Comment by M95D
2 days ago
Let me change the perspective:
Are you in any way no matter how small responsible for what you create, what you post online, and what effects those actions have on other people?
2 days ago
Let me change the perspective:
Are you in any way no matter how small responsible for what you create, what you post online, and what effects those actions have on other people?
Sometimes!
If I post an article about how drinking bleach makes your skin softer, I share responsibility when someone does it.
If I post an article about how to make your own bleach, and a reader says “that sounds tasty” and drinks some, that’s not my responsibility in any way.
If I put up some trash code with a README that says “this is solid, reliable code that you should use for storing all of your financial data and family photos,” I have responsibility for what happens when people do that. If I just put up some trash code and say, I thought this was interesting and wanted to share it, and some numbskull decided to use it for something critical without thoroughly evaluating it first, not my responsibility.
> README that says “this is solid, reliable code that you should use for storing all of your financial data and family photos,”
Show me a readme like that! I'll wait.
Everybody writes a legalese disclaimer that basically say it's trash software and the author has no resposibility, but here's the thing: everybody ignores it. This is the reality of FOSS software.
Nobody has the time to audit the code of every FOSS they use. We all assume some basic quality such as not deleteting /var/db and the responsibility is yours to not do that or not publish it, no matter what you wrote in the readme/disclaimer.
“ SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine. SQLite is the most used database engine in the world. SQLite is built into all mobile phones and most computers and comes bundled inside countless other applications that people use every day.”
You don’t have to fully audit what you use, but you’d better do some basic vetting. If there’s no web site, no documentation, no activity on the issue tracker, then maybe when you put all your precious data into the thing and lose it, that’s your problem.