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Every open source license I’ve seen clearly states that the licensed material comes without warranty and limits liability. What sort of accountability can be g

Every open source license I’ve seen clearly states that the licensed material comes without warranty and limits liability. What sort of accountability can be gained by knowing someone’s identity in a case like that?

aesh2Xa1 1y ago
Reputation harm. An anonymous individual might also have multiple anonymous accounts, for example. Without that anonymity, other projects might ban their contributions, and users might not use their software.
zeta0134 1y ago
Social accountability, for one. Never underestimate shame as a motivating factor for humans. I'm generally in favor of protecting anonymity, so I'm not fully in agreement that this should be a hard requirement for a software project, but I can at least see the appeal of the idea. Web browsers are also a rare class of software with high complexity and also high privilege (considering the data that typically passes through them), so perhaps higher scrutiny of this class of software is warranted.
- sellmesoap 1y ago
  Don't forget the shockingly high number of folks with a distorted sense of shame.
abdullahkhalids 1y ago
The license will not protect the developer from law if they added a malicious backdoor.
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  How so? It's their program, who's to say what is a "malicious backdoor" versus an "intended useful feature"?
  - happymellon 1y ago
    What's the difference between a backdoor and remote support access?
kube-system 1y ago
Imagine that you have a choice between two pieces of software. The developer of one of those pieces of software is Linus Torvalds. The developer of the other piece of software is Mikhail Vasiliev. Which one do you choose?
- M95D 1y ago
  The one that puts the source code online and it compiles on my computer. And if both do that, have same features, work the same, etc., no other difference, then I'll take the smaller one - because the larger one most probably includes something I don't want, even if it's just bloat or inefficient code.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > Linus Torvalds For me, he lost his credibility, when, with childish "historical" arguments, he choose to ban russian developers from the linux kernel. Can we still trust him to not insert a backdoor in the kernel, "to fight the russians" ?

aesh2Xa1 1y ago

Reputation harm. An anonymous individual might also have multiple anonymous accounts, for example. Without that anonymity, other projects might ban their contributions, and users might not use their software.

zeta0134 1y ago

Social accountability, for one. Never underestimate shame as a motivating factor for humans. I'm generally in favor of protecting anonymity, so I'm not fully in agreement that this should be a hard requirement for a software project, but I can at least see the appeal of the idea. Web browsers are also a rare class of software with high complexity and also high privilege (considering the data that typically passes through them), so perhaps higher scrutiny of this class of software is warranted.

sellmesoap 1y ago
Don't forget the shockingly high number of folks with a distorted sense of shame.

abdullahkhalids 1y ago

The license will not protect the developer from law if they added a malicious backdoor.

DaSHacka 1y ago
How so? It's their program, who's to say what is a "malicious backdoor" versus an "intended useful feature"?
- happymellon 1y ago
  What's the difference between a backdoor and remote support access?

kube-system 1y ago

Imagine that you have a choice between two pieces of software. The developer of one of those pieces of software is Linus Torvalds. The developer of the other piece of software is Mikhail Vasiliev. Which one do you choose?

M95D 1y ago
The one that puts the source code online and it compiles on my computer. And if both do that, have same features, work the same, etc., no other difference, then I'll take the smaller one - because the larger one most probably includes something I don't want, even if it's just bloat or inefficient code.
hulitu 1y ago
> Linus Torvalds For me, he lost his credibility, when, with childish "historical" arguments, he choose to ban russian developers from the linux kernel. Can we still trust him to not insert a backdoor in the kernel, "to fight the russians" ?