Administered by:
I've been sitting on this for a while, and it's not much, but in light of Wellnhofer's contribution I'd like to propose:
"Maintenance Terms", as distinct from licensing terms:
https://github.com/mhoye/maintenance-terms
Access to code is no promise of access to people.
One of the things I learned doing community management at the old gig - the "abuse" vs "admin" tag story, you can read it here: https://mastodon.social/@mhoye/109359361836400210 - is the importance of deliberately engineering _social accessibility_ into your processes.
People generally _cannot bring themselves to do_ things they don't feel safe or permitted or right doing, whatever the docs say. To create real human safety in stressful situations you need to deliberately build a culture where _"no" is accessible_.
But here's the thing: you may have heard the line that disability is the one underrepresented minority group you can be suddenly forced to join against your will, and it's extremely true. But if mental health is just health, if moral injury is just injury, then you ultimately need to think about building these accessibility aids - creating this social permission to say no - not just for other people but eventually, on the bad day, for yourself.
Because someday, somebody's going to come to you and say, I'm from Apple, I'm from Amazon, I'm from Project Zero and you need to drop everything because your project is the new heartbleed or Log4j or who knows what and the world is falling over and if that psychological offramp isn't there, if you haven't laid out clearly what PROVIDED AS-IS means and how you're going to act about it ahead of time, saying "I'll be at my kid's recital" or "I'm on vacation" or just "no" is extremely difficult.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but Facebook is happy lighting billions of dollars on fire whenever their boy-king smokes another copy of an early Gibson novel. Every brocaded corpse in the Google Graveyard was entombed with the kind of wealth that would make a Pharaoh cringe.
They've gained tectonic wealth from labour they got for free and for them to turn around and say, someone's dropped a cigarette in this tower we've built out of dry kindling, you owe us?
No. Tap the sign.
@mhoye so much in life is this! I will ask friends to do things, and now when it seems like they're maybe making excuses I'll try to just emphasize, saying no is a fine answer! If you're not into it, that's fine! And that's true from the littlest to the biggest things.
@mhoye
or: send an offer.
Consulting, hourly rate, your terms (only).
Apply multipliers for weekend / nightshift work and big business requests.
@vampirdaddy @mhoye No no no, I’m gonna need to stop you right fucking there.
Do not under any circumstances think it’s okay to expect an offer of consulting services just because you downloaded my shitpost off GitHub and thought it would be fun to compile and deploy it in your grift factory.
I am under no obligation to offer consulting services, and fuck anyone who gets mad at me for refusing to hustle like that.
See this is why I stopped posting my code with any license terms at all. DJB was fucking right: put up a copyright notice, all rights reserved, and leave it at that. You’re done.
@janxdevil @mhoye
Unless you reject that right upfront, with publishing code they IMHO can expect to be allowed to ask you (politely!) for an offer or merge request.
End of allowed expectation.
Everything beyond that first contact is your decision they damn have to respect.
@vampirdaddy @janxdevil If you want to offer consulting services, or not, or licence it under some terms or not, that's up to you. The point is that it is - always - up to you, no matter what anyone else tries to pressure you with.
@vampirdaddy @mhoye Sure they can ask, and I can respond by tapping the sign. But don’t roll up on me in advance of that asking me to sign onto some professional ethical obligation to make an offer to consult every time some idiot asks for my help maintaining their rickety Rube Goldberg contraptions.
@janxdevil @mhoye
Usually sending an offer with hourly rates and no guarantees except worked hours ends pressing inquiries quite reliably.
Feel free to factor in sympathy points and wanted holiday trips.
Your rules only (esp no warranties), your decision, no haggling.
@mhoye
And if you want to use my code in your product you had better be doing your own code reviews and checks for suitability and I am under no obligation t accept and maintain your updates if it conflict with my own needs or plans.
A
@mhoye This, so much.
As someone working for a globocorp that uses tons and tons of FOSS, and contributes back a little, but could frankly do more:
If a company comes to you with a log4j scenario, tell them they can hire a pro. Tell them your rate, if you like.
If they’re dependent on your unpaid labor, they’re just bad at business. Work costs money. They know this, whether they tell you or not.
@mhoye Ugh, now I'm having PTSD about the time I was on vacation in Paris for a month and some guy barged into my inbox with demands that I integrate with his new library version right now.
@mhoye even when the company funds such maintenance, don’t underestimate the psychological burden placed on those required to respond with alacrity. Especially if that’s what they do all the time.
I've seen what being the sole maintainer of a piece of critical infrastructure does to people who aren't getting the help they need from a very careful, very alert management team, and by "seen" I mean I've talked people down from killing themselves.
Carrying a pager 24 hours a day for months or years destroys people.
@mhoye we did this a long time ago, it’s very useful: https://docs.readthedocs.com/platform/stable/open-source-philosophy.html
@mhoye I've been using this as an ersatz "Security Policy" for years on my own project: https://github.com/binjr/binjr/security/policy
However unlikely it was to ever be needed, I, too, felt like I had to very explicitly "tap the sign", while still saying "hey, I'm not a monster; here's a candle you can light in case of an emergency; you never know!"
I really like the idea of using some standardized terms to convey the same intent, though: like with licences before, it would makes them more readily recognizable and less likely to be ignored (in good faith).
That or maybe I'll just paste your Simpson meme all over it, because let's face it, in our day and age it might yet prove more solid in court than carefully crafted and serious sounding words...
@mhoye I have written and maintain a very niche tool to do with my narrow field of research, that is used by at most 15 people. One of my biggest obstacles to continuing to develop and promote it is anxiety about what will be expected of me if it becomes more useful/more widespread.
I genuinely felt some background tension drain out of my body reading this proposed text.
@mhoye It says "any other any other" somewhere in there. Looks like a small mistake.
@DPA Thank you, fixed.
@mhoye It's also one of those weird things where people will sometimes hold themselves to *higher* support standards than larger projects or even commercial vendors. Asking them if they have considered just not doing that (at least, not for free) can go a bunch of different directions (usually good directions, occasionally unhelpful ones).
@mhoye I like it. If megacorps want to rely on projects maintained by volunteers they can always maintain their own private fork.