[keyle]

   Around 2020, our old lead dev, a1ex, after years of hard work, left the project.  The documentation was fragmentary.  Nobody understood the build system.  A very small number of volunteers kept things alive, but nothing worked well.  Nobody had deep knowledge of Magic Lantern code.

Sounds like a bit of a dick move. Part of being a lead dev is making sure you can get hit by a bus and the project continues. That means documentation, simple enough and standard build system (It's C after all), etc. As a lead dev you should ensure the people on the project get familiarity with other part than their niche too, so that one can succeed you.

[bibabaloo]

Uh, sure, maybe in a professional setting where you’re getting paid. But this was unpaid volunteer work. If, as a community, we start enforcing professional grade standards on people who are just contributing their free time to give us neat toys and tools, I kinda worry it makes the whole thing the whole thing less fun or sustainable. And if that happens, we probably stop getting these free toys altogether.

[keyle]

I heart-fully disagree. Being professional crosses the bounds of paid work and unpaid work.

It doesn't take much work to not leave a gigantic pile of trash behind you.

If anything, it's an even more a self-responsible thing to do in the OSS world, as there isn't a chain of command such as in the corporate world, enforcing this.

It's selfish to engage in group relation with other people building something without the conscious decision of continuity.

A job worth doing is a job worth doing well. Maybe I'm just a gray beard with unrealistic expectations, or maybe I care about quality.

[teddyh]

Think of it as a non-profit club. If you volunteer to be the treasurer, are you then free to ignore everything and do whatever you like, just because you aren’t paid? Of course not. It’s the same with being a software project maintainer; you have willingly taken on some obligations.

[themaninthedark]

If you volunteer, sure.

If I put some code out on the internet and some other people find it and start using it, they message me we talk and I start adding things they suggest and working with others to improve this code. Then one day I wake up and don't want to do it anymore. At what point did I become obligated? When I published the code? When I first started talking to others about it(building a community)? When I coded their suggestions? When I worked with other coders?

Who get to decide where the line is?

[teddyh]

If I strike up a conversation with you, and suddenly I don’t want to talk to you anymore, then what, if any, obligations do I have? Can I just stop talking mid-sentence and begin to completely ignore you? After all, I did not promise you a complete conversation.

Or did I, by engaging in a civil conversation with you, implicitly promise to abide by the normal social rules of etiquette, as far as I am reasonably able?

It is similar with software. If you, say, put up a web site (or even just a README.md) containing blurbs about how useful your software is, extolling its virtues, you are implicitly promising future updates and support, to the best of your (limited) ability. If you need to step away from the project, you are expected to do so in an orderly fashion (again, to the best of your – possibly limited – ability), announce it publicly, etc.

If you have no web site, but you have given similar indications in conversations, the same principle is applicable, but you have fewer people to notify.

> Who get to decide where the line is?

If a user can reasonably feel let down by your actions, or can reasonably feel that you have misled them, then I feel that a line has been crossed.

[teddyh]

(Many people disagree vehemently with ascribing any obligation at all to software maintainers, as discussed previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43143176>)

[bux93]

It's not like this kind of thing doesn't happen in the professional world - in fact, quite the opposite. The incentives to cut corners in a company are if anything greater than in open source, with pressure from management to meet the next deadline.

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