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Comment by DoesntMatter22 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why you are attacking the guy personally and saying he lives in an echo chamber. All he did is say that you can't demand anything of the guy as he has not obligation to do anything. That's in the agreement that you agree to when using the software.

He's free to tank his own project and you are free to use it, fork it, or not. He's allowed to be an ego maniac if he wants or do things in ways you disagree with. You got what he made for free, so why you want to demand things of him is beyond me.

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It was demonstrated that his precompiled binary saved almost no time in the original, now locked and cleaned, issue.

I don't care what he does with his library. You're right. At the same time you can't "do whatever you want" when you have a 3M+ download library even if you do own it. It would be like if you suddenly decided an entire metropolitan is wrong and you're right. You need A LOT of evidence to do that. There are practical limitations to your personal freedom when so many people depend on you. Even if you want to believe that isn't the case how many potential sponsors, contributors, etc do you alienate with such a stupid idea in a pool of 3M? Even if it's 1% thats 30,000 people who now will do absolutely nothing to help you.

Yeah maybe but he still has the right to do it and you have the right to not like it.

I'd say that the core of your point is legally correct, but you are ethically arguing over what is, at best, a grey area. I mean, if the author is explicitly (by you) "allowed to be an ego maniac", then why isn't the user you are replying to allowed to judge them for it? The options available here are not merely to use it or to fork it: people being afforded the same freedoms you believe this maintainer should have also have the option to call them out over the result, no?

I'm not here to argue the morality of it. I'm just saying it's silly to complain about something and demand something of him. I mean I can demand a super model will give me a date but that doesn't mean I'm entitled to it or that it's going to happen. It's pretty much pointless.

The difference between this guy and the maintainer is that the maintainer did this guy a huge favor by writing this software for the guy where as this guy did nothing except complain about the free meal he's getting.

Do we as humans owe anything at all to each other outside of a capitalistic transaction-based framework?

I think the burden of open source maintenance often goes too far in the other direction, especially when corporations demand free labor, but I think it's reasonable to expect maintainers of core libraries to not actively cause harm.

What harm did he cause? He did something the way he wanted to. People didn't like it. You seem to think that the maintainer owes you something. Sure he can't do something illegal but other than that it's all available to him. But he also has to live with any repercussions of his actions.

Beyond the reputational harm to the Rust community, he actively engaged in attention-seeking behavior, something that is against the Rust Code of Conduct. (He's far too intelligent to not know that it was attention-seeking behavior.)

The Rust Code of Conduct doesn't apply to him at all. That is something that the Rust maintainers are following.

I can't speak to his motivations, but nothing that you've said seems to be against any law or any sort of agreement he's made. This is his software, he can do with it what he wants. If you don't like it just don't use it.

You can't police him, you can complain about him, but you seem to making up violations he has committed that are mostly made up, rather than based on any actual agreement he has entered into.

Huh? He's a Rust project member and part of the Rust library API team: https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/library. As such, the Rust Code of Conduct applies to him.

You are right he is. So then they can kick him off if they think he's in violation. This isn't some solemn oath he's taken.

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