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. 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.

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