[HN Gopher] Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer
        
       Author : elvis70
       Score  : 573 points
       Date   : 2021-03-13 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (roy.marples.name)
 (TXT) w3m dump (roy.marples.name)
        
       | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
       | He came over to NetBSD from Gentoo a number of years ago,
       | bringing dhcpd with him. An excellent acquisition for NetBSD. He
       | has been a dedicated and thoughtful BSD developer. This is very
       | sad news.
        
         | kblev wrote:
         | Was this a paid job or volunteer?
        
           | xianwen wrote:
           | Volunteer.
        
       | kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:
       | :(
        
       | CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
       | A reminder that there's always a person behind software. It's
       | been a few years but for a long time I used OpenRC and dhcpcd,
       | made possible by Roy working away in the background. No matter
       | what happens with his cancer, I'll always be grateful for that.
        
       | KennyFromIT wrote:
       | Messages like these are so sad to read. The world will never
       | realize how many people are working tirelessly behind the scenes
       | to keep society moving forward.
       | 
       | Cheers to all of the silent (and sometimes not so silent) people
       | that continue to give of themselves to make this world a more
       | wonderful place in their own little way. You all are awesome and
       | we literally couldn't go on with our way of life without you.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | I call this "Postel decentralisation": everyone thinks there's
         | some kind of system or institution making everything work, but
         | in fact there's just a guy doing it all on his own.
        
           | Fordec wrote:
           | There's always a relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2347/
        
           | caslon wrote:
           | Interestingly, you seem to be the only person on the World
           | Wide Web to ever have used that phrase (three times over
           | three years?), but it's such a perfect description of such a
           | common phenomenon that I'm pretty sure its propagation could
           | save hours of time in typing for nerds on the Web.
        
           | AceJohnny2 wrote:
           | What does "Postel" refer to?
        
             | zeckalpha wrote:
             | Jon
        
             | sterlind wrote:
             | Presumably Jon Postel, who co-authored many RFCs
             | foundational to the internet such as TCP, IP and DNS. As a
             | single person he was very involved in the internet's
             | architecture.
        
           | smhost wrote:
           | i mean, even within institutions, it's usually just some
           | person hacking away behind the scene. what else would it be?
        
           | nealabq wrote:
           | Relevant: http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP197/CCSWP197.html
           | 
           |  _Postel picked up the role of number coordinator because it
           | needed to be done._
        
         | politelemon wrote:
         | It's the closest, or at least one of the closest, things to
         | altruism in this field.
        
         | wslack wrote:
         | Nadia Eghbal's work and writing about this subject was eye
         | opening for me.
        
       | Rebelgecko wrote:
       | I've been using a website for 15 years or so that had a similar
       | situation. The creator/maintainer got a short prognosis, but made
       | an effort to ensure that his service would outlive him.
       | 
       | Even though I'll never meet Josh from Spamgourmet his work
       | continues to make my life a little bit easier on an almost daily
       | basis. I hope Roy's legacy is able to continue in the same way
       | and that he gets some comfort from that.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Dan Jezek died way too early and his family worked hard to keep
         | BrickLink alive - and now it will continue as it's under the
         | umbrella of the LEGO Group. https://www.danjezek.com/
        
         | jaynetics wrote:
         | I have used Spamgourmet almost since its inception. Maybe the
         | first great SaaS, and you couldn't help but immediately notice
         | it was built by a lovely person.
         | 
         | Despite having only months to live, Josh was working on a plan
         | to shut the site down in an orderly fashion as long as he was
         | still able to notify all users, but then his son stepped in and
         | took over part of the operation.
        
       | azornathogron wrote:
       | A tragic message.
       | 
       | > I have been dealing with cancer for some time and sadly the
       | treatment has not worked. My life expectancy is now fairly short.
       | 
       | I'm not sure what to say in response, since I don't know Roy.
       | Though the prognosis is bad, nothing is certain. I hope he and
       | his family gets as much time as possible.
        
         | 40four wrote:
         | Very difficult to read. I think the only thing to say in this
         | type of situation is to offer them whatever gratitude and love
         | you can.
        
         | spijdar wrote:
         | The blog post mentions one person at the clinic he's being
         | treated at has lived for 7 years on this treatment. Although
         | the median is much lower, unfortunately :(
         | 
         | Very sad to hear, even though (especially because?) I have
         | never heard of Roy before now but have used dhcpcd for many
         | years. I hope he gets as much time as possible, and enjoys what
         | he has left.
        
         | nextos wrote:
         | Besides, having a tumor during the pandemic is particularly
         | unfortunate as the standard of care has degraded mostly
         | everywhere. Sadly, I know first hand.
         | 
         | I hope he gets as much time as possible. Immunotherapies are
         | improving all the time.
        
           | imglorp wrote:
           | So tragic.
           | 
           | Generic cancer treatment in the US, with a few exceptions,
           | was already a horrifying, barbaric affair: unless you have a
           | cancer treatable with newer genetic or immune methods, it's
           | still approached with cut, burn, and poison, like it's been
           | for many decades, with varying results.
           | 
           | Add to that a constant battle at every step with insurance
           | for pre-authorization pitting your doctor against a
           | corporation, then fight against oppressive rules for pain
           | management, all possibly while a family struggles to care for
           | the sick person and worry about going to work to pay for it
           | all.
           | 
           | I can't imagine adding covid into the horror. Best of luck to
           | anyone facing this.
        
             | Teever wrote:
             | The developer's cancer blog seems to indicate that they
             | live in the UK and are receiving medical treatment from the
             | NHS.
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | > Besides, having a tumor during the pandemic is particularly
           | unfortunate as the standard of care has degraded mostly
           | everywhere.
           | 
           | Same here... I lost my dad to cancer at the height of the
           | first lockdown, and it was really painful to overhear the
           | oncologists that were treating him holding passionate
           | conversations about covid and nothing else. The nurses were
           | obviously overworked and did nothing else than provide
           | morphine. Cannot complain about the professionalism of the
           | care he received, given the circumstances. But I feel that I
           | could have spend a few weeks more with him if he had fallen
           | ill at a different time.
        
       | einpoklum wrote:
       | With many (most?) free software projects, implementing it and
       | getting it to a stable working condition is only a fraction of
       | the overall amount of work invested over time in maintaining the
       | thing.
       | 
       | Compilers change, system libraries change, operating systems
       | change, build systems change, language standards change and so on
       | - and you, who just wanted to write, say, a DHCP server you or
       | your organization needed at some point in life, tear yourself
       | away from your day job, your family, your current pursuits and
       | interests - which have likely not included fiddling with that old
       | piece of code you wrote all those years ago - and bringing it in
       | line what the current state of things.
       | 
       | Sisyphic work, which is usually rewarded mostly with complaints
       | about why the thing is not up to date. "But they only just broke
       | it! Do you expect me to spend my time also anticipating what
       | infernal subtle ways the rug is going to get pulled from under
       | me?" ... but you never tell people that.
       | 
       | You dutifully write your fix and re-publish (which can also be a
       | bunch more work, since the platforms for publishing your FOSS
       | project also change).
       | 
       | I salute you, Roy Marples!
       | 
       | (and I donated.)
        
       | dumbneurologist wrote:
       | This is such sad news.
       | 
       | > I did not accept this. I have young kids to watch grow up and a
       | loving wife to grow old with. Life and time are the two most
       | precious commodoties we will ever have.
       | 
       | As sorry as I am that his hopes were futile, time and again the
       | universe shows us how little it cares for these sentiments.
       | 
       | Regardless of what resources one might have to protest, we are
       | all slowly ground to dust.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | That's sad to hear, but to think about the situation a bit more
       | deeply, is DHCP software really something that needs
       | "maintenance"? The protocol is decades old and stable, and no
       | doubt the implementations in equally-old routers and other
       | equipment continues to function unchanged and interoperate with
       | much newer equipment.
        
         | spijdar wrote:
         | Yes, without a doubt -- network software especially needs at
         | least some maintenance to deal with security vulnerabilities.
         | I'll say that not all software needs constant security
         | supervision, but I think DHCP client/servers should. Among the
         | other duties of maintainers. Bless all those who take up the
         | thankless job...
        
         | bartvk wrote:
         | Of course it needs maintenance. Architectures change, packaging
         | methods change, software is started differently or earlier in
         | the boot process, etc.
        
         | mnd999 wrote:
         | It probably doesn't need many new features. But it needs
         | someone to release bug fixes, and ports to new architectures,
         | deal with CVEs etc.
        
         | bch wrote:
         | Browse his work[0] to see what's been going on with it. As a
         | NetBSD user, I'm always happy and impressed to see dhcpcd
         | getting the attention it does.
         | 
         | [0] https://roy.marples.name/cgit/dhcpcd.git/log/
        
       | anticristi wrote:
       | Wow! If I were in a similar situation, I don't think I would have
       | the strength to think about the future of my projects.
       | 
       | Such a sad message.
        
       | bch wrote:
       | Roy and his work are brilliant.
        
       | ronnier wrote:
       | I'd like to donate but the PayPal app just spins :-/
       | 
       | I'll try web
        
         | exhilaration wrote:
         | If the link doesn't work open the app or website and search for
         | @rsmarples
        
         | ronnier wrote:
         | Web worked if any of you are having the same issue
        
           | magnetic wrote:
           | Do you need a PayPal account or is there a "take my credit
           | card and check out as guest" option somewhere?
        
             | ronnier wrote:
             | Not sure. I already had an account.
        
       | dgellow wrote:
       | Fuck cancer :(
       | 
       | I don't know Roy but feel so sorry for him and his family.
        
       | bgorman wrote:
       | This guy is a machine. Roy fixed several bugs in dhcpcd that
       | allowed the megacorp I worked for to ship dhcpcd in millions of
       | devices. I donated.
        
         | moonbug wrote:
         | but did the megacorp?
        
           | kortilla wrote:
           | Unlikely. If you expect something different you're missing
           | the point of open source. Roy didn't have to fix anything if
           | he didn't want to.
        
             | ceejayoz wrote:
             | I mean, it's not a legal obligation, but it might be a
             | nicer world if we considered it an _ethical_ one.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | I think perhaps you mean "moral" rather than "ethical".
               | 
               | It is entirely ethical to use free software, even to
               | generate massive profits, without paying anyone anything.
               | That's literally the whole point of software freedom:
               | you're free.
        
       | Causality1 wrote:
       | It's very disappointing that a man can go to the doctor with a
       | rapidly growing lump and instead of cutting it out on the spot
       | they make him wait for months of tests to come back, after which
       | it's inoperable. Disgusting.
        
       | aeturnum wrote:
       | This is a sad reminder of the masses of invisible labor (unpaid
       | and paid) that hold up our world. Social scientists have been
       | studying how labor becomes visible (or invisible) for a while
       | without finding obvious solutions to "the situation."
       | 
       | How can we build a world where an infinite procession specialists
       | like Roy can get the care they need and also find and train
       | successors in their important work? Not just because we will all
       | die, but also because we might all want to retire or go on long
       | vacations or, even if we are good at it, change careers.
        
         | numpad0 wrote:
         | There's this half formed view I'm finding interesting: currency
         | based economy is one way to assign workforces in the Earthian
         | human society, but not the only way, and not just in
         | motivational sense, there truly are other ways, in existence or
         | to be studied/theorized or the world is in need of.
         | 
         | If I was super rich or in power I could gather and pay a group
         | of average people to make dhcpcd financially driven, but I
         | can't see that working.
        
         | numbsafari wrote:
         | Is there anything like an "Open Source Hall of Fame", for
         | recognizing and remembering significant contributors? It's not
         | perfect, but perhaps it is a way to at least preserve the
         | memory and the history.
        
           | einpoklum wrote:
           | Who is "significant"? If you make many people significant,
           | you have a hall of fame so big that nobody can remember
           | anybody. If you make few people significant, then most FOSS
           | labor is again performed by unsung heroes.
        
           | aerovistae wrote:
           | I think this is an amazing idea. This needs to exist.
        
           | david_allison wrote:
           | Google publishes a list a few times a year with their Open
           | Source Peer Bonus scheme:
           | 
           | https://opensource.google/docs/growing/peer-bonus/
           | 
           | https://opensource.googleblog.com/2020/10/announcing-
           | latest-...
        
           | stefan_ wrote:
           | Linux has the CREDITS file where you end up once you drop out
           | of maintainership of some subsystem:
           | 
           | https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/CREDITS
           | 
           | (e.g. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/054c4610bd05)
        
             | folkhack wrote:
             | Ha - the last comment on that CREDITS list is pretty funny
             | =)
             | 
             | Definitely worth the full scroll.
        
               | bombcar wrote:
               | Poor Leonard stuck at third to last - has to be a big hit
               | for someone with a name like that.
        
         | sjtindell wrote:
         | Just in my personal opinion, things like a UBI move us towards
         | that world. It wound allow people flexibility.
        
           | pm90 wrote:
           | UBI + Government funded, free healthcare for everyone.
           | 
           | It makes no sense that, with all the excess industrial supply
           | that we have today, that we refuse to provide a basic minimum
           | standard of living for all human beings.
        
             | fastball wrote:
             | The problem with healthcare is that "basic minimum" is
             | wildly subjective.
             | 
             | Healthcare is still _very_ expensive. There are diseases
             | (including cancer) we could easily spend millions per
             | patient on. Pulling out all the stops you could spend 10s
             | of millions. But we really _don 't_ have that kind of
             | societal overabundance, not yet.
             | 
             | So how much do you spend per patient? Are there certain
             | diseases that you don't spend any public money on because
             | the interventions are so expensive compared to success
             | rates? It's really not a simple set of decisions to make,
             | and those decisions _do_ need to be made (or more to the
             | point: agreed upon).
        
               | jdavis703 wrote:
               | This complexity was one of the major reasons the
               | Affordable Care Act's public option was eliminated. There
               | was going to be a group of people who made these
               | decisions. But when the public found out they were deemed
               | as "death panels" that would get to chose who would live
               | or die.
        
               | chrisbennet wrote:
               | As opposed to insurance companies determining who would
               | die?
        
               | AussieWog93 wrote:
               | The only reason it costs millions to treat cancer
               | patients is because of medical patents allowing companies
               | to extract profit margins of several thousand percent (or
               | more).
               | 
               | In countries like Australia, where drug companies have to
               | negotiate a fair price with a single government agency,
               | the cost of treatment is an order of magnitude lower.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | This is not true.
               | 
               | MRI machines are not expensive because of "patents". They
               | are expensive because they are _expensive devices_ that
               | utilize superconducting magnets which need a constant
               | supply of liquid helium.
               | 
               | Various drugs are expensive because (regardless of
               | patents) there aren't enough patients to justify mass-
               | production, so the price stays high. Sometimes even with
               | mass production drugs are hard enough to make that the
               | price _still_ stays high.
               | 
               | Doctors are not cheap to train, so their services will
               | always be expensive until we replace them with robots.
               | 
               | There are a plethora of reasons why medicine and
               | healthcare is expensive beyond "patents" - remove patents
               | from the equation and you can still _easily_ spend
               | millions per patient for various diseases.
        
               | jpetso wrote:
               | For diseases where there are just a handful of patients
               | requiring sky-high treatment prices, it would be worth
               | investigating whether society can spread their costs
               | among enough people that the costs are bearable anyway.
               | And 10 people yearly requiring a $10m (each) specialized
               | treatment would cost a population of 100 million
               | taxpayers a dollar each.
               | 
               | Of course, if these treatments are more common at the
               | same price, the social costs might be too high and we'd
               | have to let people live or die depending on their
               | financial situation or ability to fundraise.
        
               | cpach wrote:
               | Good point. Not only are physicians needed, nurses are
               | needed as well. They might be cheaper to train and hire
               | compared to physicians - OTOH, there are more of the them
               | and the numbers add up. Not all diseases can be cured by
               | simply taking a pill.
        
               | chadcmulligan wrote:
               | But millions per patient is the exception, most people
               | don't have that spent on them, thats why it averages out,
               | and why countries like Australia can afford public health
               | care.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | So Australia does not have any caps whatsoever on what
               | they will spend for disease X?
        
               | _Microft wrote:
               | What problems do you see beside the ones that basically
               | any country with a public health care system has (/has
               | solved)?
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | What do you mean? A country having implemented a
               | nationalized healthcare system does not mean the problem
               | in question has been "solved", it just means that
               | particular society has managed to agree where to draw the
               | line. But this does not guarantee the population at large
               | will continue agreeing indefinitely into the future.
        
               | _Microft wrote:
               | Umm... yes?
        
               | grecy wrote:
               | > _There are diseases (including cancer) we could easily
               | spend millions per patient on. Pulling out all the stops
               | you could spend 10s of millions. But we really don 't
               | have that kind of societal overabundance, not yet._
               | 
               | My Mum in Australia had a rare and aggressive form of
               | lung cancer, discovered at stage four.
               | 
               | She had almost three years of radiation, chemo, all the
               | associated drugs, scans, treatments and even two
               | different trial drugs.
               | 
               | She never paid a cent, all of it on Australia's standard
               | "heathcare for all".
               | 
               | If Australia and many other countries can manage it, then
               | more countries can too.
               | 
               | Anything less is just an excuse.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | The calculus is still not that simple. What if that
               | economic output could've instead been directed towards
               | better education for children, or reducing the use of
               | something which is known to cause cancer in the first
               | place (e.g. coal power plants)?
               | 
               | The decision is simple for you, because it's your mom.
               | The decision is not a simple one for a society.
               | 
               | We do _not_ yet live in a post-scarcity world. Spending
               | on one thing by necessity means less spending on
               | something else.
        
               | chadcmulligan wrote:
               | Australia has free education as well, and optional
               | private education. University is paid but fairly
               | reasonable, and there's a loan system, though it could be
               | better imho.
        
             | midasuni wrote:
             | Most (all?) advanced countries have government funded free
             | healthcare for everyone. It's UBI that's the hurdle.
        
               | paledot wrote:
               | All, by definition. Claiming to be a first world/advanced
               | nation without universal health care would be laughable
               | if it weren't so tragic. Maybe one day UBI will be the
               | same.
        
             | jimbob45 wrote:
             | In times of plenty, such socialism works well. In times of
             | struggle and famine, someone other than you gets to decide
             | how resources are allocated. Your hard work and instinct to
             | survive no longer belongs to you at that point. Many today
             | have only ever known times of plenty and think the USSR was
             | a failure because of selfish leaders, not because there
             | were genuinely hard decisions to make during struggle and
             | famine.
             | 
             | You see the narrative today being that whites don't deserve
             | what they have. Whites don't deserve their hard work
             | because it was built on empire building and slavery and
             | privilege. To me, this is being set up to cripple
             | capitalism, pretending that the hard work capitalism
             | encourages is somehow false or fake.
             | 
             | Yes, UBI would solve your problem in the short term.
             | However, I think proponents of UBI are deviously attempting
             | to downplay capitalism's benefits and entirely hiding UBI's
             | drawbacks when society is no longer as well off (e.g.
             | during wars)
        
           | winfred wrote:
           | The way I see it, we already have that world, with capitalism
           | functioning as a filter.
           | 
           | I worked my ass off to reach financial independence, now I'm
           | dedicating the rest of my life towards helping other people.
           | 
           | I've proven to be capable of using the system to a degree
           | where I can do whatever I want, which allows me the freedom
           | to help other people full time.
           | 
           | It's not a perfect system, but I doubt UBI will be much
           | better. At least capitalism filters out many of the people
           | who shouldn't be helping others.
           | 
           | Helping those in need isn't something everyone should be
           | doing. Not every needy person should be helped and helping
           | others in desperate need incurs a mental cost that's not easy
           | to carry.
        
             | duncan-donuts wrote:
             | Why should any single person carry the weight of the person
             | in desperate need? UBI + healthcare implies that there's a
             | social safety net that creates an entire network of people
             | to carry this weight. I don't have a clue if any
             | implementations would successfully do this but to just
             | throw people in desperate need to the wolves is inhumane.
        
             | einpoklum wrote:
             | > I worked my ass off to reach financial independence
             | 
             | This is a false pursuit, and in a sense a vacuous
             | statement.
             | 
             | You are never independent of society around you. You are in
             | constant need of others doing that invisible and visible
             | labor - in production and in services - to maintain your
             | way of life.
             | 
             | It's only with Capitalism being the way it is that you need
             | to "work your ass off" to not be financially dependent on
             | your parents, or at the risk of a crisis and collapse upon
             | losing your job etc.
        
             | wizzwizz4 wrote:
             | Much of that "desperate need" is _created_ , or _worsened_
             | , by capitalism.1
             | 
             | It isn't just a matter of "working hard". Say you're a
             | brilliantly capable developer for three months out of every
             | year, have around four months of chronic pain and bad
             | mental health unpredictably breaking up the remaining time.
             | Unless you're wealthy, capitalism doesn't let you get to a
             | situation where your bad mental health doesn't disrupt that
             | five month stretch where you could be doing worthwhile
             | things - even if you _would_ make enough money in those
             | three months to support yourself, when most of it 's going
             | into paying off the debt you got into because you lost your
             | job and _had to eat_ , it's difficult to do so.
             | 
             | Think this is a bit much? Okay, how about this: you're in
             | jail on suspicion of committing some crime or other. This
             | lasts 11/2 weeks, before they realise that no, actually,
             | you weren't guilty. But in the meantime, you've lost your
             | job, and without the savings you'd usually gather prior to
             | job-hopping... what then?
             | 
             | You might've worked really, really hard to get where you
             | are. For many, working really, really hard simply isn't
             | enough.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | 1: "Capitalism" here is shorthand for "society being
             | structured under the assumption that capitalism is a fully-
             | general ideal solution for allocating all resources, and
             | there are only a handful of narrow examples where it makes
             | sense to do something else". There's nothing inherent to
             | _capitalism_ that causes these things, any more than a
             | chainsaw is responsible for felled trees. But this is
             | pedantry, so I kept it out of the first sentence.
        
               | lovecg wrote:
               | > Much of that "desperate need" is created, or worsened,
               | by capitalism.
               | 
               | In what way? The life in general from the beginning of
               | history to quite recently was horrible for most people
               | most of the time. The explosion of worldwide wealth (for
               | every single person) over the last 300 years was for a
               | lack of a better word miraculous.
               | 
               | What are the "desperate needs" in your view, and what
               | magical system of government you're imagining that would
               | do much better?
        
           | smitty1e wrote:
           | Perhaps you're correct, and my cynicism misplaced.
        
           | aeturnum wrote:
           | I support UBI! I also suspect that we need to go beyond
           | universal benefits into grappling with the reality that
           | different people have different needs. We'll need to agree on
           | a way to discern which society should take on and which are
           | individual.
        
           | flatline wrote:
           | It would allow flexibility for those who can manage their
           | money successfully, and aren't horribly unlucky.
           | Unfortunately that population is relatively sparse - the
           | monthly stipend is going to be funneled into the pockets of
           | unscrupulous lenders as fast as you can say, "easy credit".
           | If it weren't the US, with our habit of lifestyle inflation
           | and tremendous consumer and educational debt, I'd be much
           | more optimistic about it.
           | 
           | Would it be better than what we have now? Possibly! I'm
           | fairly confident a real social safety net would be better. Or
           | tight regulations around all that liquidity in the market,
           | presumably pulled from elsewhere in the public coffers. At
           | the end of the day it still sounds like wealth redistribution
           | away from properly funded public works.
        
       | justincormack wrote:
       | Roy has been an incredibly helpful and dedicated maintainer,
       | always helping people use it. Its the best dhcp client I know of
       | too. Very best wishes in a difficult situation.
        
       | rasengan wrote:
       | Dear Roy,
       | 
       | It is unfortunate you are dealing with this. I am so sorry and
       | hope for the best. The Handshake founders had an airdrop pre
       | allocated for you in the Handshake Blockchain [1] so there is
       | about $64,000.00 in there that you can claim under marples.name
       | as of writing.
       | 
       | [1] https://dns.live/top.html
        
         | ldng wrote:
         | Maybe he has more urging matter than claiming this ? Thought
         | about the paperwork and taxes handling ? Could you do that for
         | him ?
        
         | sleavey wrote:
         | What does this mean? Did the founders decide Roy's work was
         | worthy of the coin donation?
        
           | joshuaissac wrote:
           | I do not entirely understand how it works, but I think they
           | allocated coins to users on GitHub based on certain metrics,
           | and also reserved names in the top 100k sites on Alexa.
           | 
           | I am not sure whether it is entirely automated, or if there
           | is a human element in the decision-making.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504592
        
       | tpmx wrote:
       | Has Roy been doing all of this essential maintenance work for
       | years without pay from some kind of corporate sponsor?
        
       | gigatexal wrote:
       | If there was ever a time for companies to step up it's now. I
       | feel terrible for his family. Donated what I could.
        
       | shadeslayer_ wrote:
       | This is so sad because if you read his blog post from January
       | 2021, he sounds so very hopeful and happy at the prospect of the
       | immunotherapy working. It sounds like he discovered a new lease
       | of life. Being thrown from that situation to the new prognosis
       | which is infinitely worse, sounds like a hammer blow.
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | Cancer requires clinging to glimmers of hope. Yes, he felt that
         | way at the time and yes, he wrote it down, but these
         | improbabilities are all anyone ever has, its not over till it's
         | over.
         | 
         | I read that post too, going from a tiny undetectable bump under
         | the skin that only his partner noticed, to unbearable pain
         | pressing against his spine making him unable to sleep and think
         | clearly.
         | 
         | It seems like 4 months were wasted just getting appointments.
        
           | genewitch wrote:
           | There's a progression that is "forced" when you get a cancer
           | diagnosis, especially if they have to surgically remove
           | anything. They won't start chemo or anything else for several
           | weeks post-op. It seems like you're trying to get
           | appointments or whatever, but realistically, they're getting
           | you in as soon as their liability (or patient care laws) says
           | they can. Stage III, stage IV, doesn't matter. If they
           | operate first, you're going to spend a lot of time waiting.
           | 
           | If you're an american, remember that FMLA only lasts a
           | quarter, so if you can go back to work after the surgery but
           | before the chemo i strongly suggest you do that if there's
           | any concern about insurance or whatever, since you're
           | probably going to want to sleep for the first few weeks worth
           | of chemo dosing. Good luck to 1/2 of the american population,
           | because that's the rate of cancer in the US.
        
           | 1996 wrote:
           | > It seems like 4 months were wasted just getting
           | appointments.
           | 
           | That's the NHS "free" healthcare at play.
           | 
           | Remember, you get what you pay for!
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | > _Cancer requires clinging to glimmers of hope._
           | 
           | Does it, though? Is there anything that suggests the mental
           | state of the patient is a factor in the efficacy of
           | treatment?
           | 
           | Pieter Hintjens has written a bit against the "fight" model.
        
             | alecst wrote:
             | A better mental state is its own reward, isn't it?
        
       | teddyh wrote:
       | https://xkcd.com/2347/
        
       | samblr wrote:
       | I believe open source work is amongst the greatest works of
       | charities ever. It is just staggering the amount of work that
       | goes building/maintainer open source. And I possibly wonder every
       | week on who are these wonderful people creating/maintaining them.
       | 
       | My heart goes to maintainer & family.
       | 
       | Everybody in this forum needs to do a bit.
       | 
       | Request everybody to donate generously via paypal mentioned in
       | the link.
        
         | samblr wrote:
         | @Dang : Could you please change the title to convey this
         | better.
         | 
         | 'Dhcpd will need a new maintainer' - doesn't tell the real
         | story.
        
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