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Given the recent uproar about AI usage in rsync a PSA: maintainers owe you nothing
(mikemcquaid.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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If I spend my own time building a rickety wooden bridge across a river and people start using it, I don't owe them anything and I don't have to maintain the bridge.
If I then spend my time reinforcing the rickety bridge to make it more reliable and sturdy, and perhaps wider so it can support small carts and horses, and more people use it, I still don't owe them anything and I don't have to maintain the bridge.
Then perhaps I spend my time turning it into a full concrete/tarmac bridge that can support vehicle traffic and it gets widely adopted so much so that people basically expect to use it in their day to day. I still don't owe them anything, and I still don't have to maintain the bridge.
Then I make some further changes to the bridge by using the "tool that sometimes makes bridges better and sometimes makes it fail without warning", and the people who have come to rely on my bridge start being unable to use it because it randomly drops them into the river. I still don't owe anyone anything. I still don't have to maintain the bridge. But I would certainly think people are justified to complain that I did something quite fucking annoying and potentially harmful.
If you build a bridge and make it open to the public, then you absolutely have both an ethical and legal obligation to make it safe to use.
That would be at least negligent manslaughter in most, if not all jurstictions.
To be clear I'm not saying that anyone has to do everything that that people request of them. But rather that there is a non-zero amount of responsibility to the public when a project is being actively maintained. If you don't want that responsibility, then let someone else take over, or announce that the project is abandoned.
The license people agree to, to use the software disclaim warranty and limited liability. So your analogy would be better if the bridge had signage explaining such that most people don't read. So not a legal obligation, but maybe it hasn't been tested in court yet.
Where I live if you build a bridge that is assessable to the public and someone gets hurt using it, because you made it unsafe to use, then you are legally responsible for that. It does not matter how many signs you put up, or what agreements were made, if you build a bridge (or other structure ) you are responsible for ensuring that it is safe to use.
Also, to clarify, it's not my analogy. I was using the one made by the person I responded to.
I have to disagree. Not when they didn't pay any taxes or tolls to build or maintain the bridge, and the bridge has signs at the entrances which state that it is still a completely volunteer-maintained project. Doesn't matter how good the bridge is, or how many people have deemed themselves deserving of only good results, or that they don't bother to read the signs. There is no level at which "ok, now they are entitled to trouble-free outcomes".
At no point did I say anyone was entitled to anything - just that they're justified to complain. The maintainer doesn't have any requirement to care about their complaints nor any requirement to address them. But the people are justified in their response.
At least it's not like a bunch of other popular libraries:
Then I get help from the community for a couple of years and a bunch of contributes to my bridge. Then my bridge is so nice that I can add a toll booth on both sides of the bridge and start charging people money to get across