That’s fine. It’s even admirable if you to do that. But it isn’t and shouldn’t be mandatory.
Re:Actix project postmortem
by dodobirdlord on Saturday January 18, 2020 @04:25AM
(#22083407)
While “mandatory” would be a stretch, I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about expecting project owners not to overstate the maintenance level of their projects. Deliberately conveying a false impression to people is called lying, and it’s generally regarded as being bad.
The distinction between "amatuer" and "professional" is literally the motivation for the action, i.e. if you are doing it for enjoyment vs if you are doing it to get paid or advance your career.
If you are making products that people can rely on primarily because you enjoy it, you are literally an amatuer.
There are figurative connotations of quality and polish implicit with those terms, but I find those connotations unfortunate and in many cases unwarranted.
Sure. I'm not saying I am a professional. I'm saying I will provide professional-style support (according to the connotation), just not necessarily in a timely fashion, and it's demoralizing when other people say you should avoid my amateur software because they're leaning on the connotations of "amateur" and "professional."
For many people, their personal interest in open source is writing code for fun and showing it off. For others, it's making a product that people can rely on. The second one is my motivation; don't take that away from me.