[bsuvc]

> Telling people they can't unsupport something

Yes.

I have no involvement in this drama (it's the first I've heard of it actually), but signing your name to something matters.

Choose carefully what/who you support.

A repo owner is not obligated to accept contributions.

All of those people are free to create their own repo, post on social media, or write an article recanting their support if they choose to do so.

[BeFlatXIII]

They should smear the OP of the letter for not accepting retractions.

[djrj477dhsnv]

He's not "obligated" to do anything but it's still immoral to abandon maintenence of something like that. If he can't be bothered to maintain it, then he should delete it.

[fmajid]

I don’t know if the allegations against Jon Pretty were valid or not, but those who piled on against him can’t escape accountability for mob behavior (assuming Pretty was innocent) if it becomes embarrassing. At most they can say “I supported this but no longer do”, not expunge all traces.

[everfree]

Git itself is a safeguard against "expunging all traces". It preserves history permanently.

[Cthulhu_]

> If he can't be bothered to maintain it, then he should delete it.

Not necessarily, plenty of projects have been put in an archive state because they are 'finished', superseded, forked, etc. This isn't code nor a living document, it was a one-off operation.

[lelanthran]

> He's not "obligated" to do anything but it's still immoral to abandon maintenence of something like that. If he can't be bothered to maintain it, then he should delete it.

Morality is subjective (that's why we have courts; which don't respect the individual and differing moralities of the parties involved, it has its own moral bar, for better or worse).

In this case, I feel it is more moral to record all the members of the mob. Maybe this would cause them to think twice before joining the next mob.

I mean, if we are going to have witch-hunt mobs, then the lesser evil is to not allow anonymous mobbers.