Meh, I think this attitude misses the some of the fundamental social dynamics in the open source world: projects—at least the ones you've heard of—aren't just c

Meh, I think this attitude misses the some of the fundamental social dynamics in the open source world: projects—at least the ones you've heard of—aren't just code, they're communities. People using, or even just talking about, a project are a part of the community. A small part, perhaps, but a part nonetheless. If a project wants to be "successful" in the sense of being popular or active, it needs to maintain a community which almost always includes the fringes outside the core contributors. People who are part of a community, however tangentially, will want something from it, or they're just going to leave—that isn't entitlement, that's just how people's attention works! There's a reason that—"just fork it" rhetoric aside—forking an active project is often seen as an actively hostile social move: it's not about the code or the license, which allow forking by design, but rather about potentially splitting the community. And this also makes sense; if you've built something and want people to use it, having somebody else take their own version and convince people to switch isn't going to feel great! But there's an inherent contradiction between "trying to split the community by forking is hostile" and "the community is entitled to nothing": if you're getting some value from having a community, people in the community wanting input on the direction is not pure entitlement! Now, to be clear, this does not mean that every complaint or request on a maintainer's time is reasonable, and I've certainly seen many interactions that cross the line—but, ultimately, if you're a maintainer and care about having a community around your project, you become a steward of the community by definition. And for stewarding a community? The "you are not entitled to anything" attitude is fundamentally toxic and counterproductive. Critically, none of this applies if you're just making an open source project for yourself. Do whatever you want! But then don't be surprised if somebody forks your efforts and gathers people around a "competing" effort. But you can't have your cake and eat it too; if you want a project that goes beyond just yourself, the community around the project starts to be something that matters.