“how dare you threaten me?”
I understand how one might feel attacked by an ultimatum, but a policy of rejecting ultimatums altogether only has the benefit of keeping pride intact, on the other hand it discourages people in your life from giving you a last chance, from communicating why they are leaving, and for letting them come back if the parting was amicable
best response is to just communicate you are not fixing X and parting ways amicably, no hard feelings. not only is it beneficial for the ultimated party, but it’s fair for the ultimating party, who is absolutely in their own right to rescind their voluntary relationship, in no way is it a threat to communicate that possibility, because a threat implies violence or damage.
Again, I did not say the threat in this case was inappropriate. It’s totally legitimate to say “this doesn’t work for me; change it or I’m out”. But it is a threat. We should be honest with what we are doing. If nothing else it makes it easier to understand (and predict) a defensive reaction when we understand and acknowledge a threat is being delivered.
and it’s very common for the usage to cause conflict, the exchange of “are you threatening me?” “no, i’m just telling you what I’ll do” is very common.
i personally wouldn’t use it as a shorthand when there’s no violence or punitory damage implied, unless I purposefully wanted to escalate things. it’s a word that refers to violence, so it will harsh the vibes instantly
a key element of coercion (and this is deeply studied in law so there is less subjectivity than regular language) is that the hypothetical presented cause a damage, and then the avoidance of that damage is traded for a positive action. it doesn’t really apply to a case where a person exercises their right (to leave) and it only secondarily (or not at all) causes a damage, there is no intent to harm and no manipulation of the other into acting one way to avoid that harm.
in the context of leaving a relationship, it might make some sense only if there’s a contract, or even some sense of loyalty that is expected from an extracontractual custom, we are talking marriages or (arguably) employment or religious affiliation, where bonds and codependence are formed. but invoking that treatment for strangers on an as-is warrantyless usage contract? nah
Definitely not delving into legal definitions of coercion because I am not a lawyer and it is not relevant here.
> and it’s very common for the usage to cause conflict, the exchange of “are you threatening me?” “no, i’m just telling you what I’ll do” is very common.
I think you mean that threats are a common cause of conflict. “Are you threatening me?” “No, I’m merely posing a negative outcome that I will inflict if you don’t do what I want. Totally not a threat. Definitely not.”
And what exactly is the negative outcome being inflicted by someone not using the software? What is the injury or harm, and to who?
1. The software will have one less user. (Implication was potentially many fewer given “we” would uninstall.)
2. The software will have one more competing product (forked from their own work).
Most people willing to put their time and energy into building software for others would consider losing users to be a moderate negative and having their work potentially forked and having to compete with a derivative a strong negative.
“We will fork” is a strong threat. It is basically a statement that “we” will fight the maintainer for the effective future of the project. Many open source projects have been eclipsed by their own forks.
And what is the injury or harm of that? The developer said they wouldn't action the change and indirectly suggested the user to fork it - "it is open source after all".
>2. The software will have one more competing product (forked from their own work).
This is the very nature of open-source software. Labeling it a "competing product" makes many assumptions that aren't earned. We're talking about a user saying an opt-out feature should be opt-in. If I forked LibreOffice because it contained features I did not like, am I now making a competing product? Am I harming or injuring the repo I forked? Am I fighting the LibreOffice developers?
>Most people willing to put their time and energy into building software for others would consider losing users to be a moderate negative and having their work potentially forked and having to compete with a derivative a strong negative.
The developer didn't seem to consider it a moderate negative.
>“We will fork” is a strong threat. It is basically a statement that “we” will fight the maintainer for the effective future of the project.
You're expanding the scope of what was said. Saying "I will fork your open source software" [to make an opt-out feature, opt-in] is not "fighting" the maintainer for the "future of the project" - it's a core element of open-source software.
Sure. If you don’t care about whether your open source software has users, then there is no harm. People who maintain open source software for free usually do it out if a sense of pride and accomplishment that is tied to how many people use it, though.
> The developer said they wouldn't action the change and indirectly suggested the user to fork it - "it is open source after all".
They said that after the user already threatened to do so. You’re reversing the order. It was not “I recommend this” but “If you’re gonna do it I can’t stop you”.
> If I forked LibreOffice
If all you are doing is cloning the repo in GitHub then sure, you aren’t competing. But LibreOffice is a great example because it is specifically a fork that intended to and succeeded in replacing its parent project.
If someone says “we’re going to fork this because we disagree with your maintenance of the project”, they probably don’t mean “I’m gonna click ‘fork’ on GitHub.”
You mean the response that was already written in a previous message and the response user decided to ignore so they can pester more?