I saw an issue today on a fairly popular project (better-auth, see the link to the issue attached). No repro, no context, just a wall of caps and profanity ending in “fuck you”. The maintainers ship this for free. People run production businesses on top of it, for free. And the thanks is someone raging into a text box because a minor bump cost them an afternoon.
I maintain and contribute to a few projects myself, so this hits a nerve a bit. Something people don’t see from the outside: it’s not enough to know how to build the thing. You also have to know how to defuse a thread where someone’s insulting you and not fire back, even though most of us aren’t paid for any of it, let alone the work of staying civil while being told to get fucked.
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)
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.
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…
Except this is a bit silly. So, for example, rsync does have an alternative already on the market; it’s called openrsync, but I tried to just “s/rsync/openrsync/“ (in a script) and it is not a 1:1 replacement. And it’s not even close.
Contributing requires the project maintainer to not be a dick, but with rsync, people have probably been “oh, he’s been doing so good as they are.”
I might fork rsync (to version freeze) before the AI adds, but it complicates system administration. System administration is easiest using the package management systems. I, personally, believe there are like four Linux versions: pacman, dnf/yum, aptitude, and source.
Maybe it’s silly to make your own fork, but unless someone else does it and you opt for their alternative, those are your options.
Complaining about how the dev decides to maintain his own project that he does for free is not one of them.
He’s been maintaining critical infrastructure for decades. Maybe if you make him a billionaire then he’ll have to run his project however you demand, but as long as this is just a passion project of his, it’s no one else’s business. They can submit bug reports, they can contribute PRs, but cussing him out because you don’t like how he manages his own project is just dumb.
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 they 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!
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.