Openly Disgruntled?
Six months ago we released our internal trouble ticket system using the GPL open source license - we call it Simpleticket. Over 20,000 people have downloded the code (more than 100 per day) since release. Hundreds of people have emailed us thanking us for releasing the admittedly “flawed” code. We are about to release the second version of SimpleTicket addressing most of the problems and providing features we need. You see, we operate an IT support company that lives or dies based on our trouble ticket system. On the eve of the release of our new code the volume of disgruntled people is deafening. Check out some of these comments:
I am good friends with Kate and Peter and it really pisses me off seeing how you guys have ignored their needs. Before going out and just coding whatever you want you should consult the community. Kate and Peter have very specific needs and the wireframes and the descriptions detailed in this blog don’t meet their requirements. How do you expect them to use simpleticket if you don’t get their buyin? We are outraged that you would pay programmers to build a ticketing system for your own company and not contribute to the open source community. - by Frank
We were shocked to read this comment and responded here. Two people, Peter and Kate have spent a lot of time claiming we have not worked on the code with comments like:
you never actually WORKED WITH THE COMMUNITY. The non-architel developers were the only ones doing any work. - by Kate
And stuff like this:
Also the statement, “Alex and Rodrigo who added thousands of lines of code after the release� is patently false. Architel’s contributions to the branch called masukomi, which we all agreed would be the basis for hte next version, were very minimal. - by Peter
At the end of the day it really pisses us off. We wrote a ticketing system, released it using an open source license and let anyone download and use it. To say we did not get enough feedback when we built it, or that we did not do any work on it or that we did not contribute to their branch of the code is just crazy.
We wrote the damn software in the first place and spent the first 90 days resolving bugs so that we could keep our business running while using SimpleTicket. If you were to believe Peter or his friends you would think “they” wrote SimpleTicket and we were just using it.
We spent the last 90 days paying coders to rebuild the code, adding much needed features and bug fixes. When we release the new code I am sure Peter and Kate will be around to tell us what we are doing wrong (Peter has said, “However, I would love to see the new version when released.“), but man I wish they would go away. I wish folks we just thank us for the code and contribute code back if they want to.
July 31st, 2006 at 6:08 am
I think you guys are doing a fantastic job. As with any “customer” you can’t make all the people happy all of the time. I think this is even more true when the product is free and the preceived value is not realized because it is free.
If you look at the NDOC project for example. The developer is shutting down the project because he was accused of lack of focus on the project. He was doing it pretty much alone and was obviously not being paid for it, so he is shutting it down instead of dealing with the riffraff.
Keep up the good work and know the effort is much appreciated.
July 31st, 2006 at 6:15 pm
First off, I would ask that everyone please stop assuming and stating that Peter or I mean anything other than what we actually say. Anything you think I may have been implying but not stating outright should be disregarded entirely. I don’t play that game. I endeavor to say what I mean and mean what I say.
Regarding the statement that “Peter and Kate have spent a lot of time claiming we have not worked on the code…” Neither Peter nor I ever suggested that Architel didn’t work on the code at all. Because I’m tired of having Architel claim otherwise here are the numbers of commits per user:
masukomi: 74 (not architel)
suntel: 10 (not architel)
alexl: 30 (architel)
pboling: 219 (not architel)
total: 333
At least 7 of alexl’s are related to the initial setup of the repo so that brings architel’s contribution down to 23 commits out of 326. My initial commit was also the end product of days spent merging what was initially two apps into one, and fixing a number of ui and database issues.
Can you honestly claim that 23 out of 326 is a significant portion of the work? We didn’t claim Architel didn’t do any work. We claimed that you did hardly any work *during the time it was open to the public*. I think the numbers bear that statement out. We tried to get Architel to contribute more to SimpleTicket but that didn’t happen. I think this was mostly due to a lack of resources to devote to it. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just the way things were.
Architel obviously did the original work on it, otherwise how could there have ever been anything to release in the first place? I felt it was fairly safe to assume that everyone understood that piece of logic without me having to state it outright. Especially considering how many posts are in this blog and in the forums and the mailing list talking about the code *Architel* released.
My statement that you didn’t actually work “with the community” is based on the fact that there was minimal involvement, guidance, or code contributions by architel during the time development was public. I can probably run the numbers on the mailing list archives if you doubt the non-code portions of this statement too. The conference calls were good but in my opinion provided little in the way of guidance. And as this is Architel’s project Architel needs/needed to guide it. This is not to imply that you didn’t even try. You did and that’s great. It just didn’t work out, as evidenced by the projects implosion.
But honestly, why does this have to be an issue? So what if you didn’t contribute much then? A) it’s in the past so why bitch about it now? B) it’s a provable fact with the evidence sitting in your own subversion repository so why do you keep trying to claim otherwise?
Regarding your question in the last post:
“Why do you say, ‘I may have issues with Architel’s handling of the initial project and the fact that the keep promoting the Open Source aspects of project when I can’t seem to find anything “openâ€? about the current version’? The definition of an open source project is the fact that you RELEASE the code using an open source license such as the GPL…”
You answered it yourself. “the fact that you RELEASE”. But you *haven’t* released since taking it in house. As far as i know none of this current development has been available to the public. Thus, by your own definition, it is not open. It was, and I’m sure it *will* be, but right now it isn’t. As I said before: if I’m wrong please correct me. There are others who have commented here who have also stated that they’re waiting to see your code. Remember, even your own definition doesn’t say anything about open source code having to be finished, or working, just released.
As for us going away. We have been gone. We’ve been quietly minding our own business and to date have only commented here when Architel makes comments about us or when people like Frank make false claims on our behalf (see “open source ticketing” comments). My comment correcting Frank even went so far as to praise you for what you’ve accomplished, say that I was glad i could help in what little capacity i did, and wish you success. And you respond with this?! WTF?!
What I *really* don’t understand is where all this bile is coming from and why people, including you, keep putting words in our mouths. I have always endeavored to speak clearly when communicating with you guys. In this and other posts you’ve misconstrued statements made by Peter and I and I just don’t get it. We’re not sitting around waiting to say you’re wrong. People just keep spouting false statements about us and we stand up for ourselves. I don’t want to have to keep defending myself here and I’m sure you don’t want to keep promoting the image that Architel is the kind of company that keeps whining about stuff like this. This is NOT the kind of image you want to show your customers, developers, or investors. Please, let the issue drop. This kind of post benefits no-one.
July 31st, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Ditto to everything masukomi said.
An open letter to the SimpleTicket community,
I would also like to clear up some things as to the history of this project, which is now hidden, (excepting for a great deal of research Kate did, see example above, as it was turning inside out).
Sorry for the long post, but if you don’t care about this topic… please remember that I’m not forcing you to read it!
I also have no ill will toward the project, Alex M, Alex L, or any of the new guys on the project, only to how my name is being used in conjunction with foul language, and misconstrued statements. I think both Alex’s are stand up guys and we always got along fine. I tried to push this project forward to be finished by the release date with every ounce of energy I had. I spent many hundreds of hours working on the project, sometimes pulling all-nighters. I was trying to make the code better for everyone to use, including Architel, but I didn’t know what Architel wanted in many aspects (the ‘SimpleTicket 2.0 vision’ was announced almost simultaneously with them taking the development in-house).
In areas where they had said what they wanted, I didn’t want to do all of the heavy lifting for them, and they didn’t have anyone developing code on the masukomi branch. They were mostly in the dark on what Kate and I were doing; they didn’t have anyone who was looking at the code we were committing to give guidance on a play-by-play, day-by-day, basis. This is (I’m guessing) why they posted about code fisting. When we would try to explain to them what we were doing in development terms they were easily confused as they had ‘zero’ developers heavily involved with the masukomi code. So these almost weekly phone calls lasted hours on several occasions. All they could do is give ‘bird’s eye view’ direction.
Example: the blog post just previous to the ‘implosion’
http://simpleticketblog.weblogswork.com/2006/05/17/simpleticket-conference-call-10am-cdt/
This post contains many things they wanted done… but none of it was going to be done by them. I was the ONLY developer working on code in masukomi by this time, and there was no way I could do all this by myself and work two other jobs. I tried to implement some parts of it as best I could. I didn’t have time to do all their bidding. Alex L is the only one who did commit code and he’s not even a developer. His commits were mostly bug fixes, small changes to the SQL, and most of them were on the ‘trunk’ branch, not the ‘masukomi’ and none of the code he committed had much to do with the features we were talking about in the conference calls.
I was disappointed that after giving my all, it fell apart. In the beginning I was working on it because I planned to use it, but then I soon switched jobs and no longer had plans to use it myself, so all of the subsequent work I did was just because I wanted to project to succeed. I thought (and still think) it is (and will be) a very cool application.
Now that being said, there are lots of positives about what has happened since. Architel did the correct thing in starting from scratch. That would have been a good place to start in the beginning, but their developer (a newbie at rails who deserves a lot of credit for what he did accomplish - it was so good that we were all willing to work on his code and improve it for several months) left just after the initial release, so they had no one to ‘begin from scratch’, and the community developers weren’t about to write a ticketing system, from scratch, for the benefit of Architel, on a volunteer basis. So we worked with what we had.
They also did the correct thing in bringing it in house. Once they had a developer in house that could work on the code and start over it made more sense to just start over as it were. The developing version, “masukomi” branch, that the community, mostly me and somewhat Kate, (she abandoned the project about a month before it collapsed), was not improving in the ways Architel wanted (the reasons why could be discussed endlessly - but I wanted to allow them to work on some of the ‘big’ issues with the program, since it was “their” program, so I focused on peripheral stuff, which is why they viewed my contributions as ‘out of line with their focus’, and not imperative to the next release). Architel was having lots of problems with ticket reporting in the version they were using internally (which was the initial release version - “trunk”) and would have had the same problems with the masukomi branch, because that part of the code was not something Kate or I focused on. I viewed that as one of the ‘big’ issues, and decided to let them handle it. Things critical to their business, like ticket reporting, ought to be done exactly how they want it done. The things I was working on were largely inconsequential (to them - but important to Kate and I), like user and location management. These are things that weren’t even in the initial release, but which we all (including Architel) agreed were useful. They didn’t like some of the ways I implemented these things, and I attempted to accommodate as much as possible (I only have 24 hours in a day – and many of those hours went to ST, so I could do no more than I was doing). My goal was more on getting the functionality in there, and they (only looking at it from an end user perspective, since they probably didn’t really get into the code behind the views) were more focused on making the layout of the page fit their workflow. If they’d had developers, they could’ve certainly modified it to do just that.
When someone does their best it is really not nice to deride their efforts. In a corporate environment it is seemingly important to lay the blame at someone’s door, but that door can in the end only be Architel’s. Frankly though, I don’t think we need blame anyone at all. The new version will be much better than the old, so things worked out for the best. Why place blame when the best thing that could’ve happened did indeed happen? Had they had a developer working on it, I think we’d still be struggling with the admittedly inferior ‘initial release’ code-base. And we’d all end up with a lesser ticket system… So in the end they made the best of a difficult situation, and should be lauded for it.
Lets please not resort to name calling, and foul language. As someone else has said it only makes your point weaker, assuming you are among a civilized group.
I am impressed with the speed they are now accomplishing things on the new version of the system. If some would like me to go away, then they had better not say undeserved things about me (or Kate). Some of what has been said was deserved, and some not… The project dissolved on good terms, and there is no reason to dig up blame, because whatever hampered the initial release is now being fixed, and will be released open source soon! As I have said before, I don’t plan on using it, and no longer have time to be involved in its development, but I am curious to see what it will look like, and will recommend it to others who are looking for a ticketing system with it capabilities.
The new version does look and sound like it will be very cool. I am excited about the development of the rails community in general… lets not have warring factions. I want Rails to succeed and be as powerful as it possibly can be, because I am basically betting my own professional career on its success!
When the project imploded it was disheartening, but only because I liked it so much. I still do like the project. Kate and I communicate with each other frequently about this and other things, and neither of us wants to hold any grudges nor are we holding any grudges. We worked hard on this project, and that’s really all that needs to be said about our involvement from here on out in my opinion. I also do not want to have to keep defending myself, or Kate, but fortunately Kate did lots of research about the project as it was ‘going back home’ so we can, if need be, defend ourselves, but there’s no reason to. We are both happy to see the current progress.