Not so long ago someone here argued with me that open source devs have a lot of responsibilities and if they can't make their project easy to contribute they should be banned from open source community (no idea what it would look like). They got upvotes too. Nice to see some sanity here again.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
240 points (99.6% liked)
Programming
27631 readers
188 users here now
Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!
Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.
Hope you enjoy the instance!
Rules
Rules
- Follow the programming.dev instance rules
- Keep content related to programming in some way
- If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos
Wormhole
Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
When that whole rsync stuff came out, I remember arguing with someone about this too.
Like, I'm not defending AI or the use thereof. I also don't know the full details of that situation, or how much AI the dev actually used, or for what. That's not the subject of the argument I was making.
Basically, I was saying that it's a FOSS project and the guy has been maintaining it more or less by himself for decades at this point, and it's become a critical infrastructure that an enormous number of projects (both professional and hobbyist) rely on.
I said if these people didn't like how the guy was maintaining his project (for free, and thanklessly at that), then they could either contribute, fork it, or make their own.
A couple people in that thread were doubling down about how the dev somehow apparently has some sort of responsibility or duty or obligation to run his project the way they think he should. They just didn't seem to get the fact that he's doing it for free, it's his own project, and it's not his fault that the majority of linux users decided to make it an indispensable part of their backup processes.
But these people said everything from "you can't just fork a major project like this, that's an enormous task with xyz responsibilities" (as if that doesn't strengthen the point that it is an enormous task which this guy is choosing to do for free) to "if so much critical infrastructure depends on it, then it does oblige the developer to maintain it in such-and-such a way."
In the end, I didn't get through to them. Not that I expected to, but sometimes arguing with these people is more for the lurkers who will read the chain rather than for the people I'm actually arguing with...
load more comments
(3 replies)
Having been on the maintainer side of a popular project once before, I've pretty much just taken the mindset of "if you owe them nothing, then they owe you nothing". Basically, pay them, or stop making demands (though suggestions and bug reports are usually welcome by maintainers).
Incidentally, this is why I didn't accept donations for that project (though I have nothing against donations in general, of course). I didn't want to even feel a sense of responsibility to maintain a project I knew I'd eventually burn out from.
I wouldn't take it as far as paying allows demands. If I decided to pick up some litter in my way in public and some sees it. Just because someone shoves a $20 in my face, doesn't mean they can demand and expect I'll pick up all the other trash around. There would need to be contract (even just Social) negotiations at the least!
I wouldn't take it as far as paying allows demands.
Neither would I.
Paying implies exchanging money for something the other party is selling, and would require the other party (the maintainer) to sell it. Shoving $20 in someone's face is a donation, not a payment.
I just refused donations for myself. I would never claim a donation gives someone any special right to demand something.
if you're not paying for it, do you actually get to demand anything? (Obviously yes, but we still need some boundaries)
Wrong!! Obviously no. You're not entitled to demand anything. You can ask politely.
You don't like the project? Go and use another alternative.
There is no alternative? Go and write your own.
You don't have the skills? Go and pay somebody with the skills. And if you want the most skilled for the job, probably is the person maintaining that project that you don't like but still keep using for free.
I mean, I told a paying customer to get fucked yesterday over demands so you can definitely say it to a non-paying person.
If he was a paying customer of mine i would void the purchase and tell him to go fuck himself
Let me preface this by saying that you should never, ever be rude to open source maintainers.
But good god, if you are writing software for other programmers, stop making breaking changes. By all means, break your software. Don't break mine.
If there's something I learned in the industry is how to test (and I don't just mean some unit tests) and how to write APIs with back compatibility in mind.
Not saying proprietary software is necessarily better, but working in a big organization that guarantees functionality to its customers, does teach you to coordinate releases better than most solo projects probably will.
"NOO!! The free thing you're providing for free that my business is mooching off of changed and I don't want to learn how to use package managers 😡"
Agree we should treat people better but also: for the love of god learn semver. Breaking changes in minor and patches is so sloppy.
But still complainers fault for not pinning, because you cannot trust semver at all. Vicious cycle
All companies I worked for did not care for semver and made the fucking marketing department decide on the version numbers. Makes you never trust it.
Imagine the chaos if all the FOSS maintainers collectively went on strike until their demands were met. They could demand so, so much despite being volunteers.
I'm convinced the world's top companies are all secretly built on FOSS projects, so might be able to scrape together a few billions from it.
They would sooner enslave the maintainers
Why not fire back? It's not like you can really get fired from an open source project.
Hasn't hurt Linus either.
Yeah, I started a major project 20 years that got a lot of attention.
I gave it up after a few months because whilst there was a lot of support, you have to constantly fight against a holes who will tell you how much you suck compared to other options, or how unnecessary you are
I’m not pretending breaking changes don’t cause real pain (that’s what the issue is about). But I keep coming back to a boundary question: if you’re not paying for it, do you actually get to demand anything? (Obviously yes, but we still need some boundaries)
And if the issue makes you lose face, it's clear you've been dealing with it for quite some time and should've learned to lock your dependencies and test after updates. Unacceptable.
The part that irkes me most about this, is he's right.
The complaint is valid, non-breaking production changes should be the norm, not the expected, 100%. And yes, I maintain upstream work, too.
Doesn't forgive them being a dick. Permaban in my book, I just hate that he's right.
Are they right though? Not every project follows semver, it's on consumers to pay attention. Especially if it's a recurring problem: this problem (assuming the project follows semver) hould happen once at most.
Some people deserve nothing for free, they don't get the simple idea of what free job for community means, if you are worried about bugs and etc go get payed work. So you have a reason to demmand shit
Love it how everybody's mocking this entitled clown.
view more: next ›