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I'm arguing that he's not a rando because the whole premise of this discussion is based on the idea that you (a user) want to use his work. Yes, that does disti

I'm arguing that he's not a rando because the whole premise of this discussion is based on the idea that you (a user) want to use his work. Yes, that does distinguish him apart as the "28 million randos with a GitHub account". You seem to be arguing that the analogy is bad because there is no check on his behavior, I don't know why this is a necessary condition, but it's not true anyway, there's the same check as in the analogy: reputation. If I deny access to someone to my pool for no reason or a bad reason, my reputation will suffer in the community. It's the same thing in open source. That is why it is often described by people as a community. I don't think I did understand it poorly. Using a word like "gross" denotes a certain emotion. They also said, "I would rather use non-free software than risk being sued just for being a user." This makes it sound like getting "sued for just being a user", in other words, unreasonably, is likely. All I'm saying is that I don't think that risk is as high as OP is making it seem, especially if you're not a bad neighbor, which I think is a reasonable thing for Zed to expect.

wpietri 8y ago
No, the whole premise of this discussion is that somebody wants to use a piece of open-source software. Very few people do deep background research on the authors of a package before using it. So for the purposes of this discussion, to most people the author is not distinguished from any other open source author. I'm arguing the analogy is bad because it is not congruent to the circumstance. Zed Shaw does not have a personal, reciprocal relationship with everybody who sees that package and thinks about using it. One does have a personal, reciprocal relationship with the neighbor using one's pool. (Reputation is possibly a consideration, but strongly secondary.) > This makes it sound like getting "sued for just being a user", in other words, unreasonably, is likely. No. It makes it sound like a possibility. Which it is, or the clause wouldn't be there. A possibility of an unknown frequency but with significant risk, so worth considering during license examination.

wpietri 8y ago

No, the whole premise of this discussion is that somebody wants to use a piece of open-source software. Very few people do deep background research on the authors of a package before using it. So for the purposes of this discussion, to most people the author is not distinguished from any other open source author. I'm arguing the analogy is bad because it is not congruent to the circumstance. Zed Shaw does not have a personal, reciprocal relationship with everybody who sees that package and thinks about using it. One does have a personal, reciprocal relationship with the neighbor using one's pool. (Reputation is possibly a consideration, but strongly secondary.) > This makes it sound like getting "sued for just being a user", in other words, unreasonably, is likely. No. It makes it sound like a possibility. Which it is, or the clause wouldn't be there. A possibility of an unknown frequency but with significant risk, so worth considering during license examination.