat is dead software, like Bezerk and a lot of Kernel patches now part of the Kernel. If you don't want to waste our time, add request change -> remove appindex, so we can remove them.
Why not adopt the slashdot system?
Post the item at a selected rating level, let others rate it, and if someone consistently gets rated high then their initial rating level rises a point.
no slashdot system please
I think it would be a bad thing to make freshmeat users be able to reject/accept software, because we would see the same 'moderation' problems we see in slashdot now, software will have to be 'trendy' to be accepted, some beautifull pieces of software with not that evident usefullness (on some platforms) will be rejected even tough it would be usefull to maybe some specific group of people.
on the other hand, i understand the task will eventually become too heavy for the freshmeat admins.
also, something should be done against dead software (like marking them in another color when the homepage link is broken)
Don't agree
I really don't like the idea to have something like a censorship on submitted programs.
Instead the index could be split into two parts, one what is similiar to the one we all know since years, which contains the programs you want to have on the page - the other which contains all other submissions just in a short form containing for example only one line of programm description (for fulltext search). Additionally there could be one more link on the page, to see the list of all submissions, which are not in the main index but in the short index.
It should be the users choice to either see the programs of the main index like it is now or any other submissions.
First of all i'm sure most of the people delivering a tool what is a better replacement for "tr" are absolutely satisfied if their submission will appear in the short form index. Second thing is that really the users should have the choice of finding what they are looking for. I think thats a part of open source mentality in general. We all know other situations (specifically from one or more other operating system(s)) that users don't have the choice to make their decisions.
For me, freshmeat is a plattform from users for users. Why changing ? It's perfect like it is!
Why Freshmeat is not like Slashdot
Slashdot is typically used to view what's happening now; 'old' slashdot stories are relatively rarely referenced. By contrast, interest in software may peak when it's first announced, but will trickle on indefinitely, and the really good stuff will grow (by word of mouth) a steadily rising amount of interest.
So a simple adoption of the Slashdot moderation system would not work. This doesn't mean that some contributions aren't more useful than others, or that some contributors aren't more useful than others. But the appearance of usefulness to the people who watch the flow of announcements on Freshmeat may not reflect the true long term usefulness a piece software. What would be better would be a rating system, possibly a multi-dimensional one - so that people who downloaded software could later come back and rate it, perhaps 1 - 10 on each of usefulness, power, ease of installation, and documentation. Scores would be averaged.
You could then prioritise search by saying you prefer things which are easy to install over things which are powerful, or vice versa, depending on your needs.
Final thought -- things which are trivial are not necessarily not useful. My Instant Firewall (/projects/instantfirewall) script is pretty trivial, but it gets a fair few downloads, ansd judging by the feedback I get people find it useful.
value
Since freshmeat is the de facto place to find useful
free software, it would be nice if people who come here
could actually expect to find the most useful software
for their purpose in a timely manner. So far, I
personally have found that difficult since there is no
easy way to distinguish software which few or no
people use, which does almost
nothing or provides something already provided in a
much better way by another package, or which is broken, from software which is a widely used and powerful and robust.
My requests over the years to provide one or more of
various readily available and/or easily implementable mechanisms for distinguishing software by the
value it has provided seem to have been ignored, and
the problem of inability to distinguish software which
will provide significant value from that which will not
continues to be exacerbated by the welter of
announcements of marginally useful and marginally working
software.
Go for a freshmeat-freshbone dual repository
Instead or rejecting or refusing, it would be better to treat every new software as a new entry in a "freshbone" (as mentioned before by Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk) "incoming"-like directory.
Instead of one human judging another human's art, you should let us, users decide together if that piece of software is of any use for us.
We shall express our opinions through user ratings (e.g. from 1 meatball to 5 meatballs :)) user editorials. Those could put the "meat" on the bones. Maybe the number of downloads from different subnets could also count.
After a predefined global threshold (say, average of 2 in one month), the software would be ready for freshmeat.net introduction.
Announcements about the entry would be made parallel with the freshmeat.net system with an optional subscription for everybody interested.
As a conclusion, script-kiddie art (similar to naive art) exists and I think it should be left to express itself :)
Regards,
Csani
Good editing is the key to Freshmeat
I agree with the editors' position that it is necessary to evaluate each submission before adding it to the appindex.
I value Freshmeat highly because I know that the material in the archives is all good stuff (at least, all the material I've used so far). There are plenty of compilations of software on the Web, but few which contain only high-quality stuff.
I also sympathize with the editors' plight when faced with rejecting submissions. It isn't an easy job, but I thank them very much for doing it. To my mind, there's still no substitute for the judgement of an individual, or small group of individuals.
YEE HAW!
This is good practice, let's bring freshmeat back to 10 submissions a day...
New System idea...
What about a system similar to Kuro5hin (www.kuro5hin.org), where authors can post a proposition to add their program to the AppIndex and the community can vote on it?
User ratings of a sort can work.
I don't like the idea of keeping any software projects out of the index completely. Something trivial to an expert might very well prove valuable to me in helping learn something new. But I do agree that freshmeat needs some sort of editor/expert quality control to make sure the appindex doesn't get polluted and unsearchable. A much better idea would be to create something like the freshbones index, as mentioned from another comment, where the freshmeat editors could initially place dubious submissions from inexperienced programers. Just have a switch in the search engine to turn the freshbones index search on/off.
How applications get off of freshbones and onto freshmeat is a little trickier. I wouldn't just rely on user moderation as a criteria to lift things out of freshbones, but I think user moderation has its place. I would suggest a user moderation system that leads to a new editor/expert submission review. As freshbone apps get developed, let users score points in different categories: usability, uniqueness, flexibility, buzzword usage...etc. Set a threshold point value for review and relook at qualifying freshbone apps on a 6 month or so basis. I would also implements a probational period for freshbones apps, say the initial month of listing, where no user feedback is scored, to keep intial project announcement hype from inflating the apps scores. If a freshbone app fails the freshmeat appindex review process, its score gets wiped and gets sent back to freshbones for more development.
I also like the idea of user feedback rating system for the freshmeat appindex entries. I would be nice to be able to sort search results or appindex categories listings based on the user rankings. Just knowing how many other people are "using", not "downloading" the programs would be a help when trying to pick a new app to use. User experience can really help quicken the search for "important" software. Something like a 1-10 point scale in 6 to 8 or catagories. I would also rotate scores out over some time period. Low score on something like "ease of install" over a year old might not be an accurate accessment of the current development state. So I would rotate user rankings out and list search results based on the average user ranking.
Trivial submissions
I also agree with Freshmeat's point of view. But if someone is posting
his/her util/program for the first time as an inexperienced programmer, in the used programming language i.e. C, and it is trivial, explain him/her why it is so.
In my opinion it gives more understanding for the programmer whom's program has been rejected.
Also I agree with making a freshbone app-index for software written by inexperienced programmers.
I'm one of those inexperienced C programmers, have only assembly
language (68HC11, Z80 and 68K) experience.
Nick Brok
Trivia
I distresses me greatly to think that a child who has just laboured long and hard to produce something which is thought to be of value by his/her immediate peers and teacher gets it arbitarily rejected because it is - by professional adult standards - "too trivial". If this is a problem then I'd like to suggest something like a K-12 section in the AppIndex. You will have to arrange some way to automatically remove the item from the index as soon as the content at which URL points is removed from the host at the end of the term or year.
Rejecting software by 12 year olds
I'd disagree that freshmeat should have some form of special section for new users or young children. It may hurt to have a program rejected because it isn't up to standards, but that's life. Freshmeat's here to provide a useful place to find software, not to make the programmers feel good about themselves. It probably sucks just as much for the editor to have to turn down the software as it sucks for the author, but thats the way it is.
Lessons Learned
I do not believe it matters that you are turning down a 10 year olds first python program or a 42 year old's lil' perl script. Age has nothing to do with it - the point is that they are fledgling programmers, and as such should learn early on how software is evaluated in our community: performance, stability, feature set, and ease of use. It sounds that this is criteria the editors are using, and I think they need to keep it that way.
It sounds like there are two different issues here: rejected software that is trivial by nature (the editor's bash script example), and rejected software that replicates but does not improve an existing software component.
Consider the replicated software case: granted, the beginner programmer learned alot doing the submitted development (and this is not a bad thing). But they may have learned MORE by going to the pre-existing source, learning how it worked, (and if they are beginner programmers) probably getting a very good picture of GOOD, TIGHT, PEER-REVIEWED code. There are two aspects of learning how to code in any language: learning how to write a new component from the ground up, and learning how to integrate a new feature into a pre-existing code base. My opinion is that we have too much of the former, and not enough of the latter (just look at how many editors and cd rippers are our there!).
Now consider the trivial software part: everyone has to write this stuff. I did it (hell, I still do sometimes :^)), you did it, we all did it. You can't write non-trivial stuff without this rite of passage. But I'm not sure that falsely propping up (by accepting trivial submissions) the beginning programmer's confidence is a good solution, and I definetly do not think that it is good for the community. The submission of trivial software is a BIG indication of the programmer's level of experience, expertise, and general knowledge of the opensource community; if someone's feelings are hurt because their submission is rejected, that is even more tell-tale (IMHO). It sounds like the submitters are the same ones that install a packaged Linux distribution, learn how to configure the network interface, start apache, write a home page, and then declare them selves gurus and hackers. Are they submitting to freshmeat to improve the community or so all their friends can see that they are real programmers now.
nothing - does nothing
Last April 4, I submitted a program called "nothing", which does just that: nothing. The description was a commentary on how too much useless software gets posted on Freshmeat. Apparently, the Freshmeat editors didn't share either my concern or my sense of humor, and it never got posted. See http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/nothing/. I'm glad to see that trivial submissions are finally being rejected.
This is not the playground
Echoing some of the sediments of various people so far, I also agree that this is not a "We'll make you feel good about yourself" place.
Rejections happen, that is life. Its happened to me when I was 12 yrs old (submitted something to APC).
Freshmeat is not here to coax our egos, it's here to provide quality -useful- software.
As a developer, I find there is nothing much more annoying that seeing your own submission get bulldozed off the bottom of the page by "trivial" programs (what? mine trivial? never! :P )
btw, a hit-based-moderation system would work nicely. The more a program is "selected", the slower it drops off the page.
PLD.
Beginning programmer problems
Hooo boy, does this bring back memories. Not rejection, but the writing of a useful program that solves a real need, to find out that there's *already* a unix two-letter command to do just that.
And then there's the hazard of writing a program called 'test.c'. Try as you might, you'll never get it to print any output.
The worst, though, is where you write a program, give it a two-letter name, and find it's almost doing just what you want, but it's doing it strangely. Eventually you figure out that there's a unix command of the same name that does the same function, and *that*'s what you've been running instead of your own code.
What's that called, self-rejection?
And there is a place for trivial code, it's the code-fragment repository on sourceforge. http://sourceforge.net/snippet/
Searching
How do you find linux kernel announcements on freshmeat?
Typing 'linux kernel' in the 'find' field is certainly not going to work!
Classification
Hmm.. I wrote a script a while back, that downloaded today's links from http://thehun.net/, filtered by description, and then followed all the links and downloaded all the linked-to images. I submitted this to fm once, and it was never posted; several months later, I tried again, just in case it was accidentally overlooked. Again, it wasn't posted... not wanting to harrass the editors more, I simply never attempted submitting it again. This article caught my eye, and I've been contemplating...
1) AFAIK, there's no common language with a download-all-images-linked-to-on-this-page-via-several filters.
2) wget and curl can do stuff like this, but... neither of them are particularly adept at parsing the main webpage HTML other than to extract links, and since only *today's* links should be extracted (and filtered!), this requires some external coding, nonetheless. And this is exactly how this script got started - a matter of parsing HTML that wget fetched.
Now, the second time I submitted it, I tried to be a little more elaborate on why it was a ``useful'' script in my description, describing how it could fetch images in parallel and thus would work very quickly on a cable modem, but as I stated above, this yielded nothing.
I've now re-written the entire thing in C, and made it a little more configurable in case the layout of the http://thehun.net/ webpage gets altered or something. Do I attempt submitting this again? Is this an actual useful script, or something `stupid' or `inferior'?
Would this be a better contribution for freshbones, whenever it gets underway? Where do I put it in the meantime?
If anyone has an particularly useful advice, you can reach me at os@irix.penguinpowered.com
The script download site is currently http://os.dyns.cx/fetchhun/
Please note - some cable modem users may not be able connect. If this is the case, e-mail me and I'll send you the latest version back in an attachment.
Trivial Software
I'm a neophyte as far as programming goes and I regularly go out looking for little projects to code. I'm not really at the level yet where I've got anything to contribute that I'd think is worth posting on FM because in most cases I am reinventing the wheel. But then again I find writing trivial software to be very helpful - I write some little piece of code and get it to work and then I go back to places like freshmeat and find out what's already out there to do the same thing. I can look at their sources and it helps me out to see where maybe I could have done a better job in my code. Its a good learning experience.
But the case of the twelve year-old is completely different. Sure, maybe the kids first script isn't anything new - but if he or she has the initiative to try to get it posted on FM, well I'd think that's something we should be encouraging as much as possible. I tend to think that if you can just say 'Tough! That's life!' - well maybe your real concern is that if we mentor the kids on their way up that they'll end up surpassing (by miles!). I can take for granted that in 5 years (or more or less), there will be some kid out of high-school that'll know a hell of a lot more about coding than I do - and I'll probably have to compete with him/her for my job. But I'm the adult (Tough!).
Maybe FM isn't the right place for it - but it'd be a great thing for developping young talent and for the open source community if we had some place that kids could post their stuff (no matter how trivial). And I'd think it would be even better if some of us could go the extra mile and provide responses. You know, stuff like: 'Great job! You might want to look at Joe Bloe's code for 'some programme' to get some pointers on how you could make this a little tighter and faster.' I tend to think at least part of the idea of Open Source software is that it can be an educational tool.
Now mind you. . . if we ever got something like that. . . we'd have to figure out some mechanism to keep neophytes in the over-16 category from posing as 8 year olds (I'm really that bad.) and bogging down the whole system because they won't cough up the money to take courses.
Would GNU hello qualify as trivial?
After all, it includes a mail reader...
Scoop voting system?
It works, to a degree, on kuro5hin...I don't know how well that would scale to freshmeat, though.
freshbones and freshmeat = good idea
I think freshbones would be a great plan. There would need be a few issues worked out, such as scripts that grow and should be moved to freshmeat. freshbones would need to remove the app when it appears on freshmeat. Also, for scripts that are in the middle, we wouldnt want them rejected by both sites. So there would need to be some communication and standards for selecting if code is freshmeat worthy, or belongs on freshbones.
Anyways, Im all for the idea. It would be great to have a generic script repository as a counterpart to the freahmeat software repository.
As it should be
I prefer some filtering. I don't wanna see butt-wipe v 0.2 bash script ...not what I'm looking for
I was rejected .. once
I don't know how many people here have had software
rejected, but I'd like to share an experience.
I attempted to add a project here, which as a fork of the popular, ad-filtering proxy server, "Junkbuster".
I received a mail from freshmeat asking me why I was doing this - I replied that there was a need for this functionality .. and the maintainers had not been interested.
Given the feedback I got I'd like to imagine that the rejection of submissions is not a silent one - rather somebody at freshmeat will mail the submittor with a nice
reply.
Maybe the reply will be a stock text that goes to everybody - or maybe a personalized one. (I think getting a nice personalized reply would be encouraging to the hyperthetical 10 yr old mentioned above).
(Incidentaly the junkbuster variant was later added ;).
Steve
---
http://www.Steve.org.uk
hit counts and rejections
There is a problem with using the number of downloads as a guide to a program. Users may see a really good description and download a piece of software that either doesn't live up to its description or doesn't do exactly what the users expect. If that is the case, the number of downloads will be high, but the number of actual users will be very low. If I had a dime for every piece of software that looked promising but in actuality didn't do what I wanted, I'd buy Bill Gates out and take care of the windows problem permanently.
As far as rejecting the efforts of beginning coders, I found it interesting that everyone assumed the rejection would be heartless. I don't know; I've never submitted anything to freshmeat, trivial or not. I have seen some of the arrogant, snotty replies on places like /., so maybe the assumption is not unwarranted. But I would like to think that any person who can produce a well written justification for their actions (and well written is somthing that's pretty rare on the net) will treat all submissions with some basic respect.
Perhaps the people behind freshmeat will listen to the concerns voiced here and produce a special rejection letter for obvious beginners. "Thank you very much for your submission. You've done a really good job on your coding. Unfortunately, we can't use ______ at the moment. But please keep coding, you've got a lot of potential." Something like that. You get the idea.
B.
Smart and detailed filtering and search:
A few more thoughts about the current freshmeat.net repository:
Side comment: first of all, I would suggest that the default mode on the "add comment"
page be changed to "plain text" - that is how people write by default -
instead of "interpreted HTML" :). I had to fight the system for a while to
accept my comment as "plain text" - and finally it sent the comment with
HTML tags. Now I made this interpreted HTML to make sure it gets through as
I want.
Main issue: the solution to the editors' dilemmas whether to reject software
or not I still find a freshbone repository the best. The answer to the
question "how to do that?" might be the key to everyone's full satisfaction.
The final solution consists of more ingredients:
dedicate a whole tree to freshbones in the appindex
and allow a more detailed filter for the newsletters
and allow filters on the homepage (and for other sites mirroring
the news or updates on their pages)
(see below for example code.)
and allow full customization of the content that leaves
freshmeat.net and gets to us, readers and visitors - not necessarily only
developers.
I, for example, want ot be able to filter out specific software category
(e.g. commercial software) from the newsletter, but currently I cannot do
that (or can I?).
Also, the opening home page (freshmeat.net) should offer the full
customizability and also, to be able to specify what the visitor wants to
see (e.g. Select (("GNU GPL2" or "BSD") and ("X11/TV and Video")) or
(description of software conatins "freetext")) category software) - the
point here would be the multiple selection ability, not radio buttons. And
only if the selection criteria results in an empty list, wouldfreshmeat.net site optionally send or show the visitor items from not
selected categories.
If freshmeat.net made freshbone such a selectable category, I think everyone
would be satisfied 100%.
example HTML code:
Select this or
this
that
other
(no more)
and
or
software.
Hmm... What is "trivial"?
I am a little bit surprised that some kind of filtering does exist on freshmeat, I never thought that someone will review what is published...
As an example, look at app "drsync" and my comment on it - as for me, this is a real example of _trivial_ software, but it was accepted anyway. This is not only app, of course - there are more :)
The problem, as I see, that editors just cannot be objective - to do their job well they have to _know_ a lot about existing software (= look inside before making a decision), but this is too difficult because there are a lot of apps exists, and no one is perfect anyway...
And, I completely agree, there is _no_ exact definition what is trivial - something is trivial for me but quite useful for others. People are different - someone will dig deep to find out what is inside, someone will not. I'll look into sources first, if I didn't found something on man page... But thats me...
Usual behavior of casual user is - if some feature is not found after "app --help", he will never do "man app", instead he will try to find something on the Net. But think about users who will never try even "--help" and those who doesn't heard about "man"...
Finally, what I would like to see - yes, rating system, but _just rating_ without force, so I can (if I want to) change my preferences and see only non-trivial (or trivial) apps.
clarification: the rejection process
As a general rule, we don't delete programs without emailing the contributor (and often they can convince us of the need to be kept). This has only come about somewhat recently with some of scoop's enhancements to the system. We tend to have email conversations to settle where the app sits in the scheme of things. We feel it is important to achieve a win-win solution. For larval-stage programmers, I personally have gone to some effort to make sure that the author doesn't feel slighted by rejection, and if possible give some suggestions as to improvements. Sometimes things are rejected without comment if the author is clearly being obnoxious (The classic example being attempts to poison the database with noise), but in most cases we reach a solution which makes us (the editors) and them (the contributors) happy.
What are you to accept?
If you need more space for new material ...
May I suggest only one release version per month unless urgent? Two weeks as a minimum.
Pardon but I have seen about two releases of Lilypond per week for the last two months or so. It may be great but it is not one of the top ten high demand categories. Lilypond is not the only only example but at least the others are a bit closer to the top ten categories list.
I have even seen sequential releases of the same program on the same day. Once I saw sequential releases following each other on the page. on the same day.
If Redhat followed that release discipline it would be up to 7.45 by now. Clearly some people do not have release discipline. There is also the possibility that once accepted by Freshmeat relaxing all existing discipline gets a lot of ego boosting exposure.
bones better than meat?
I would like to add to the shell script rejection but now in C post.
It was not FM but another. After downloading horribly bloated programs that rotated the .sig, which were obviously judged of merit, I found them wanting in one way or another. I wrote one of my own and also found it wanting.
I then created a shell script that did everything properly and satisfied functionality requirements.
Needless to say as a shell script it was rejected even though it had functionality equal to and greater than submissions deemed worthy with hugely less call upon system resources of all kinds.
There is something very wrong with a system which chooses on criteria other than functionality.
how about "freshmeat classics"?
What we need is something like "freshmeat classics". This would be a subsite (or just a new view on the main site) that identified "classic" free software, thus pointing out the key pieces of software in a given area.
So, for example, in the category of text editors, the classics are basically emacs and vi. The most classic codebase for emacs is that of the GNU project; xemacs would probably also merit mention. Etc, etc.
The diversity we have is good, but it's critical that the key pieces of software remain easy to find over time. If you were a total newbie and looking for a free software mail client, you'd be doomed, I think. There must be a hundred of them, and no way to easily tell what's usable or not, what's good or not, what's dead or not, etc.
Trivial software vs. unfinished software
I am bothered less by "trivial software" then I am by "unfinished" software. A package should compile and install on my system without problem. If my system is missing prerequisites, then the build script / installer should tell me about this, tell me where I can get those prerequisites. If freshmeat ensures THIS level of integrity, then "trivial software" will take care of itself. The author will be less inclined to build the necessary installer, if the software is "trivial."
Freshmeat ratings
Actually, my most wanted feature for Freshmeat has always been ratings (but not anonymous ones!) similar to the Linux Game Tome. Displaying search results ordered by rating as an option would make life alot simpler.
My second most wanted feature is to screen the comments that are submitted. They'd be a big help if they were limited to reviews of the package, and not bug reports for ancient versions, or three month old discussions on ideas for new features.
editing FM submissions
Go for it! In fact, go for it to a considerably greater degree than hitherto. I think that most of your users would appreciate a higher signal to noise ratio. Those who wish to support the activities of newbie programmers (in itself a laudable aim) are welome to start up other sites. Pet peeve on my part: silly GUI programs (especially those usable only under KDE or Gnome) that needlessly duplicate or frontend-ize perfectly good command-line programs. This is not Lindoze (I hope).
Updated packages...
I think it's very annoying to see all of those Debian and Red Hat Updated package announces. Linux distributors should have their own lists to make such announcements, which only interest their users. If a user is wise enough to have found freshmeat.net, she should know how to find her system distributor's mailing list.
These should be filtered away, and I don't think anybody will get hurt.
Re: Updated packages...
Agreed, and I'd say the same for those -ac and -pre Kernel patches (if you want to use it, you should read the lkml).
Ratings, top 50, and total hits are stupid things
I wouldn't trust any ratings nor the top 50 built on top of the total hits from each URL. But I'd like to see the comments on a separate page and ordered by Newest First.
Re: Trivial software vs. unfinished software
> I am bothered less by "trivial software"
> then I am by "unfinished" software.
I agree. Pre-alphas and alphas are useless in freshmeat. The app has to work at least on the programmers system in some stable and usefull manner.
> package should compile and install on my
> system without problem. If my system is
> missing prerequisites, then the build
> script / installer should tell me about
> this, tell me where I can get those
> prerequisites.
Puh. This is quite a hard claim. Of course it compiles on my machine. But I do beta releases (thats the definition of it, isn't it?) to test it on public and to see who has problems to compile or use it.
I think, freshmeat is for advanced users. They know where to get missing packages and how to contact an author on serious problems.
> The
> author will be less inclined to build
> the necessary installer, if the software
> is "trivial."
Don't know whether my app is trivial, but building a installer is not a easy job, and many people do not like installers at all. I think a good documentation is better (and mandatory) then a quick-hack-installer that may jumble your system.
Programming is an art (STOP the daily-submitted software)
What really make me angry when I "discover" my freshmeat listing each morning are those projects which are updated daily and which writers do not hesitate to submit version 0.9.1.1.5.3 when version 0.9.1.1.5.2 was submitted the day before.
I hate people doing so to make their project well known. This is the marketing ala "Microsoft". And I don't know why FM people accept such behaviour.
Trivial software bother you ??? It does not bother me. I like the 300 lines C program which does the same as your super 2 line perl script just because not everybody likes perl or can use it.
Programming is an Art just as painting is an art. I cannot imagine you saying to Picasso that his paintings are "trivial" just because they are useless to you...
Sturgeon's Law
90% of everything is crap. This applies to
Freshmeat submissions as well (though you and
I probably disagree as to what constitutes crap).
When I peruse the freshmeat front page, I'd like
it to contain only good stuff, which means weeding
out the crap, which means rejections. Cope.
Magazine publishers have been sending out
rejection slips for centuries. It sucks, but
that's the price you pay for a good publication.
Re: YEE HAW!
> This is good practice, let's bring
> freshmeat back to 10 submissions a
> day...
..and let's kill all people that use the BLINK tag...
Re: YEE HAW!
>
> % This is good practice, let's bring
> % freshmeat back to 10 submissions a
> % day...
>
>
> ..and let's kill all people that use
> the BLINK tag...
>
Ha ha, I knew I could piss someone
off...
Re: editing FM submissions
% Pet
> peeve on my part: silly GUI programs
> (especially those usable only under KDE
> or Gnome) that needlessly duplicate or
> frontend-ize perfectly good command-line
> programs. This is not Lindoze (I
> hope).
I disagree. I believe that graphical front-ends are what are going to bring Linux (and other *nixes) to the forfront on the desktop. If you wish to only use CL tools, go for it. But, I'd rather not wade through all the available options in info docs and man pages to do one thing once. I want people to look at my Linux system and say 'wow, that's cool' because it gets more developers interested, which in turn gets *me* more cool software that I don't have to write.
I *do* agree with a culling policy, though. I also agree with bouncing those stupid daily releases that other people mentioned. I like the freshbones concept. I'm just extremely surprised that my first submission actually got accepted/70 some odd downloads. I guess it goes to show that some people will buy anything if it's free!
Re: Classification
> only *today's* links
> should be extracted (and filtered!),
I've written a tool/language for extracting parts of HTML-pages. This could possibly, together with wget and grep, do what you'r program does. I don't know how much this invalidates your point, however...
Moderation
I don't want a moderation. As few comments as most programs gets atm, a moderation system would probably not work that well...
However, I would like to be able to, as a user, select from teh categories, those ones I'm interrested in, and see only announcements about additions to those categories.
I'm not interrested in seeing another PHP or PERL thingy, since I'm not a web hacker. I'm not interrested in KDE programs neither. But I am interrested in console apps, some Gtk apps, system utilities and languages....
dead list
I think most people understand the need for a
certain "snooty-ness" with respect to acceptance
to the freshmeat list. why not a seperate
"deadmeat" list with runners-up? it could
possibly rotate out after a period of time like a
usenet server, or (maintainers willing) become the
bone yard for apps that never were, living on in
an undead existence in a freshmeat-type database.
mmmm.... deadmeat! dead script-kiddie work that
we can provide feedback on for the next generation
of hackers. I like it.
.02
brainspank
Need for a distinct guideline
I think its obvious why something like this has become an issue. There is no distinctive set of rules explaining exactly what Freshmeat is. Sure, it is a Free Software Repository. But by this name alone, it seems to welcome all kinds of free software, trivial scripts, and otherwise. There should be a more distintive guideline placed on the contribution page that plainly states what is accepted and what is rejected.
Excited - Rejected
I was really excited on my first submission on freshmeat. I carefully clicked the submit button then really carefully filled out the forms. Then finally I got to the finish button. I slowly but surely clicked it.
Then after an hour I decided to get back at freshmeat. But my submission was not there. I visited slashdot then I found my submission on the freshmeat column. I headed back to fm but it wasn't there.
Next day, I visited fm but still nothing. I tried to re-submit but I decided to check my mail first. Then I saw an email from the editors.
I read the mail:
- I have to admit that this program is very cute. However, it is not really appropriate for listing on freshmeat.
My heart sank as I read it. They supplied me with the link to the trivial page. I read through the comments and it lightened up my mood a little.
From the point of view of a 16-year high school student, from a 3rd world country, I found it really painful and embarassing. I was a fan of freshmeat for more than a year. Everyday I'm eager to find something useful on Freshmeat. I see Freshmeat as a repository for all ages.
Yes, I agree that we need quality, useful and nifty software. But rejecting the work of neophyte programmers was not the way to go. Instead of encouraging them to work, it would break their teeny weeny hearts.
If we want the Open Source movement to spread, we have to start from the foundations. We, the youth, are the future developers and leaders of this world. Discouraging them because of their insufferable, meaningless, useless, trivial, unprofessional, pointless, simple, scrap, meatless and trash work would only rattle their brains thinking of: what I did wrong? Am I still useful for the Open Source movement? Can I survive the tech world? What will happen when I work? How to become a Linus Torvalds? Why did I submit my work?
I also see this failure as a learning experience. But I'm still wondering if there's a place for the youth on the open source world.
My rejected submission is called KlickMe. KlickMe is a clone of the Windows joke program ClickMe. It was written in C using the Qt 2.2.x library. The great editors found it really cute so they rejected it. I think it was one of those hundrends of useless GUI apps that only works on KDE/Gnome. If you want to see it, you could download it at my homepage, http://sychon.cjb.net, head to Programming/Qt section.
Diwa del Mundo
Linux Reg.#131435
GNU/Linux Enthusiasts Network Group
Comments are welcome. Email me at diwa@edsamail.com.ph
spamd
I also had a program rejected. It was unfairly
compared to a while loop.
It was a robust messenging daemon that was aimed
at being a keep alive for remote users.
I was extreemly insulted by the experience since
my program did a great deal more
than a while loop could do (easilly). It had a
wealth of handy install features to make
it simple to install on dozens of machines.
They couldn't personally see a use for it, so
they labeled as is too trivial for the site.
Personally I knew that it was quite a simple
program, but I can't help but think there are
dozens of people that are missing out because of
the maintainers short sightedness.
Since I've already released many programs to
the public, the thrill was in helping
people, and not in releasing software. So, Poo
Poo back to freshmeat for this one.
I've recorded the saga for all to see at the
spamd (http://www.voltar-confed.org/spamd)
page. I was very hurt by the experience, so I was
less than articulate. :) Eh, you be the judge.
Re: spamd
> I've recorded the saga for all to see at the spamd page.
Ah, we didn't accept your submission, so we're "assholes". Well,
it won't be the first time. :)
Re: spamd
%
> % I've recorded the saga for all to
> see at the spamd page.
%
%
> Ah, we didn't accept your submission,
> so we're "assholes". Well,
> it won't be the first time. :)
%
Well, now I certainly didn't say that. I do think
you judged spamd unfairly though. I presented
both sides of our conversation on the web page.
It's up to the readers of the page (nobody) to decide.
I completely udnerstand your triviality
policies. I think spamd is a poor example of a
trivial program though. Small perhaps, but not
trivial.
I'm a huge fm2 fan. Don't misunderstand that...
Re: spamd
> % Ah, we didn't accept your submission,
> % so we're "assholes".
>
> Well, now I certainly didn't say that.
Ummmmm... from the page you linked to:
I had spent several hours getting this package all pretty, and it hurt my feelings that they didn't feel like posting it because they could do it with a while loop. So, I still think they're assholes.
Re: spamd
>
> % % Ah, we didn't accept your
> submission,
> % % so we're "assholes".
> %
> % Well, now I certainly didn't say
> that.
>
>
>
>
> Ummmmm... from the page you linked
> to:
>
>
>
>
> I had spent several hours getting this
> package all pretty, and it hurt my
> feelings that they didn't feel like
> posting it because they could do it with
> a while loop. So, I still think they're
> assholes.
>
>
Oh, sorry, my bad. I really didn't mean it, it
hurt my feelings is all. I'll be taking that page
down soon anyway.
Re: Rejecting software by 12 year olds
> I'd disagree that freshmeat should have
> some form of special section for new
> users or young children. It may hurt to
> have a program rejected because it isn't
> up to standards, but that's life.
(clipped)
I agree. I can only assume that the editors exercise some judgement when rejecting an early effort from a new programmer (of whatever age). If they give reasons for the rejection and suggestions (one or two, perhaps) for improving the work before re-submitting it, then all involved benefit.
<P>
It isn't possible to please everyone all at once, but I think a kind word or two to a new Open Source programmer is probably a sound investment.
Re: Excited - Rejected
> We, the youth, are the
> future developers and leaders of this
> world.
> I also see this failure as a learning
> experience.
If it was useful as a learning experience, it was not a failure. You kloned a trivial program. It was trivial in Winders and it is trivial in Linux.That is the bigger lesson here. Don't set your sights so low next time. Linux could use a non-trivial, polished and tightly coded, PIM (ala Daytimer), personal accounting (ala Quicken), spreadsheet (ala Quattro Pro), mapping (ala Street Atlas), CAD/CAM (ala AutoCad & the like) program. Make a good start on one of those and watch it get posted almost immediately!Many of the documentation files could also use some serious editing so you might want to contact LDP with your ideas for updated how-to's.There are lots of places where a young, talented and motivated person can make themselves felt in the Open Source movement. It's just that making trivial copies of trivial programs is a waste of programming talent.
Re: What about dead software?
dumbcode.org (http://dumbcode.org/) is a place to submit software that's too trivial or rough-edged to go on Freshmeat. It seems more active than freshbones, but it doesn't seem to have had any updates in the past few months.
Re: Agreed
> After some attempts to post trivial
> software such as more or less advanced
> shell scripts to make life easier for
> the crowd of us, I realized this is not
> right for freshmeat.net. Freshmeat.net
> is, after all, an index site for
> software with some meat on the bones.
> Thus, I registered freshbones.net. The
> site is not yet online, though I'll try
> to see to that. This is - no meat - just
> bones. Shell scripts and the like.
> I do not plan to make this project
> some competitor to freshmeat or any like
> that. I just want a trivial software
> index as well. If anyone want to join
> this, please post me a message.
>
> Regards
>
> Roy
With 3 accepted and 2 rejected I know what you mean. I think the editorial decisions make sense when you think about it. The "value" of fresh meat is the selection that's on the "daily menu" and the reserve of good software tools to search for. To coin a phrase, "it's a good thing".
It makes sense to me to have a separate web site for the other stuff. "Just deserts" would be cute or "appettizers" to play on the same theme. A place for the 100 line or less little tools that can improve your productivity or provide the spark of an idea.
A simple metric of usefulness is the download count, but some kind of collaborative filtering would be useful too. It would be nice if each individual could pick their own favorites, then searchers could pick and combine the favorites lists of those they agree with. Such a system would let every one have a voice, and at the same time let people choose who they listen too. One could also have "bots" that do picks as well. i.e. a shell_tool_bot or a perl_tool_bot ...
One nice addition to freshmeat would be a "Today's Specials" kind of feature, i.e. an ordered ranking of the most downloaded of todays submissions. It's nice to know what's hot and what's not! The same thing would be nice on a weekly/monthy/yearly basis.
Heck I might even be willing to pay for a weekly email of the "best of freshmeat"!
Re: Excited - Rejected
> trivial copies of trivial programs is a
> waste of programming talent.
Anyone looked at projects like E8Ball, Dr. Tux, SuperTux, Flying Windows....
In what world are projects like these valuable/non-trivial?
Personally I think they have every reason to be on FII, but I also think that other projects which are getting turned away as "trivial" probably do too.
Rejecting software
I had my first submission rejected today, so I took a little time to think about what I would like to see in freshmeat.
Well, basicely, I ask freshmeat when I look for a special software, browsing the database by domains. Then, what lacks is a rate of some sort : users should be allowed to give a numerical appreciation about the usefullness of the software.
I never read the dailly list of recently submitted software, because of the noise and because I don't know what's the use of geting a software you do not need.
So, in my view, there should be no rejection because even something trivial could be usefull one day. We need a software database, not a vitrine of good apps for Linux.
So, we also need a rating (given by users or by publishers).
That was my point.
Re: Rejecting software
> users should be allowed to give a numerical appreciation about the
> usefullness of the software.
They can. Please look at the site before you criticize it.
Thanks.
Another one bites the dust
While I do understand what you guys mean by trivial, and my program (http://sourceforge.net/projects/php-proxy/) could be considered somewhat trivial at this point; I think part of it is how clean I've tried to make the code, (so that it looks trivial to most) and the usefulness of this makes it somewhat importaint. In addition there are some nice features that are planned on in the next version that should make it even better. Perhaps I'm biased, but I found a similar script (on source forge, not fm) that was 100 lines and looked impossible to maintain, and while both do the same thing (to a certian extent, the other version has encryption) I feel that it would be classified as non-trivial just becuase of the coding style.Okay, time for me to get off my soap box, and move on. BTW, what would you guys suggest to me for getting a userbase for this program?
Re: Another one bites the dust
Oh, let me say, I find it quite conserning, when the sourceforge stats say that my program has not been downloaded, and it has been rejected by freshmeat as trivial. I feel you must look at the code before rejecting it; otherwise you miss out on the best that people have to offer.
Re: Another one bites the dust
> Oh, let me say, I find it quite
> conserning, when the sourceforge stats
> say that my program has not been
> downloaded, and it has been rejected by
> freshmeat as trivial. I feel you must
> look at the code before rejecting it;
> otherwise you miss out on the best that
> people have to offer.
Okay, that was open mouth, insert foot. Sourceforge has a lag before they update the stats. My fault, and I'm sorry for accusing you guys of not even looking at what my project was.
rejected
i dont see why u r rejected my project..
im been working a long time with it,
and finaly its working.
it was a game, i named xquiz,
users could add their own questions etc..
and questions was included.
then i dont see why this dosnt fit in freshmeat!
Re: rejected
> i dont see why u r rejected my project..
Yes, such a mystery.
gethost rejected ...
Just a quick note about gethost:
As an administrator, set up your NIS, nsswitch.conf or /etc/hosts and then notice that nslookup, dig, dnsquery and host ignore the settings. Of course, you could use another tool like ping(8) to do the hostname or IP lookup for you.
gethost uses standard libraries as used by standard Unix commands for its DNS resolution, so for an administrator it is a lot more useful -- it actually gives the real results.
It can show elapsed time of a lookup -- extremely useful in DNS troubleshooting.
Also, it is probably the only hostname lookup tool that supports IPv6.
It includes a detailed manual.
gethost has return codes that can gives status of the lookup -- so can used in scripts. (ping, telnet, etc. can't give
status on the DNS lookup.)
Interesting example:
$ gethost -x 127.0.0.1 -t -6 localhost 3ffe:8050:201:1860:290:27ff:feab:19a7
Hostname: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
Hostname: localhost
Address: ::1
gethostbyname2() took 0.000 seconds
Hostname: www6.netbsd.org
Address: 3ffe:8050:201:1860:290:27ff:feab:19a7
Re: Beginning programmer problems
> Hooo boy, does this bring back memories.
%[...]
> And then there's the hazard of writing a program called 'test.c'. Try as you might,
> you'll never get it to print any output.
>
> The worst, though, is where you write a program, give it a two-letter name, and
> find it's almost doing just what you want, but it's doing it strangely.
> Eventually you figure out that there's a unix command of the same name that does
> the same function, and *that*'s what you've been running instead of your own code.
>
> What's that called, self-rejection?
No, that's called not realizing how the shell searches for the executable. Read up on the PATH environment variable, and either add "." to it (not recommended, finding out exactly why left as an exercise) or just learn to type './mynewprogram' whenever you want to run something you just compiled. That way you say exactly what you mean, and can't be "tricked" by the shell. Yes, it's perfectly possible to run a compiled 'test.c' program by asking for './test'.
I almost assume you already know this, but since you didn't hint at it in the text, I thought it could stand being pointed out explicitly. Not trying to "talk down" at you or something, ok?
trivial? me?
I have submitted several projects to fm, not all of them exclusively mine. Of all of them, the first I ever submitted was.. well, in my opinion, rather trivial. I didn't really think they would accept it. Somehow.. it was. I'm not sure why. Which is funny, since everyone here seems to complain about their project being rejected.
I think the standard is already very laxed.. if your project has been rejected, then.. it must be seriously trivial. Mine was a simple tcl script (granted it had a configuration file), which simply updated your ip address with dyndns.com. I mean, come on.. all the thing ever did was hit a web page with your information, reading it from a conf file. I can't think of anything more trivial than that ;)
regected msg2mbox
MDaemon msg to mbox converter got rejected.
Although its somewhat trivial, it has several
non-trivial kinks (such as msft bad chars
handling) that take hours to debug while writing
something like this. I could not find any other
msg2mbox converter which is why I posted it.
Interested parties can find it here
An alternative
I haven't submitted any software and I'm not planning on it. The project I am currently working on is translating TRS-80 BASIC programs to C, then to C++, then to JAVA. It's more like "re-inventing the wheel" and probably not all that worthy of Freshmeat.com (It would be better as a submitted article).
So....do what I did....grab a website account from somewhere and post your project there. There's nothing that says you can't go independant.
I love Freshmeat because it has exciting original programs and projects for Linux. That was my whole point in joining up in the first place.
John
Re: Trivial software vs. unfinished software
>
> I agree. Pre-alphas and alphas are
> useless in freshmeat. The app has to
> work at least on the programmers system
> in some stable and usefull manner.
%
Perhaps pre-alphas aren't useful on fm, but I think alpha releases are. "alpha" doesn't necessarily mean unusable. It may mean feature-incomplete. "betas" are almost feature complete and are being stress tested for bugs. "release candidates" are of course feature complete and any annoying little bugs that slipped by the beta stage should be weeded out.
The great thing about open source is putting software out there in its early stages to encourage user feedback. I think freshmeat does a reasonable job of cutting out the fluff, but provides a great announcement service to useful projects.
Some Ideas
Would it be prudent to allow users to add links to their "trivial" software on their freshmeat homepage? It wouldn't have to be anything fancy at all. Just a simple list of links with brief descriptions.
trivial programs
I think it would fair to say that a large number of "trivial" programs are written as a means of learning some aspect of application development. Perhaps it would be better if rather than starting a project from scratch, more people would obtain the source code for an existing project already considered useful that demonstrates the aspect in which they are interested. They can then learn from this code by first reading and understanding it (or part of it) and then contributing the the project. This would be a more valuable contribution to open source software as there would be fewer but more mature projects.
Re: trivial programs
> I think it would fair to say that a
> large number of "trivial"
> programs are written as a means of
> learning some aspect of application
> development. Perhaps it would be better
> if rather than starting a project from
> scratch, more people would obtain the
> source code for an existing project
> already considered useful that
> demonstrates the aspect in which they
> are interested. They can then learn from
> this code by first reading and
> understanding it (or part of it) and
> then contributing the the project. This
> would be a more valuable contribution to
> open source software as there would be
> fewer but more mature projects.
Sounds like M$ to me.
Trivial dosn't meen bad, it just meens not for freshmeat.
I had my first perl script rejected today and I don't flame the fm for that. My script was realy too simple and not as useful. I just wrote it for my own purpose and then thought "why not to add it to fm ?". I didn't knew about any trivial then. So after the project has been rejected I don't flame. But when one of the sys-admins sent me to this article I was wondering why it doesn't contains any information what can you do with your trivial project ? I wrote a homepage, README and other stuff for the project that I don't want to simply put to the trash now. I think it would be great to have a section like "What can you do with your project if it is a trivial" or at least giving a link to such a page. For me as a programming newbie would be a good start if my project will appear at least anywhere in the appindex.
That is my point.
Regards.
Re: Trivial dosn't meen bad, it just meens not for freshmeat.
Hotscripts.com perhaps?
Re: What about dead software?
> Freshmeat rejecting software? I don't
> think so, but now it's too late.
> Actually, the main problem with
> Freshmeat is dead software, like Bezerk
> and a lot of Kernel patches now part of
> the Kernel. If you don't want to waste
> our time, add request change ->
> remove appindex, so we can remove them.
Dead software can be reported via the "Broken Links" page.
It's 2003.
Much has changed for Open Source since 2001.
Perhaps it's time to update your "trivial software" stance?
Just a thought.
Re: It's 2003.
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Re: Trivial Section
After reading all of the messages out here, I got an idea. Why don't the Freshmeat admins make a separate site section or forum for trivial programs? That way we can all be happy.
Re: It's 2003.
> I'm sorry, but I have no idea what
> you're trying to say.
>
Hmm. Maybe this will make it easier:
Creuncf vg'f gvzr gb hcqngr lbhe "gevivny fbsgjner" fgnapr. ;)
fair?
It is clear, that filling in fm with junk will get us
nowhere. It is also clear, that editor's decision is
an acceptable way to provide a filter. But it is also
clear that there's nothing wrong with criticizing
editor's decisions.
I don't think editors do it the wrong way, because
this is their way and it's ridiculous to talk about
"censorship" when it comes to unwilling to publish
something on the site by people who run the site.
But I really believe that editors are somewhat
biased towards some categories of software. For
example tons of tux* remakes that picture yet
another penguin in yet another settings... Well, I
know, it "promotes" free software... Or 148 linux
distributions... I'd say "It reimplements an existing
tool without any convincing advantage". And,
since I prefer installing everything from source by
hand, I'd add "It does something that's obvious to
a programmer who knows the language". But we
don't judge distributions that hard, since it takes a
lot of time and effort...
I'm not trying to say these should be screened.
Neither I'm trying to say that lots of "trivial"
software should make their way into fm. Just want
you to think of it.
Re: bones better than meat?
> I would like to add to the shell script
> rejection but now in C post.
> It was not FM but another. After
> downloading horribly bloated programs
> that rotated the .sig, which were
> obviously judged of merit, I found them
> wanting in one way or another. I wrote
> one of my own and also found it wanting.
>
> I then created a shell script that did
> everything properly and satisfied
> functionality requirements.
> Needless to say as a shell script it was
> rejected even though it had
> functionality equal to and greater than
> submissions deemed worthy with hugely
> less call upon system resources of all
> kinds.
> There is something very wrong with a
> system which chooses on criteria other
> than functionality.
>
I am curious by what you mean by "less call upon system resources"... unless the program was written sloppily, I'm not seeing how a shell script will outperform a program specifically designed for the task. It may take up more code, but generally speaking it will run faster and take up less memory.
But perhaps i misunderstood your point, the initial sentence still leaves me wondering if I understand what you mean.
unpack
My Project unpack was rejected as trivial. Ok, it is,
but its more thought as base: My idea was that
everything which is an archive should be added so
that unpack can extract the information.
Posting on fm just so that people know that there is
a script like that so that they don't have to do it
again (and thats the thought of open source).
The other implementations existing are not easy to
add your own formats. (visit:
here)
Re: unpack
> My Project unpack was rejected as trivial.
Yes, because it was nothing more than a few lines which can be found in
the first chapter of any book on shell scripting, and your own page for
it linked to greatly superior projects that do the same thing, like
atool (http://freshmeat.net/projects/atool/). There's no
reason for us to list that.
Sincerely,
Jeff
Re: Trivial Section
They said my 4x4 matrix code at http://www.coolgroups.com/matrixlib is trivial. I'd like to see these guys bust out 4x4 rotation matrix code from their heads. What do you guys think?
E-mail me at webmaster at coolgroups.com with your thoughts.
> After reading all of the messages out
> here, I got an idea. Why don't the
> Freshmeat admins make a separate site
> section or forum for trivial programs?
> That way we can all be happy.
Re: Why Freshmeat is not like Slashdot
> Slashdot is typically used to view
> what's happening now; 'old' slashdot
> stories are relatively rarely
> referenced. By contrast, interest in
> software may peak when it's first
> announced, but will trickle on
> indefinitely, and the really good stuff
> will grow (by word of mouth) a steadily
> rising amount of interest.
>
> So a simple adoption of the Slashdot
> moderation system would not work. This
> doesn't mean that some contributions
> aren't more useful than others, or that
> some contributors aren't more useful
> than others. But the appearance of
> usefulness to the people who watch the
> flow of announcements on Freshmeat may
> not reflect the true long term
> usefulness a piece software. What would
> be better would be a rating system,
> possibly a multi-dimensional one - so
> that people who downloaded software
> could later come back and rate it,
> perhaps 1 - 10 on each of usefulness,
> power, ease of installation, and
> documentation. Scores would be
> averaged.
>
> You could then prioritise search by
> saying you prefer things which are easy
> to install over things which are
> powerful, or vice versa, depending on
> your needs.
>
> Final thought -- things which are
> trivial are not necessarily not useful.
> My Instant Firewall script is pretty
> trivial, but it gets a fair few
> downloads, ansd judging by the feedback
> I get people find it useful.
Do you mean Sourceforge.net??
Pegasus
PegSol.com (http://www.pegsol.com/newdesign/downloads.htm)
Re: An alternative
> I haven't submitted any software and I'm
> not planning on it. The project I am
> currently working on is translating
> TRS-80 BASIC programs to C, then to C++,
> then to JAVA. It's more like
> "re-inventing the wheel" and
> probably not all that worthy of
> Freshmeat.com (It would be better as a
> submitted article).
>
> So....do what I did....grab a website
> account from somewhere and post your
> project there. There's nothing that says
> you can't go independant.
>
> I love Freshmeat because it has exciting
> original programs and projects for
> Linux. That was my whole point in
> joining up in the first place.
>
> John
Exactly, if you can't get it listed, do on your own.
Pegasus
PegSol.com (http://www.pegsol.com/newdesign/downloads.htm)
I understand
I understand the trival code rule for submissions, but maybe there should be a section for trival code/projects. A location where the trival code can be looked up and searched by people who need a little help getting started.
rejected due triviality: stdc-pkgconfig / stdc-pthread
Hi folks,
one of my packages has been rejected due triviality today.
Okay, its not much code, its nothing really new, but an step for making portable software builds less complex, reduce the amount of necessary platform specific fixes, make the whole thing more deterministic and clean.
It is the first one of an series of packages which provide pkg-config'ed wrappers around certain stdlibc or operating system functions, ie. string handling, pthread, etc. These packages simply provide them via pkg-config packages to the application, and all necessary platform fixes, etc, are hidden behind it.
In short words: this is an approach for fixing buggy platforms and providing clean library interfaces using pkg-config.
project homepage (wiki) (http://wiki.metux.de/public/OSS_QM_Taskforce/projects/stdc-pkgconfig)
an article about this approach
At the moment, the current release (stdc-pthread-1.0.0.0) consists of just some lines of code for buildsystem and .pc-file template. But this is just the start - I dont have access to older, buggier platforms (ie. sunos), so I just provide a skeleton which is tested on GNU/Linux - others may follow if necessary.
My plan was adding freshmeat recods for them before I send out tons of email announces and starting to port applications.
I dont see why package is 'too trivial'. Its just the start of it all.
Re: Classification
> If anyone has an particularly useful
> advice, you can reach me at
> os@irix.penguinpowered.com
> The script download site is currently
> http://os.dyns.cx/fetchhun/
uhh, (replying to myself here), new email (os at udel dot edu), new website, best place to find fetchhun is on archive.org (until i update http://orangesquid.net/projects/) except that i can't find it on archive.org anywhere :-/ well, it'll come back , some day.
Is not a trivial thing useful ?
My "SQL Parsing" class has been declined today. The reason sent to me was its size/complexity..blah blah blah. I would like to tell that it may be simple but useful. It's light weight but it can easily parse and execute a file containing series of mySQL statements dumped by other programs.phpMyadin has such feature but developers those need some light-weight automated system to parse and execute mySQL statements dynamically for their applications could be helpful from this.
I like to get a feedback from FM regarding this recline.
Re: Agreed
> After some attempts to post trivial
> software such as more or less advanced
> shell scripts to make life easier for
> the crowd of us, I realized this is not
> right for freshmeat.net. Freshmeat.net
> is, after all, an index site for
> software with some meat on the bones.
> Thus, I registered freshbones.net. The
> site is not yet online, though I'll try
> to see to that. This is - no meat - just
> bones. Shell scripts and the like.
> I do not plan to make this project some
> competitor to freshmeat or any like
> that. I just want a trivial software
> index as well. If anyone want to join
> this, please post me a message.
>
> Regards
>
> Roy
Wow !! It will be great if we get such site.
Go ahead...