Open-Source Is Just That

Summary

As someone who has been known to write open-source software and contribute to open-source projects, I have some thoughts on the matter. Particularly, the growing sense of entitlement among users. When software is open-source, it means it is open-source – that the source is open – nothing more. This simple fact is frequently misunderstood, so let me be crystal clear about what open-source does not automatically mean by default: It does not mean open to contributions; It does not mean support is offered; It does not mean you’re entitled to feature requests; It does not mean the developer owes you their time; It does not mean you’re entitled to anything; It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS). Some open-source projects choose to offer these things, but they should not be expected. It is up to the discretion of the project and maintainers. Being provided the software at all is a privilege, not a right – anything further doubly so. When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. Abuse of Devs I can’t count the amount of times I’ve seen entitled script kiddies spam issues on GitHub or flood a chatroom begging for support on a project run by a volunteer who is fresh out of money, running on caffeine fumes, and yet is working out of love for their common man in the pursuit of improving the world – even if just by a little. What makes this particularly egregious is that these very much entitled people believe it their right to receive this support and will become combative about it when confronted. It sickens me to see people do this – to verbally abuse the very developers who created the tools they’re using freely. I’ve seen a concerning number of people who side with the script kiddies on this, stating that “maintainers shouldn’t have starte...