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The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. If someone releases code then that's it. You have it. Do what you want with it (wit

The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. If someone releases code then that's it. You have it. Do what you want with it (within it's licence). Be thankful. Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing more you ungrateful little git. If you add this code to your project, you should fix and share any problems you encounter as a token of gratitude.

kawhah 3y ago
What is the evidence for this feeling of entitlement? I use tons of free software. I've never either demanded that anyone work on it for free, nor have I expressed any sense of entitlement or expectation.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  You’re in the majority. But look through any issue list of popular(ish) oss projects and there’s a small but very vocal minority just sucking up the maintainers’ energies like vampires.
  - ahepp 3y ago
    I hear this and it makes sense that a minority of users sucks up a lot of time, but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. I've never maintained a popular open source project so maybe there's something about the situation I just don't understand. But it seems like: > Thank you for your feature request, we will add it to the backlog. The core team doesn't work on unfunded feature requests because they use up a lot of time and resources. We are happy to review high quality PRs from anyone interested in implementing the feature. We also have a variety of sponsorship options, and a list of past contributors and maintainers available for contract work. would be reasonable and polite?
    - hypfer 3y ago
      > but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find. Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. It's also worth nothing that some requests/issues/questions might be reasonable when viewed in isolation but not if there are hundreds of them. Think for example stuff unrelated to the project but where you as a hacker could nonetheless help because you do know the answers/possess the skill. For me at least, I find it hard to deal with that, because I know that I could in theory help that person. I just can't in practice because time and energy are both finite. > We are happy to review high quality PRs Are we though? There's a lot of work attached to reviewing even high-quality PRs. Also, even if the PR is high quality, the maintainers will still be the ones maintaining that new feature so it's still significantly more work.
      - kawhah 3y ago
        > Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. If you go on social media and offer your well-thought-out opinions about some controversial subject, you are very likely to get large number of people sending you offensive messages, arguing with you objectionably, trying to start pile-ons, attempting to dox you, etc. Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting?
        hypfer 3y ago
        > Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting? Why are you asking me this? I'm not the author of that text. My take on this article can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38302098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38302098
  - gonzo41 3y ago
    I feel like public project roadmaps would really help here. If only for the maintainers to be able to flat out reject stuff because it's not on the map.
- gman83 3y ago
  One example I noticed recently is when YouTube stopped allowing ad-blockers. You should have seen the people posting on the uBlock subreddit demanding it being fixed, it was kind of crazy.
  - Lacerda69 3y ago
    why would any sane maintainer even look at the subreddit for their software for even 1 second?
- cyberbuff 3y ago
  He didnt mean you specifically. But there are lots of people demanding fixes like its their birthright.
  - otikik 3y ago
    My favorite one is “you should do what I am asking because it would make your project more popular”. Weee. Exposure.
- Hamcha 3y ago
  Just look around forums and socials like Reddit. I see people bitching how OBS Studio doesn't work for them the exact way they want it while contributing nothing to the project almost daily. This happens less where the FOSS choice is a drop in a sea of established proprietary packages (FreeCAD, KiCad, Godot) but way way more when they have already established themselves as the popular pick (OBS Studio, Blender) so they get flooded by less tech-savy, more casual users that don't really see the value of open source other than they don't pay for it. "Normal" people have always had stuff given to them for "free" (either "you are the product" or built-in licenses like Windows) so they don't realize the goodwill and sacrifices that FOSS goes through.
  - kawhah 3y ago
    > so they get flooded by less tech-savy, more casual users that don't really see the value of open source other than they don't pay for it this was solved 30 years ago by an important socio-technical invention called the FAQ, used together with a social convention of not elevating or rewarding vexatious messages.
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      A solution was proposed, the problem was never solved because people generally don't read or believe that social convention doesn't apply to them in this situation.
- buster3000 3y ago
  If you've maintained an OSS project and managed the tickets raised, you'd know.
- junon 3y ago
  I maintain some popular packages. It's not often, but it's far from never. Some people are really nasty, I've yet to figure out why.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Something like 5% of the population are insane. No need to figure out any behavior once you factor that in.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  You may not be part of the problem. However, there are entire industries that leverage open-source / free software, and put unreasonable, uncompensated demands on it. At the end of the day though, I don't see the problem. As a maintainer of open-source, gratis, software, just don't do the work. It isn't like it is a job. If you don't do the work, they can't fire you. Is that good for the community? Surely not, but who is asking whether the status quo is working for the developers? Nobody but them. So look out for yourself, and scratch your own itch, but don't treat open source as a job.
api 3y ago
Those two things are connected. People will spend $10 on a coffee drink at Starbucks without blinking. Suggest that they spend $10 on a piece of software and they’ll throw a fit and claim you are taking away their rights.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Some people. There are people who think Starbucks is too expensive. There are people who donate to open source.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    I don't know anyone who doesn't think Starbucks is overpriced slop. In any European city you'll find local cafes with better quality and prices than what Starbucks sell. They seem to only be present in the big metro areas that attract a lot of tourists, travelers and immigrants who are familiar with the Starbucks brand and go for that out of habbit and know quality, similar to how McDonald's is so popular.
    - zrail 3y ago
      Weird flex but ok. In any area big enough to have a Starbucks in the US you'll find at least one local cafe that has better coffee. You'll also find at least one with much worse coffee that thinks they're better. As you say, people go to Starbucks and McDonalds for familiar known quality and you should be happy for it. That way the tourists and immigrants stay out of your local cafe. Edit: to be clear I'm not defending supranational billion dollar corporations here.
      - creshal 3y ago
        Tourists and immigrants giving their money to an US company that funnels all the money away from the local tax collectors and underpays their workers is still a net negative. All we're left with is their pollution, and no tax revenue to pay for its removal.
amelius 3y ago
[flagged]
- agent327 3y ago
  It still beats having a central planner from the politburo tell you to work in the mines for zero compensation.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with bread, and there were little things you could buy outside of necessities, but you were compensated and it was near certain you would have a roof over your head, and baring drastic mismanagement/crisis, enough food. If that's better than some having more money that they could possibly use, many having access to amazing amenities and luxuries, but a lot struggling to eat enough quality food and not being able to have a roof over their head is IMO a philosophical question. Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer?
    - dtx1 3y ago
      And by everyone you of course mean everyone that wasn't arrested because he thought maybe bread with bread and a shared appartment is kinda shitty.
      - gruppe_sechs 3y ago
        *murdered
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
      The question of preference at the end is moot. Those with the power long ago made the decision that 'a few people should have a amazing lives while vast numbers of people suffer needlessly' is the way that society should be structured and structured it thusly. This is/was even true in countries with central planning as you've described above. There is/was always a select group of people at the top for whom the rules didn't apply and had all the luxuries that could desire.
rpastuszak 3y ago
Haha I was just thinking about something similar recently. Imagine visiting a coffee shop and telling the barista: "hey, by the way, I can make my own coffee at home for free, you know?" People seem somehow OK with thinking this way when it comes to software.
andsoitis 3y ago
I agree with your sentiment of "Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing" That works both ways though, a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain (so they have to develop management strategies where they ignore the noise, rather than try to engage/capitulate). A maintainer can also not lament when users do not feel the desire to contribute monetarily.
- bjornsing 3y ago
  > a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain Eh… Isn’t that fairly close to the definition of entitlement (i.e. you complain when you have no reason to)?
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    As a maintainer you cannot control how people behave. There’s no point in lamenting that people act entitled. Instead, it is more productive to develop strategies to ignore the noise from entitled voices. You do not need to respond to them. You do not need to convince them. You do not have to keep them happy.
    - dom96 3y ago
      > There’s no point in lamenting that people act entitled. There is: it discourages people from acting entitled.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        Does it? How much of an impact do you think it has?
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - billythemaniam 3y ago
hgs3 3y ago
> The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. Free-rider problem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem
corethree 3y ago
Telling people to have gratitude isn't going to fix a logistical problem or social phenomenon. It's like telling people not to be Christian/Buddhist/muslim because religion is just a bunch of fantasy stories.
teddyh 3y ago
A maintainer position for a software project is like any position or role, in say, a charity. You aren’t technically forced to do the work, but the charity announces publicly (on its web site, for instance) that the work will be done, and people expect it to be done. If you do not feel up to doing it anymore, you owe it to other people (who expect the work to be done) to announce your retirement and hand the position over to new people. Any project which is not a going concern should: A: Not, IMHO, be called a ”project” B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  > B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development. Pretty sure every open source license includes this in the warranty line...
  - teddyh 3y ago
    No, that’s the legal warranty disclaimer. It has nothing to do with support, security fixes, or future development.
    - candiddevmike 3y ago
      What do you think a warranty is?
      - teddyh 3y ago
        A warranty is about the code which already exists, and whether the code is fit for a particular purpose, etc. (all legal terms). The warranty disclaimer in free software licences all say basically “Although this specific version of the software is meant to be helpful to you for a certain purpose, you can’t sue the developer if there’s a bug or an omitted feature, since we don’t make any guarantee that it will work.” But this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about disclaiming any implied support, security bugfixes, and future development, all three of which are usually heavlily implied (or outright stated) to be available in official project information (such as on an official web site).
yawboakye 3y ago
it gets complicated when the project is intentionally marketed, and users deliberately attracted. i think at that point it ceases being purely source available and burdens the creator/marketer with support duties. unfortunately at the moment, most open source projects are actively marketed, including fringe and poorly thought out products.
zackmorris 3y ago
The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. Do you have standards? It doesn't sound like you do. People with healthy boundaries set standards for themselves as far as what they give to others and what treatment they accept in return. I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return. I see your sentiment reflected in society in the way we treat low-wage workers with disdain for not doing more lucrative work. You're applying the principle of rugged individualism to a systems-level problem. A healthier way to approach this would be to list a number of possible solutions and debate them in an open forum like this. When we find solutions but fail to adopt them, then that's a criticism of our agency. We are all failing ourselves by failing open source contributors. Then we can look beyond that to find the reasons why. Which are obvious because they are the same as with any other power imbalance. The fault lies with the wealthy and powerful people and corporations who profit from free and low-wage labor. The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen. Our failure to solve open source compensation is analogous to failing to stop suffering in developing nations which provide labor and resources for wealthy ones. Your argument places guilt and shame on workers instead of identifying exploitation by the wealthy, which might be better spent on something like an open source endowment or UBI more generally.
- 38 3y ago
  > I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work That's the exact opposite of what they are doing. They are blaming the users for expecting more than they should. They should expect nothing more than literally just the current version of the code, as is.
  - zackmorris 3y ago
    Thank you, you're right, I read the parent comment backwards.
- idontpost 3y ago
friend_and_foe 3y ago
This is right, but maintainers themselves often forget. They don't enforce this. Their little thing became very important and they became a rock star, so they carry the world on their shoulders. They respond to feature requests that are out of scope originally. They let any and every PR in. Maintainers often manage to do things with their project that turn them into bahemoths and support large industry and find themselves stuck. More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. Don't fall for the temptation to be everything for everyone. Don't cave to social pressure.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. I get this, as a very bottom line. But a lot of great projects are great because the developers consciously want people to use and depend on their work. Their is a living changing informal social bargain, unique to each project, along with licensing, economic and other concerns.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    Well, I'd say if you want users to depend on your work, you're voluntarily signing yourself up to endless maintenance for little reward. I look at it like this: I built something cool, if it's useful to you, use it. But if you come to depend on it, and doubly so for business use, maybe you should consider being prepared to maintain it yourself. Other people look at it differently, and if it's your goal for the world to depend on your work and you haven't set yourself up to benefit from that responsibility you take on yourself in a way that you like, then I don't really think it's a problem the rest of us have to solve. Is it unsustainable like the title of the article says? I suppose, but it's not some state of affairs that is unavoidable or that we are stuck with through no fault of our own. A guy wants people to depend on his work that he does for free, a company sees a core component of their business that they can get for free, a few years later the guy is upset that he is maintaining this thing everyone depends on and the company is scared their business will fall apart without him. They each got themselves there, it's a predictable state of affairs, the solutions for each party are very clear. As a developer though, the solution is what I've outlined: take the "no warranty of mechantibility or fitness for purpose" part of your license seriously and tell entitled people to solve their own problems.
crotchfire 3y ago
> you should fix and share any problems you encounter as a token of gratitude. The whole point of the GPL is to change "should" into "must" for these fixes. That makes it a two-way street. The entitlement and ranting is a direct consequence of the recent GPL-hating campaign.

kawhah 3y ago

What is the evidence for this feeling of entitlement? I use tons of free software. I've never either demanded that anyone work on it for free, nor have I expressed any sense of entitlement or expectation.

skrebbel 3y ago
You’re in the majority. But look through any issue list of popular(ish) oss projects and there’s a small but very vocal minority just sucking up the maintainers’ energies like vampires.
- ahepp 3y ago
  I hear this and it makes sense that a minority of users sucks up a lot of time, but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. I've never maintained a popular open source project so maybe there's something about the situation I just don't understand. But it seems like: > Thank you for your feature request, we will add it to the backlog. The core team doesn't work on unfunded feature requests because they use up a lot of time and resources. We are happy to review high quality PRs from anyone interested in implementing the feature. We also have a variety of sponsorship options, and a list of past contributors and maintainers available for contract work. would be reasonable and polite?
  - hypfer 3y ago
    > but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find. Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. It's also worth nothing that some requests/issues/questions might be reasonable when viewed in isolation but not if there are hundreds of them. Think for example stuff unrelated to the project but where you as a hacker could nonetheless help because you do know the answers/possess the skill. For me at least, I find it hard to deal with that, because I know that I could in theory help that person. I just can't in practice because time and energy are both finite. > We are happy to review high quality PRs Are we though? There's a lot of work attached to reviewing even high-quality PRs. Also, even if the PR is high quality, the maintainers will still be the ones maintaining that new feature so it's still significantly more work.
    - kawhah 3y ago
      > Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. If you go on social media and offer your well-thought-out opinions about some controversial subject, you are very likely to get large number of people sending you offensive messages, arguing with you objectionably, trying to start pile-ons, attempting to dox you, etc. Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting?
      - hypfer 3y ago
        > Is the correct response to announce that "your participation in political discussion for free has become unsustainable", and that you need to be paid by all the people who find your comments interesting? Why are you asking me this? I'm not the author of that text. My take on this article can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38302098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38302098
- gonzo41 3y ago
  I feel like public project roadmaps would really help here. If only for the maintainers to be able to flat out reject stuff because it's not on the map.
gman83 3y ago
One example I noticed recently is when YouTube stopped allowing ad-blockers. You should have seen the people posting on the uBlock subreddit demanding it being fixed, it was kind of crazy.
- Lacerda69 3y ago
  why would any sane maintainer even look at the subreddit for their software for even 1 second?
cyberbuff 3y ago
He didnt mean you specifically. But there are lots of people demanding fixes like its their birthright.
- otikik 3y ago
  My favorite one is “you should do what I am asking because it would make your project more popular”. Weee. Exposure.
Hamcha 3y ago
Just look around forums and socials like Reddit. I see people bitching how OBS Studio doesn't work for them the exact way they want it while contributing nothing to the project almost daily. This happens less where the FOSS choice is a drop in a sea of established proprietary packages (FreeCAD, KiCad, Godot) but way way more when they have already established themselves as the popular pick (OBS Studio, Blender) so they get flooded by less tech-savy, more casual users that don't really see the value of open source other than they don't pay for it. "Normal" people have always had stuff given to them for "free" (either "you are the product" or built-in licenses like Windows) so they don't realize the goodwill and sacrifices that FOSS goes through.
- kawhah 3y ago
  > so they get flooded by less tech-savy, more casual users that don't really see the value of open source other than they don't pay for it this was solved 30 years ago by an important socio-technical invention called the FAQ, used together with a social convention of not elevating or rewarding vexatious messages.
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    A solution was proposed, the problem was never solved because people generally don't read or believe that social convention doesn't apply to them in this situation.
buster3000 3y ago
If you've maintained an OSS project and managed the tickets raised, you'd know.
junon 3y ago
I maintain some popular packages. It's not often, but it's far from never. Some people are really nasty, I've yet to figure out why.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Something like 5% of the population are insane. No need to figure out any behavior once you factor that in.
gorjusborg 3y ago
You may not be part of the problem. However, there are entire industries that leverage open-source / free software, and put unreasonable, uncompensated demands on it. At the end of the day though, I don't see the problem. As a maintainer of open-source, gratis, software, just don't do the work. It isn't like it is a job. If you don't do the work, they can't fire you. Is that good for the community? Surely not, but who is asking whether the status quo is working for the developers? Nobody but them. So look out for yourself, and scratch your own itch, but don't treat open source as a job.

api 3y ago

Those two things are connected. People will spend $10 on a coffee drink at Starbucks without blinking. Suggest that they spend $10 on a piece of software and they’ll throw a fit and claim you are taking away their rights.

bluGill 3y ago
Some people. There are people who think Starbucks is too expensive. There are people who donate to open source.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  I don't know anyone who doesn't think Starbucks is overpriced slop. In any European city you'll find local cafes with better quality and prices than what Starbucks sell. They seem to only be present in the big metro areas that attract a lot of tourists, travelers and immigrants who are familiar with the Starbucks brand and go for that out of habbit and know quality, similar to how McDonald's is so popular.
  - zrail 3y ago
    Weird flex but ok. In any area big enough to have a Starbucks in the US you'll find at least one local cafe that has better coffee. You'll also find at least one with much worse coffee that thinks they're better. As you say, people go to Starbucks and McDonalds for familiar known quality and you should be happy for it. That way the tourists and immigrants stay out of your local cafe. Edit: to be clear I'm not defending supranational billion dollar corporations here.
    - creshal 3y ago
      Tourists and immigrants giving their money to an US company that funnels all the money away from the local tax collectors and underpays their workers is still a net negative. All we're left with is their pollution, and no tax revenue to pay for its removal.

amelius 3y ago

[flagged]

agent327 3y ago
It still beats having a central planner from the politburo tell you to work in the mines for zero compensation.
- sofixa 3y ago
  You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with bread, and there were little things you could buy outside of necessities, but you were compensated and it was near certain you would have a roof over your head, and baring drastic mismanagement/crisis, enough food. If that's better than some having more money that they could possibly use, many having access to amazing amenities and luxuries, but a lot struggling to eat enough quality food and not being able to have a roof over their head is IMO a philosophical question. Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer?
  - dtx1 3y ago
    And by everyone you of course mean everyone that wasn't arrested because he thought maybe bread with bread and a shared appartment is kinda shitty.
    - gruppe_sechs 3y ago
      *murdered
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    The question of preference at the end is moot. Those with the power long ago made the decision that 'a few people should have a amazing lives while vast numbers of people suffer needlessly' is the way that society should be structured and structured it thusly. This is/was even true in countries with central planning as you've described above. There is/was always a select group of people at the top for whom the rules didn't apply and had all the luxuries that could desire.

rpastuszak 3y ago

Haha I was just thinking about something similar recently. Imagine visiting a coffee shop and telling the barista: "hey, by the way, I can make my own coffee at home for free, you know?" People seem somehow OK with thinking this way when it comes to software.

andsoitis 3y ago

I agree with your sentiment of "Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing" That works both ways though, a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain (so they have to develop management strategies where they ignore the noise, rather than try to engage/capitulate). A maintainer can also not lament when users do not feel the desire to contribute monetarily.

bjornsing 3y ago
> a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain Eh… Isn’t that fairly close to the definition of entitlement (i.e. you complain when you have no reason to)?
- andsoitis 3y ago
  As a maintainer you cannot control how people behave. There’s no point in lamenting that people act entitled. Instead, it is more productive to develop strategies to ignore the noise from entitled voices. You do not need to respond to them. You do not need to convince them. You do not have to keep them happy.
  - dom96 3y ago
    > There’s no point in lamenting that people act entitled. There is: it discourages people from acting entitled.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      Does it? How much of an impact do you think it has?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - billythemaniam 3y ago

hgs3 3y ago

> The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. Free-rider problem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

corethree 3y ago

Telling people to have gratitude isn't going to fix a logistical problem or social phenomenon. It's like telling people not to be Christian/Buddhist/muslim because religion is just a bunch of fantasy stories.

teddyh 3y ago

A maintainer position for a software project is like any position or role, in say, a charity. You aren’t technically forced to do the work, but the charity announces publicly (on its web site, for instance) that the work will be done, and people expect it to be done. If you do not feel up to doing it anymore, you owe it to other people (who expect the work to be done) to announce your retirement and hand the position over to new people. Any project which is not a going concern should: A: Not, IMHO, be called a ”project” B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development.

candiddevmike 3y ago
> B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development. Pretty sure every open source license includes this in the warranty line...
- teddyh 3y ago
  No, that’s the legal warranty disclaimer. It has nothing to do with support, security fixes, or future development.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    What do you think a warranty is?
    - teddyh 3y ago
      A warranty is about the code which already exists, and whether the code is fit for a particular purpose, etc. (all legal terms). The warranty disclaimer in free software licences all say basically “Although this specific version of the software is meant to be helpful to you for a certain purpose, you can’t sue the developer if there’s a bug or an omitted feature, since we don’t make any guarantee that it will work.” But this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about disclaiming any implied support, security bugfixes, and future development, all three of which are usually heavlily implied (or outright stated) to be available in official project information (such as on an official web site).

yawboakye 3y ago

it gets complicated when the project is intentionally marketed, and users deliberately attracted. i think at that point it ceases being purely source available and burdens the creator/marketer with support duties. unfortunately at the moment, most open source projects are actively marketed, including fringe and poorly thought out products.

zackmorris 3y ago

The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. Do you have standards? It doesn't sound like you do. People with healthy boundaries set standards for themselves as far as what they give to others and what treatment they accept in return. I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return. I see your sentiment reflected in society in the way we treat low-wage workers with disdain for not doing more lucrative work. You're applying the principle of rugged individualism to a systems-level problem. A healthier way to approach this would be to list a number of possible solutions and debate them in an open forum like this. When we find solutions but fail to adopt them, then that's a criticism of our agency. We are all failing ourselves by failing open source contributors. Then we can look beyond that to find the reasons why. Which are obvious because they are the same as with any other power imbalance. The fault lies with the wealthy and powerful people and corporations who profit from free and low-wage labor. The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen. Our failure to solve open source compensation is analogous to failing to stop suffering in developing nations which provide labor and resources for wealthy ones. Your argument places guilt and shame on workers instead of identifying exploitation by the wealthy, which might be better spent on something like an open source endowment or UBI more generally.

38 3y ago
> I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work That's the exact opposite of what they are doing. They are blaming the users for expecting more than they should. They should expect nothing more than literally just the current version of the code, as is.
- zackmorris 3y ago
  Thank you, you're right, I read the parent comment backwards.
idontpost 3y ago

friend_and_foe 3y ago

This is right, but maintainers themselves often forget. They don't enforce this. Their little thing became very important and they became a rock star, so they carry the world on their shoulders. They respond to feature requests that are out of scope originally. They let any and every PR in. Maintainers often manage to do things with their project that turn them into bahemoths and support large industry and find themselves stuck. More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. Don't fall for the temptation to be everything for everyone. Don't cave to social pressure.

Nevermark 3y ago
> More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. I get this, as a very bottom line. But a lot of great projects are great because the developers consciously want people to use and depend on their work. Their is a living changing informal social bargain, unique to each project, along with licensing, economic and other concerns.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  Well, I'd say if you want users to depend on your work, you're voluntarily signing yourself up to endless maintenance for little reward. I look at it like this: I built something cool, if it's useful to you, use it. But if you come to depend on it, and doubly so for business use, maybe you should consider being prepared to maintain it yourself. Other people look at it differently, and if it's your goal for the world to depend on your work and you haven't set yourself up to benefit from that responsibility you take on yourself in a way that you like, then I don't really think it's a problem the rest of us have to solve. Is it unsustainable like the title of the article says? I suppose, but it's not some state of affairs that is unavoidable or that we are stuck with through no fault of our own. A guy wants people to depend on his work that he does for free, a company sees a core component of their business that they can get for free, a few years later the guy is upset that he is maintaining this thing everyone depends on and the company is scared their business will fall apart without him. They each got themselves there, it's a predictable state of affairs, the solutions for each party are very clear. As a developer though, the solution is what I've outlined: take the "no warranty of mechantibility or fitness for purpose" part of your license seriously and tell entitled people to solve their own problems.

crotchfire 3y ago

> you should fix and share any problems you encounter as a token of gratitude. The whole point of the GPL is to change "should" into "must" for these fixes. That makes it a two-way street. The entitlement and ranting is a direct consequence of the recent GPL-hating campaign.