Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 0:40 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341)
In reply to: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++ by mb
Parent article: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Care to give examples of this communication?

Also, given this was a personal project of his, and (AFAIK) he was doing this for his own enjoyment and fun, how can you characterise it as "unprofessional"?

You are projecting your own notions of what /you/ like for /your/ projects, onto the _personal_ time of other authors of Free Software, and you are _inventing_ obligations for said other Free Software authors that do not exist. They _do not exist_ in the licence, nor is it in any way sane to think that someone publishing some of their work as Free Software somehow encumbers them with /obligations/ to write the code the way /random others/ _demand_.

If you want to call the tune, pay the piper. Get a support contract. Pay them money. Put food on their table. _Then_ you have a _small_ and /limited/ right to expect something in return.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 0:43 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and most of all, whether a user has paid the author or not, the user of someone else's Free Software *never* has the right to be rude, never mind abusive, to that Free Software author.

That user has an *obligation* to be _polite_, and thankful. Especially if they havn't contributed a thing to said author.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 7:30 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (5 responses)

> Care to give examples of this communication?

Has already been posted here.

> If you want to call the tune, pay the piper.

So people who contribute their free time for the removal of unsafe code must pay money so that their pull request gets handled professionally?

> onto the _personal_ time of other authors

Do you realize that this is also true for the rejected contributors and the users?

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 12:09 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

They can pay money, if the author is amenable. Otherwise they can simply say "Thanks for writing the code! Here's a fork we've made with out changes. Thanks again!".

See? Just fork, and be thankful. How is that hard? How _anything but that_ the right answer?

In particular, how is "Launch a campaign of abuse, to pressure the author into withdrawing from their own, personal project" acceptable?

What khim calls "ostracism" is implementable only through online bullying in an online world.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 12:29 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (3 responses)

That's sane behavior, if you are living under a stone.

>Launch a campaign of abuse, to pressure the author

Please read the authors responses to the PRs.
The author is not the victim.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 12:33 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

Can you provide a link, so we can be certain we're looking at the same thing?

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 19, 2024 22:10 UTC (Tue) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link] (1 responses)

Hi @paulj, I'm not the person you were responding to, but here are some examples I found by following other links, in case that makes is easier:

2019 - Originally rejected fix PRs that explain and remove UB or other soundness issues
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/pull/968
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/pull/822
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/pull/335 (note reverted after merged)

2018 - Original response to "why 100 uses of unsafe without clear documentation of safety"
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/issues/289

I make no guarantee that these are the best examples, just a few I turned up.

Also please note, for contrast, the many fixes that went in just after the maintainer transition on Jan 20 2020, e.g.
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/pull/1303
https://github.com/actix/actix-web/pull/1328

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 20, 2024 10:37 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The author's replies do not seem unreasonable in any cases there. Unless you define "did not merge all of the changes" as unreasonable - which would be an unreasonable definition.

Anyway, let's leave it.