> I will preface this by saying I have immense respect for anyone who open-sources their work. I think the web as we know it today would not exist without such kind and hard-working individuals.
That itself is part of the problem.
I do also appreciate all the great FOSS ecosystems that I'm using. Who knows where we would be without them.
But open source software is not about some kind, selfless altruist who hacks away for free for the benefit of others. It's about publishing the source code with some attached rights and obligations for programs or libraries that have been developed to scratch an itch. Be it personal need, personal interest, learning opportunity or straight up business necessity. You publish to get a community involved to make your software better, be it through bug reports, recommendations for improvement, pull requests, etc. That ultimately benefits the author, and that's the whole point.
It's a misconception that open source software is (or should be) developed for the greater good, to be kind to one another. And by keeping to thank "kind hard working individuals" (which they often times are!), one perpetuates this misconception. It's great if kindness is a component in all of this. But it's not the central point and should not be expected to be. That's what causes threads like this one in the first place, where somebody has to complain about being exploited or getting annoyed with peoples expectations, or their own expectations with themselves, and then others opining about that.
> You painstakingly supported a library for years, got burned out and want to quit? At least try to pass it to another maintainer.
Are you serious? Above you just said that you have immense respect for open source authors. And now you say that somebody can't take it anymore and is burned out and THEN you STILL expect them to put MORE work in, despite being burned out, to pass things on? The source code is available, the license is clear, if there is anybody else who wants to maintain, they can just go and to it. Why do you keep demanding anything from the already-burned-out author that you respect immensely? Honestly, I find that deeply disrespectful.
> Are you serious? Above you just said that you have immense respect for open source authors. And now you say that somebody can't take it anymore and is burned out and THEN you STILL expect them to put MORE work in, despite being burned out, to pass things on? The source code is available, the license is clear, if there is anybody else who wants to maintain, they can just go and to it. Why do you keep demanding anything from the already-burned-out author that you respect immensely? Honestly, I find that deeply disrespectful.
I just want to add to this: Finding and training a new good maintainer is a lot of work. If you just pass the project along with its reputation to whoever comes up then you might be doing more harm and it might be better to not do anything and have the new maintainer earn their own trust with their fork. So yeah, having open source developers to pass on the project when they want to quit is not a fair expectation.
That itself is part of the problem.
I do also appreciate all the great FOSS ecosystems that I'm using. Who knows where we would be without them.
But open source software is not about some kind, selfless altruist who hacks away for free for the benefit of others. It's about publishing the source code with some attached rights and obligations for programs or libraries that have been developed to scratch an itch. Be it personal need, personal interest, learning opportunity or straight up business necessity. You publish to get a community involved to make your software better, be it through bug reports, recommendations for improvement, pull requests, etc. That ultimately benefits the author, and that's the whole point.
It's a misconception that open source software is (or should be) developed for the greater good, to be kind to one another. And by keeping to thank "kind hard working individuals" (which they often times are!), one perpetuates this misconception. It's great if kindness is a component in all of this. But it's not the central point and should not be expected to be. That's what causes threads like this one in the first place, where somebody has to complain about being exploited or getting annoyed with peoples expectations, or their own expectations with themselves, and then others opining about that.
> You painstakingly supported a library for years, got burned out and want to quit? At least try to pass it to another maintainer.
Are you serious? Above you just said that you have immense respect for open source authors. And now you say that somebody can't take it anymore and is burned out and THEN you STILL expect them to put MORE work in, despite being burned out, to pass things on? The source code is available, the license is clear, if there is anybody else who wants to maintain, they can just go and to it. Why do you keep demanding anything from the already-burned-out author that you respect immensely? Honestly, I find that deeply disrespectful.