[BETA] Hubitat Package Manager

@sburke781 mentioned above he put in a pull request to remove Mirco's repository, which I believe happened because I don't see it in my repository list. You can verify this by going to Package Manager Settings, Available Repositories and see if you can find Microlino in there. Again I don't see it but that said I have never installed any of his apps or drivers. You might need to uninstall any that you have.

That's correct, @dman2306 merged that change, so Mirco's repository should no longer show up I would think.

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It took me a while and I forgot after you "install" the code, you need then to go back and "Add" the User App (much the same way you will have to with the apps that get added by the Package Manager)

I think it's a bug. Admittedly, I didn't plan ahead very well for developers who were going to have the "I'm taking my marbles and going home" type of attitude :frowning: . I incorrectly assumed that if a dev stopped updating his/her code, they'd just stop publishing updates, not remove their existing code. That said, it's now happened multiple times so clearly it's a reality. I'll have to add some defensive code.

It shouldn't break anything though, the Match Up should still work. Is it for you?

If you go to Package Manager Settings, then click Next, it should remove his repo from your locally cached list. The error should vanish at that point.

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Well it's valid JSON so that's not the problem. Only thing that stands out is

   "communityLink": "https://community.hubitat.com/...",

not being a valid link.

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In fairness - and just as a possible explanation of marbles going home - while working on a driver for Drupal a shared repository disappeared and upset about 8 of us that were busy on a complex app. We learned the owner of the repository had died and his work was confiscated by his organization...

the end of the story - the repo reappeared later but under a different name, but all dev worked stopped for months !!!

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Several devs have notified the community of their intention to stop using Hubitat and take down their code from GitHub. Mircolino was one of them.

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Yeah, things like that happen of course. But that's not what we're talking about here. I know of multiple developers who literally said things like "I'm angry at Mr. XYZ in the Hubitat staff, I'm done with this platform, and I'm deleting all of my code to teach them a lesson!" or words pretty much to that effect. It's happened 5-6 times now. Not sure if mircolino was quite as childish as I characterized there, I don't know the story, but I know he decided he was done with Hubitat and deleted all of his code off of github.

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I'm hearing you all - I am not up on the 'tudes surrounding hE, I was responding to the 'plan ahead for devs who ... ' leave part. I agree - PD code, and community shared code should get archived like the time machine thingy does for news... but I'm haven't really heard much yet from the other side of the story. I'd read a few "endings" of how folks have moved on and moved away from HE - I guess it just goes with the territory.

Is it possible to fork all HPM submitted code as a backup? is that legal? is it even necessary? hmm...NM! I don't want to know more :slight_smile:

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That is the part that pisses me off - from a philosophical standpoint. Of course any author can do as they will, but that doesn't make the actions any less childish.

I only use Hubitat for limited things these days (only because a few other things suit my individual needs better - not because Hubitat is bad), but I'm not going and pulling down all my code like a petulant kid that takes his ball and goes home when he doesn't get his way.

If I decide not to support any code in the future I would put a note to that effect in the code, and encourage others to fork it/continue it - but I wouldn't pull it down.

I think a lot of people are getting COVID derangement syndrome from being cooped up too long.

Anyway. No one asked my opinion, but I had a free minute over lunch. :slight_smile:

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Yes, but you don’t need to fork to back it up. A fork is for taking the code in a different direction. Just copy it to your personal repo and back it up on your pc.

It’s open source, so yes. Just don’t turn around and publish it as your own work (credit goes to the author) as that is at the very least immoral.

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Depends on the license covering the code.

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100%. All I can say to that is, can I guarantee I'll maintain my code years from now? No. Can I think of a scenario where I'll take down all of my code? Nope? My reasoning? I'm not 12 :slight_smile:

The thing with any of these solutions, forking, cloning, anything else really, it's not going to automatically grab changes. So if the original author makes changes, your fork doesn't automatically update those.

HPM is released under the BSD license which essentially means you can't change the license to something else, and you need to maintain the copyright message. Beyond that, anyone can do as they see fit.

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Is there a thread somewhere that summarizes this drama? I'm unfamiliar with the context surrounding this discussion of Microlino.

I don't know. I really have no idea about his specific situation at all.

My comments were more general about authors that pull down their code when they leave, which has happened multiple times.

For my part, the staff have all been very professional with me, and quite accommodating and helpful. Now, I will say that I don't always get exactly what I want all the time, but I don't consider "getting what I want all the time" as my basis for my like/dislike of someone or a company... That would be childish.

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For me I see a difference between saying "I don't like the company, I won't give you my business anymore" (totally reasonable) vs. "I don't like the company, so I'm going to hurt the patrons of that company." The difference between having a bad experience at a restaurant and deciding not to eat there again vs. making a big scene and ruining the experience for everyone else who was enjoying themselves.

Anyway though, to bring the thread back on topic, since clearly this DOES happen and continues to happen, I'm going to make sure HPM handles the situation well.

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Not anymore. He asked that his forum account be deleted. Apparently this caused all threads he created to disappear. I’m not sure that was an expected result, though.

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Apologies up front @dman2306, I'm not wanting to prolong the conversation around Mirco's departure on this unrelated thread, but I would like to at least record my understanding of the events, having been in contact with him as I took over the EcoWitt drivers. If anyone wants to discuss it with me further, please send me a PM.

Mirco was enjoying his experience with HE less and less in recent times, with much of that stemming from restrictions around capture of HTML text in driver preferences (I think), and his experience in following up on this with HE staff. Make what you will about his decision and the reasons why, that's not so much what I want to clarify.

He did write a relatively lengthy post on the old EcoWitt thread once he had made this decision, outlining his reasons and offering for anyone to get in touch and fork the code so that it could continue to live on for those still using it. I and a few others took him up on this offer. I took the reigns as the developer going forward (self-appointed :slight_smile: ). Mirco helped guide me through setting up the drivers and other content in my own forked version of the code and making this available again in HPM, even following up with me when he noticed I had posted about some issues I was working through.

@marktheknife is right, the removal of the EcoWitt thread was not something Mirco expected, he was not aware that would happen when he asked for his account to be removed. Apparently it is the way Discourse works, the platform used to run the Community.

The reason I have laboured each of these points is that I feel it is unfair to label Mirco as someone who left us in the lurch by moving on, removing his code from GitHub. I have found him to be someone who, whilst choosing to move on from the system he has used / developed, has still been more than happy to help see the that code continue to exist for others to use and enjoy. Some may say it was a little abrupt / quick, and maybe it was, but I don't think that is a reason to paint him the light he has been earlier in this thread.

Like I said, I don't want to spark further conversation on this, that is not the purpose of this thread, I simply wanted to put forward my own experience, understanding and opinion like everyone else. If I've changed your opinion, that's great, if not, that's fine as well. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, I just wanted people to have a little more information to base their's on.

Let's get back to enjoying how great HPM is.... :slight_smile:

Simon

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Thank you for that explanation @sburke781 - I think you should be an Ambassador! It's comforting to see a community member step up and clear the air and help clear someones name like that.

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Random question.... :slight_smile: If I had a repository that continued to produce errors trying to search for updates automatically via HPM, but no longer appears in the list of repositories, is there a way to correct this....