Peeking into an open source package
A blog posting catches my eye, I decide to take a look. A one-person piece of software on a private git server, I clone it. Instructions are minimal, but tell me to run one script to build it, I run it, it fails with a huge error dump in package dependencies inside a framework inside building a Docker image. I look at the “issues” page and decide to lodge one. I can’t register because it never sends me the confirmation email. I write to the author and send them the error dump. They reply, “that’s interesting, I’ll lodge an issue about it.” No hints on how to proceed. Some days later and there’s no issue lodged. Another day passes and I try a git pull to see if there are updates, the server now has an invalid certificate from some other part of the site. Try to view the blog and now firefox refuses to show the blog due to certificate errors. I have visions of the author running in circles as the world falls apart around them and chaos claims their website.
