> This sort of term is made up by c suites for c suites, arguing about semantics is rarely productive and I'm inclined to believe that's the case here.
That's the point of the article, yes. It's about the mismatch of expectations and behaviors between C suite, which expects every business to do its duty on pains of lawsuit, and hobbyist FOSS programmers, who don't see themselves as in business and who have less than zero duty to FrobnitzWare/Invisible Corporation kabushiki gaisha LLC Limited AG despite the fact that August Corporate Personage decided to base Essential Business Processes on their work.
I mean, fundamentally, the programmers are in the right, in that the company cannot, in point of fact, rely on a contract it never drew up or got anyone to sign, but the companies will do the legal equivalent of holding their breath and stamping their feet and this is something people will, every so often, write blog posts about. Heck, maybe, just this once, a blog post will inform some C suite suits about the power gradient here (corporations: none, rando programmers: quite a bit, in fact) and maybe nudge some of them to, maybe, not make software that collapses when left-pad's author has another Big Idea.
> If you are a multi billion dollar company and are concerned about log4j, why not just email OSS authors you never paid anything and demand a response for free within 24 hours with lots of info? (company name redacted for my peace of mind)
Maybe "Stamping their feet" is a bit hyperbolic for this case, but it demonstrates the cultural mismatch very well: The email assumes the Log4J package comes from the "Log4J Company" such that a business requesting the results of an internal audit would be met with something other than an annoyed FOSS developer Tweeting about this clueless moo sending a form email to a random programmer they have no prior relationship with.
As Daniel himself says in the follow-up Tweet:
> I replied saying I'd be happy to answer all the questions as soon as we have a support contract.
There was, deep inside the company, an internal process which blindly assumed a contract would be present, and acted accordingly.
Maybe Github and repository maintainers care about society at large.
If the bet could be objectively settled I'd happily stake my entire savings on the question, because I've already talked to the folks making those decisions.
I'd hazard an inability to imagine oneself as "not the main character", to recognize that a majority likely have other priorities, causes a sizable share of debates on HN.
It's the opening question in PG's essay linked today.
I also think this battle is lost as GH and others will always yeld to the needs of folks that atually bring money to their business.
"Pure hobbist FOSS" mantainers likely need to start a Wikipedia ish non profit for software hosting or think about something else.