alt.hn

5/3/2026 at 2:36:09 AM

Open source does not imply open community

 https://blog.feld.me/posts/2026/04/open-source-does-not-imply-open-community/

by RohanAdwankar

5/3/2026 at 4:12:35 AM

Even the most closed community will often accept a contribution if you are polite and email them.

An open source developer had disabled pull requests and other operations on their repository because they were fed up with harassment. They gained a reputation for being extremely disagreeable at that time. I was unaware of this and simply assumed that was how the project worked. I had to do some minor investigative work to find their email address and I sent them a polite, low pressure email with my unsolicited patch and made it clear it was fine to use it or ignore it. They thanked me, explained the situation, even apologized for the difficulty, and said locking things down was the only way they knew to cope with the situation, and of course applied the fix.

by molticrystal

5/3/2026 at 7:54:13 AM

Is it happening in the popular repos?

by ahmetson

5/3/2026 at 7:11:53 AM

I thought this was going to be about the widespread issue of free software projects trying to make you use Discord to discuss or report things. There was a week or two where I saw people expressing interest in moving to other things, but that already seems to have died down. I assume they all gave up and went back to Discord after all.

by opan

5/3/2026 at 7:39:12 AM

Every open source project I look at right now uses Discord, to my chagrin. Discord isn't totally awful, but it's ephemeral and requires a huge bloated web app.

by qingcharles

5/3/2026 at 10:03:57 AM

Doubly frustrating is that I can't even use Discord if I wanted to. Every time I try to make an account, it gets banned or phone-walled almost immediately afterwards. This has been a known problem with them for years with many people, and even if you try to appeal your ban, you just get "our automated system is working properly, goodbye."

by ranger_danger

5/3/2026 at 4:06:32 AM

Greybeard here... let me start by saying I like the cut of the author's jib. I'm old enough to have sat before the elders of the arpanet when there were only 1's and they had to forge about half of them into 0's manually. Another thing about the old ways of making software is projects were often written or maintained by one or two people at a time. The intarwebs at large had their email addresses and mailed them bug reports directly. Some projects got discussed by the community on IRC or mailing lists. People were generally professional and if they weren't they were deleted from the mailing list or added to people's block files on iirc and pine.

But my point is... the active dev group was, at any time, very small. Mostly I'm talking about small utilities like make, Sendmail, sed, awk, sed. Perl seemed like it was just Larry Wall and tchrist for most of the time before 1990. gcc was an insane counter-example with a cast of thousands who submitted patches and you had to socialize your patch w/ RMS if you wanted it upstream.

oh wait... I forgot to make my point... My point is... the new tools support larger teams of people constantly interacting. I think there are great benefits to having a small team and effectively giving the middle finger to internet randos who don't submit their patches on one of their kidneys (i.e. - they'll think long and hard and sure as he'll won't submit two.) But getting people interested in your work output isn't one of those benefits. So... absolutely... go old school... But keep in mind the size of your team will be small and it may be hard to attract users.

But... screw users... I write software to support my own use cases. I open source it on the off chance someone else may find it useful.

by OhMeadhbh

5/4/2026 at 1:32:15 PM

I concur completely. Back in those days, the very basic stuff you mention (awk, sed, make) were being built by a handful of people, all sitting together, and the few outsiders who were submitting enhancements (even before these were called "patches") knew the email addresses to send these to. For Sendmail, you should contact the people at Berkeley, for most of the others you sent to Bell Labs.

Then software started appearing from other points. We were getting new versions of software after email announcements -- and later on, on comp.sources.unix -- and we were reading the comments to see that other people were contributing, too.

The way you publish your software (especially today) essentially boils down to how much you are looking for contributors vs. users (vs. no one at all).

by zvr

5/3/2026 at 4:09:48 AM

I laughed at “back when there were only 1’s and they had to forge about half of them into 0’s manually.” Stealing that one.

by sillysaurusx

5/3/2026 at 4:31:27 PM

Weren't holes 1's? Were there machines where it was backwards?

by jolmg

5/4/2026 at 9:50:32 AM

This is the time before punchcard holes.

Those holes were forged from Auðumbla, the primeval cow, licking salt off a stone.

Before then there was only Ginnungagap, the primordial void (yes, it predates C89).

by sshine

5/3/2026 at 3:35:39 AM

The CoC crowd are there to only instigate trouble.

by NordStreamYacht

5/3/2026 at 3:46:01 AM

Every political group has bad faith actors who care more about winning the argument than the truth. And worse faith actors who are just there to trash talk people. Just look at the red button / blue button argument (where the vitriol in the debate would only make sense if the buttons were real, or if people like being jerks).

Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them? Or say it should just be treated as a more utilitarian "be nice" convention for the mailing list (obviously it depends who is calling the shots, but that is true in any project).

by wisty

5/3/2026 at 4:44:20 AM

>Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them?

Sure, but the problem here is far more insidious. By latching into delicate and, at times, controversial issues, CoC may hold a project hostage and threaten character assassination.

Imagine that for some bizarre reason, CoC establishes that issues are only to be talked about on Mondays. People can comply, or they can leave, no biggie. Strange but clear cut.

Now, say it instead establishes whatever politically motivated consideration. The choice now becomes one of positioning oneself into the current political climate. This makes sense at times, but also leaves a door open for abuse akin to rules lawyering, gotchas and crybullying. Sometimes creates a phantom HR that has no interest beyond exerting its power and which does d with no accountability.

Problem is anyone raising this as an issue or rejecting such proposal is going to look bad while doing so. It's easier to keep your head low.

by Levitz

5/3/2026 at 8:23:20 AM

And your argument is that the CoC that does the Monday thing is better, or what?

by saagarjha

5/3/2026 at 2:18:47 PM

"Better" in the sense that it doesn't risk the problems the other does. My intention with that example was to make it clear I don't have a problem with people doing whatever, regardless of me liking it or not.

by Levitz

5/3/2026 at 10:08:53 AM

I think they're saying CoCs are being weaponized to enable arbitrary enforcement/discipline using subjective terminology (which I have noticed as well), and that that's a bad thing.

I have also noticed a stark hypocrisy where the moderators do exactly what their own rules say not to do, and they get away with it, but their users don't.

It's like they're just using the CoC to suppress opinions they don't like.

by ranger_danger

5/3/2026 at 2:04:07 PM

if a CoC can be weaponized, then the CoC is badly written. the existence of a CoC by itself is not the issue, even though some people claim that it is. that is a problem in itself.

by em-bee

5/3/2026 at 8:33:54 AM

The blue red button thing only works as a hypothetical. If it was real everyone would be choosing the same button and if blue was ever unlucky enough to lose, life would just go on for a majority of people.

by imtringued

5/3/2026 at 4:47:15 AM

[flagged]

by bakugo

5/3/2026 at 5:20:08 AM

This is not my view the only bad stories I have seen here are instances that should be taken care of even with out code of conducts. The reason why I see no problems with code of conducts is that it gets really tiresome to interact with people who are abrasive.

It is not a political thing in my view. I get more tired by the metadrama. Things did change when open source became a business. It is impossible to compare a voluntary based project with a big one. I think the issue is that most people have no experience in doing large scale self organization.

by emj

5/3/2026 at 3:22:34 PM

At face value, CoCs are a way for open source project leaders to decide who gets to interact with the project. You can't have freedom of association while also demanding to participate in someone else's project on your terms when said terms contradict the wishes of the project leadership.

If I were to guess, the author may have intended "you don't need a performative Code of Conduct" to mean, if you're a small project and you just want to share with the world with the option of including contributions from outsiders in the future, you don't need to have a CoC right out the gate until there are situations that have already been encountered. No need to wrack your brain on purely hypothetical problems.

by xantronix

5/3/2026 at 4:49:30 PM

Having posted rules on a forum/mailing list/bug tracker is only done to cause trouble? Really?

Codes of conduct exist because the alternatives are either arbitrary punishment for arbitrary infractions, or complete spamfest anarchy. It baffles me that a crowd that previously preached netiquette are now so against clarity and healthy community. (Though on second thought, maybe this is a Goomba fallacy and the folks that have so much disdain for CoCs are the people who constantly spewed flame wars and spam on 1990s usenet)

by creatonez

5/3/2026 at 4:44:45 AM

[flagged]

by throwawaypath

5/3/2026 at 4:09:01 AM

Yep!

To be more specific, Open Source only promises the four fundamental freedoms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition).

It promises literally NOTHING else, including zero cost. Free and open source software can and should cost money! (The "free" in "free and open source" is not about money, people!)

I'm actually very enthusiastic about these OSS "supply chain" attacks that have been happening in various communities. Because optimistically I hope it'll help people realize that OSS _is not a supply chain_ (more details here: https://lobste.rs/s/cxwidw/no_one_owes_you_supply_chain_secu...). Unless you're paying your vendor AND/OR have a contract in place with them with certain guarantees, you do not have a supply chain.

One term thats in almost every FOSS license is "this software is provided with no warranty." A supply chain implies a warranty. Therefore, FOSS is not a supply chain.

by mitchellh

5/3/2026 at 5:15:57 AM

>>> To be more specific, Open Source only promises the four fundamental freedoms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition).

no, that is FSF's free software.

I'm sick of coming here and see "open source" as something with "moral values" - stealing it from the free software with "the magic" of conflating the two concepts.

Open source is just big software companies stealing from innumerable volunteers

by _ZeD_

5/3/2026 at 8:41:11 AM

If you look at the Open Source Definition, you see the four freedoms: https://opensource.org/osd

That’s unsurprising because the OSD is based on the Debian social contract, and Debian is a GNU distribution.

by grahamlee

5/3/2026 at 11:04:15 AM

> Open source is just big software companies stealing from innumerable volunteers

Whether you think this is true or not, MIT and BSD licenses still guarantee the four freedoms.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 1:56:58 PM

only if you already have the source, the GPL also guarantees that you can get the source even if you don't have it.

by em-bee

5/3/2026 at 2:14:54 PM

I guess that's a pretty good point I never thought about. I've never come across software released under a permissive license that didn't either come with the source code, or host it somewhere convenient like github.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 4:00:20 PM

Real world examples would often be embedded devices powered by open source that don’t distribute any code, preventing users from maintaining or modifying the devices.

Of course, vendors will often do this with GPLed code too, and lawsuits are relatively few and far between. (Many thanks to SFC/SFLC for putting scarce resources towards this when possible.)

Because of this, although I appreciate the open-endedness of the MIT/BSD licenses for end user software, I do prefer the GPL for anything that may become infrastructure.

by iamnothere

5/3/2026 at 4:08:06 PM

Haven't you? There's quite a bit of closed-source software based on permissively-licensed code. You can get the upstream source for the permissively-licensed code, but not the modifications made to it. Windows (used to) use some BSD-licensed code for a few network utilities like nslookup.

by SAI_Peregrinus

5/3/2026 at 4:16:53 PM

I guess I considered that completely separate from open source. For instance, I've heard that MacOS is "based on BSD," but since MacOS itself is obviously not open source, it's not an example of open source software that doesn't provide the Four Freedoms.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 4:39:49 PM

Open-source software provides the four freedoms, but doesn't necessarily require preserving them transitively.

GPL software requires preserving them transitively and requires derivative works using the licensed software as a component to provide them.

MPL requires preserving them transitively.

BSD/Apache/MIT don't require preserving them, but still require the resulting software to include the original license & attribution. In the case of a closed-source program distributing (say) MIT-licensed software with proprietary modifications, the resulting binary is still released partly under the MIT license & includes the MIT license text, but doesn't include the source code.

by SAI_Peregrinus

5/3/2026 at 5:14:51 AM

Open source is not merely a license choice. It is a reformulation of free software to make it more attractive to businesses. The entire point behind open source is that it is more effective for businesses to develop software collaboratively with the public than it is to do it in private. So yes, open source does imply open community.

If you want to dump code onto the public with a permissive license but not develop that software collaboratively, then sure, you can do that, and the code will be open source code. Opening the code is a good thing and there’s no obligation for you to do anything more. But it isn’t doing what open source was designed to do; it’s ignoring a key part of it.

The people that see open source code and assume that it is being developed collaboratively are not being unreasonable – that’s the purpose of the open source movement. If that’s an inaccurate assumption for your software, then that’s fine – but it’s you that is breaking social norms, not them.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 6:10:10 AM

When you talk about the point or purpose of open source, what are you referring to? I think of Stallman, print drivers, and users owning their work, so your assertions about the point of open source ring false to me.

by BrandonM

5/3/2026 at 6:36:39 AM

You’re getting open source and free software mixed up. As I said, Open Source was a reformulation of Free Software to make it more business-friendly. Free Software is fundamentally a moral stance (it is wrong to prevent sharing); Open Source is fundamentally a pragmatic stance (building software is better when it is publicly collaborative).

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 2:56:51 PM

Considering that Free Software predates Open Source, and many popular OSI-approved licenses also predate Open Source, how can you justify your core claim upthread:

> The people that see open source code and assume that it is being developed collaboratively are not being unreasonable – that’s the purpose of the open source movement. If that’s an inaccurate assumption for your software, then that’s fine – but it’s you that is breaking social norms, not them.

It sounds like you think anyone who selects an OSI-approved license, and makes the code publicly available, is somehow explicitly opting-in to the Open Source movement, and users should "reasonably" expect collaborative development as the default. Is that accurate? Because it seems completely nonsensical to me, especially considering the licenses predate the movement.

When you come across a random project using an OSI-approved license, there's no way to know the developers' motivations for selecting that license, if they haven't explicitly stated it. Your default seems to be an assumption that they're opting in to the "open source movement" and all of the social norms that you wrap up in that, but your assumption can be completely wrong, and that doesn't mean the developers are "breaking social norms" of a movement that they never subscribed to in the first place!

by evanelias

5/3/2026 at 2:18:44 PM

that's an interesting point. how important was user participation in the development of software for RMS? he wanted to be able to share his modifications with anyone. presumably that includes upstream. so even if not said explicitly, i'd argue that collaboration was implied.

by em-bee

5/4/2026 at 8:11:04 AM

Not really. RMS wanted to guarantee user freedom, first and foremost.

by jraph

5/3/2026 at 6:32:38 AM

OP says open source is a reformulation of free software.

Stallman created free software and is distinctly against open source, which is more or less free software but without the philosophy, the concern for user rights [1]. Associating RMS and his printer with the purpose of open source would somewhat be a mistake / a faux pas (but would be nailing it for the purpose of free software!).

The purpose of free software is user freedom (and not the cooperative development). The original purpose of open source is selling the idea of free software to the corporate world by making it less scary to them, by trying to remove its political part. [I suspect the people who created open source might have been sensitive to the user freedom aspect and wanted to convince corporate to do free software for this reason but thought that hiding this part was a good strategy [2, 3]. I personally think this was a fatal mistake: nowadays, although the infrastructure is mostly open source (and has been succeeding in this regard), end user facing software is still mostly proprietary exactly because software companies don't think they ought to do free software.]

I don't think the cooperative development part is in the purpose of open source. In any case, the open source definition and the free software definition don't concern themselves with this and are purely about what you can do with the code.

Of course open source development models are intimately bound to open source and free software but and were one of the things sold to corporate as more efficient.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Perens#cite_note-18

[3] "It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again" http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/debian-devel-19990...

by jraph

5/3/2026 at 11:10:18 AM

Why is everyone in this thread ignoring the fact that the world already had this debate 30 years ago, so the OSI published a document clearly specifying what is and isn't Open Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

It doesn't say anything about collaborative development.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 11:44:04 AM

I’m well aware of the OSD, but we are talking about social norms, not distribution terms.

Direct from the OSI:

> The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label “free software.” Brainstorming for this new label eventually converged on the term “open source”, originally suggested by Christine Peterson.

— https://opensource.org/about/history-of-the-open-source-init...

“Participating in an engaged community” has been an intrinsic part of Open Source from the beginning.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 11:51:32 AM

It's so fundamental they didn't include it in the definition?

>Open source is not merely a license choice.

Yes it is. The OSD only deals with licenses, therefore whether a software has a "community" has no bearing on whether it's open source.

You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community, but the reasons behind the document are immaterial to this discussion. It only matters how "open source" is defined, and it's plainly not defined by the presence of any community.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 12:15:36 PM

> You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community

I didn’t say that. I didn’t bring up the OSD at all. In fact I was explicitly talking about a broader concept than simply license terms from my very first sentence. You were the one that started talking about the OSD.

> It only matters how "open source" is defined, and it's plainly not defined by the presence of any community.

The OSD defines criteria by which software licenses can be considered open source. It doesn’t define the movement as a whole.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 12:42:42 PM

>> You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community.

> I didn’t say that.

If you don't think the statement's true, then what exactly is the meaning of this passage, and what was your purpose in quoting it?

> ... and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community.

The thesis of the post is that publishing Open Source software doesn't carry an obligation of maintaining a community. To determine if that's true, what software counts as open source is relevant information. Anything to do with the "movement" isn't.

Your original comment started with the words "Open Source is..." If there's an authoritative document specifying exactly what Open Source is, and it plainly contradicts what you say, then you're wrong.

> Open source is not merely a license choice.

> The OSD defines criteria by which software licenses can be considered open source.

These two statements are exactly contradictory.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 12:54:58 PM

> > >> You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community.

> > I didn’t say that.

> If you don't think the statement's true

I didn’t say that either. Is it really so difficult for you to respond to what I actually say?

I am talking about cultural norms. You are trying to cram what I am saying into something that is purely about license terms. I am repeatedly telling you that I am not talking about license terms and you are repeatedly ignoring that.

> If there's an authoritative document specifying exactly what Open Source is, and it plainly contradicts what you say, then you're wrong.

Again, the OSD defines criteria for licenses, it does not define the movement as a whole. I am talking about the movement, not license terms. If you are unwilling to engage with that point, then don’t. But stop mischaracterising what I am saying.

> > Open source is not merely a license choice.

> > The OSD defines criteria by which software licenses can be considered open source.

> These two statements are exactly contradictory.

They are not. Every time I say “Open Source” you are reading “OSD” but I am repeatedly telling you I am talking about the movement, not the OSD that talks about license terms.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 1:14:15 PM

I must just be an idiot, because I don't know how I'm coming off as if I don't understand your main point. Please, let me back up a bit.

I understand you're talking about the movement, not the definition of open source. Yesyesyes I know. I'm saying that the claims made by the OP are true, and there's nothing anyone can possibly say about the bigger movement that can contradict those claims, because the movement, and what it is, and what it's like, are all not relevant.

I thought the question under discussion was "Does publishing open source obligate someone to form or engage with a community?" Since software can be open source without engaging with any practices typical of the movement, nothing to do with the movement matters to answering this question.

I keep harping on the definition, because the definition of open source is vital to answering this. Open Source software does carry obligations with it, just not any obligations that relate to the bigger movement in any way.

That's my point. Everything below is just clearing up details.

>> If you don't think the statement's true... > Is it really so difficult for you to respond to what I actually say?

I know arguments get tedious once one gets a few layers deep, but I just to be clear. I asked you a question, and a question isn't putting words in your mouth because it's not making any statement. Either you agree with the statement, in which case I think it makes it harder to argue against my bigger point, or you don't agree, and I tried to give you the opportunity to elaborate.

>>>> You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community.

And the reason I asked it is because I genuinely thought this was the point you were making by quoting that passage. Like I said, I'm probably just stupid, but what point exactly were you making by bringing it up?

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 1:41:24 PM

> I'm saying that the claims made by the OP are true, and there's nothing anyone can possibly say about the bigger movement that can contradict those claims, because the movement, and what it is, and what it's like, are all not relevant.

Which claims? “Open Source Does Not Imply Open Community” is what I am responding to and I think it’s very obvious how the intent and social norms of the Open Source movement are relevant to that.

> I thought the question under discussion was "Does publishing open source obligate someone to form or engage with a community?

There is a difference between merely implying something and obligations. From my very first comment:

> Opening the code is a good thing and there’s no obligation for you to do anything more. But it isn’t doing what open source was designed to do; it’s ignoring a key part of it.

I am not saying that you are obliged to engage with the community, I’m saying that there’s a cultural norm to do so – so yes, open source does imply community. I then followed up by showing that this goal has been embedded in the Open Source movement from the very beginning.

> the definition of open source

You keep using this phrase. The OSD is a set of criteria used to define which licenses qualify as open source. The OSD is not a definition for the Open Source movement. You can keep referring to it as “the definition of open source”, but it’s not the definition in the context of this discussion. It has a narrower scope than this discussion, defining one specific aspect of the movement.

> Either you agree with the statement, in which case I think it makes it harder to argue against my bigger point, or you don't agree, and I tried to give you the opportunity to elaborate.

I wasn’t talking about the OSD at all, so rephrasing what I am saying in terms of the OSD is nonsensical. It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree – it’s not something I said and it’s not relevant to the point I was making.

> what point exactly were you making by bringing it up?

Again, you are using “Open Source” and “OSD” as synonyms when I am continually pointing out that the OSD defines only the license aspect of the Open Source movement and I am talking about the movement as a whole.

You took a quote that was very clearly ascribing the motivations and character of the Open Source movement and rephrased it to be about the OSD. It wasn’t about the OSD, it was about the movement.

I’ll quote it again:

> The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community.

Community participation has always been a cultural norm of the Open Source movement. From day one. The fact that they didn’t write it down in the OSD, which is a set of criteria for software licenses does not change that. So when somebody says that “Open Source Does Not Imply Open Community”, it’s fair to say that yes it does. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that somebody is obliged to accept community participation, and it is not anything that software licenses deal with. It’s about social norms.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 2:04:43 PM

EDIT: Okay fine, I see it your way. Open source may often imply open community. I'll stop trying to argue that it doesn't. Instead, I posit that open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended.

I'm leaving my first draft of this comment below because there's a couple of points I just can't help but be a pedant over.

> Opening the code is a good thing and there’s no obligation for you to do anything more. But it isn’t doing what open source was designed to do; it’s ignoring a key part of it.

Yes, we don't agree on whether it's a "key part." That doesn't mean I misunderstood you, it means I think you're wrong.

> I’m saying that there’s a cultural norm to do so – so yes, open source does imply community.

No, it doesn't. Open Source doesn't imply anything except that the software is released under a license consistent with the OSD, and the cultural norms have no bearing on that.

Just because you expect it doesn't mean it's implied. If I release software today and call it "open source," but don't provide any means to send me outside contributions, can anyone reasonably claim that my software isn't open source? No. Therefore, community is not implied.

> The OSD is not a definition for the Open Source movement.

If the OP were making claims about what the open source movement is or isn't, then this would be pertinent. I don't think they're saying that though, I think they're saying that open source does not imply open community.

> It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree – it’s not something I said and it’s not relevant to the point I was making.

And I say it doesn't matter what you said, because when I said

> if you don't think the statement is true

I was addressing whether the statement was true of false, not whether it's the main point you were trying to make. If it's true, then it supports my argument, regardless of whether it happened to be the claim you were making. It's like...

> Squares and circles are the same.

> A square has four sides, and circles have no sides. Therefore, circles and squares are exclusive.

> I never said anything about how many sides any shapes have.

You see how it doesn't matter whether it's the exact claim you made, it only matters whether it's true? The point of debate is for both parties to find out what's true.

> Community participation has always been a cultural norm of the Open Source movement.

I really don't see how that's so different and contradictory to

> the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community.

> no obligation for you to do anything more.

I think if you agree with this sentence you agree with OP, so I don't know why you need to clarify what's typical in the movement. OP's point still stands.

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 3:09:39 PM

> open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended.

I'd take this a step further and say the intention of the originators of the movement is somewhat irrelevant, because that movement essentially retconned a bunch of pre-existing licenses and concepts.

Consider the MIT license, which is OSI-approved but substantially predates the "open source movement" (as do many other popular OSI-approved licenses). This license was created not to foster collaboration, but rather simply to avoid legal overhead for software that wasn't expected to have much financial value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History

Nowadays, because this license meets the OSD and is OSI-approved, people like GP come across any MIT licensed project and inherently assume the developers are part of the "open source movement" and should follow its social contract. Frankly, that's just BS and we should call it out accordingly: license choice alone does not logically imply anything about following a social movement.

by evanelias

5/3/2026 at 4:27:46 PM

I suppose, but I like to call my software "open source," and it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them."

Granted I only use the term for lack of a better one, I actually prefer calling it Free Software when I'm around people who know the difference. The problem is that it's confusing for everyone else, since I do think it's fine to charge money for my "free software."

by engeljohnb

5/3/2026 at 4:54:24 PM

> it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them."

That's fair, but personally I can't see any reasonable fault with using "open source" in a way that strictly follows the definition in the OSD, and not this intangible unwritten social norm / movement stuff. If they wanted that to be a core part of it, it should have been in their definition to begin with.

And even religiously following their definition for licensing is a bit ridiculous, because they didn't actually invent the term in the first place. Originally, "open" source code was generically understood to mean "the source code is available" without any implications about licensing, let alone community or social norms. For a lot of irrefutable evidence around this, see https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...

So the OSI folks took this previously-generic term and popularized their definition for it, creating a movement around it. They even attempted to trademark it, and were explicitly rejected due to the term being too descriptive/generic.

Nonetheless, I personally avoid calling software "open source" if it uses a non-OSI-approved "source available" license, but that's purely because the many OSI zealots are very vocal, and they defend the term purely through social pressure.

by evanelias

5/3/2026 at 11:55:33 AM

I talked to Simon Phipps about this back in the mid-2000s, so I understand where you're coming from, even if I disagree.

I'm curious whether you classify chromium, AOSP, or sqlite as open source.

by rpdillon

5/3/2026 at 12:18:52 PM

> I'm curious whether you classify chromium, AOSP, or sqlite as open source.

They are open source software, but they aren’t following the social norms of the open source movement. They are within their rights to develop as they see fit and label their software as open source software, but it’s also reasonable for people to have different expectations and to be surprised when these projects do not collaborate with the public.

by JimDabell

5/3/2026 at 8:36:30 PM

Sadly because huge swaths of the public cannot comprehend something not involving identity/grievance politics.

by throwawaypath

5/3/2026 at 2:26:03 PM

[flagged]

by throwawaypath

5/3/2026 at 6:13:37 AM

Often people get emotional and try to baby sit (new and users that don't want to learn basics). Having a disjoint but strict, timely, disinterested connection with support forums is great. One of the great examples is coreboot or MrChromebox. He replies only when necessary.

by omnifischer

5/3/2026 at 4:23:31 AM

I agree, and add:

You don't need to put up a marketing page that tries to convince people to use your software. Instead (or as well), consider explaining all the reasons why someone should not use your software. More users, more problems.

by skybrian

5/3/2026 at 4:32:00 AM 

  - FOSS applications don't have to be distributed publicly — that's only the common social expectation
  - FOSS does not imply that the code should be available for non-customers. The developer decides who is the customer.
  - FOSS is *encouraged* to be sold for money, *you can sell others' software, even if it's originally free of charge* (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html)
  - Open-source licensed with non-free license is still open-source, although non-FOSS
  - You, as a developer, should not be ashamed to choose non-free open-source license if you want to earn (more) money on your software or apply additional restrictions for your benefit. It still could be copyleft.
TL;DR: we invented LICENSE.md and stick to it a lot, but nobody thought of making SOCIAL.md. When someone says "open source", many assume:

> The author is making it "for people, for society, for everyone around them, interested in developing the project, adding new features (especially those I need), and improving it in every way for the benefit of all users. After all, if that's not the case, why even publish it?"

This, however, is just a most common social expectation of FOSS, but far from the only case. Lack of mention of this distinction between technical and social open source is the main cause of disagreements, disputes, and, ultimately, burnout due to misaligned social expectations.

I used to have to explain the problem and the difference to an outraged public, but recently I came across an article by Jeffrey Paul https://sneak.berlin/20250720/the-agpl-is-nonfree/ comparing open-source code to a gift! My explanation boiled down to:

"Don't like the gift, it doesn't suit you? Throw it out and forget it!"

by ValdikSS

5/3/2026 at 2:25:39 PM

Open-source licensed with non-free license is still open-source, although non-FOSS

nope. there are only a few licenses approved by OSI that are not also considered Free Software. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html look at the long list of GPL incompatible Free Software licenses.

btw "open source that is non-FOSS" makes no sense because FOSS literally means Free and Open Source Software"

by em-bee

5/3/2026 at 5:06:45 PM

>there are only a few licenses approved by OSI that are not also considered Free Software

This is what I'm trying to conterpoint: you're thinking of "Free software" as in legal definition of GNU (4 freedoms), and "Open Source software" as in legal definition of OSI (10 points), in terms of the licenses approved by these organizations.

Users see open-source as a combination of legal/social/community expectations, as a phenomenon. Overwhelming majority of the software have only legal license, and nothing more, and oftentimes the developer themselves don't know what their social behavior should be, they're forming it given the circumstances.

We focused ONLY on the legal definition of open source for very long, and hardly spent time on the other, IMO much more important things: for whom this software is for, how should you communicate, what should you expect as a user, everything about social aspect, maintenance (which is out of scope of legal definitions of the software, but which made FOSS that appealing).

I've even seen cases where the author changed the license (used "legal measures") to prevent further community from forming around the software (to decimate users, to make the software less appealing to FOSS community), because it was too overwhelming to respond to everyone. Instead of using direct measures (social statements of some kind), they used license as a community control method. The author didn't really want to change the code license, they just didn't know other means to achieve different social expectations/behavior they want.

by ValdikSS

5/3/2026 at 4:48:36 AM

> TL;DR: we invented LICENSE.md and stick to it a lot, but nobody thought of making SOCIAL.md.

I wonder if this always used to be the case, or is all this harassment the product of the past ~decade or so high exposure of open source software? As in no more sketchy websites or weird build pipelines to access them, they're basically slapped on github with an executable for anyone to use.

by pickaxepeter

5/3/2026 at 5:01:26 AM

The only instance of social contract I know is Debian's, initially from 1997.

https://www.debian.org/social_contract

>I wonder if this always used to be the case

As written in the article of discussion, it used to be, well, quite a mess. There wasn't an established social expectation that you can ask author to do something, and they will do that. The whole software ecosystem was 100x smaller, and most of the users were tech-savvy. The author released the software somehow, this v1.0 got updated my "many" people (back than many meant 3-4-5), and then, after quite a while, it made a roundtrip back to the author, for which they "officially" released v1.1.

That's it, more or less. If no more bugs found, the software was considered as finished.

by ValdikSS

5/3/2026 at 6:59:46 AM

> No "community". No politics. No Code of Conduct. No pull requests or issues. No wiki. No core team.

Sounds like paradise. I feel there are too many "communities" these days that exist to the detriment to the project at hand. I'd even go as far to say that I cannot think of a single time a "community" has aided an open source project in any way.

by GaryBluto

5/3/2026 at 7:21:49 AM

until Jia Tan comes for a rescue.

by tap-snap-or-nap

5/3/2026 at 7:13:47 AM

> Sounds like paradise.

It sounds like paradise if you are not open to accepting any contribution or even feedback to fix even egregious problems with the project.

That's fine if your goal is to maximize control at the expense of quality. But for that I wonder if FLOSS is what you are actually looking for.

by locknitpicker

5/3/2026 at 10:14:57 AM

I think this is exactly what the article is about though... open source does not imply open community.

For many, I have noticed that they only post the source of their projects in case it's useful to others, but that ultimately they are only writing it for themselves and aren't interested in building a community around it, or trying to make it more "quality."

by ranger_danger

5/3/2026 at 7:17:57 AM

molticrystal's suggestion of politely e-mailing contributions would work.

by GaryBluto

5/3/2026 at 10:26:17 AM

Obviously everyone knows the solution: just make bots talk to other bots and we can all go be ethereal senescence somewhere offscreen.

by cyanydeez

5/3/2026 at 7:50:39 AM

I certainly don't think people should feel obligated to support random Internet people but often the reasons people like these open venues is the low friction of a community member offering up something genuinely useful. Be clear what you do and don't want and will and won't do, doesn't mean turning off the tools is the solution.

Personally someone using code I wrote or reporting a bug feels motivating to me, it'll probably push me to do something I myself benefit from. But I also am not afraid to tell someone no.

by ocdtrekkie

5/3/2026 at 5:45:06 AM

> There's now a chat group. People with no patience are angry and now you have to babysit them, have your own one-on-ones. There's a "community" now that you're responsible for. You never signed up for this

of course YOU signed up for this. There is no well kept secret that this is going on. It should be a surprise for no one.

by ekianjo

5/3/2026 at 12:51:01 PM

I don't understand. Is your argument that because these expectations exist, anyone working on open-source has to abide by them automatically?

by maleldil

5/3/2026 at 2:44:32 PM

> anyone working on open-source has to abide by them automatically?

If you dont want to abide by these standards, keep your code for yourself, I guess?

by ekianjo

5/3/2026 at 3:39:25 PM

What if I just want to make my code available for other people to use and modify however they want, but don't want to run a project? People can fork it themselves if they're not satisfied with it.

by maleldil

5/3/2026 at 4:29:59 AM

I am out of ideas on this one.

The problem here is "open source" is seen as free support and working for "the community" for free and since the code is out there, no-one needs to pay the maintainers. (which is false)

Some mention GitHub sponsors as the solution, however it is a power-law system and benefits the very early participants or already famous developers to make a meaningful amount of income. But it is now at its late stage for everyone else. In some cases, some maintainers on sponsors get attacked / cancelled over a disagreement and that is the end.

It is completely thankless and unsustainable. $5 donations do not work either.

Now with AI, unless you are at a company that can afford it, there is little reason for human developer(s) to be working in open source and relying on $5 "sponsors" since AI agents are used to replace the need of paying for support for the developer.

What worked 20 years ago for paying for human support, now does not work today unless you do not mind about willing to work for free and spend some tokens. If you don't someone else will with an agent.

Not even Richard Stallman or the FSF makes money on this, nor do they have a solution in 2026 as it is unenforceable. But one thing that Stallman, Torvalds and other famous developers have is influence and that is what pays their bills.

by rvz

5/3/2026 at 4:43:09 AM

The article recalls people that open-source software is not necessary created for the community, but rather by the author, for the author oftentimes.

The "support" is not only the maintenance burden which (sometimes) could be solved for money. It's also the features that the original author just don't find useful at all, but others may want to have.

If I don't have Mac, never used it and don't plan to buy it, why would I want to accept contribution to support this platform? It's useless for me, I won't be able to test it (and it will break sooner or later), and once the code is accepted, it's usually assumed that it would be maintained by the application author, not the code contributor (unless additional CLA is signed, etc).

by ValdikSS

5/3/2026 at 7:36:15 AM

> The article recalls people that open-source software is not necessary created for the community, but rather by the author, for the author oftentimes.

Exactly. A FLOSS license essentially states "I put together this cool thing, please take a look and pass around."

When I published FLOSS projects of my own, my motivation was to share with the world something that was useful to me and that I enjoyed doing, in case it was of any use to anyone. Once I discovered a small FLOSS project of mine was used by a big name commercial software suite and I was tremendously surprised for finding out by googling it, and found it extremely funny. And that was it. Is this so outlandish?

by locknitpicker

5/3/2026 at 7:28:50 AM

> The problem here is "open source" is seen as free support and working for "the community" for free and since the code is out there, no-one needs to pay the maintainers. (which is false)

I don't think this is true at all. FLOSS just means you are free to download a project, use it, and distribute it. There is absolutely no promise or expectation from the public of maintenance, nor is there absolutely no promise or expectation of monetary compensation from contributors.

The sole promise is "here's the code, have fun".

Heck, there isn't even any expectation that end-users contribute anything back to the project.

If you are a developer and have an expectation of receiving any monetary compensation, you should rethink your licenses. If you are an end-user and have any expectation of receiving maintenance work then you should reach out to whoever you seek to handle said maintenance and sort out business arrangements. In fact, that's exactly how it works. See for example how corporations pay maintainers to contribute and be involved in FLOSS projects. For extreme cases, see how a group of companies were quick to fork Redis to Valkey the moment that Redis tried to strong-arm it's way out of a FLOSS project. They had no problem amassing a set of maintainers in their payroll to take care of the code.

I'm perplexed by this expectation of FLOSS guaranteeing salaries to random maintainers who stick around and don't want to deal with the public. There are a few nasty stereotypes emerging from that assumption. Perhaps those nurturing these expectations should check the actual licenses to verify exactly what they cover and ensure.

by locknitpicker

5/3/2026 at 8:01:48 AM

This is only even an issue if your repo is unusually popular. I put repos out that I am excited about but almost no one else seems to care.

I don’t want the contributions of strangers and no one seems to want to contribute anyway. I open sourced it just to make a place for someone to find it and fork it if they please.

Are there really people out there who don’t realize its okay not to do unpaid labor for randos?

by satisfice

5/3/2026 at 10:06:20 AM

Yes, it's often the randos who feel this way.

by MathMonkeyMan

5/4/2026 at 5:31:54 AM

[dead]

by dhr_uvi

5/3/2026 at 3:31:30 AM

Isolating up is the opposite of interesting to me.

What's clear is they mediating all selection choice and interest through pressure points of a single fixed trust board is of limited use going forward. I don't think the vouches and other web of trusts tackle the actual root need to disaggregate, decentralize.

You can anti-social open source, reject, flee to nihil and going away, solo-ing. I think that's mad bad and dumb; just my judgement call. I agree strongly with v-it, open source is social. It's interesting and fascinating to open your mind. These other signals are fascinating. The glut of goodness is something we should firehose better, not shy from. https://v-it.org/

by jauntywundrkind

5/3/2026 at 4:05:50 AM

I care about what my best friend finds interesting. I care about what the people I willingly interact with daily find interesting. I categorically do not care what jauntywundrkind finds interesting, and if that bothers them, they're welcome to not use the little knickknacks I make for my friends; the license permits that.

This is not antisocial.

by cwillu

5/3/2026 at 4:09:03 AM

I have a friend who points out that in the FOSS community, fork == drama. Either the drama causes the fork or the fork causes drama. What you describe sounds more anti-drama than anti-social.

by OhMeadhbh

5/3/2026 at 5:03:34 AM

Then our interests align! Great, fantastic, glad you are on board.

You didn't talk about being interested in what maintainers were up to. You talked about what your friends are interested in! That's the thing! We need to decentralize the decision making. If your friend is juggling some patches, some feature branches atop code you use, that is interesting. We seem to both agree that we do want to have interest & awareness.

We've only had one model for social ness ever and it's created enormous pinch-points, enormous thin-waist problems for getting stuff done. The maintainers themselves keep saying they can't handle the loads, don't enjoy it, don't want to. I think the submission is kind of a bad spirited loser but I'm sympathetic! I just think it's worth exploring pro social options before we all default to shutting down turning off all the exterior signals and going dark, like suggested. That sounds a lot like being a loser to me. Fine, do you! It sucks though, it really does. Everyone should hope aspire to & work for better. Let's discuss what that might look like.

by jauntywundrkind

5/3/2026 at 7:44:40 AM

> You can anti-social open source, reject, flee to nihil and going away, solo-ing. I think that's mad bad and dumb; just my judgement call.

I don't think this opinion was thought all the way through. Think about this: you are a developer who worked on a small library for fun. You decided to release it because it's cool and you are proud of it and perhaps someone else might find it useful as well. Should this bound you to spend any of your personal time appeasing any whim from low-effort but highly opinionated random people who happened to come across the project? Should you now be forced to take time out of your day to do what amounts to customer support requests? If not, should you be pressured to unshare your code?

Listen, if you are so hell bent on doing all that work then please fork the project and take over those tasks. How come the expectation is always that others should do all the work that you wish to benefit from?

by locknitpicker

5/3/2026 at 7:55:45 AM

I literally discussed a tool for socializing how to share things without gating a maintainer.

by jauntywundrkind

5/3/2026 at 5:10:31 AM

[dead]

by ValdikSS