Comment by d1sxeyes

I still don’t understand how someone who wants something different from what’s on offer is “a victim”.

I do agree that “just fork it” is a flippant and pretty unhelpful thing to say, but just because a piece of software is open source, that doesn’t necessarily automatically mean that its development should follow the designs of a committee of its users.

You are absolutely correct that often, open source projects are indeed run with the maintainers exercising absolute control. I think this is where the tension comes in, because sometimes, folks expect that to be different, and approach the project with a sense of entitlement that somehow the project should change to fit their needs.

“Just fork it” is a way of saying “if you need it to fit your needs, feel free to take what we’ve done so far and add what you need, but we aren’t going to”.

The author’s core argument seems to be summarised here: “In social terms, it’s the equivalent of saying: “If you don’t like society, go start your own civilisation.”

It’s not at all equivalent though. It’s more like “I invited everyone round for dinner, and I don’t want my house to smell of fish, so I’m not cooking fish. If you want to cook fish, you can borrow my pans, but invite everyone round to your house instead.”