> I still really don’t understand what is so entitled about asking for a level of base empathy and care from maintainers.
> People now yell at you that their only obligation is whatever is spelled out in the license they attached to the code.
Let’s turn your implied question around: if a person wants to share code without any expectation of care and maintenance, what should they do? Is the entire concept bogus, and the developer should just keep the code to themselves forever? Or put a “DO NOT USE FOR YOUR BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY” in a README? What communication other than the license could reasonably be provided?
I think the person you’re responding to made a pretty good point that open-source is sometimes the passion of an unpaid 1-person “team” and sometimes the product of a VC-funded attempt to buy goodwill. The idea that asking for more from maintainers is entitled is clearly suitable for the former case but not the latter. Now that Bun has been bought out perhaps they are more deserving of scrutiny.
> Contributions from people from identities known and consistent before the AI-age are fine
Unfortunately, according to the article:
> Giovannini has participated in discussions at least as far back as 2018, and his activity in Bugzilla goes back to at least 2016. He does not appear to have been a particularly active contributor to the project, but his involvement clearly predates the agentic AI era. Whether his account is now being operated by a human attacker, an agentic AI, or a mix of both, it has a legitimate history prior to its recent activity.
So people would have to not only verify the age of Giovanni’s accounts, but judge whether his behaviour was normal.
Near the top, the page claims it’s about learning the difference between checking, saving and money market accounts.
In the entire linked article, where is the explanation for what a savings account is? Most of the early paragraphs are just waffling about how “Types of Accounts” are important. I’m pretty sure I read the phrase “money is emotional” before even getting to any description of any type of account. The word “savings” almost never appears and none of the instances seemed to define a savings account.
Honestly, is this content written by AI? In my opinion it’s acceptable to use AI to replace the boilerplate HTML, JavaScript and CSS of your site. But using AI for the actual writing risks turning your “educational tool” into a tool for misinformation.
EDIT: according to Pangram, 100% of the first two paragraphs are AI generated. Which is not a surprise at all, I don’t see how a human tasked with describing types of bank accounts would struggle this hard.
They could if they feel it's worthwhile. Most companies don't, but most companies don't do most of the stuff mentioned in this article, because they're lazy. If they're not lazy they can absolutely follow up any unpaid debt in court, no matter whether you tried to use a virtual credit card or anything like that.
In German-speaking (DACH) countries the companies aren't lazy and they will take you to court and the court will make you pay all legal and court fees as well as the debt. It's a near certainty they will bother. In the USA you're hoping they won't bother and they'll be satisfied with just banning you as a customer. I think this is because each party pays their own legal fees in the USA.
Point #5 seems near impossible and even furthermore undesirable. Unless we are envisioning an application with all the characteristics of a web browser, but using different layout languages.
Some enjoy their local cultures, customs and sovereignty and do not wish to dissolve into a homogenized nowhere-land of world culture/governance. Some people do not cheer for dystopia.
Continue with the scold though, very convincing argument so far.
> People now yell at you that their only obligation is whatever is spelled out in the license they attached to the code.
Let’s turn your implied question around: if a person wants to share code without any expectation of care and maintenance, what should they do? Is the entire concept bogus, and the developer should just keep the code to themselves forever? Or put a “DO NOT USE FOR YOUR BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY” in a README? What communication other than the license could reasonably be provided?
I think the person you’re responding to made a pretty good point that open-source is sometimes the passion of an unpaid 1-person “team” and sometimes the product of a VC-funded attempt to buy goodwill. The idea that asking for more from maintainers is entitled is clearly suitable for the former case but not the latter. Now that Bun has been bought out perhaps they are more deserving of scrutiny.
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