Who controls glibc? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who controls glibc?

#151

Post by __s » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #132

geofft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago. Not everyone who…

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

Yeah, Python docs need to stop using variable names like 'spam' & 'eggs', Monty Python's too jokey, no room for it in docs

Re: Who controls glibc?

#152

Post by geofft » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

thiagoharry wrote: post #142

roenxi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

The TexBook was a technical documentation for TeX written by Donald Knuth. The book had a lot of jokes, and I enjoyed reading it.

Leaving aside the question of the nature of its jokes, the TeXBook is the sort of thing you read straight through. It's a narrative about how some code came to be. It's not the same sort of reference as the glibc manual, and I think a narrative form of documentation benefits from a casual tone and a four-sentence standalone reference about a function (especially where one of those sentences is "Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe corrupt | AC-Unsafe lock corrupt") benefits from a terse tone.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#153

Post by hapnin » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

thiagoharry wrote: post #142

roenxi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

The TexBook was a technical documentation for TeX written by Donald Knuth. The book had a lot of jokes, and I enjoyed reading it.

Knuth is actually funny.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#154

Post by motohagiography » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #145

motohagiography wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that perhaps RMS's approval and veto are no longer legitimate? It's not ascribing ill will at all. They've stumbled on a canary or a "brown M&M," where regardless of how good they think they are, they've transgressed a boundary of the implicit agreement of who has final say. They would have to be good and faithful to have contributions approved to glibc, so I would argue that's not the point. As the principals…

Yeah, I think they stumbled into this, and having realized where they were, decided that having a proxy fight about RMS' authority in general is something they were needing to do at some point. I just don't think they set out to end up here because they were looking for the fight, and I read your comment as accusing the glibc maintainers of being non-core maintainers who were looking for a way to cause a scandal. If…

I could have been more clear and less punchy. It's a sensitive topic and perhaps my pen leapt from its scabbard a bit. :)

Re: Who controls glibc?

#155

Post by __s » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #126

geofft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago. Not everyone who…

> they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation I've been dreading the day OSS projects became as soulless and boring as corporate ones. If we can't have jokes in technical documentation then it seems that day has come. Next the FOSS HR department will be asking them to rename the abort function.

You see it too in people going around telling people to stop saying master/slave for clusters

https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185

Re: Who controls glibc?

#156

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #132

geofft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago. Not everyone who…

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

[deleted]

Re: Who controls glibc?

#157

Post by analogmemory » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

chillingeffect wrote: post #150

roenxi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

We're humans, not robots. We don't run on information alone.

Hey meatbag, even robots like a good joke

Re: Who controls glibc?

#158

Post by tptacek » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

Zopieux wrote: post #144

I like the fact this joke is 100% US-centric and this alone never came forward as a reasonable argument for its removal. Glibc is used worldwide, people outside the US (they exist!) would have no clue what this joke is about: civilized countries do not have this terrible gag rule.

The US doesn't have this gag rule either; I think pretty much everyone is scratching their heads about what it is RMS is on about here.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#159

Post by hermitdev » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #133

Jerry2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something more recent... CoC caused one of the top 5 LLVM developers to leave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16980841 Unfortunately, this got censored heavily on HN. Also, Rust-lang has CoC "cops": https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/team.html (scroll down to "moderation team"). > Responsibility: helping uphold the code of conduct That's pretty crazy!

I mean, I understand that. HN usually weights controversial things down to focus on the tech aspects. It keeps the place fun to browse. This is something I'm particularly interested in, so it's a little frustrating that it lasted all of 20 minutes on the front page. Ah well.

IMO, when a controversial issue such as a certain CoC change causes a top 5 contributor to such a large project such as LLVM to say "fuck it, I'm out," that is entirely relevant, and should be upvoted, not flagged to oblivion. You may not agree with the contributor's decision to leave, but it's worthwhile to try and understand why they came to that decision and to reflect on whether the change is the right thing to do or not. By down-voting or flagging into oblivion, dissent is being quieted, freedom of speech and thought is lost, and diversity of thought and inclusiveness in the community is actively being destroyed. We don't all have to agree, but when one group can actively suppress the participation of another, you've effectively killed free speech/thought.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#160

Post by geofft » Tue, May 08, 2018, 1:20 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #125

dragonwriter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda evergreen, as the global gag rule is, to notable controversy, retracted or reinstated with each change in Presidential party since Reagan, most recently reinstated last year by the Trump Administration. Of course, it's still inappropriate for glibc docs.

What's the global gag rule you are referring to?

The US government does not fund overseas organizations that provide or promote abortion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy

(The fact that this reference is so unclear is probably a reason that, everything else aside, the joke is not very good. The glibc maintainers have offered to replace it with some clear text about censorship in the US.)