If people don’t want the social burden of being a public person or even the relatively small burden of having a public project, they have the option of not being public.
You are conflating legal rights with what is socially or ethically right, and I think this is a dubious rhetorical trick.
I'm well aware of the difference between between the two concepts. What I, along with basically everyone else in this thread, is telling you is that this social obligation on the part of open source maintainers you seem the believe in is not a thing. People who give away their software for free do not owe any debt to anyone who might choose to use that software. As I said to the 1 (one) other person who seems to agree with you here, the relevant social etiquette is "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
Fair; I have edited.
> this social obligation on the part of open source maintainers you seem the believe in is not a thing.
Many people do think it’s a thing, though. See my links to past threads, where I am far from alone in my opinion. See also various Linux Distributions’ rules for maintainers.
Against my better judgement, I read through the first thread you linked to.
If there are any substantial number of people writing there that agree with your position that open source maintainers have a "social obligation" -- or anything similar -- to the users of the software they give away for free, I missed it.
Most of the replies to your comments I saw there were people trying to explain the same things we are trying to convey here, followed by your steadfast refusal to deal with reality. I mean, at one point you responded to a quoted section of an MIT-style license and said:
> That text does not disclaim support, security bugfixes, and future development. On the contrary, all three of those things are probably either heavlily implied or outright stated to be available on the project web site.
... when the first two lines of the quoted license does exactly that. To wit:
> ... PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND ...
... which means the copyright holders disclaim support, bug fixes, and future development. That's literally what providing something "AS IS" means. It is provided as it currently is.
I don't think continuing to engage with you here on an even more nebulous concept ('social obligation') when you are unable or unwilling to objectively deal with written text is going to be a good use of my time. Have a nice day.
I don't know what I can say for "why" other than go find a manners book and a philosophy book.
If the only two options are to become obligated to the public or not to engage at all, what a sad world this would be. Thankfully, there are many, many alternate options in the reality we share, even if not in your imagined reality.
But you are actually arguing for something different. You are insisting on an implication where the rest of us don't see one. If a project has nice documentation, an up-to-date license, etc. you believe that there is ethical/moral implication that the maintainer will fulfil some responsibility.
This isn't just about misrepresentation (which is almost a side-effect), it is about a proposed belief in duty, almost like a chivalry that goes beyond gentleman-ness.
I tend to think of Postel's law in those circumstances, liberal in what I accept and conservative in what I do. I've heard it said that the happiest cultures of the world have low expectations.