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Maintainers don't owe users anything unless the user actually pays for it and the maintainer accepts the money for the task. I have a nitpick on that take. I

by ozim 2y ago

*Maintainers don't owe users anything unless the user actually pays for it and the maintainer accepts the money for the task.* I have a nitpick on that take. If maintainer was actively building community and advocating use of his project (for whatever reasons but usually to gain audience - money is not the only value exchange that there is) they still do owe users bug fixes or reviewing bug fixes made by community. Especially if there were other community contributions, cash on hand is too specific. If someone doesn't want to owe users anything, don't make project open source or make it clear "don't use this or fork for yourself, please" in read-me or something. But also one should not pull dependencies willy-nilly especially if one is building business on top of that.

sureIy 2y ago
This is such a bad take, I’m glad you already got like 8 replies. My code is open source, at a minimum it’s there for your own perusal to be copy-pasted. I don’t owe you anything.
bayindirh 2y ago
Free Software ecosystem is not black and white (i.e. Build a community or don't share). I put my software in the open with a license which I think is fair, because I hope someone might find it useful, with a completely neutral stance. On the other hand, I set my expectations with the license I assign to my codebase. If nobody cares about what I do, I'm also fine with it. At the end of the day, I wrote that thing for myself in the first place. If somebody decides to contribute something back, my primary responsibility is to act as decently as other party allows me. They can report a bug, send in a fix, or ask something. If the proposed change is favorable to both of us (i.e. it also fits into the design/role I have in my mind for that codebase, or doesn't disturb it), why not work together and make something better? If the change makes the software unfit for me, but fit for the other party, they're free to fork and maintain their fork as they fit, as long as they honor the license. This is why is this thing is in the open. But, if the requester wants me to implement their changes to make the software fit for themselves, while making it unfit for me, and want to pass the burden of maintenance on me, then sorry, we can't cooperate. Plus, who decides which codebase I open to the world, and in what way?
- ozim 2y ago
  That's not what I wrote *Build a community or don't share* I wrote that if you build community you have responsibility. If you don't want to build a community be clear about it. My beef is with people who build community for "fame" and for "money somewhere along the road" - that are getting burned out because money are not there. Where we have loads of libraries by genuine people.
  - mariusor 2y ago
    > My beef is with people who build community for "fame" and for "money somewhere along the road" Can you give out some examples of projects that function(ed) on this principle?
    - sureIy 2y ago
      If you look at 2015 node tools you’ll find plenty of such examples. Literally every build tool from that time is dead now, except webpack.
  - sureIy 2y ago
    I think you just have to accept that projects are not evergreen. Some popular tools we used 10 years ago are gone for the most part, and it’s no one’s fault.
PikachuEXE 2y ago
It all comes to promises/intent. Did maintainers make any promise? Even so they can break promises made for some reasons (especially sickness, accidents, etc.). Whatever type of contributions (money, work, feedbacks, etc.) doesn't make maintainers owe any work to contributors unless previously mutually agreed upon. Be prepared to DIY (PR, fork, other forms) if you are willing to but you don't owe anything to other people unless you choose to and express that explicitly, and that's the same for maintainers.
palata 2y ago
> If someone doesn't want to owe users anything, don't make project open source or make it clear "don't use this or fork for yourself, please" in read-me or something. That's where I believe you misunderstand open source, and that's the point of the article. Because I make my project open source does not imply anything other than the terms of the licence. Of course it's okay to report a bug (it's even nice) or to open a PR. But asking "is this maintained?" as part of the decision process before depending on a project just shows some misunderstanding about how open source works, IMHO.
- saurik 2y ago
  You plucked that quote from the comment you replied to but carefully didn't include the critical lead in: "If maintainer was actively building community and advocating use of his project". All the replies are hung up nitpicking some later wording which wasn't the point. Having the standard website/readme with a bunch of claims about how awesome your software is as a way to entice other developers to get excited by it, start using it, and even (gasp) depend on it absolutely implies something more than the mere terms of the license. Put elsewise: if you don't want the expectation of feeding people, haven't put any thought into how you will actually make that happen, and are just going to get defensive when people are annoyed at how you don't own a grill, you have no business inviting everyone to a BBQ. https://imgur.com/a/chris-pratt-barbecue-gDL2O https://imgur.com/a/chris-pratt-barbecue-gDL2O https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3v8svx/barbecue_at_chris_pratts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3v8svx/barbecue_at_c...
  - palata 2y ago
    > but carefully didn't include the critical lead in Because it's irrelevant to my point. My point being that if you don't sign a contract with me where I commit to do something for you, then I don't owe you anything. If you misunderstand open source and have wrong expectations because of it, then you will get frustrated. My point is that it is important for you to understand that open source just means that the author shares something for free, no strings attached. Maybe the maintainer is super responsive today, and that's great. But you have to know that they may stop responding tomorrow. And you should be ready to handle that if you depend on their project for something important.
JohnFen 2y ago
I disagree. Open source maintainers owe nothing to anybody unless they've explicitly made some sort of commitment/promise beyond just releasing something under an OSS license. > But also one should not pull dependencies willy-nilly especially if one is building business on top of that. If you're building a business, you want to avoid all such dependencies as much as possible, open source or not. The big advantage to using open source code, though, is that you don't have to rely on someone else -- not even the maintainer -- to keep things going for you. You can maintain it in-house and eliminate that external dependency.
selfhoster11 2y ago
Nope. Open source’s only purpose is make something available in case anyone wants to pick it up. The “no warranty or assurance of fitness for a particular purpose” verbiage in open source licenses is precisely what this means: the author disclaims all responsibility, and that’s it.
Dalewyn 2y ago
>don't make project open source or make it clear "don't use this or fork for yourself, please" in read-me or something. Most free-beer software state "Provided as-is with no warranty expressed or implied." somewhere in their readme or licensing terms. Of course, fucking noone reads readmes or licenses.
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago
  That's a legal protection, it has little bearing on whether the creator 'owes' (in the informal sense) anything to the software's users/community. If the software isn't being sold, it presumably won't be legally required to be fit for purpose in any sense. The no warranty provided text is just stating this explicitly. (Usual disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.)
bregma 2y ago
This sounds suspiciously like the "you should work for the exposure" argument given in the arts industry. Landlords don't accept expore for rent and grocers don't accept exposure for food. It's just a misunderstanding of how things work rooted in greed and entitlement. A worker's time is worth their wage. If you're paying nothing, nothing is owed. If you pay nothing for a creation, the creator owes you nothing. That's the contact.
- Chris2048 2y ago
  Except those aren't projects proposed or initiated by the artist. And property and grocery goods aren't even the same category as IP - You can't consume the same cabbage repeatedly. > That's the contact. I think you mean contract, but you are ignoring the social contract here. A "worker" isn't going around advocating their own project(s).
Chris2048 2y ago
> they still do owe users bug fixes or reviewing bug fixes made by community or allowing community members the power to do these things, without having to fork.

*Maintainers don't owe users anything unless the user actually pays for it and the maintainer accepts the money for the task.* I have a nitpick on that take. I

by ozim 2y ago

sureIy 2y ago

This is such a bad take, I’m glad you already got like 8 replies. My code is open source, at a minimum it’s there for your own perusal to be copy-pasted. I don’t owe you anything.

bayindirh 2y ago

Free Software ecosystem is not black and white (i.e. Build a community or don't share). I put my software in the open with a license which I think is fair, because I hope someone might find it useful, with a completely neutral stance. On the other hand, I set my expectations with the license I assign to my codebase. If nobody cares about what I do, I'm also fine with it. At the end of the day, I wrote that thing for myself in the first place. If somebody decides to contribute something back, my primary responsibility is to act as decently as other party allows me. They can report a bug, send in a fix, or ask something. If the proposed change is favorable to both of us (i.e. it also fits into the design/role I have in my mind for that codebase, or doesn't disturb it), why not work together and make something better? If the change makes the software unfit for me, but fit for the other party, they're free to fork and maintain their fork as they fit, as long as they honor the license. This is why is this thing is in the open. But, if the requester wants me to implement their changes to make the software fit for themselves, while making it unfit for me, and want to pass the burden of maintenance on me, then sorry, we can't cooperate. Plus, who decides which codebase I open to the world, and in what way?

ozim 2y ago
That's not what I wrote *Build a community or don't share* I wrote that if you build community you have responsibility. If you don't want to build a community be clear about it. My beef is with people who build community for "fame" and for "money somewhere along the road" - that are getting burned out because money are not there. Where we have loads of libraries by genuine people.
- mariusor 2y ago
  > My beef is with people who build community for "fame" and for "money somewhere along the road" Can you give out some examples of projects that function(ed) on this principle?
  - sureIy 2y ago
    If you look at 2015 node tools you’ll find plenty of such examples. Literally every build tool from that time is dead now, except webpack.
- sureIy 2y ago
  I think you just have to accept that projects are not evergreen. Some popular tools we used 10 years ago are gone for the most part, and it’s no one’s fault.

PikachuEXE 2y ago

It all comes to promises/intent. Did maintainers make any promise? Even so they can break promises made for some reasons (especially sickness, accidents, etc.). Whatever type of contributions (money, work, feedbacks, etc.) doesn't make maintainers owe any work to contributors unless previously mutually agreed upon. Be prepared to DIY (PR, fork, other forms) if you are willing to but you don't owe anything to other people unless you choose to and express that explicitly, and that's the same for maintainers.

palata 2y ago

> If someone doesn't want to owe users anything, don't make project open source or make it clear "don't use this or fork for yourself, please" in read-me or something. That's where I believe you misunderstand open source, and that's the point of the article. Because I make my project open source does not imply anything other than the terms of the licence. Of course it's okay to report a bug (it's even nice) or to open a PR. But asking "is this maintained?" as part of the decision process before depending on a project just shows some misunderstanding about how open source works, IMHO.

saurik 2y ago
You plucked that quote from the comment you replied to but carefully didn't include the critical lead in: "If maintainer was actively building community and advocating use of his project". All the replies are hung up nitpicking some later wording which wasn't the point. Having the standard website/readme with a bunch of claims about how awesome your software is as a way to entice other developers to get excited by it, start using it, and even (gasp) depend on it absolutely implies something more than the mere terms of the license. Put elsewise: if you don't want the expectation of feeding people, haven't put any thought into how you will actually make that happen, and are just going to get defensive when people are annoyed at how you don't own a grill, you have no business inviting everyone to a BBQ. https://imgur.com/a/chris-pratt-barbecue-gDL2O https://imgur.com/a/chris-pratt-barbecue-gDL2O https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3v8svx/barbecue_at_chris_pratts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/3v8svx/barbecue_at_c...
- palata 2y ago
  > but carefully didn't include the critical lead in Because it's irrelevant to my point. My point being that if you don't sign a contract with me where I commit to do something for you, then I don't owe you anything. If you misunderstand open source and have wrong expectations because of it, then you will get frustrated. My point is that it is important for you to understand that open source just means that the author shares something for free, no strings attached. Maybe the maintainer is super responsive today, and that's great. But you have to know that they may stop responding tomorrow. And you should be ready to handle that if you depend on their project for something important.

JohnFen 2y ago

I disagree. Open source maintainers owe nothing to anybody unless they've explicitly made some sort of commitment/promise beyond just releasing something under an OSS license. > But also one should not pull dependencies willy-nilly especially if one is building business on top of that. If you're building a business, you want to avoid all such dependencies as much as possible, open source or not. The big advantage to using open source code, though, is that you don't have to rely on someone else -- not even the maintainer -- to keep things going for you. You can maintain it in-house and eliminate that external dependency.

selfhoster11 2y ago

Nope. Open source’s only purpose is make something available in case anyone wants to pick it up. The “no warranty or assurance of fitness for a particular purpose” verbiage in open source licenses is precisely what this means: the author disclaims all responsibility, and that’s it.

Dalewyn 2y ago

>don't make project open source or make it clear "don't use this or fork for yourself, please" in read-me or something. Most free-beer software state "Provided as-is with no warranty expressed or implied." somewhere in their readme or licensing terms. Of course, fucking noone reads readmes or licenses.

MaxBarraclough 2y ago
That's a legal protection, it has little bearing on whether the creator 'owes' (in the informal sense) anything to the software's users/community. If the software isn't being sold, it presumably won't be legally required to be fit for purpose in any sense. The no warranty provided text is just stating this explicitly. (Usual disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.)

bregma 2y ago

This sounds suspiciously like the "you should work for the exposure" argument given in the arts industry. Landlords don't accept expore for rent and grocers don't accept exposure for food. It's just a misunderstanding of how things work rooted in greed and entitlement. A worker's time is worth their wage. If you're paying nothing, nothing is owed. If you pay nothing for a creation, the creator owes you nothing. That's the contact.

Chris2048 2y ago
Except those aren't projects proposed or initiated by the artist. And property and grocery goods aren't even the same category as IP - You can't consume the same cabbage repeatedly. > That's the contact. I think you mean contract, but you are ignoring the social contract here. A "worker" isn't going around advocating their own project(s).

Chris2048 2y ago

> they still do owe users bug fixes or reviewing bug fixes made by community or allowing community members the power to do these things, without having to fork.