A threat can be violence but it’s not necessarily so. A threat is an expression of a negative result if something is not done. The negative could be violence, monetary loss, embarrassment, end of a relationship, or any other negative.

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.”

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nklow 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

>a negative outcome that I will inflict

And what exactly is the negative outcome being inflicted by someone not using the software? What is the injury or harm, and to who?

	▲	dpark 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That was pretty clear from the comment, no? 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.