this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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Ya, reading the GitHub issue sounds entirely like burnt out devs being abused by users. It's a massive issue in open source.
The Late Night Linux and Linux Dev Time podcasts talked about exactly this in a recent episode. It can be extremely demoralizing to do all this work for free for a project only to be inundated by ungrateful people demanding you fix something or implement a feature they want. Many open source projects have died because of that.
We're not talking about a user demanding you release a flatpak build targeting their personal linux distribution running in a VM'd WSL, we're talking about a consumer facing social app that doesn't include the functionality for a user to delete something they added.
You know what the acronym used for describing the most basic functional web app api is?
CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete
What we're talking about is a complete free and open source project that's built and maintained completely through volunteer labour.
There are zero obligations towards the people actively using the software.
While I agree that the functionality should exist, the devs can literally do whatever they want. Nobody is paying them.
Edit: you're also seeing only a single instance of a conversation. I can guarantee that the devs have been dealing with asinine and demanding users for a while now. There comes a point where your patience wears thin.
Yes, there are, and that obligation is to not publish something as production ready if it is illegal to use because of how it's built.
I'm a software developer, I understand exactly how frustrating user demands are, that was still a completely and utterly unacceptable way to respond to a very politely worded request for software that literally just doesn't break privacy laws to run.
As the commenter pointed out, if you don't want to fix it, fine, but then you absolutely have a moral, ethical, and professional obligation to document that clearly in your README.md.
No, there really isn't. Do I feel that project owners should follow good practices for maintaining clean code that also allows users to keep things legal? Absolutely I do.
But that is not the same thing as an obligation. If there was a single cent exchanged between the devs and anyone else (donations do not count) then this conversation would be entirely different.
I don't agree with the devs' stance. But it is 100% their prerogative to say no. It's their project, not ours.
As am I.
I agree.
No, you absolutely do not. Although I do somewhat agree on the professional part, but it's still not an obligation. It's completely unprofessional, but that's different than it being an obligation.
You seem to know what you are talking about. Have you made a pull request yet?
while i think there are people like that i think this particular issue is a serious issue that should be handled properly. i think the conversation should have been much professional from both sides, but nonetheless this issue addresses a serious problem.
Why should it be handled professionally? I don't necessarily disagree, but what makes you say that? This isn't a paid job. They aren't working for a corporation. And all of their work is voluntary for a free project.
Does them working on the project voluntairly, makes them be able to steal code from non-opensource projects, ignore licenses and do other shit like that? If the answer is no, why does working on the project voluntairly lets them break the law in other ways?
That's a lot of incorrect assumptions there.
They didn't steal any code. They didn't ignore licenses either. In fact, the only reason they had a judgment ruled against them is because they were taking monetary donations. Which was interpreted as "profiting".
They reverse engineered a process without stealing anything. They didn't even circumvent DRM, which is actually protected by law on the grounds of creating personal backups and data/software preservation.
You're either very ignorant on the subject or you just ate up Nintendo's BS.
I was talking hypothetically. Are they allowed to do that? If not, then they cannot be noncompliant with GDPR, simple as.
Actually yes. The people that run afoul of the GDPR are the people who run the instance servers. The code writers are not the ones legally responsible.
Yeah, theu are just as legally responsible as admins of instances.
That's going to vary heavily based on regional laws. You cannot make such a blanket statement like that.
there is a lot of difference between a random internet forum and an issues forum. also that particular issue was made with good faith even though both of them might have gone overboard. people suck a lot and might even make stupid arguments or issues. people stick to your work because they like it and they hope it will continue without dying next day, even though you do it voluntarily. this gives more weight here since their work is more like an internet forum where people voice out their thoughts. given such weight, i think they should have handled it properly, if they did it would not have been made a post or an article. i have no biased opinion for any party here, but since I respect lemmy a lot and doesn't want lemmy to have a bad name, i think their developers should not give in and be unprofessional and give lemmy a bad reputation.
That's how a Minecraft server I ran died. Too many people telling me how to run it and trying to break things when I was asleep.
Ya, I know exactly what you experienced. It sucks and it's why we can never have nice things.
What I truly don’t understand is why the negative eggs that you WILL ALWAYS HAVE NO MATTER WHAT, read it again, ALWAYS HAVE NO MATTER WHAT, gets so much mental attention than the many more people who are actively applauding you and saying their thanks and giving you their praises.
I will never understand the focusing on the negative I guess. It’d be easy as fuck for me to ignore people’s assholeishness while still taking their badly typed criticism and improving (if I reasonably can).
Shit, it makes me feel like the fucking champ when some random persons says thanks for something I did, and I laugh and ignore the ones who don’t like what I do.
But hey, if focusing on the few negatives instead of the mountains of praise is what you want to do, it’s all yours.
Imagine you get approval to build a new park and playground for your neighbourhood. You spend hundreds of hours designing the plan and layout and you spend incredible amounts of your own money to get the resources.
You get to work and things are going well. As you near the end of months upon months of work, the park finally opens for families and kids to use.
As you're standing there proud of your work, some people come over to you. Do they say "thank you!" or "you did amazing work"? No, they come over to complain about things that are missing, tell you what you should have done better, that you didn't accommodate their each specific needs, etc.
You would very quickly get bitter and demoralized.
Like I mentioned before: this is a massive problem in the open source development world and has killed many great projects. This has nothing to do with "mental attention" and everything to do with users abusing the devs and their time.
In your analogy, the park didn't follow any safety guidelines and people are dying on the rides and falling into a lake with piranhas.
In my analogy it's a park with trees, bushes, rocks, and slides. I said "park in your neighbourhood" not "mega-extreme rollercoaster park". I also said "you got approval" which is generally from the city or other governing municipal/county/regional body. And that also requires a plan to be submitted before approval is stamped.
So no, what you did is make up a bunch of crap to strawman my argument and try to make what I said wrong in some way.
Nice try.
They by definition didn't "get permission" if they are noncompliant with GDPR.
Are they in the EU? No? Then they don't need that permission.
Are they in the US? Then they need that permission too.
Your comment doesn't make sense to me.
Because you don't know how GDPR works.
No, I meant the wording of you comment is terrible