Thread

1. 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. 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.

         1. Chris2048 · 1790527943 · focus · HN ↗

            > Fortunately all ingredients are listed

            How does this translate to the vim situation?

            1. 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.

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