Comment by orblivion

I'm not a user of Clojure, but I'm a user of other FOSS tools (Docker) for which I've had complaints.

Though I have potential issues here, I think it is important that this be said. It highlights missed expectations. This open source thing is a weird new(ish) world, and we need to be on the same page. It's been a few decades, but perhaps we haven't quite adjusted yet. Or maybe this hippie thing actually doesn't work, which would be a real shame.

The fact is that we rely on it. And I think that this really is an alternate mode of creation. I could be wrong but I don't think the idea of "community development" is something that was recently made up. It's part of the Free Software ethos. Perhaps what is new here is a notion that there not be a party at the top of each fork who has ultimate responsibility.

A pure gift, take it or leave it, no strings attached in either direction, is fine, and should be appreciated. But it's useless to users who need to rely on what you've produced. If the project is not subject to the demands of its users (which includes contributors, to the extent that they are users with demands that they are willing to fulfil themselves) then it's got a serious disadvantage over commercial software without a free distribution model. It's not akin to a serious tool for sale. And _if that doesn't meet expectations_, people are within reason to push back.

The other side of it is that there have to be limits, of course. There has to be respect for the producer, their time, their preferred mode of management, the limit of the scope of the project, etc. There have to be judgement calls made, just like commercial software without a free distribution model, as to what does and doesn't make it into the project. For all these reasons I can see that it's important that a producer pushed back here.

But if the producer doesn't voluntarily take on some level of responsibility as part of running the project, whatever the terms may be, then at the end of the day the project can't be relied on within the economy. This is not a demand on the author of this post. He is entitled to treating Clojure under whatever terms he wants. But somebody has to, for it to work in our system.

I think the solution is just better messaging of expectations. What this project is. What expectations should you have as a user. What expectations should you have as a contributor. Now we can all look at it as a reference point, and decide: Do we want to rely on this? Do we want to spend our time working on this? Do we have a basis for complaint?

Really, this is the same set of questions that are answered in any business arrangement. Perhaps there needs to be a SOCIAL_CONTRACT file next to LICENSE, README, etc.