Re:“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from be...
by leoc on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:58PM
(#17520426)
Yes. The honestly somewhat dodgy no-warranty clauses in open-source licenses have always been justified on the basis that unpaid volunteers can't afford to be exposed to (potentially very serious) legal liability for their work. It's a bit astonishing that now they're being presented as a supposed reason why OS devs never have any ethical responsiblity to their users (beyond refraining from active malice, presumably?) (And in case it needs saying, no-one is suggesting that devs have an unlimited responsiblity to serve or take shit from users, or that users don't have reciprocal obligations.) By that logic the many sleazy Kickstarters, scam PACs, do-nothing gravy-train charities and the like that manage to stay just this side of the law are also all fine and wonderful.
Certainly, but notwithstanding those disclaimers, if the project's README or homepage describes it as intended and fit for a particular purpose, the user invests some time into learning to use the code in question based on the description, and it turns out that the description was... shall we say, overly optimistic, isn't the user entitled to be pissed off at the maintainer?
There may not be any legal liability, but the maintainer can incur social obligations by fostering expectations.
As an analogy, what do you think will happen if you tell someone you will help them move their stuff to a new apartment and that you'll bring a dolly, but you bail on them, or even just don't show up[0]? They chose to rely on you to provide the dolly rather than find some other alternative, after all.
So of course social obligations aren't something you can be sued over, but they are indeed real, and ignoring or violating them does have a cost: People get pissed off at you, which they may choose to express uncouthly in your general direction or vicinity, and your reputation suffers.
It is worth noting that this is far from a blank check for them to hurl invective at you. Their reputation may suffer as well, depending on just how uncouth they are.
Such is life.
[0] I am NOT saying that GvR has done the equivalent. In point of fact, he has left no outstanding commitments behind, and has fostered the growth of a robust group of core committers that are well up to the task of continuing to steer the project in his stead, though perhaps without his particular aesthetic sense.