[M95D]

> no, it doesn't, maybe I have a github project, I want to easily share it with ten of my friends for something,

Then make it private.

> I don't particularly care if other people see it, so I make it public.

Yeah, I see someone else made the same argument. It's a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Build labyrinths and scatter them around the internet. Leave manholes uncovered. Markov chains to trap humans. You could at least say it's not maintained - no, not in the disclaimer.

> maybe the author had time and energy to answer bug reports a few years ago and maybe right now they don't.

Then close bug tracker and post "Abandoned" on the front page.

> counterpoint, people who barge in on your project with huge PRs for features or changes that were not discussed at all

Then say so and then reject them. That's what PR review means. I don't have a problem with rejected PRs. I have a problem with ignored PRs.

[ragall]

> Then make it private

You don't get to decide that.

> It's a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Build labyrinths and scatter them around the internet. Leave manholes uncovered.

That's a *you* problem, because you have wrong expectations.

> Then close bug tracker and post "Abandoned" on the front page.

You don't get to decide that.

> Then say so and then reject them. That's what PR review means. I don't have a problem with rejected PRs. I have a problem with ignored PRs.

Another case of you having wrong expectations. Like in networking, you should put a timeout on all requests. For all practical purposes a request that times out is to be treated the same as a rejection.

[M95D]

> [...] you have wrong expectations.

I did. (Past tense.) I'm calibrated now.

> You don't get to decide that.

You're exactly right. I only get to decide what I do with my own toys. And I've decided I won't waste any of my time. If you (plural) can't write a one line answer to a bug report or click a reject PR button, then why should I put any effort?

Isn't it nice "git clone" was invented?

[palata]

> If you (plural) can't write a one line answer to a bug report or click a reject PR button, then why should I put any effort?

You wrote a PR because you benefited from source code that somebody on the internet shared for free, and wanted to share that work for free as well. See the PR as just one way to open source your patch. You could put it on your blog, in an email list, or keep it in a fork.

By opening a PR, you make it visible to other people who also benefit from the project and who may be interested in using it.

> then why should I put any effort?

Something I really want to say about this: if you decided to open a PR to an open source project, it is very likely that you put less effort into your PR than the other put into the open source project. But they gave it for free without complaining. You don't have to do it, but you can. And you will still have put less effort into it than the author.

[M95D]

> You could put it on your blog, in an email list, or keep it in a fork.

Get serious. Nobody's going to look into forks of a project to see what other people improved. Not even github has a search that good that would show bug fixes and improvements from forks that someone is searching for. How would you even search? (Well, to be honest, maybe Github has, or maybe Copilot can do that kind of search based on a half a page text description of what I'm looking for, but I'm really not aware that it exists.)

> By opening a PR, you make it visible to other people who also benefit from the project and who may be interested in using it.

Yeah, but if I have moral standards and care about not wasting those interested people's time, then I have to keep the PR forever maintained and rebased on current HEAD, even if I don't need to update my fork that often, or I stopped using that project altogether. If I didn't do that, then I would be a hypocrite.

[palata]

> Get serious. Nobody's going to look into forks

At this point you just sound like you want to complain. I was saying that opening a PR is a nice way to share a patch, and all you get from it is an opportunity to complain about how difficult it may be to find a patch in a fork.

> Yeah, but if I have moral standards and care about not wasting those interested people's time

This has nothing to do with moral standards. I have benefitted multiple times from old, unmerged, outdated PRs. Because if someone fixes a bug, the valuable part is understanding what is going wrong and how to fix it. An outdated PR saves me that time.

> If I didn't do that, then I would be a hypocrite.

Not at all. You just have a very weird way to look at it.

[Capricorn2481]

Just sounds like you've moved the goal posts to something completely different. This entire statement is addressing people frustrated with their half broken PRs being closed. It has nothing to do with "not clicking the reject button"

[M95D]

No I didn't. I said the same thing from my first comment: Ignoring PRs with no review, accept, or reject is wrong.

[wat10000]

Sorry, unless your IP is being infringed, you don't get to decide what's private or public. The internet is a vast and wondrous place. Figuring out which parts of it are worth your time is a you problem.

[throwaway346434]

Picture this scenario.

You make one really good birthday cake. Following the success of this went to your local school fete out of the goodness of your heart and set up a cake stall, had a complaints and suggestions box on the table, maybe even had a donation tin out. You know it's out of the goodness of you heart because everyone will SEE you doing this and maybe you'll get hired by the local bakery.

But then it's a bit of a long day and you start screaming at everyone who came up to you for wasting your time, rejected requests to not put broken glass fragments in the cakes, get into a fistfight with the local health inspector who pointed out you need certain food prep hygiene practices. You get big mad, and leave your stall in a huff, where hapless strangers stumble across your cakes only to find they are now covered in bugs and get sick from eating them.

Would this be acceptable or unacceptable behaviour on your part? Are you as the cake stall operator taking advantage of the the commons in any way (donations, showing off your bake-folio?) Are you damaging the commons or people visiting the commons? Does your free speech expressed in cake form outweigh the rights of people to tell you to change what you are doing? Does your freedom of expression mean you should never be accountable? Should people be thankful that you let them have cakes covered in bugs, even if they get sick as a result? Does the local health inspector who is an expert in a domain that overlaps with everything food have any standing?

This is a contrived thought exercise; obviously.

But I would bet that you clearly identify that violated social norms aren't great; you would agree there are expectations about access to a commons have implied standards of behaviour for all parties; you have expectations around quality vs general safety, etc.

[wat10000]

Now imagine I make a weird cake and I think it's interesting. I put up a poster with a photo and a recipe and say "thought this was cool, try it if you want." And then some nonce comes along and tells me off for a reckless disregard of other people's time and nerves. Compares it to an open manhole cover that could get somebody killed.

Throwing some interesting code onto a web site isn't like setting up a booth at a community event. Its not even really like putting up a poster, since posters get seen by whoever happens to come nearby whereas web sites only get seen by people who seek them out, but it's about the closest you'll get to a real-world analogy.

[M95D]

Probably won't get anyone killed, but I've seen loss of data. Valuable data. And now you're going to point to the disclaimer and 321 backups...

Websites are seen by everyone seeking not a site, but a feature, via search engines. Same as a poster if you look in that direction.

[wat10000]

Why are you trusting data to some random open-source project with no documentation?

The search engine is only going to direct you to my open source repo if you're searching for whatever it does. It's as if you'd only see my cake recipe if you were searching for cake recipes. And just like cake recipes, your search results will contain everything from superb production-tested projects (if there are any) to random stuff people have put up that isn't really used.

If you're searching for software and you find some random project that isn't very well tested or maintained, and you put that project to use in a place where it can cause data loss, that again sounds like a you problem.

[M95D]

Let me change the perspective:

Are you in any way no matter how small responsible for what you create, what you post online, and what effects those actions have on other people?

[hinkley]

Anything you in a public space, will be made social by someone eventually. If you (GP) don't like it then tough shit. That's a You Problem, not an Us Problem.

And you can make github repositories that others can see but not the rest of us, it just costs a little money. You can host a book club at your house too and not have to listen to other people snicker at your friends' commentary on the book at the coffee shop. But if they're gonna keep saying stupid shit in the middle of a Starbucks, then someone is going to butt in.

[Capricorn2481]

Making a PR is also in the public space, and if your PR is lazy spam, you deserve a less generous response than the one Hickey gave.

[hinkley]

A less generous response is one thing. Getting defensive about it and saying nobody is entitled to shit is something else entirely. And that's where the antisocial people of HN usually go.