> creating an open source project is a contract with the community, and part of that contract is to assist members of this community

I disagree. Creating an open source project is a gift to the community.

Expecting further time and attention from somebody who gave you a gift, out of a sense of entitlement from having received the gift, is just being rude.

Pay for my time and I'll help you with your issues. Demand my time because you're somehow my "community" and I'll just re-explain the above.

Whether you want give support and maintain the project or just throw the code, it's important to make it clear so people can have reasonable expectations. Also if you want provide paid support, make it clear too.

I've recently saw a license that make the author intentions of not giving support clear: DILLIGASPL (Do I Look Like I Give A Shit Public License)[1]. Sounds like a joke, but it's a way to show what are you up for.

https://github.com/samlev/DILLIGASPL

That statement is made by how I view my open source projects, and thus what I expect from other open source projects. Could be that my expectations are too high, but I don’t believe so. This is not entitlement, it’s expecting a level of seriousness similar to that I am willing to give.

A community that hasn't established a semaphore for updating the code isn't a community. It is hard to build that with consensus instead of input from its creator.

The nature of what succeeds in opensource has everything to do with whether the creator puts community work in themselves, nominates someone, or just publishes read-only code.

Naturally, anyone is free to do whatever they like.. but most people seem to expect a result from their actions and publishing pure code is rarely going to have any result.

That's a strange view of open source that borders on communism.

You don't have any duties or obligation towards any individual to assist them with their issues.

The only obligations you have is to be honest about the project. For example, if you know that the project is not written with security in mind, you must announce the fact, so that people don't go using the project assuming you took care of all potential exploits.

Beyond that, you have no obligations towards anyone. Quite the opposite. You've already done your part. You donated the product of your effort for free. The obligation is on people who use your product. If they want you to care of their issues, they are obliged to give something back in return. At the very least, appreciation.

I don’t get where communism comes from. This is my view on personal responsibility and nothing more, and I naively expect people to have similar dedication to open source software as me. I understand this is not always the case, but I have described the perfect world as I see it in my comment above.

Don't know about duty but I think everyone has a right to expect help and a right to give help. It makes for a better world where these rights are regularly exercised.

> everyone has a right to expect help and a right to give help

This might make sense when asking a stranger for directions or for someone to help with your car problem, because the relationship is 1:1.

But this breaks down in contexts where scale is a factor.

When assisting users of your project, the relationship is 1:many. And if the project is popular, it is unfair to expect the author to be helping so many people.

I don't really see how 1:to many makes any difference in principle. Perhaps you were thinking of the amount of effort to help the many? As in 1:1 case it is up to the helper to decide how many resources, if any, to spend on helping. A society where the default position is that people deserve help is different from one that is based on the survival of the fittest.

Even if the default position is to help, it can't be unconditional, there are limits. You don't have a right to expect help when it places an unreasonable burden on the helper.

> I think everyone has a right to expect help

Of the people with whom you have formed strong social bonds, yes.

Of random strangers? .. I don't think so.

Unless they are bound by some sort of a contract (employees, servants, etc).

I upvoted you because I think it's an interesting position, but you should realize that adding duties will discourage people from doing any contributions at all. It starts to feel like a case of "no good deed going unpunished".

I wasn't thinking of legal rights and obligations but rather of a moral ethos.

The alternative brought to it's logical conclusion is Shkreli and rasing medicine prices by thousand percent.

The alternative to giving away your personal time for free to an open-source project is gouging people on vital medication? That doesn't seem true in any sense.

A right to "expect" is a right to control your own though, unless you mean something else?

I really like and appreciate the notion that a project could/should state what the assumptions are, where applicable. And, perhaps point out weak spots that could be important to users. If nothing else, it sets the expectations right.

The perfect example is yours, "this project does not take security into consideration. Use at your own responsibility. You should probably start with securing this_X, that_Y, and that_Z.".

Another example could be "this is a POC and does not go kindly on system resources. You might want to scale back the number of simultaneously opened sockets for any real use."

I'd like to second this:

> to be honest about the project

Sometimes you see the attitude "You get what you pay for", but putting code in the ecosystem without property explaining what it is is like littering.

In the same way I want to be able to walk in the park without constantly checking the ground for dog shit, I want to be able to use software without having to audit every part personally because the author didn't care for it, or communicate that fact.

* I mean didn't care for security

edit: This down-voted too? The clarification?

The issue is donations don't work even if you have a large user base.

This this this. If you provide a service for free, the vast majority of your user base will never care about giving you money, and will just stop using your service and find another one if you try to start charging them for it instead of keeping it free. One of my side-projects has ended up here and it's been a huge pain to deal with.

We are not talking about a service here, we are talking about OSS codebase and in my experience it does work.

> We are not talking about a service here, we are talking about OSS codebase

IMVHO, these are the same thing for the purpose of this discussion -- providing something to others, free of charge.

> and in my experience it does work.

Good for you (no sarcasm meant). But sadly this doesn't really seem to 'scale' that well.

What's your experience?

In my experience, i donate to projects, which i use often/or build upon.

That's nice of you. Is it enough to keep the projects alive?

My data point would be Borg Backup, which, if you were to consider Bountysource to be payment for development, is under-financed by perhaps a factor of 40. 80+ % of funding came from three organizations.

And what I've heard from other maintainers is that Borg seems to do comparatively well.

So no, if you think in terms of payment, donations do not work in the open source ecosystem.

> creating an open source project is a contract with the community, and part of that contract is to assist members of this community that might require features or have issues.

If this were strictly enforced, there would be much fewer open source projects, as not all authors would be able to meet the obligations.

Then add a disclaimer that the repository is not actively maintained and is looking for maintainers. This will absolve the responsibility of the entity that can no longer sustain the project and set the expectations of visitors accordingly.

There are some areas where fewer projects would be a good think. There is a burden of choice that can be solved by filtering for authors ready and willing to meet more requirements.