computer-science
Open Source Does Not Imply Open Community
Key takeaways
- Open source software has existed long before the invention of the (D)VCS.
- If you were really lucky, there was a mailing list you could sign up for to receive announcements and maybe discuss the software with other interested parties.
- You got your CVS/SVN and mailing lists operated for essentially "free", and it was easier to build in the open.
Open source software has existed long before the invention of the (D)VCS. The author likely hosted a barebones HTML webpage or a txt file describing the project. There definitely was an FTP server somewhere with tarballs. The author may have been reachable by email.
If you were really lucky, there was a mailing list you could sign up for to receive announcements and maybe discuss the software with other interested parties. There might have been an unofficial IRC channel someone created under the name of the software so people could discuss it.
No "community". No politics. No Code of Conduct. No pull requests or issues. No wiki. No core team.
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