ghnewbiee / lettertodevelopers

A personal letter to any project owner/developer/contributor

LetterToDevelopers

A personal letter to any project owner/developer/contributor whom I may contact.

Purpose

To make clear some interaction matters between wanna-be "open source" "(hidden or apparent) bussiness-oriented" professional developers, hereinafter "You"/"Your(s)"/"Yourself", and simple non-professional fun-oriented "wanna-be developers" like myself, hereinafter "I"/"me"/"my"/"myself", with a totally different background.

"You" and "Your" decisions

• You have decided in free will, and without any kind of external pressure to:
  • code/develop something which may be called module, application, program, etc., hereinafter "Project",
  • choose its license, usually a permissive one, MIT, GPL, etc.,
  • publish it which, in turn, implies that you have indirectly agreed to interact with people who show some interest in it, unless otherwise you have explicitly requested.

"Your" Legal Rights

• All rights under the license you have chosen,
• Project name ownership when you have legally and officialy copyrighted it.

"Your" Legal Obligations

• All obligations, if exist, under the license you have chosen.

"Your" Trade/Commercial Rights

• Only if the license, you have chosen, acknowledges that you have or anticipates that.

"Your" Potential Benefits

• Glory,
• Popularity,
• Work Proposals,
• FORGET DONATION,
• Advertisement,
• Indirect income,
• Whatever you expect, I am not interested at all!

"Your" Moral Rights (*)

• You do have the right, as a free person, to:
  • accept or reject any kind of contribution you have received from user(s)/visitor(s),
  • start, stop or continue the communication with any user/visitor,
  • start, stop or continue your project whenever you want,
  • ...
• You have no right to explicitly or implicitly PUSH user(s)/visitor(s) to:
  • contribute to your project by:
    • donating,
    • making PR(s),
    • star-voting,
    • reporting bugs,
    • giving ideas/suggesting features,
    • ...
• You have no right to outsmart or try to fool user(s)/visitor(s) by invoking the spirit of the open source and giving lectures how open source community works.

"Your" Moral Obligations (*)

• Maintain the code in terms of update, safety, security, etc.
• Respect user(s)/visitor(s) by:
  • behaving them well and kindly,
  • informing them in case you have stopped maintaining the code,
  • not wasting their time,
  • not taking advantages of their time,
  • being fair,
  • being sincere,
  • responding straight,
  • ...

(* for those who have consciousness and mind)

Very important note: THE PROJECT IS YOURS AND ONLY YOURS!

"Me" and "My" decisions

• I have decided in free will, and without any kind of external pressure to:
  • use "your" project,
  • contact you, if I ever decide to do so,

"My" Legal Rights/Obligations

• I have to comply with the terms of lisence you have chosen.

"My" Trade/Commercial Rights/Obligations

• I can exploit your Project in any way I want, unless the license, you have chosen, explicitly forbids me to do that.
• I am not obliged to:
  • donate any quantity of money to you,
  • share my benefits/money/profits with you,
  • ...

Very important note: THERE IS NO COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND ME!

"My" Potential Benefits

• Anything I can take advantage of by using your project, such as:
  • knowledge,
  • save time,
  • solution,
  • money,
  • ...

"My" Moral Rights

• I do have the right, as a free person, to:
  • decide if and when I will contribute to your project,
  • choose the manner of contribution, such as:
    • donation (I do never; money means bussiness, but I am here for fun!),
    • PRs (I do never; the project is yours, the code is yours, too!),
    • star-vote (yes, I do that),
    • bug report (yes, I do that),
    • ideas/features suggestion (yes, I do that),
    • ...
  • start, stop or continue the communication with you or other project contributor(s)
• I have no right to:
  • PUSH developer(s) or contributor(s) to do something for me (for my sake), such as:
    • to develop/add a new feature,
    • ...

"My" Moral Obligations

• Respect project developer(s)/contributor(s) by:
  • behaving them well and kindly and not
  • not behaving them as they were my employees,
  • not wasting their time,
  • not taking advantages of their time,
  • being fair,
  • being sincere,
  • responding straight,
  • ...
• Contribute in the manner I have chosen; even a bug report or a suggestion (for you, just take it or leave it),
• ...

Tia