My post about responsibility for bug reports on old software versions the other day stirred up quite some discussion, and I wanted to drill a bit more into what I think is the crux of the dispute: the difference between legal obligations and the social contract.
Good observations! I’d like to also articulate that the “social contract” in many legal capacities is actually a set of untold rules that could be written down, but isn’t because it would take too many lawyers too much time, and that it’s constantly moving around based on trends and stuff.
One notable thing I’d like to add as well is the concept of “precedent”.
Essentially, doing a thing repeatedly will build a basic set of standards that, while unwritten, become enforceable. It’s the reason giving free candy to most customers but not one customer in particular could lead to things like discrimination lawsuits.
In the case of FLOSS, it’s a truly horrible risk because the entire thing is built and maintained by well-intended nerds out of the goodness of their hearts. By contrast, legal things happen when human decency breaks down, so suing an open-source maintainer is on par with a War on Christmas 