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I think what you're saying is true in the case of someone just throwing up some code they wrote online without any plan of supporting or developing it further.

I think what you're saying is true in the case of someone just throwing up some code they wrote online without any plan of supporting or developing it further. But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. The user is choosing to use it over other alternatives and investing time learning and integrating it, so it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me for them to be frustrated when they realize that due to some bug or limitation it doesn't actually solve the problem for them that it claims to. As an analogy, if you give someone free food and it makes them sick, are they justified in getting mad at you? I think most people would say yes. IANAL but I'd imagine that if you got food poisoning from Ben & Jerry's free cone day due to negligent sanitation practices or something, you could probably sue the company just like if you had paid for it. Or, if a member of some sort of volunteer community board is doing a bad job, people will complain about it. An open source maintainer is basically in the same position. Of course, that's no excuse for being rude to them, but you also shouldn't be rude if you paid for something and it doesn't work. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything to reduce hostility towards maintainers when it happens. But it's not true, in open source software or anywhere else, that just because something is free there are automatically no expectations around it.

nickthemagicman 8y ago
I think theres absolutely zero implicit contract that implies that open source software maintainers owe ANYone ANYthing at ANYtime. That's the reason it's open source because everyone can fix it, all an open source maintainer owes you is a P.R. review. Therefore if an open source project maintainer is giving you their time and patience then you better be extra polite and grateful to them. If Ben and Jerrys left a bunch of ice cream on the sidewalk and a bunch of people ate it and got sick then there would be zero liability on Ben and Jerrys.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- skishore 8y ago
  > If Ben and Jerrys left a bunch of ice cream on the sidewalk and a bunch of people ate it and got sick then there would be zero liability on Ben and Jerrys. Citation? That doesn't seem right, based on my anecdotal knowledge that restaurants take care to throw leftovers into a garbage bin rather than leave them out somewhere where someone could eat them and expose the business to liability. I looked up this claim myself. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act into law to limit liability for those who donate food. [1] The majority of restaurants still discard leftover food due to concerns over liability, though. [2] Clearly, liability was a real issue at some point in the past. I don't know enough about the current law to know how easy it is to take advantage of the new protections; I can understand why people are still concerned. In summary, liability issues vary by country and are not clear-cut. As an analogy for this open-source situation, they don't clarify matters. [1] https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602&context=sjsj https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?... [2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/restaurants-that-dont-donate-because-of-liability-are-just-making-excuses-experts-say_us_577d6f92e4b0344d514dd20f https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/restaurants-that-dont-d...
  - remind_me_again 8y ago
    I like reading comments, you never know what you'll learn. Guido is taking a break and I learn a bill about food donation.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    In your analogy you're citing a business. Then if you open source something you wrote, are you claiming you are a business? No matter how un/business-like the open source claim may be: has any money changed ownership between the parties in the course of the person writing and maintaining software vs the person using that software? If no business transaction has been formalized then why should either party be liable? Indeed, if a person is not permitted to simply say "this is the software I am using" without also becoming liable for problems caused when other people use or look at that software? I don't think it is right to allow a person to be liable just for the speech of their software. Fortunately, a lot of open source software is known to be open source because of a license file. Many open source licenses declare no liability or warranty of any kind. In that case, would not any liability claimed would be forfeit? Otherwise they would have been using the software in breach of its declared intended purpose at the point of time being talked about.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  > because everyone can fix it Nope, not everyone can. And not everyone using it can fix it. And certainly not everyone can fix something to the standards that maintainers might demand. > Therefore if an open source project maintainer is giving you their time and patience then you better be extra polite and grateful to them. If I'm bothering to try to help them with their project, they owe as much 'politeness' and 'gratitude' back to me as is expected of them. It's a (minimum) 2 way street.
  - dragandj 8y ago
    They might (morally) owe you this if they used your contributions. Otherwise, they owe you a (voluntary) politeness and gratitude that any human owes to any other human, but nothing more.
- lovich 8y ago
  That's not true in every case. For instance you need to keep pools fenced in, in most location as they are considered an attractive nuisance and you are liable if children jump into them and drown
- mtVessel 8y ago
  The next time someone asks me why I'm choosing a proprietary solution, rather than one of the many fine open-source options available, I'm just going to point them to this comment.
  - nickthemagicman 8y ago
    Perfect! If you're choosing open source software for the customer support then you're deff on the wrong track.
- anonytrary 8y ago
  > all an open source maintainer owes you is a P.R. review. What? Given what you said in your first sentence, this seems a bit contradictory. When I post some code online, nothing forces me to review PRs other than an implicit social contract. The likelihood of a rational person ignoring PRs/issues seems pretty low, since one typically wants improve their software. Nonetheless, it definitely happens for one reason or another and it's not something worth complaining about unless you're given some sort of a priori quality assurance. I'm sure there are thousands of projects on Github which have a 0% response rate for PRs/issues. This isn't bad -- it just is. It's entirely someone's right to post a project and forget about it, regardless of how popular it got later on. Radio-silent projects will almost never get popular, since there's an implicit meta contract around support, feedback, etc.
Senderman 8y ago
You open implying that the original commenter's grievance in untrue outside of "throwing up some code," but at the end you say the opposite, and agree that it's "no excuse for being rude to them." I think you agree the original comment basically represents the truth, but you want to offer an elaboration on the complexities -- that's great, but why present your comment as a rebuttal? I like your point about 'payment' not being a magic excuse for switching from not-rude to rude. I don't accept the food analogy. You need food to survive, and you might need it free if you get stuck in life. You don't need free software - it's a bonus. You mentioned the food-poisoning suing example - IA(also)NAL but if you put free software online without everybody's favourite "AS IS" block at the top, I believe you're on the hook if your software doesn't behave properly, so it looks to me like the law agrees with your notions. Personally, I find the expectations over people offering software for free to be, broadly speaking, obnoxious - I definitely have a chip on my shoulder about it and I know that's coming out in this comment, so, apologies for the out of the blue railroading; your comment is the one that got me to articulate all the above, so, thanks.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > IA(also)NAL but if you put free software online without everybody's favourite "AS IS" block at the top, I believe you're on the hook if your software doesn't behave properly That's a complex question about implied warranty that probably is affected by whether or not you are meet the legal standard to be considered a merchant of the type of good/service provided and other factors (and the AS IS block definitely discourages people to sue, but you may not actually be able to disclaim the warranty involved, so it may not get you off the hook.)
dragandj 8y ago
That depends on the license. Most open source licenses state explicitly that you use the software at your own risk, and that the author promises you nothing and owes you nothing.
ranit 8y ago
So, we insist open-source software developers to keep their "implicit contract", but we (as society) allow companies to buy companies that develop and maintain open-source to close-source it or just close the entire establishment? Without legal consequences.
- leoc 8y ago
  Companies that shut down open-source dev teams are at least usually honest that that's what they're doing at the time that they do it. Open-source projects that actively evangelise—by extolling their community and documentation, presenting polished websites, in-app screenshots and shiny video demonstrations—then fail to make an adequate effort to serve and relate to the userbase the project has intentionally drummed up are not being similarly honest. If you don't want to serve the users, quit or turn off the evangelisation.
  - ranit 8y ago
    > If you don't want to serve the users ... I don't understand how Guido van Rossum's message was interpreted as "he doesn't want to serve the users". His message said (to me) that he will continue, but he will not make decisions. > Companies that shut down open-source dev teams are at least usually honest that that's what they're doing at the time that they do it. This sentence implies that Guido van Rossum did something worse (than these companies) today. Is this what you are saying or I misunderstood? BTW: I don't know him personally. I don't use Python regularly and I don't have any knowledge or position on Python's developers struggles and disagreements (if there are any).
    - leoc 8y ago
      I'm not commenting on GvR or GvR's behaviour at all. The discussion took a more general turn, with people seriously suggesting that the developers/maintainers of high-profile, publicly-evangelised open-source projects don't have any ethical duty to support or engage politely with their user base even while still in post. Obviously van Rossum is completely entitled to step down, certainly since there will be others to pick up the reins.
ballenf 8y ago
> if you give someone free food and it makes them sick, are they justified in getting mad at you? I think most people would say yes. It's is more like people having an allergic reaction to otherwise perfectly safe and free food and complaining that you didn't take their allergy into account. And that you should go buy them some more food but made without the offending ingredient and with the sauce on the side.
brown9-2 8y ago
This implicit contract idea is bunk and can’t be proved by analogies.
hodgesrm 8y ago
> But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. The user is choosing to use it over other alternatives and investing time learning and integrating it, so it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me for them to be frustrated when they realize that due to some bug or limitation it doesn't actually solve the problem for them that it claims to. Actually it does seem unreasonable to get irate at the developers when fitness for use is explicit in the license that enables use of the software in the first place. Open source licenses in general and the Python license in particular are very clear about this. The Python 3.7 license has the following term in section 4: 4. PSF is making Python 3.7.0 available to Licensee on an "AS IS" basis. PSF MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PSF MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON 3.7.0 WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. If you use Python 3.7.0 and it displeases you, that's just part of the deal. On the other hand you do have the right to make your own copy and fix it to serve your purposes. Edit: fixed typo
skookumchuck 8y ago
A contract requires an exchange of value in order to be binding. Using free software has no exchange of value, so there is no contract, implied or otherwise. IANAL
- jodrellblank 8y ago
  Free software has no value, you claim?
  - webmaven 8y ago
    No, he's claiming that regardless of the value of the software, the user provided no consideration, no value in exchange for the software.
nostrademons 8y ago
Most open-source licenses explicitly say that the software is provided as-is, and there is no warranty, express or implied, nor any obligation to continue to provide support or for it even to work. https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html The user is indeed choosing to use it over other alternatives; they are choosing to use it, and should make that choice on the basis of their own evaluation of the functionality and stability of the library.
- webmaven 8y ago
  > Most open-source licenses explicitly say that the software is provided as-is, and there is no warranty, express or implied, nor any obligation to continue to provide support or for it even to work. Certainly, but notwithstanding those disclaimers, if the project's README or homepage describes it as intended and fit for a particular purpose, the user invests some time into learning to use the code in question based on the description, and it turns out that the description was... shall we say, overly optimistic, isn't the user entitled to be pissed off at the maintainer? There may not be any legal liability, but the maintainer can incur social obligations by fostering expectations. As an analogy, what do you think will happen if you tell someone you will help them move their stuff to a new apartment and that you'll bring a dolly, but you bail on them, or even just don't show up[0]? They chose to rely on you to provide the dolly rather than find some other alternative, after all. So of course social obligations aren't something you can be sued over, but they are indeed real, and ignoring or violating them does have a cost: People get pissed off at you, which they may choose to express uncouthly in your general direction or vicinity, and your reputation suffers. It is worth noting that this is far from a blank check for them to hurl invective at you. Their reputation may suffer as well, depending on just how uncouth they are. Such is life. [0] I am NOT saying that GvR has done the equivalent. In point of fact, he has left no outstanding commitments behind, and has fostered the growth of a robust group of core committers that are well up to the task of continuing to steer the project in his stead, though perhaps without his particular aesthetic sense.
Retra 8y ago
>But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. Not at all. If I do all that, maybe I just did it for practice? Maybe I get bored or RSI and quit developing software? Nobody owes you anything, regardless of what they've offered you prior.

nickthemagicman 8y ago

I think theres absolutely zero implicit contract that implies that open source software maintainers owe ANYone ANYthing at ANYtime. That's the reason it's open source because everyone can fix it, all an open source maintainer owes you is a P.R. review. Therefore if an open source project maintainer is giving you their time and patience then you better be extra polite and grateful to them. If Ben and Jerrys left a bunch of ice cream on the sidewalk and a bunch of people ate it and got sick then there would be zero liability on Ben and Jerrys.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
skishore 8y ago
> If Ben and Jerrys left a bunch of ice cream on the sidewalk and a bunch of people ate it and got sick then there would be zero liability on Ben and Jerrys. Citation? That doesn't seem right, based on my anecdotal knowledge that restaurants take care to throw leftovers into a garbage bin rather than leave them out somewhere where someone could eat them and expose the business to liability. I looked up this claim myself. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act into law to limit liability for those who donate food. [1] The majority of restaurants still discard leftover food due to concerns over liability, though. [2] Clearly, liability was a real issue at some point in the past. I don't know enough about the current law to know how easy it is to take advantage of the new protections; I can understand why people are still concerned. In summary, liability issues vary by country and are not clear-cut. As an analogy for this open-source situation, they don't clarify matters. [1] https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1602&context=sjsj https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?... [2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/restaurants-that-dont-donate-because-of-liability-are-just-making-excuses-experts-say_us_577d6f92e4b0344d514dd20f https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/restaurants-that-dont-d...
- remind_me_again 8y ago
  I like reading comments, you never know what you'll learn. Guido is taking a break and I learn a bill about food donation.
- inetknght 8y ago
  In your analogy you're citing a business. Then if you open source something you wrote, are you claiming you are a business? No matter how un/business-like the open source claim may be: has any money changed ownership between the parties in the course of the person writing and maintaining software vs the person using that software? If no business transaction has been formalized then why should either party be liable? Indeed, if a person is not permitted to simply say "this is the software I am using" without also becoming liable for problems caused when other people use or look at that software? I don't think it is right to allow a person to be liable just for the speech of their software. Fortunately, a lot of open source software is known to be open source because of a license file. Many open source licenses declare no liability or warranty of any kind. In that case, would not any liability claimed would be forfeit? Otherwise they would have been using the software in breach of its declared intended purpose at the point of time being talked about.
mgkimsal 8y ago
> because everyone can fix it Nope, not everyone can. And not everyone using it can fix it. And certainly not everyone can fix something to the standards that maintainers might demand. > Therefore if an open source project maintainer is giving you their time and patience then you better be extra polite and grateful to them. If I'm bothering to try to help them with their project, they owe as much 'politeness' and 'gratitude' back to me as is expected of them. It's a (minimum) 2 way street.
- dragandj 8y ago
  They might (morally) owe you this if they used your contributions. Otherwise, they owe you a (voluntary) politeness and gratitude that any human owes to any other human, but nothing more.
lovich 8y ago
That's not true in every case. For instance you need to keep pools fenced in, in most location as they are considered an attractive nuisance and you are liable if children jump into them and drown
mtVessel 8y ago
The next time someone asks me why I'm choosing a proprietary solution, rather than one of the many fine open-source options available, I'm just going to point them to this comment.
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  Perfect! If you're choosing open source software for the customer support then you're deff on the wrong track.
anonytrary 8y ago
> all an open source maintainer owes you is a P.R. review. What? Given what you said in your first sentence, this seems a bit contradictory. When I post some code online, nothing forces me to review PRs other than an implicit social contract. The likelihood of a rational person ignoring PRs/issues seems pretty low, since one typically wants improve their software. Nonetheless, it definitely happens for one reason or another and it's not something worth complaining about unless you're given some sort of a priori quality assurance. I'm sure there are thousands of projects on Github which have a 0% response rate for PRs/issues. This isn't bad -- it just is. It's entirely someone's right to post a project and forget about it, regardless of how popular it got later on. Radio-silent projects will almost never get popular, since there's an implicit meta contract around support, feedback, etc.

Senderman 8y ago

You open implying that the original commenter's grievance in untrue outside of "throwing up some code," but at the end you say the opposite, and agree that it's "no excuse for being rude to them." I think you agree the original comment basically represents the truth, but you want to offer an elaboration on the complexities -- that's great, but why present your comment as a rebuttal? I like your point about 'payment' not being a magic excuse for switching from not-rude to rude. I don't accept the food analogy. You need food to survive, and you might need it free if you get stuck in life. You don't need free software - it's a bonus. You mentioned the food-poisoning suing example - IA(also)NAL but if you put free software online without everybody's favourite "AS IS" block at the top, I believe you're on the hook if your software doesn't behave properly, so it looks to me like the law agrees with your notions. Personally, I find the expectations over people offering software for free to be, broadly speaking, obnoxious - I definitely have a chip on my shoulder about it and I know that's coming out in this comment, so, apologies for the out of the blue railroading; your comment is the one that got me to articulate all the above, so, thanks.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> IA(also)NAL but if you put free software online without everybody's favourite "AS IS" block at the top, I believe you're on the hook if your software doesn't behave properly That's a complex question about implied warranty that probably is affected by whether or not you are meet the legal standard to be considered a merchant of the type of good/service provided and other factors (and the AS IS block definitely discourages people to sue, but you may not actually be able to disclaim the warranty involved, so it may not get you off the hook.)

dragandj 8y ago

That depends on the license. Most open source licenses state explicitly that you use the software at your own risk, and that the author promises you nothing and owes you nothing.

ranit 8y ago

So, we insist open-source software developers to keep their "implicit contract", but we (as society) allow companies to buy companies that develop and maintain open-source to close-source it or just close the entire establishment? Without legal consequences.

leoc 8y ago
Companies that shut down open-source dev teams are at least usually honest that that's what they're doing at the time that they do it. Open-source projects that actively evangelise—by extolling their community and documentation, presenting polished websites, in-app screenshots and shiny video demonstrations—then fail to make an adequate effort to serve and relate to the userbase the project has intentionally drummed up are not being similarly honest. If you don't want to serve the users, quit or turn off the evangelisation.
- ranit 8y ago
  > If you don't want to serve the users ... I don't understand how Guido van Rossum's message was interpreted as "he doesn't want to serve the users". His message said (to me) that he will continue, but he will not make decisions. > Companies that shut down open-source dev teams are at least usually honest that that's what they're doing at the time that they do it. This sentence implies that Guido van Rossum did something worse (than these companies) today. Is this what you are saying or I misunderstood? BTW: I don't know him personally. I don't use Python regularly and I don't have any knowledge or position on Python's developers struggles and disagreements (if there are any).
  - leoc 8y ago
    I'm not commenting on GvR or GvR's behaviour at all. The discussion took a more general turn, with people seriously suggesting that the developers/maintainers of high-profile, publicly-evangelised open-source projects don't have any ethical duty to support or engage politely with their user base even while still in post. Obviously van Rossum is completely entitled to step down, certainly since there will be others to pick up the reins.

ballenf 8y ago

> if you give someone free food and it makes them sick, are they justified in getting mad at you? I think most people would say yes. It's is more like people having an allergic reaction to otherwise perfectly safe and free food and complaining that you didn't take their allergy into account. And that you should go buy them some more food but made without the offending ingredient and with the sauce on the side.

brown9-2 8y ago

This implicit contract idea is bunk and can’t be proved by analogies.

hodgesrm 8y ago

> But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. The user is choosing to use it over other alternatives and investing time learning and integrating it, so it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me for them to be frustrated when they realize that due to some bug or limitation it doesn't actually solve the problem for them that it claims to. Actually it does seem unreasonable to get irate at the developers when fitness for use is explicit in the license that enables use of the software in the first place. Open source licenses in general and the Python license in particular are very clear about this. The Python 3.7 license has the following term in section 4: 4. PSF is making Python 3.7.0 available to Licensee on an "AS IS" basis. PSF MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PSF MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON 3.7.0 WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. If you use Python 3.7.0 and it displeases you, that's just part of the deal. On the other hand you do have the right to make your own copy and fix it to serve your purposes. Edit: fixed typo

skookumchuck 8y ago

A contract requires an exchange of value in order to be binding. Using free software has no exchange of value, so there is no contract, implied or otherwise. IANAL

jodrellblank 8y ago
Free software has no value, you claim?
- webmaven 8y ago
  No, he's claiming that regardless of the value of the software, the user provided no consideration, no value in exchange for the software.

nostrademons 8y ago

Most open-source licenses explicitly say that the software is provided as-is, and there is no warranty, express or implied, nor any obligation to continue to provide support or for it even to work. https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html The user is indeed choosing to use it over other alternatives; they are choosing to use it, and should make that choice on the basis of their own evaluation of the functionality and stability of the library.

webmaven 8y ago
> Most open-source licenses explicitly say that the software is provided as-is, and there is no warranty, express or implied, nor any obligation to continue to provide support or for it even to work. Certainly, but notwithstanding those disclaimers, if the project's README or homepage describes it as intended and fit for a particular purpose, the user invests some time into learning to use the code in question based on the description, and it turns out that the description was... shall we say, overly optimistic, isn't the user entitled to be pissed off at the maintainer? There may not be any legal liability, but the maintainer can incur social obligations by fostering expectations. As an analogy, what do you think will happen if you tell someone you will help them move their stuff to a new apartment and that you'll bring a dolly, but you bail on them, or even just don't show up[0]? They chose to rely on you to provide the dolly rather than find some other alternative, after all. So of course social obligations aren't something you can be sued over, but they are indeed real, and ignoring or violating them does have a cost: People get pissed off at you, which they may choose to express uncouthly in your general direction or vicinity, and your reputation suffers. It is worth noting that this is far from a blank check for them to hurl invective at you. Their reputation may suffer as well, depending on just how uncouth they are. Such is life. [0] I am NOT saying that GvR has done the equivalent. In point of fact, he has left no outstanding commitments behind, and has fostered the growth of a robust group of core committers that are well up to the task of continuing to steer the project in his stead, though perhaps without his particular aesthetic sense.

Retra 8y ago

>But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. Not at all. If I do all that, maybe I just did it for practice? Maybe I get bored or RSI and quit developing software? Nobody owes you anything, regardless of what they've offered you prior.