[jodrellblank]

“This is abandonware”

And

“This is maintained and I am the maintainer”

Are different states. 'Maintenance' is not work-free or effortless, so the second sentence is explicitly volunteering to do some non-zero amount of work, right?

I don't see how it can be read any other way, you either have to argue that maintenance isn't work, or that "I am the maintainer" is not volunteering oneself into the role of doing that work.

[nl]

You understand this is the opposite of your example before right?

It's like a business asking for volunteers, you saying you will, then the business demanding that you turn up when it suits them and you not being allowed to say "no"

It's an outrageous position to take.

[akerl_]

If I have a garden in my yard and I say “I am the gardener of this garden”, what commitment have I made to you, a third party who just happened to be within earshot, about how much time I will spend working on the garden?

[jodrellblank]

We're not talking about someone who "just happens to be within earshot" of something that is inside your private garden and not open to the public.

If you put a note on the public noticeboard saying "I have planted some things in this area of the public commons and I am the maintainer them" can you defend the idea that you are not voluntarily offering to maintain something?

[akerl_]

Yes.

[jodrellblank]

Go on then, which part of my earlier post do you disagree with, specifically?

1. The difference between ‘abandoned’ and ‘maintained’ is that ‘maintained’ is bounded at the lower end to a greater-than-zero amount of maintenance work. Not a specific amount but necessarily >0. (Without that, “maintained” and “abandoned” become the same thing and that’s absurd).

2. “I am the maintainer” can be a voluntary statement, it’s not compelled (e.g. by a gun to the head).

3. The role of ‘maintainer’ is ‘doing that >0 amount of maintenance work’.

?

By the time we’re arguing how much maintenance, you’re agreeing with my position. In the case of your garden, if I saw it on fire I would think it reasonable to contact you about the fire given you are the gardener. I wouldn’t contact someone who was not the gardener.

[akerl_]

Oh, you asked me if I disagreed with your point about gardens.

That one is pretty obvious because community gardens that want to enforce a floor on amount of maintenance include that in rules that you have to agree to before they give you some of their space.

I checked the whole terms of service for GitHub and they don’t have anything about how much work I have to do on a repo once I publish it for it to stay mine.

If you’re asking me which of those statements I disagree with, 1 and 3.

[jodrellblank]

Here: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

> "You are responsible for keeping your Account secure."

That is a non-zero amount of work.

> "You may not use GitHub in violation of export control or sanctions laws of the United States or any other applicable jurisdiction"

That requires you to be aware of those laws and put a non-zero amount of work into complying with them.

> "You will promptly notify GitHub by contacting us through the GitHub Support portal if you become aware of any unauthorized use of, or access to, our Service through your Account,"

That is a commitment to do some work.

> "For contractual purposes, you (1) consent to receive communications from us in an electronic form via the email address you have submitted"

That is a commitment to have a working email server/account.

If you don't do these things at times which are required, Github may close your account and your repo will go with it.

> "If you’re asking me which of those statements I disagree with, 1 and 3."

And on what grounds do you disagree? That "I will do something" is not saying that you will do something, or that "letting something rot" counts as "maintaining it"?

[tptacek]

No, it is not.

[jodrellblank]

No, what is not what?

What I'm getting from you and akerl_10 is "la la la I don't want words to have meanings so I'm just going to deny that they do".

[tptacek]

Nobody has volunteered to do any work for you at all and no matter how many words you spend saying otherwise that will not change.

[jodrellblank]

Someone who says “I volunteer to do maintenance work” is volunteering to do some work, no matter how many times you say “nuh uh”.

The work need not be “for me” and nowhere did I say it was or ought to be.

[tptacek]

This is not an interesting rebuttal, sorry.