My views on Open Source

My views on Open Source

I might have what many could call a utopic view of what Open Source is. Ever since I began teaching myself programming, I viewed Open Source as an Oasis of some sort: As a way to make programming knowledge and tools more accessible to everyone; to help push our craft to new heights for everyone while giving a higher floor rather than a higher ceiling and helping put everyone on an equal footing.

A tool for vulgarization is what I though it was.

To me the part THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND of the MIT License always meant "I have no warranty this will work or that you won't fuck your stuff up by using it wrongly". It never meant "yolo, I do what I want, deal with it or not, lemme add malware real quick and you can do nothing about it".

Looking at OS licenses, none provide liability. I don't ask for full liability like "it's your fault it doesn't suit my project and I deleted important files accidentally" but more in a responsibility aspect like what the Programmer's Oath proposes. If anyone knows a license that's the MIT's equivalent but with that in mind, I would be more than glad to migrate all my projects to that license.

I don't ask for every open source developers to devote their lives to maintenance for free. All I'm asking is for people to stop acting erratically.

Ultimately it's my fault. My fault for thinking once again that human beings could be genuinely good towards each other. My fault for thinking human beings were capable of anything but malevolence. My fault for supposing that everyone in the Open Source community were Scientists that would operate with everyone's best interests at heart. My fault for thinking that human being could be anything but fundamentally self-centered.

Quite ironically I enjoy the principle of Individualism as: treat humanity as separate individuals that happen to join as groups, and not as a group of individuals (i.e. n x 1 vs 1 x n). But to me it was never about "be self-centered and selfish and let everyone else do the same". It's more like "treat each individual right, and the entire group will be treated right" instead of "try to treat the majority right".

Me being disappointed would be quite an understatement. It's hard enough to try and treat everyone decently, it's even harder when everyone acts the exact opposite way towards you.

The "yolo I do whatever the fuck I do" mentality is not a very fitting one. It's not anger I feel, it's disappointment and disgust.

Whatever opinion you have on the subject, opposite or not, contrasting or not, I'd be happy to hear and bounce off of.