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Given the recent uproar about AI usage in rsync a PSA: maintainers owe you nothing (mikemcquaid.com)
submitted 2 months ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/opensource@programming.dev
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For those outside the loop: rsync starting using AI agents to handle the influx of AI security reports to improve the test suite and fix bugs. It introduced a few CVEs and people who never contributed in any way started firing shots at the maintainer.

rsync maintainer's response to the people getting pissy about his usage of AI: medium and the related post on programming.dev

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[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 10 points 2 months ago

They didn't sign up for anything. Read their software licenses.

[-] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe 0 points 2 months ago

What? Someone forced them to be maintainers?

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Their point is that the maintainer did not sign a contract that requires them to perform maintainer duties. They can choose to stop doing it at any point. They can choose to axe a feature that you deem essential. They can choose to rewrite the project in COBOL for the fun of it.

You may not like it, but that is how it is.
The only legal document involved is the license and any open-source license I've seen so far, has stated that the program is provided as is.

This is the license under which rsync is provided: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
See sections 15 and 16.

The only way you get to have a say in the matter, is by forking and becoming a maintainer yourself.

this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
69 points (87.9% liked)

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