Comment by friend_and_foe

Well, I'd say if you want users to depend on your work, you're voluntarily signing yourself up to endless maintenance for little reward. I look at it like this: I built something cool, if it's useful to you, use it. But if you come to depend on it, and doubly so for business use, maybe you should consider being prepared to maintain it yourself. Other people look at it differently, and if it's your goal for the world to depend on your work and you haven't set yourself up to benefit from that responsibility you take on yourself in a way that you like, then I don't really think it's a problem the rest of us have to solve.

Is it unsustainable like the title of the article says? I suppose, but it's not some state of affairs that is unavoidable or that we are stuck with through no fault of our own. A guy wants people to depend on his work that he does for free, a company sees a core component of their business that they can get for free, a few years later the guy is upset that he is maintaining this thing everyone depends on and the company is scared their business will fall apart without him. They each got themselves there, it's a predictable state of affairs, the solutions for each party are very clear. As a developer though, the solution is what I've outlined: take the "no warranty of mechantibility or fitness for purpose" part of your license seriously and tell entitled people to solve their own problems.