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. Grombobulous · 1790522697 · focus · HN ↗

         Software isn’t food.

         1. 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.

            1. 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.

               1. 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?

                  1. 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.

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