The World’s Smallest Violin Plays for Kevin Downs
Microsoft’s forthcoming Sandcastle and the now (officially) defunct NDoc project have been on a lot of people’s minds lately. I’m personally big into documentation, and any tool that can help me to this end are invaluable. It’s an added bonus if they’re free.
Those of you who share this philosophy have probably been following NDoc’s progress since the 2.0 release of .NET. It’s unfortunate the way things have progressed. But as the owner of two open source projects myself, I’ve held quite a bit of sympathy for NDoc’s creator, Kevin Downs, because of the flack he was taking from the .NET community. Open source development is, unfortunately, an often thankless persuit.
I was sympathetic, that is, until I read the email he released today officially announcing the end of the NDoc project.
You should know that I don’t know Kevin Downs. I’ve never met him. He’s probably a hell of a guy, and without question has contributed more to open-source .NET development than most of us ever will. But it’s a little hard to feel sorry for someone that rants with no real good reason.
In case you haven’t seen the email, here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:
Downs says: “Unfortunately, despite the almost ubiquitous use of NDoc, there has been no support for the project from the .Net developer community either financially or by development contributions.”
A quick look through the lists on NDoc’s SourceForge website will show you that people have literally been begging to help with NDoc since the release of .NET 2.0. Downs just won’t let anyone help. I guess sometimes it’s just too hard to let go of your baby.
Then, “In fact, were it not for Oleg Tkachenko’s kind donation of a MS MVP MSDN subscription, I would not even have a copy of VS2005 to work with!”
Yeah, that’s tough. Sometimes we do actually have to pay for software. It’s shitty, I know, but what are you going to do? I guess you could create an open-source…oh, nevermind. Wait, Eclipse is still free, isn’t it?
And, “…there are some in the community who believe that a .Net 2.0 compatible release was theirs by-right and that I should be moving faster…”
Point well taken. You don’t owe us anything. Just like we don’t owe you anything. Free-will is a beautiful thing, my friend.
And finally, “Once ‘Sandcastle’ is released, it is my belief that it will become the de-facto standard and that NDoc will slowly become a stagnant side-water.”
All-right! Way to throw in the towel!
The simple fact is, if financial gain is your primary goal, you probably shouldn’t invest your time in an open-source project. There are many other, more compelling reasons to do so. Besides, there’s no lack of paying work out there. That said, I find it hard to believe that Downs didn’t at least have the opportunity to profit from his creation. A project as successful and ubiquitous as NDoc would almost surely open doors to other opportunities: consulting, writing, training, and so on. Squandering these is simply a matter of poor business skills - it has nothing to do with the rest of us. At the very least, the fame alone should be an almost priceless asset. That is unless you piss it away with a bunch of whiny, arrogant, misleading garbage.
So, hats off to Kevin for all of his hard work over the past few years and a genuine, heartfelt thanks for a great piece of software. We all hate to see you go. Really.
Now pass the torch and shut up.
klc;
Tags: open source, Software Development, Tools, WTF
July 26th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Kris,
I don’t think I could have said it any better than this. Honestly, you nailed it on the head.
Doug
July 27th, 2006 at 11:24 am
It is sad, and I think Kevin misunderstands open source, it’s about the community as much as the code. If you don’t have the community behind a project, then chances are you won’t be able to stay the course over the long run.
http://producingoss.com/ might have helped!
July 27th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Visual Studio 2005 Express is a free download. Other than installation generation, that would have given him everything he needed to develop a .NET 2.0 version of nDoc.
August 1st, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Probably you have a place were you can stay, eat, a computer to work and all the other stuff for free. Let me know, I want to move there to and start working on open source.
August 1st, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Nope. I’ve worked my ass off so that I have a place to stay, food to eat, a computer to work on, software to code with, and all the “other stuff”. None of these things have been given to me for “free”. Any time that I (or most anyone else, I’d suspect) spend working on an open source project is completely unrelated to making a living — I do it because I want to, because it makes me feel good, because I can learn from it.
If you’re looking for tips on getting a free ride, go elsewhere.
August 13th, 2006 at 4:13 am
From “http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=517576&SiteID=1&PageID=3″ I saw that you and Doug Rohm requested that Kevin hands over the NDoc project to you. That is great! - THANKS! - As on sourceforge nothing changed (Kevin is still listed as admin) I just want to ask if there are any news?
Did Kevin reply to your request? - What are you planning?
Regards
Frank
August 13th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Doug and I have contacted Kevin several times to request that he hand the project over. Our requests have gone unanswered. To Kevin’s credit, I’d like to think that he’s just been swamped with emails. But I’m a little afraid that he’s just washed his hands of it completely.
We’ll continue to try until Kevin either gives us the project or hands it over to someone else — at which point Doug and I will be the first to sign up to help.
I’ll keep you posted. If you hear anything though the grapvine in the meantime, please let me know.
August 14th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I’ll give my vote to someone else handling the project. If you’re going to give it up, you need to hand it over. If nothing else, maybe you could take the source and rename the project? I’m sure it wouldn’t take long for it to take off.
-Doug
August 16th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
I’ve never developed any open source applications, but with over 10 years experience in the PC Desktop development world, I think it’s time I should ‘give back’ to the community. I’m putting my hand up (along with anybody else) to be involved in bringing this project back to life. It is a more mature product than Sandcastle, the output looks better, and it has a user interface. I realize that Sandcastle is beta, but I can’t use it in it’s current state. I am using NDoc today for .net 2.0. Is there any chance of picking up the recent source code release from Jonas Lagerblad? Feel free to email me on ‘paul at sigmasix dot co dot nz’
August 17th, 2006 at 11:05 am
No progress yet on getting anything from Kevin, perhaps we can try Jonas and see if that’s more effective. I guess it’s possible that Kevin has already selected another owner and we just don’t know it yet, although I haven’t heard any rumors of this.
In any event, if we make progress I will definately be in touch. If you hear anything, let me know, as we’d like to help out in any capacity.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:38 am
About the no response from Kevin. If somebody picks up the slack, wouldn’t that prove him wrong? And if the project stays dead?
Old habbits die hard.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Very true. It may be time to investigate other alternatives in reviving the project.