cobbles

Every now and then like clockwork our ecosystem throws up a project maintainer burnout problem.

This time everyone noticed it was Rsync.

Rsync is an infrastructure tool, distributions use it to sync copies of their packages to mirrors. Folks use the tool to sync stuff up to their websites. I use it to backup and sync between my devices.

Some of us had an initial clue that rsync had gone to slop a few months ago when it appeared on the slop list on Codeberg. But we're all so burned out, some of us went: “another one bites the dust.”

Drew De Vault released a tool based on tar as he's found rsync to have some sharp edges.

Which it does. There's a reason other folks use things like syncthing. Syncing files is hard. Knowing what to sync when is hard. Rsync had been handed over by the founder and then was taken back in 2024 as the new maintainer needed help and was rather burned out, after 20 years.

The tool was done, but the thing that “done” tools will always need are maintenance. Why? Because the systems that the tool was built to run on will always change. I'd noted the change in ownership of the project back in 2024 as LWN had reported on it as a brief item. I'd included that in my sustainability post.

Tridge is overwhelmed. We all are. We need resources and those resources require money to be paid under capitalism. We all have a powerful need to eat sometime this month after all. So it's on us as projects to raise that money. On the whole, developers are not good at asking for money. Developers who work in FOSS tend to have absorbed it's very libertarian political ideology. They owe you no support as you're getting it for free. All they did was release the code with no benefit to them.

Which kinda is a very limited framing of this idea. Developers who develop code that gets everywhere do get some benefits. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's kudos. Both are forms of power. With great power, comes great responsibility as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker. It's one of those truths we should absorb and often don't. Especially when it comes to our communities and what we owe them as we build.

Which is partly why in FOSS we really are not good at asking for money. In the back of our minds it seems rather dirty to ask for money. Especially when some of that community isn't really engaging in the business of helping out. Our social contract is undefined at both ends. So it's no wonder our devs are burned out and some are resentful. So are their communities.

Many of us are privileged and rather socialised to see it as begging when we should be seeing it as mutual aid. After all we exist under capitalism. We've been heavily indoctrinated. We've never been taught the idea of the social contract.

Mutual aid rather than corporate capture is one way to rebel under this hellscape. Especially since capitalism has decided to do a “fuck you” to all of us with the unreal merry go round of the current financial market trio of Open AI, Nvidia, and Oracle. Things are going to go bump and we will pay for it with our money and our ecosystem.

I am disappointed with Tridge for deciding to choose GitHub and LLMs. Especially knowing his history. I'm rather disappointed at the general attitude that Tridge owes the community nothing.

Which may be true, but I always thought that there was a social contract with FOSS. After all developers write software and sometimes they release it to the world. People use that software and it can be a ticket to power and limited influence.

I've often thought that FOSS is more like a series of fandoms than an industrial process. Which is also why I'm finding the LLM use kinda disturbing. Knowing some of the devs in my life, coding has always seemed more like art.

I couldn't feel the art, so I chose another medium.

We've always had an uncomfortable portmanteau with FOSS though. Free Software and Open Source Software. Once of them more corporate friendly but both have a fairly libertarian bent when it comes to the unacknowledged political beliefs underpinning them.

Making our software available to everyone has always been a political stance. It took until my forties to drill that lesson home.

I'm European and I grew up as a Scot under Thatcher, Major, and Blair. I know I'm a recovering centrist who benefited from free healthcare and free higher education. So it did take awhile for me to see what was wrong with FOSS. With the various controversies over the past decade, I've felt less and less comfortable in FOSS. The corporate side pretended that it was safe, while the Free Software side denied some of the community issues. Any progress has been grudgingly made.

But to be clear, both Free Software and Open Source Software claim Freedom from the individual first. Free Speech, my rights over others. So any human rights like the right to freedom of association in safety get ignored or hand-waved away.

To me Human Rights are very important, but that doesn't give me free rein to cause havoc in my communities. My rights end at the point when it harms others. If my project releases software and folks are using it and singing our praises that does mean we do have a duty to help folks if they have an issue.

Of course there are limits, after all the GPL provides the software as is, no warranty, use at your own risk. But there is a point when your software is infrastructure. Like Rsync.

Tridge published a post complaining about the backlash, yes some of that backlash was harassment. But he was also reacting and comparing OpenRsync. So I think there was a part of Tridge that was proud that Rsync is effectively infrastructure. It's a heady sense your software being used everywhere. There's that kudos. There's that heady feeling of when you put a talk into a large conference you will get accepted. Tridge is a good public speaker, seriously check out his past presentations for Linux Conf Australia. He's loved by the community there for good reasons.

But if you get your rocks off from that, then yes, you have a responsibility to the folks who've built their infrastructure around your software. I can't stop you complaining about it. But I can point out that you needed to take some responsibility for it, and if you'd rather retire, announce it and ask for help.

Community is hard. I know, you just want to write code and have a good time. Which you still can do. Just you know, consider the idea that being the BDFL/Maintainer of a project is a position of power. So you do need to be responsible. If you're overwhelmed you need help to build the community, because that community will be the people who will come to help. You need the people in that community that you can have a bond with. Who care enough about the project, you and the wider community that uses your software. Then it's sharing the power, but more importantly sharing that responsibility.

Tridge is now getting help from some folks which is good, more eyes and more hands will help him and the project. There's already an update to fix the regressions. Tridge is appealing for help. But this all started back in 2024 with maintainer burnout and Tridge having to take it back. The community failed at that point in time. It was more of a fandom and many of us, myself included were glad Tridge took it back. We were more of a fandom than a working community.

The fall out and Tridges fanboys coming to his defence on various social networks shows me that rsync was more of a fandom than a community. The desire of being overwhelmed by the security reports and turning to the provided LLM is merely the symptom of that.

If you have a tool you are relying on and you don't want it to be sloppified, then this is the time to find a bunch of like minded folks and build out the community. Because maintainers do need support, be it monetary, code, documentation, or the glue work. Although if you do want folks to do that glue work, I suggest you start by reviewing your code of conduct and your how to contribute guides.

In these trying times it's more important than ever to be honest about your values and ask yourself where you stand.

Community thoughts and a wish for accessibility affordances – @onepict@chaos.social