Hacker News Reader

Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

People “have the option” to say whatever they want – it’s called Free Speech, and it’s an important legal right. But that does not mean that I think that everything people do say is right and proper. I can, and will, criticize people for what they say, and I will also criticize maintainers who treat their users with less than reasonable respect.

You are conflating legal rights with what is socially or ethically right, and I think this is a dubious rhetorical trick.

View on HN

I don't "keep" doing anything - this is the first and only time I've ever replied to one of your comments, nor have I said anything that a reasonable person could construe as conflating legal obligations and social etiquette.

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."

> I don't "keep" doing anything

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.

Those rules are generally not put in place by users though, they're put in place by other maintainers right?

By other maintainers, yes, but for the benefit of users. Also, if these minimal levels of decency (which I suggest) are in fact so onerous to surely drive all maintainers to burnout (as frequently claimed, even in this thread), why, then, are they mandated by distributions?

> 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.

When Forest Gump said “I’m pretty tired, I think I’ll go home now” was he breaking an obligation to keep running just because others were following him?

Well in this case, imagine if he didn't say that, or say anything. It would be pretty rude.

Exactly. A modicum of respect is all I expect.

If I go for a jog, and a bunch of people start jogging behind me that I didn’t solicit in any way, then no… it is not rude of me to just stop jogging and go home without saying anything to them.

If you spent many hours, days, months with them it would be. Come on.

Why? Why does doing something in public for a long time create an obligation to people who see me do it.

They're doing it with you, so you should at least say goodbye.

I don't know what I can say for "why" other than go find a manners book and a philosophy book.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com