Open‑Source Maintenance Challenges: Curl Founder’s Dispute with Apple
The article discusses the difficulties faced by open‑source maintainers, highlighting a recent conflict where Apple redirected a user to the Curl project for support, prompting founder Daniel Stenberg to criticize the lack of corporate contribution and the broader sustainability issues of volunteer‑driven software.
It is well known that maintaining open‑source projects is a difficult yet crucial task.
Open‑source developers must not only fix bugs and add features but also ensure code quality and sustain the project over time.
Most developers work on these projects as a hobby, facing busy schedules, low salaries, and the inability to monetize their contributions.
Meanwhile, third‑party companies profit from incorporating open‑source components into commercial products without providing financial or technical support, often shifting user support responsibilities back to the open‑source maintainers.
On November 18, Daniel Stenberg, the founder and chief developer of the popular command‑line tool Curl, experienced this issue when Apple, a tech giant, redirected a user’s request for help to the Curl project.
The incident began with IT engineer Michael Rieder posting on Twitter, seeking Apple Support to update macOS 12 information related to Curl because the content had become invalid.
Apple’s response instructed him to contact Curl directly and provided a link to Curl’s help page.
Stenberg expressed strong dissatisfaction, noting that a trillion‑dollar company assembles open‑source components for billions in profit each year yet offers no sponsorship, leaving volunteers to handle support.
The engineer’s problem stemmed from Curl not being updated to the latest version, and Apple’s refusal to assist placed the burden on the open‑source maintainers.
Previously, on Stack Overflow, a developer asked Stenberg why Curl is open‑source and free; Stenberg replied that he views Curl as his child and chose to give back to the community after benefiting from open‑source software himself.
Despite Curl’s achievements, Stenberg continues to improve it by fixing bugs and adding new features to provide developers with high‑quality file‑transfer solutions.
He concluded with a poetic remark about the open‑source world’s reality, inviting readers to share their thoughts on Apple’s approach.
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