Thread

On caring for user data: NeoVim caused Vim undo files to be deleted

384 points · 346 comments · jandeboevrie

recursivedoubts · 1790522383 · focus · HN ↗
They are open source developers, giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
We can speak, respectfully, of how important backwards compatibility is to us, and ask nicely for them to give more of their time to support it when their free sodftware isn't backwards compatible. Perhaps we can even offer to help implement it.
But they have no duty to do so or to "care" for their users. (They have already demonstrated they care for their users, btw, by giving them free software.)
EDIT: I missed an important part of the story, which is that they mutated existing files in a non-backwards compatible manner. That should have been avoided, I understand where the (secondary) author is coming from now.
1. bsoqk · 1790522665 · focus · HN ↗
  If I give away food I have a duty not to poison you. It doesn’t matter you didn’t pay for it.
  1. Grombobulous · 1790522697 · focus · HN ↗
    Software isn’t food.
    pdonis · 1790522861 · focus · HN ↗
    So software that deletes important data of yours without any warning is ok because at least it isn't poisoning you?
    [deleted] · 1790523237 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    brookst · 1790523293 · focus · HN ↗
    If you have to twist things so far that intent doesn’t matter, something’s wrong.
    jeremyjh · 1790525144 · focus · HN ↗
    According to TFA, it was completely intentional that they deleted someone’s data that had been created with a different program. Otherwise they would have acknowledged it was a bug. I do not know if this is true, only that it is what TFA claims.
    Grombobulous · 1790526053 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s not great that Neovim destroyed/replaced files that aren’t clearly under its purview. They should have probably also made the consideration that a lot of Neovim users are going to be migrating from Vim.
    Maybe if they’re making their own persistent undo standard, use different file naming conventions.
    That said, as a fork of Vim, maybe the Neovim authors are at least partially reasonable in assuming that you’re not running multiple forks of Vim that could then potentially conflict with each other. It just sucks that they never really thought of a migration path for this particular feature.
    bsoqk · 1790522918 · focus · HN ↗
    You must feel clever completely missing the point on purpose like that.
    Grombobulous · 1790523007 · focus · HN ↗
    Food is one of the more heavily regulated industries out there. Most other general business types are less regulated than food.
    Citizen_Lame · 1790523769 · focus · HN ↗
    This guy you are arguing with is classic troll, he does it on every topic. Just ignore and don't reply.
    [deleted] · 1790524208 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    jeltz · 1790525558 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, people like him is what the doenvote button is intended for.
    [deleted] · 1790599935 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    [deleted] · 1790600323 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    InsideOutSanta · 1790524668 · focus · HN ↗
    "Your analogy is false because the two things you are comparing are not literally the same, dear sir!" is such a classic Internet discussion trope that it must have a name. If it doesn't, can I please name it? Maybe Perfect Analogy Fallacy?
    Grombobulous · 1790525181 · focus · HN ↗
    But they couldn’t be further from different. You have to have a health inspector visit your kitchen just to sell food at all. You need affirmative permission from the government to sell food.
    InsideOutSanta · 1790527713 · focus · HN ↗
    The original analogy was not about selling food:
    > If I give away food I have a duty not to poison you. It doesn’t matter you didn’t pay for it.
    If I invite you to eat at my house, there is no health inspector and no government. I'm just giving you free food. Would you agree that I have a duty not to poison you in that case?
    [deleted] · 1790532437 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    Grombobulous · 1790534181 · focus · HN ↗
    True, yes, I agree.
    If we aren’t making the business analogy though, then Neovim has even less obligation to produce a professional quality product. When you come to my cookout the expectations are different than when you go to a restaurant.
    InsideOutSanta · 1790536241 · focus · HN ↗
    What do you mean by "obligation"? Nobody is claiming they have some kind of legal obligation. Nobody is saying anything analogous to your "health department" analogy. I think you're arguing against something people by and large are not claiming.
    Grombobulous · 1790537672 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay, apologies in advance for how ridiculous this is getting and a lot of that is my fault, but I do want you to understand what I mean.
    At the top of this discussion parent to where I said “software is not food”
    > If I give away food I have a duty not to poison you. It doesn’t matter you didn’t pay for it.
    First, I’ll start with the loaded language here: “duty not to poison you.” Yes, duh, no matter what, intentional poisoning is a crime. But the phrase is “not to poison you” which I interpreted to mean that we are taking about harm mitigation/prevention rather than intentional crime.
    In that context it very much does matter if the relationship is giving away food for free in a private home versus selling or giving away food in public.
    If we are to consider Neovim to line up with the “giving away food for free at my backyard cookout” analogy, they have a more relaxed standard of care. We don’t go to a BBQ and expect the hosts to have training from the department of health and signs that say “employees must wash hands before returning to work.” In this sense, Neovim would say, “hey, we did our best, we tried to make good software but this condition caused it to fuck up your files. Sorry.”
    If we are considering Neovim to line up with “McDonald’s giving away free hamburgers for national hamburger day,” then now we have to recognize that the software industry does not involve nearly as much regulation as McDonald’s. Neovim’s story doesn’t change: “hey, sorry, we did our best, …” but McDonald’s doesn’t have that same standard of operation. Whether or not the hamburgers are free they have to get all the same licenses, do all the same training, and make their employees keep all the meats to temperature and all of that.
    There’s no regulation around the general quality of software. You don’t have a strong claim to damages if your software crashes or causes problems. The remediation for problems like that is accomplished via SLAs in the business world, which obviously nobody has with Neovim. They’re just providing software as-is with no warranty or guarantee of quality or fit for purpose (#7 in the license agreement) and they’ve even been nice enough to provide the code ahead of time so you can audit it.
    So unless someone at Neovim is in an evil lair declaring that they want to delete stuff on purpose to fuck up your day, there’s really not much of a logical case for their negligence here. It was provided at no cost, there are no significant legal regulations on software quality, they offered the code so you can inspect it, and they warned you in the license that it is provided with no guarantees or promises.
    This concept of “duty of care” doesn’t exist in the software world, as much as we might prefer it to really exist.
    giveaccountpls · 1790541694 · focus · HN ↗
    The guy you're arguing with made the mistake of switching to metaphors. The result is several back and forth posts, and neither mutual understanding nor useful discussion.
    To avoid metaphors: There's an implicit assumption that when you install a piece of software, it will not fuck up your data/system without your consent. No, installing it is not consent, neither is using it. Neovim does exactly that. No amount of food analogies or license quotes will change that fact.
    Neovim authors should've just used a separate file, just like they're happy to use separate format and files for the configuration. Instead, they've decided to be dickheads, and interfere with vim's file, even after the issue being pointed out to them.
    Grombobulous · 1790599245 · focus · HN ↗
    My guess is that as a fork of Vim they’re intending to replace Vim and therefore see no reason to try and coexist with it. They would probably say something like “why are you trying to use Neovim and vim at the same time?”
    Whether or not that’s a good design is definitely discussion-worthy.
    I’m not sure I agree about the concept that programs promise not to fuck up your data without your consent. Programs can’t really know what you are consenting to. The authors can’t assume you’ve read the manual or understand what the program was designed to do.
    I think there’s a decent argument to be made that persistent undo files are more akin to metadata, similar to Microsoft Word recovery files or search indexes, but I haven’t made that argument because the author’s frustration on the issue seems logical and valid. It seems like it’s still not meant to be a data storage or backup mechanism: you wouldn’t share it in an email or check it into source control.
    giveaccountpls · 1790629335 · focus · HN ↗
    > and therefore see no reason to try and coexist with it
    This is my main point of disagreement. This is not their decision to make.
    > The authors can’t assume you’ve read the manual or understand what the program was designed to do
    I think this is correct, but, the principle of least surprise should be paramount here. If the program states something like "migrate all vim-related files to neovim(This will lose all metadata when opened by vim)? y/[N]", I'd concede that neovim wiping data if the user chose Y as acceptable. Yet, they neither display the prompt, nor keep existing data.
    [deleted] · 1790523030 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    bigstrat2003 · 1790523512 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, everyone is aware of that. The parent poster was bringing up the example of food to demonstrate that our society does not agree that giving something away for free doesn't mean you have no obligation as to potential adverse effects of the thing.
    Grombobulous · 1790523652 · focus · HN ↗
    Analogies like this don’t work when comparing against heavily regulated industry.
    Neovim being free software is a lot different than United Airlines giving me a free flight or my doctor giving me a free consultation.
    It’s very true that you can go to civil court and make a claim that a business or individual harmed you. If you do that with Neovim the judge is going to pretty quickly read bullet point #7 of the Apache 2.0 license, you’re going to struggle to prove any kind of mal-intent, you’re going to tell the judge that you paid $0 for the software, and you’ll be pretty quickly sent along your way with no damages awarded.
    TheOtherHobbes · 1790524947 · focus · HN ↗
    Only in the sense there's no explicit legal responsibility.
    Do you really believe developers have exactly zero moral responsibility to their users? None at all?
    Really?
    Would you still believe that if you found the developers of ssh deliberately included a backdoor for hackers, or neovim was uploading everyone's code to the NSA?
    Grombobulous · 1790525590 · focus · HN ↗
    I never said developers have no responsibility. Let’s not escalate. Now we are talking about actively malicious software versus a bug or design flaw.
    This issue with Neovim sounds like less than ideal design, or a bug, or both, not some kind of intentional affront to users.
    Ekaros · 1790525922 · focus · HN ↗
    That is why software should have very large liability for anything software they release do? Say your software due to bug destroys some document. Surely you should pay damages caused by such bug even if quite high?
  2. ToucanLoucan · 1790523009 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not poison, it's a broken feature. And you have the source code. Fix it if you like.
    pdonis · 1790523387 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, and then have it break again the next time upstream pushes a change. Or have something else break because upstream doesn't care about breaking things that I'm relying on.
    The only way to "fix" this from a source code perspective would be to fork Neovim.
  3. thih9 · 1790523070 · focus · HN ↗
    Others are eating it and are fine, chances are you’re allergic. Fortunately all ingredients are listed, you can check - or even modify the recipe yourself.
    Chris2048 · 1790527943 · focus · HN ↗
    > Fortunately all ingredients are listed
    How does this translate to the vim situation?
    retsibsi · 1790528349 · focus · HN ↗
    The point would be that it's open source. And "chances are you're allergic" translates to "your use case / expectations are unusual". But in my opinion the analogy doesn't hold well at all, because destroying a persistent undo file without warning is pretty obviously incorrect and unexpected behavior.
2. xbar · 1790522776 · focus · HN ↗
  Oh my. This set of principles is appropriate for malware.
  1. manvillej · 1790522891 · focus · HN ↗
    If you don’t like how it works, go build your own.
    jeltz · 1790525803 · focus · HN ↗
    I already build software where I hold myself to a higher standard than malware, so not sure I get your point. Why not strive for a better world with good software?
    manvillej · 1790526794 · focus · HN ↗
    Your suggestion that it is malware is misleading. Malware is “any software intentionally designed to harm, disrupt, or steal data from computers”. I sincerely doubt that was the author’s intention.
    Everyone in open source is trying to write good software and the definition of good is subjective depending on overall design, features, ease of use, quality, and performance.
    If an open source project is missing a feature, go build it. If the project maintainers don’t want it, fork the project. Be the change you want to see in the world. That’s the beauty of open source.
    Chris2048 · 1790528450 · focus · HN ↗
    > If an open source project is missing a feature, go build it.
    > Be the change you want to see in the world.
    The feature being: don't delete my data belonging by another program? It's kind of too late once deleted isn't it? And now even that other program cannot use the data either.
3. pdonis · 1790522952 · focus · HN ↗
  > giving away free software as a gift
  Even a gift comes with an implicit promise that it will do no harm. Deleting important data of yours without warning is harm.
  1. timschmidt · 1790523472 · focus · HN ↗
    This gift comes with the following clauses listed plainly in the license file:
    7. Disclaimer of Warranty. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License. 8. Limitation of Liability. In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
    jstanley · 1790523625 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think anyone is looking for legal remedies, this is not the right layer.
    timschmidt · 1790524107 · focus · HN ↗
    Is some part of:
    "Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE."
    Unclear? The fact that it's part of a license does not make it a legal-system-only warning.
    The software might eat your dog, and feed your homework. Run it at your own risk, and be prepared to submit patches or fork it to make it behave the way one prefers.
    mikestew · 1790524397 · focus · HN ↗
    The software might eat your dog, and feed your homework
    Sure, and when it does we can say “this piece of shit ate my dog, and the authors of the software have no concept of a duty of care to their users”. And no amount of “well, axually…” is going to make any difference. I have a hard believing someone is copy-pasting a license file in good faith in response.
    timschmidt · 1790524801 · focus · HN ↗
    Most open source software is written by individuals who aren't paid for the effort, and are solving their own problems. Presuming that they feel an obligation to the folks who download and use their work for free seems... bold.
    If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, I'm not going to complain about his workmanship. If I want the job done a particular way, the solution is to do it myself, or pay someone to do it the way I like.
    tikhonj · 1790525003 · focus · HN ↗
    If my neighbor mows my lawn and ruins my whole garden, I'd definitely complain. (And if I were in the neighbor's shoes, I'd feel awful about it and try to fix things.)
    rdiddly · 1790527236 · focus · HN ↗
    If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, and in the process mows my flower garden down, things change a bit though don't they. That is a closer analogy. In that case I am going to complain, and maybe also tell everybody he's careless and not to let him near their lawns.
    leoc · 1790527329 · focus · HN ↗
    Suppose that you build a childrens' slide in your front garden. You put up a big sign saying "Consider using my slide! <a href="https://neovim.io/" rel="nofollow">https://neovim.io/ Here are several wonderful things about it. It's free for everyone!" in your yard. Underneath in smaller letters you add "[No liability]". You also put up noticeboard ads for your free kids' slide in neighbourhood shopping malls <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/neovim" rel="nofollow">https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/neovim <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Neovim" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Neovim . Unfortunately, when you built the slide, you left sharp metal edges and corners sticking far up on the inside, reaching into the path of the user. No reasonably competent and diligent metalworker or slide-maker would have failed to notice these major flaws or failed to understand the serious danger they represented. Several neighbourhood children use the slide and receive serious gashes to the legs, arms or face, and have to go to the hospital. Even assuming that your no-liability small print somehow had you free and clear legally, do you believe that your behaviour would have been ethically and morally above all criticism? Do you think that "should have read the small print!" or "can't I build what I like in my own front yard?!" would have you covered? Do you think that your family and friends would agree?
    retsibsi · 1790527607 · focus · HN ↗
    > If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, I'm not going to complain about his workmanship. If I want the job done a particular way, the solution is to do it myself, or pay someone to do it the way I like.
    I think this is a decent analogy, but it works better the other way. If my neighbour offers to mow my lawn, I accept, and then he destroys the flower bed adjacent to the lawn, I will be upset, and I will have every right to complain about what he did. If he reacts by blithely dismissing my concern, then I certainly have the right (and arguably the obligation) to warn others that they should think twice about accepting his offers of gardening assistance.
    Some expectations reasonably go without saying; "don't destroy my flower bed when mowing my lawn" is one, and IMO "don't destroy my data without a clear warning and a chance to back out" is another, though of course we might disagree about exactly where this does and doesn't apply.
    jeremyjh · 1790524924 · focus · HN ↗
    Is the fact that we are not discussing legal remedies in this thread unclear?
    _vertigo · 1790525143 · focus · HN ↗
    This is one of the most exhausting (and frankly, exhausted) recurring arguments that comes up over and over again on HN.
    Some bit of open source software does something bad or unwanted which causes people point out that it shouldn't do that bad thing. In this case, not even "the authors of this software should be held liable for the software doing the bad thing", just, "Hey, the right thing to do would be to update the software to not do the bad thing."
    Why does this always lead a zillion people to come out of the woodwork to point at licenses and warnings or whatever? Like, yes, there's a warning. Your software having a warning doesn't mean people can't criticize you and your software for doing bad thing. Your software license does not give you immunity from criticism or from people saying you should change your software.
    No, you don't have to change the software. Yes, other people are within their rights to fork the software themselves. But they can also point out that they told you that your software was doing the bad thing and you didn't fix it or change it, and that as a result they don't like you or your software or both — whatever. Nothing at all wrong with that.
    jeltz · 1790526132 · focus · HN ↗
    Such a disclaimer does not even remove all legal liability, it just reduces it.
    timschmidt · 1790528118 · focus · HN ↗
    I actually think you framed it really well. No parties involved have any particular obligations to each other. Nor should there be expectations otherwise without support. It sucks to lose data, everyone knows that, and no one wants it. And identifying things which can be improved is important. I stop at expecting someone else to do something because I want them to. I might hope they would, and try to convince them.
    InsideOutSanta · 1790524422 · focus · HN ↗
    It's genuinely mind-blowing to me that software can do something obviously bad, someone can point it out, and then someone will link to the license file to say they have the right to do it.
    That's such an obvious category mistake that I'm not sure how to respond. It almost feels like a bad-faith interpretation of Wichary's original point.
    timschmidt · 1790525210 · focus · HN ↗
    Equally mindblowing that folks feel someone hacking on open source software has an obligation to do anything the way they feel it needs to be done when the whole point is that anyone gets to do more or less what they want with the code.
    You can't have both.
    retsibsi · 1790526996 · focus · HN ↗
    They get to do more or less what they want with the software, and others get to say more or less what they want about that. What's wrong with deciding they've crossed a line, being bothered by that, and warning others? Nobody's trying to get the law involved, or maliciously retaliate against them, or anything like that.
    Chris2048 · 1790527497 · focus · HN ↗
    > has an obligation to do anything the way they feel it needs to be done
    > anyone gets to do more or less what they want with the code
    so if the software had explicitly installed a root kit, you'd say the same?
    If you give out free soup, you get to poison it too?
    InsideOutSanta · 1790527499 · focus · HN ↗
    I published my comment for free, and yet you are criticizing it.
    nikanj · 1790527563 · focus · HN ↗
    "My software ran rm -rf / but it's GPL so sucks to be you"
    ryandrake · 1790528151 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you are objecting to OP’s “duty of care” wording which could be interpreted as suggesting a legal obligation. Nobody in this thread is really arguing that open source developers have a legal obligation to do this and to not do that. We are just saying they should do this and should not do that.
    leoc · 1790538962 · focus · HN ↗
    Right. It is weird that this has to be explained, but let's make it clear: in the Before Times, probably anytime up to at least the late '00s, probably approximately no-one in or around free or open source software would have endorsed the idea that the legal disclaimers completely free even the most mainstream, self-publicising, broad-userbase open source projects from any moral or ethical obligation to have even the slightest concern to ensure that their software doesn't hurt or betray its non-paying users, even in the most harmful ways. And if one of the many and often vocal FOSS opponents of the time had started claiming that this is what open-source developers really believe they'd have rightly been seen as having veered off into the lunatic fringe. And that's because it's a, frankly, bonkers idea which is radically detached from normal human understanding of the social and moral role and obligations of volunteers, voluntary organisations, charitable givers or gift-givers. And also because it's a wildly counterproductive idea to put out there if you're hoping to increase FOSS adoption.
    That does leave the question of why this idea has started to take off more recently. Part of the answer is certainly that Rich Hickey, disgracefully, set the ball rolling in this direction, and that many others have welcomed it as one weird trick and one pat answer for all the worsening problems of developer burnout. Unfortunately it seems hard to dismiss the idea that it's also social breakdown driven by a broader trend, as over time we move further and further from the pre-'60s "neurotic society" of people obsessed with duty and social conformity (often with oppressive or destructive results, to be sure) into the "psychopathic society" in which even people who don't themselves merit a Cluster B diagnosis have internalised narcissistic and psychopathic attitudes.
    jeremyjh · 1790524812 · focus · HN ↗
    I am never going to use any software you have written.
    bunderbunder · 1790525139 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a long literary tradition of representing contracts as a tool of villainy. Signing them is generally treated as a Faustian bargain.
    This is a great example of why. Most humans have a sense, deep down, that contracts often exist to bridge the gulf between the ethically defensible and the legally defensible.
    It's hard to imagine that any sane person who is just looking to use a popular editor would read some broad limitation of liability language like the above, and interpret it to mean, "By the way, we intend to quietly delete certain files created by a competing fork of this project whenever we find them."
    It's true that contracts with liability limitation clauses like this are an absolute necessity in this day and age. But there's also a non-legal principle of mutual respect that is absolutely necessary to a healthy open source community.
    timschmidt · 1790525511 · focus · HN ↗
    > It's hard to imagine that any sane person who is just looking to use a popular editor would read some broad limitation of liability language like the above, and interpret it to mean, "By the way, we intend to quietly delete certain files created by a competing fork of this project whenever we find them."
    Forks of projects trodding all over each others files is one of the more common problems that has happened, historically. Prior to the major efforts around freedesktop.org around configuration standardization, it was quite common. It'd be one of the first things I looked for when switching to a fork.
    bunderbunder · 1790526772 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying it shouldn’t be defended as good. It’s a defect. And in this particular incarnation it’s a defect that directly clashes with fundamental Free Software principles such as personal digital sovereignty.
    I also suspect that few people actually believe it’s ok and these legalistic defenses are more about circling the wagons. How many people would defend Microsoft if a new Office version automatically and quietly stripped edit history from documents that were originally created by other versions? Would we be hunting for limited liability clauses in their EULA to defend the design decision?
    timschmidt · 1790529396 · focus · HN ↗
    > I’m saying it shouldn’t be defended as good.
    Thankfully, that's not a thing I ever did.
    > I also suspect that few people actually believe it’s ok and these legalistic defenses are more about circling the wagons.
    For me it's more about healthy boundaries and expectations. If I'm somehow paying for a project's development, I have higher expectations. If I'm not, I understand that I've chosen the dev/test track and there will be bugs and issues. The developer may choose to run off in an odd direction coughGnome3cough and my only recourse is to fork or hope someone else does. Disagreements as to how things should work happen pretty often.
    I'm not defending anything or anyone. Just describing the system as it exists.
  2. xigoi · 1790542371 · focus · HN ↗
    If you’re storing your important data in ~/.cache, you’re eventually going to suffer even if you don’t install Neovim.
4. bestouff · 1790522966 · focus · HN ↗
  Sure. And nobody has a duty to use it. This user states that (s)he doesn't want to use an editor that doesn't care for its users. I don't blame anyone here.
5. gozzoo · 1790522975 · focus · HN ↗
  > They are open source developers, giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
  But actually there is! They didn't start from scratch. They took another very successfull and beloved project with the promise "to make it better". There is some promise here and the duty not to make it worse.
  1. owebmaster · 1790523044 · focus · HN ↗
    It would be really surprising if they could make it better for literally every user. The perpetual undo is just better handled by git.
  2. brookst · 1790523153 · focus · HN ↗
    And this obligation lasts… for the rest of their lives?
  3. margalabargala · 1790523528 · focus · HN ↗
    "Better" is subjective. They made it better...for themselves. Then gave it away so people who share their opinion, had the opportunity to choose to use it.
    macintux · 1790527971 · focus · HN ↗
    > Then gave it away so people who share their opinion, had the opportunity to choose to use it.
    How many neovim users were made aware that the software would proactively delete their decade-long file history?
    margalabargala · 1790530294 · focus · HN ↗
    Probably no more than a rounding error away from zero.
6. rwmj · 1790523005 · focus · HN ↗
  This is absolutely true. On the other hand, if there's Vim, Neovim, emacs, MS Word, Google Docs etc and some treat me with respect and others do not, that might affect my choice of which software to use.
7. Snarwin · 1790523024 · focus · HN ↗
  Sure. And likewise, users who care about backwards compatibility have no duty to do anything for the Neovim developers--they can simply use a different editor that suits their preferences.
  1. JacobKfromIRC · 1790523948 · focus · HN ↗
    Is there a good way to avoid programs like this in general?
    boredumb · 1790524894 · focus · HN ↗
    You buy software that includes a commercial license that guarantees data retention
    jeltz · 1790525616 · focus · HN ↗
    So that answer us no because such software does virtually not exist.
    [deleted] · 1790527328 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    LtWorf · 1790545062 · focus · HN ↗
    Can you point me to any such commercial text editor?
    boredumb · 1790701659 · focus · HN ↗
    You can pay for google docs+ via workspaces and they have an explicit customer data retention guarantee in their license.
8. rlue · 1790523084 · focus · HN ↗
  The argument is that developers have a duty not to arbitrarily delete data on your system that you may have relied on that was produced by another program just because they’d like to replace it with something in their own format.
  I don’t care if you’re volunteering your time; if you build something whose implied purpose and success depends on other people using it, you emphatically have a duty to those people not to silently destroy stuff that was there before your software was.
  1. pdonis · 1790523212 · focus · HN ↗
    It's worth pointing out that vim is not "another program" as far as Neovim is concerned. It's an earlier version of the same program. Neovim is a fork of vim, not a totally different editor that happens to share part of a name.
    goodmythical · 1790523624 · focus · HN ↗
    Forking creates new programs.
    If I fork chromium, I do not get to claim that I am a chromium maintainer.
    Vim and Neovim are two seperate programs.
    SigmundA · 1790524473 · focus · HN ↗
    So maybe it should have two different undo files so both can be run side by side?
    [deleted] · 1790524751 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    goodmythical · 1790547205 · focus · HN ↗
    I am fairly certain that is the argument of the article.
    [deleted] · 1790523904 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    jeremyjh · 1790524716 · focus · HN ↗
    It absolutely is another program, I can tell this because it has a different name. To run it I type "nvim" instead of "vim". I use different config files to control its behavior. I install a different package on my system when I want to use it on a new computer.
    pdonis · 1790530441 · focus · HN ↗
    If it really is another program with reference to vim, it should leave undo files made by vim alone.
    If it's going to nuke vim's undo files, it can't hide behind "another program".
    jeremyjh · 1790530536 · focus · HN ↗
    That is the point.
    pdonis · 1790531194 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't understand. Are you saying neovim does not nuke vim's undo files? The whole point of the article is that it does.
    If that's not your point, then I have no idea what you're trying to say.
    pdonis · 1790531653 · focus · HN ↗
    > I use different config files to control its behavior.
    From what I can gather, you can use the same vimrc file to control both vim and neovim.
9. [deleted] · 1790523129 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
10. layer8 · 1790523161 · focus · HN ↗
  A duty, like a responsibility, can be something you feel or choose for yourself. The fact that the maintainers of some software don’t feel it is a perfectly good argument for not using that software. There is no necessary connection to compensation or transactional thinking.
11. novia · 1790523171 · focus · HN ↗
  If people can be upset when llms delete a file, we can be upset when an open-source project deletes a file.
12. yipinwong · 1790523200 · focus · HN ↗
  You spewing bs like the left-pad dev who removed it from NPM a decade ago crashing everything.
  Yes, OSS can start with just a passion without a duty, but as the scale grows you have a duty to make sure it does not have adverse effect.
  If you don't like the duty, just make it die by building it crappy like VIM does.
13. zbentley · 1790523230 · focus · HN ↗
  “Here, take this car, it’s free!”
  “Ow, the gas pedal is actually a bear trap.”
  “Why are you complaining? It’s free!”
  1. dima55 · 1790523467 · focus · HN ↗
    Then you don't take the car. Why is this confusing?
    [deleted] · 1790523655 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    jstanley · 1790523660 · focus · HN ↗
    Because you didn't find out it was a bear trap until after you stepped on it?
    WesolyKubeczek · 1790523691 · focus · HN ↗
    You discover it’s a bear trap not before you try to pull out from the parking lot.
    InsideOutSanta · 1790524142 · focus · HN ↗
    Ah, yes. The old story of the one-footed man who didn't take the car.
    leoc · 1790524191 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not how liability works, not either morally or (IANAL) legally.
    mcphage · 1790524399 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s fine, you can leave the car, but you’ve already lost your foot. Why do you find this confusing?
    Espressosaurus · 1790524455 · focus · HN ↗
    Well I would feel slightly irate if I had to find out about the bear trap before I decide I don’t want the car.
  2. k6hkUZtLUM · 1790524946 · focus · HN ↗
    This is a very apt analogy. If you give someone a car (or sell it cheap) and you know there is a problem with the car, then it is your duty to tell them. "Hey, I've been having trouble with the breaks they need to be pumped. Be careful about that."
14. mindslight · 1790523401 · focus · HN ↗
  By your reasoning, a doctor who volunteers to provide free care to people has no duty of care to those patients. This is patently absurd - ethics and norms are a large part of what constitutes a professional.
  And for what it's worth, I have flagged your comment for the inevitable pointless bickering it has precipitated. While applying reductionist frameworks and seeing where they lead is a necessary part of an individual's path to understanding, please avoid pushing ignorant assertions ("there is no duty here") as if they might constitute well reasoned truths.
15. sdcfgy · 1790523617 · focus · HN ↗
  There is not a duty but there is an image and quality issue. Something many open source projects suffer from and should not.
  And even mentioning that results in "fork it if you're not happy" which immediately turns everyone off who's had to maintain a fork to fix a minor issue in something before. And anyone who can't fork it is being told to go to hell.
  Everyone needs to quite frankly get off their high horse, crank the ego down and listen to users. Because you're damaging open source with the attitude.
  30 years ago, things were better. They got a lot worse, particularly since github appeared.
16. xboxnolifes · 1790524030 · focus · HN ↗
  Ill remember this when I distribute malware.
  1. sdcfgy · 1790524362 · focus · HN ↗
    To be fair some malware has a better support and care experience than some open source software. The malware actively encourages you to contact them to pay the ransom. The open source software, no such luck.
17. TheOtherHobbes · 1790524447 · focus · HN ↗
  "Behold my glorious generosity, which eclipses your petty meaningless little data!"
  This is the extreme version of "I enjoy coding but I hate users."
  It may be legally valid in absolute technical terms, but I'm going to take a lot of persuading that it's a healthy attitude.
18. diego_moita · 1790524565 · focus · HN ↗
  > giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
  By that logic, if Facebook gives away their services for free then they don't have the duty to protect their user's privacy and mental health?
19. ryandrake · 1790524581 · focus · HN ↗
  HN commenters constantly mistake “what I should do” with “what I am obligated to do.” Nobody is saying open source developers are legally mandated to be careful with user data. We are saying they should. There’s no need to haul out the license and put our lawyer hats on here. One can be within one’s legal rights and still be wrong.
20. jeremyjh · 1790524648 · focus · HN ↗
  They wrote this software with the explicit intention of offering it to other people to use. Their program deleted data created with a different program, on someone else’s computer. If they have no sense of duty that would preclude doing that, no one should use their software.

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