Open source is not about you (2018)

You're naive if you think your immune to social exploitation just cause you write some words. Your entire being is defined by social exploitation. You adopt our language, our roles etc but you believe you can transcend them when it's convenient. Developers aren't entitled to make people reliant on software and ghost them. I'm sure teachers, firefighters and congress (lol) would all love to stay home and wait out the collapse of society, but they go to work because people rely on them. It's an odd thing for me to build a firetruck, go around pretending to be a firefighter (out compete and make the firefighters lose funding) and then snap back at people expecting me to work for free even though governments do fund open source.

If you volunteer as a crossing guard, even if you aren't paid, you have a duty of care. There aren't currently laws against your behavior, but if there is a pattern of such behavior it may be illegal. The EU through the CRA is doing good work in this regard.

Of course governments shouldn't compel people to work (>.o). But nobody wants to live in a world of abandoned core infrastructure projects. You aren't an exception, but you thought yourself special when you decided to work for free. Now instead of understanding why people work for money you scrawl against human nature.

FOSS is simply computer users doing what they have always done, and accomplishing things no one (or no company) could ever do on their own.

For those that paid tens of thousands of dollars to keep the office talent happy with what they know software wise, it has been my observation the training and support is often still missing on the commercial options as well... once they get paid.

Finally, most become locked into a vendors up-sold ecosystem as they choke off compatibility with other external product workflows. And you can't add something to fit your specific use-case, as single users don't matter in business products.

FOSS is usually better in almost every way most of the time, but often lacks stability as upstream projects continuously undergo permutation. Note, even the old closed-source Nvidia GPU drivers in kernel 6.15 to send a lot of old Linux laptops to the landfill.

Confusing skill issues with the realty of the software business is common. =3

Reasonable people won’t start a project in an already oversubscribed niche. So yes, it does matter if you’re doing more than the minimum. It’s a social contract because you’re using up the oxygen.

I liken it to throwing a party. Yes it’s your party, but I can’t go to your party if it’s Timothy’s birthday. But if you’re popular enough then people will say “fuck Timothy” and that’s not cool. And you don’thave to be a great host and you can absolutely lock your bedroom door, but there better be snacks and maybe music, or people will talk about you behind your back. Or if you bring lutefisk and nobody there is Scandinavian. Read the room dude.

There are way too many software people who think, “well you didn’t have to come to my party/eat what I brought” is a valid response to criticism.

That’s not how social things work, and open source is one.

Why? If you are hostile towards me, mock me, or attack me or are in some other way a douche towards me, I reserve the right to handle you in any way that I want to. My opinion of you has to be earned, just like respect. There is no entitlement for my basic courtesy. I am willing to give everyone the benefit of doubt at the beginning, and extend courtesy, but "entitlement"? no. You do not get to decide what I think or how I feel about you.

I agree. I’ve often wondered why open source maintainers get worked up over this. You can just ignore them. Odds are the maintainer spent zero seconds thinking about the person before the negativity over the course of their entire lives to that point. Why let them have free rent in your head now? Chuckle and go on not thinking about them for the remainder of your life.