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I don't understand the downvotes for this. I feel that by making something public and open source, there is an implicit assumption (unless otherwise stated) tha
by jryb 8y ago
I don't understand the downvotes for this. I feel that by making something public and open source, there is an implicit assumption (unless otherwise stated) that the software is worth sharing.
The problem is that this puts what I consider the right amount of responsibility squarely in the middle of a continuum: library authors shouldn't be totally free of obligations to others, but the insane abuse that people level against open source maintainers is also obviously unacceptable.
- watwut 8y agoThis rule accepted in general would mean that all students who put their homework on github are doing something wrong. Or that all professionals who just play around technology or mini projects are required to keep them secret until they are totally sure they will maintain it forever. That is just not workable and overly limited. While owner can not expect gratitude, the "I’ll work on this when I want, however much I want, and you should just take it or leave it" is absolutely fine and should be fine. Just because it exists on the internet does not entitle the rest of the world to anything.
- teddyh 8y agoUnlike what you seem to indicate, projects do imply a level of expected support and continual development by their projected image as given by their web pages, documentation, etc. If a developer/maintainer does not uphold this implied promise, users have a right to feel bamboozled.
- enraged_camel 8y agoStudents putting their homework on github is totally fine as long as they clearly state that in the readme.
- watwut 8y agoSo maybe assume no maintenance unless stated in readme.
- detaro 8y agoI disagree with the idea that software is only worth sharing if it is updated. I've found plenty of value in code that hasn't seen a single commit after initial release. I'd consider it a bad thing if the people that made it available to me got shamed into not publishing it.
- webmaven 8y agoWas the value you found use-value (ie. the software did something useful) or was the value to you more along the lines of "instructional" (ie. you learned something useful from studying it)? Because I've found that use-value often decays (or bit-rots) pretty quickly in unmaintained software, sometimes due to nothing more than changing packaging requirements.
- detaro 8y agoMixed. I guess most often library code that I integrated into my own projects, often by copy-paste instead of adding the entire project as a dependency. But I also have a folder full of random small utilities that I keep moving between my windows machines, and often is useful for years before it fails (Windows is probably more forgiving in that regard and provides a more long-term stable platform for existing binaries)