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As a long-time open-source maintainer, I find all the second-guessing and armchair psychoanalysis here (not just in this comment, all over HN) about Tridge's mo
by rsc 3mo ago
As a long-time open-source maintainer, I find all the second-guessing and armchair psychoanalysis here (not just in this comment, all over HN) about Tridge's motivations, state of mind, and so on incredibly off-putting.
Tridge doesn't owe anyone anything as far as rsync is concerned. Yet he is spending his time maintaining it, only to be attacked for his efforts.
To respond to the specific technical point, there really _is_ a flood of security reports arriving everywhere in the past few months. The jury is out on whether Mythos is that much better than alternatives, but even the publicly available models are _highly_ capable of finding real problems, and they are being employed to that end quite effectively. Here are the counts of security issues fixed in each monthly Go minor release going back to the start of 2024:
0 2024-01-09 Go 1.21.6, Go 1.20.13
0 2024-02-06 Go 1.21.7, Go 1.20.14
5 2024-03-05 Go 1.22.1, Go 1.21.8
1 2024-04-03 Go 1.22.2, Go 1.21.9
2 2024-05-07 Go 1.22.3, Go 1.21.10
2 2024-06-04 Go 1.22.4, Go 1.21.11
1 2024-07-02 Go 1.22.5, Go 1.21.12
0 2024-08-06 Go 1.22.6, Go 1.21.13
3 2024-09-05 Go 1.23.1, Go 1.22.7
0 2024-10-01 Go 1.23.2, Go 1.22.8
0 2024-11-06 Go 1.23.3, Go 1.22.9
0 2024-12-03 Go 1.23.4, Go 1.22.10
2 2025-01-16 Go 1.23.5, Go 1.22.11
1 2025-02-04 Go 1.23.6, Go 1.22.12
1 2025-03-04 Go 1.24.1, Go 1.23.7
1 2025-04-01 Go 1.24.2, Go 1.23.8
1 2025-05-06 Go 1.24.3, Go 1.23.9
3 2025-06-05 Go 1.24.4, Go 1.23.10
1 2025-07-08 Go 1.24.5, Go 1.23.11
2 2025-08-06 Go 1.24.6, Go 1.23.12
1 2025-09-03 Go 1.25.1, Go 1.24.7
10 2025-10-07 Go 1.25.2, Go 1.24.8
* 2025-10-13 Go 1.25.3, Go 1.24.9
0 2025-11-05 Go 1.25.4, Go 1.24.10
2 2025-12-02 Go 1.25.5, Go 1.24.11
6 2026-01-15 Go 1.25.6, Go 1.24.12
2 2026-02-04 Go 1.25.7, Go 1.24.13
5 2026-03-05 Go 1.26.1, Go 1.25.8
10 2026-04-07 Go 1.26.2, Go 1.25.9
11 2026-05-07 Go 1.26.3, Go 1.25.10
3 2026-06-02 Go 1.26.4, Go 1.25.11
* The Go 1.25.3 and Go 1.24.9 releases were a fast follow to fix a problem introduced by one of the security fixes the previous week.
You can see that 2026 has been quite different from the previous years. There are plenty of other contemporaneous accounts from other security teams about the load increase they've seen (which again is almost entirely not Mythos).
Also, the number of reports we are receiving has gone up far faster than the number of actual vulnerabilities. Over the 75-month period from January 2020 to early April 2026, the final 30 days accounted for ~16% of the reports.
It is easy to believe that Tridge is seeing a similar flood of reports. More reports means more fixes means more code changes means more bugs.
- Eufrat 3mo ago> As a long-time open-source maintainer, I find all the second-guessing and armchair psychoanalysis here (not just in this comment, all over HN) about Tridge's motivations, state of mind, and so on incredibly off-putting. I agree that the entire episode is obscene, but I am also unsure of what to do here either. On some level this is the same problem movie stars run into. I agree that guessing or waxing about the motivations of anyone is a nosy and overall unproductive exercise (yet paparazzi exist because of this very human behavior), but I also think that there is a modest duty owed to users to explain things. > Tridge doesn't owe anyone anything as far as rsync is concerned. Yet he is spending his time maintaining it, only to be attacked for his efforts. I am reminded of this piece: https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-nothing/ https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-noth... Which, I empathize with, but I fundamentally disagree that maintainers owe users nothing. I will die on that hill. If you are getting to that point where you actively loathe working on the project, I agree you should be able to walk away. However, I strongly believe that when you create something for people to use that there’s an implicit social contract about how to go about doing certain things. I suppose in a very extreme and intentionally histrionic example, having a project carry the MIT license, getting frustrated and then changing the project to delete the entire system is a crime. The average person and the courts don’t care if the license is “as-is”. There is a duty that is understood that you don’t do that and I think we need to make it clear what that duty is for OSS. Ultimately, though, I think this is all symptomatic of the fact that the OSS model has gaps that the increase in security reports whether AI generated or not has exerted more pressure on. I have certainly been on the receiving end of a lot of frivolous security reports that were discarded because it was obvious that it was just someone with a security scanner wandering around the Internet. You still have to review that nonsense and it eats into your time. Doing this on your own time, without pay and having to listen to the peanut gallery is just infuriating. Is any business built on top of rsync going to donate their money in a sustainable manner?
- agartner 3mo ago> the courts don’t care if the license is “as-is”. There isn't any case law to show that. Certainly not in the age of AI. On the criminal side, the CFAA requires "intentionally causes damage" and that's entirely impossible to prove in the age of AI. On the civil side, liability waivers and warranty disclaimers generally cannot shield intentional or willful misconduct or gross negligence.