> Open source participants are volunteers and owe you nothing.
Equally, someone gets hit by a car while crossing the road. I don't owe them anything to go help them but society, morality and being decent are these unwritten rules that kind of do force you into owing something.
Yes, I agree, volunteers don't owe anything but there are some unwritten rules that when broken should be frowned upon and I'd probably go as far as saying should be held against them.
As a reader of this, you could be thinking, wow this sounds extreme but here is the easiest example I can give.
- Someone writes library
- Library comes insanely popular
- Author refuses to allow the community to take over original project
- Author wants to maintain status, ownership, etc
- Entire community now suffers because the author doesn't owe anyone anything
"Just fork the repo", is the most common response but let's be real, nearly nobody uses the forks and every other repo that uses this popular library is using the non-forked repo.
There should be a "then take over maintenance" option. A good maintainer also steps back and hands over the project. That is less troublesome for the community I think this is a good practice.
But ignoring good practice: a unpaid maintainer owns nothing to anyone.
> Equally, someone gets hit by a car while crossing the road. I don't owe them anything to go help them but society, morality and being decent are these unwritten rules that kind of do force you into owing something.
In most countries they actually have written laws which require you to help in such a situation though.
Equally, someone gets hit by a car while crossing the road. I don't owe them anything to go help them but society, morality and being decent are these unwritten rules that kind of do force you into owing something.
Yes, I agree, volunteers don't owe anything but there are some unwritten rules that when broken should be frowned upon and I'd probably go as far as saying should be held against them.
As a reader of this, you could be thinking, wow this sounds extreme but here is the easiest example I can give.
- Someone writes library
- Library comes insanely popular
- Author refuses to allow the community to take over original project
- Author wants to maintain status, ownership, etc
- Entire community now suffers because the author doesn't owe anyone anything
"Just fork the repo", is the most common response but let's be real, nearly nobody uses the forks and every other repo that uses this popular library is using the non-forked repo.