[bpt3]

> The license only frames the projects legal responsibilities. It is entirely unrelated in every way to how the project is run on a day to day basis.

You completely missed the point. At the end of the day, the legal obligations are the only ones, and both the Apache and MIT licenses very clearly state that the creator of the software has no obligations to any user.

Therefore, any other supposed obligations only exist in the mind of the person who has created them, and do not exist in reality.

> Alternatively if we're going to just go strictly by the license then the maintainer deserved all the flames & flak he got. After all, it wasn't against the license, therefore he cannot complain about it. Just like that idea is unreasonable, so too is trying to hide behind the license in this case.

Sorry, this doesn't make sense, because you're comparing an explicit statement of liability in the license to the social norm of not being a massive jerk.

[kllrnohj]

> Sorry, this doesn't make sense, because you're comparing an explicit statement of liability in the license to the social norm of not being a massive jerk.

Of course it doesn't make sense, that was my point! In the same way it doesn't make any sense to do what you're doing, which is comparing the explicit statement of liability in the license to the social norm of how open source projects are framed & run.

You missed the point that everything we're talking about is just social norms. The license is irrelevant here, for all sides. There is no legal issue being disputed.

[bpt3]

No, everything is not just social norms, because there is no agreed upon norm or standard "framing" for open source projects (as indicated by all the disagreements here and elsewhere on this topic), leaving the actual license as the only concrete, agreed upon description of obligations and expectations between the creator/maintainer and users.

[aidenn0]

> You completely missed the point. At the end of the day, the legal obligations are the only ones, and both the Apache and MIT licenses very clearly state that the creator of the software has no obligations to any user.

There's a word for people who only fulfill their legal obligations: Assholes.

[bpt3]

> There's a word for people who only fulfill their legal obligations: Assholes.

There's also a word for people who expect others to meet their expectations without contributing anything on their end: Assholes.

If you explicitly state up front what you're willing to do to support a project, and I come along demand you go above and beyond your stated limitations, who is being unreasonable here?

[aidenn0]

Oh yes, the assholes in this particular situation are without a doubt the people attacking Nikolay over this.

However, I read your earlier comment as meaning roughly "anyone who releases any software under an MIT/X11 license has zero obligations to anything regarding that software period" which is something I do disagree with.

[bpt3]

My point is that consumers of software released under licenses which don't obligate the creator to do anything shouldn't expect more from the creator than that.

If the creator does act as a "good steward", that's great, but you shouldn't plan on that being the case or be surprised when it isn't.

[aidenn0]

I think we are in agreement, though I wouldn't use the word "expect" in that way.

[bpt3]

How would you use it in this context?

[ori_b]

> There's a word for people who only fulfill their legal obligations: Assholes.

There's also a word for people who stake their professional reputation on the work of random assholes on the internet.