Ask HN: Do open source authors have a responsibility to maintain their projects?

2 points·ntkx··3 comments

I would be interested to get some opinions on this one. Personally I get very frustrated when people open source projects then neglect them. I feel it may prevent others from moving into that space and doing a better job.

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No. They are people working for free on their spare time. They have no obligation whatsoever to anyone.

If you feel an open source project you like and use is being neglected by its original author, why don't you step forward and assume its ownership?

That's what open source is about: to give everyone the freedom to do whatever they want and need. Open source is not about forcing developers to work for free forever to support your needs.

Open source developers are real people, with real jobs, real families, and who needs to eat, sleep, and pay rent.

That's what forks are for. If there are issues outstanding, and you can fix them, and you've sent patches / pull requests upstream and heard nothing, then get promoting your own branch. Who knows, the maintainer might welcome the chance to hand over the reigns.

Do they have a "responsibility" to do so? No. Should they find a replacement when they burn out / get bored / etc? Yes. I think so.

But they are under no obligation to do so. If it's popular enough, someone will pick up the reigns.

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