This is not about obligation to fix bug reports. It is about respectful communication, which is pretty orthogonal.
I can just ghost you. The only obligatory relationship possible between us is either of blood or money. As a private individual, I don’t really owe you anything. You have the previlege of not having to use my work, or fork it and make it your own.
The only truly obligatory relationship is between you and the physical world. It's dictated by the laws of physics.
You can and that's fine, but if you do reply and you're unnecessarily rude, I hope we can agree that's bad
> I hope we can agree that's bad
No we can't agree on that. There is no obligation to be polite.
Rudeness is highly corrosive in a collaborative environment, RMS is damaging the community needed to sustain development by his rudeness.
There is no obligation to collaborate either. I can write a software, publish it and insult people who wrongly report bugs.
Of course I wouldn't expect people to love me for that, and it's not how I personally act; but if someone felt like acting in this way, it would be fully within his/her rights to do so.
RMS has the right to behave as he wants. He is not obliged to behave in a particular way.
My point is that the way he chooses to behave is in the long run damaging to the community that he founded and leads.
I replied to a comment saying "a maintainer". If you had unilaterally decided to change topic without informing me… well in the future try not to do that.
Not a change of topic. Rudeness from a maintainer is equally corrosive.
No, that's not how it works.
I'm free to publish something and completely ignore bugreports.
There is no such responsibility principle. Some people, out of goodness of their hearths, follow up on things. But they have no obligation to do so.