Comment by telmo
5 years ago
> What the license says and what image the project presents can be very different. Pointing to the license and reasoning that nobody has legally promised anything contractually is not very useful.
It is quite useful, because the license is the legal document that comes included with the software, and that specifies what things you agree to if you use the software. And it explicitly specifies that you cannot assume any contractual obligations from the "image the project presents", or anything of the sort.
> That’s a very mercenary view of the world. What about volunteer charity workers? Is it OK for them to just not show up whenever, just because they aren’t paid?
I would say that if someone promises to do some charity work and doesn't show up without a good reason is breaking a promise, and is thus being a shitty person. People should keep to their word. Open source authors promised us nothing and owe us nothing. More often than not, we owe them.
> Open source authors promised us nothing and owe us nothing
There is such a thing as an implicit promise. A project which presents itself as active and maintained by a community does implicitly promise a certain level of attention by its maintainers.
> either express or implied
Did you miss this part?
There is such a thing as an implicit promise, but it does not trump an an explicit disclaimer of such attention. Which there is in this case. Once again, thanks for demonstrating the entitled attitude that brought this on.
Would you please edit personal swipes and/or snark and/or name-calling out of your posts to HN? Between this and https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting, we'd be grateful. I appreciate how much your HN posts have improved, but it's necessary not to break the guidelines.