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Who controls glibc?

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#311

Post by rurban »

mikekchar wrote: post #260
mycall wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets think how many hours RMS has put into GNU over the years. That should count for something, no?

I'm a big fan of RMS, but I've got to say "No". He's not a maintainer. He doesn't get a vote. If he wants to work his way back into that project, then I've got no problem with it. But he doesn't. It's like the CEO telling you that he wants a joke in the technical documentation for one of your libraries. They might get away with it because of their position, but it's an abuse of that position even if the CEO used to b…

He might not be the maintainer, but he is the BDFL. It's about respect. See what happened to Drepper who violated his respect.

I like the joke, and I sympathize with RMS to let it in. In any case he opposed it so there is now a power struggle about the control of his project. I would love to see a better maintained glibc btw. Too much politics, not enough competence.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#312

Post by mdimec4 »

I would be polliticaly on the oposite side from RMS on this one. But I also respect a good joke, and I wuldnt try to remove it, especialy of just because it might hurt some feelings.

About the leadersheep I am suprised why this came out only now. I wuld think that they have things sorted out after all this time. I think that RMS is still central figure in FSF

Re: Who controls glibc?

#313

Post by kelnos »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #186
tptacek wrote: post #173

Lots of people seem to be rooting around like truffle hogs looking for the partisan politics embedded in this story, but you won't find any. The conflict happening here is between maintainers, who don't want a dated left-leaning joke embedded in the glibc documentation, and Stallman, who does. If there's "political correctness" involved, it's right-leaning. But, as a left-leaning pro-choice person: there's no "politi…

I’m much more concerned about him playing the “childbirth is far more traumatic than having an abortion” card in the discussion about the patch. Until this moment, I wasn’t even aware that was a card. It’s difficult to fathom the logic that would arrive at that statement making sense to someone typing it, particularly a person who will never experience the situations upon which he’s speaking conclusively. You’re righ…

I agree with you. I think it's possible to ignore the content of the joke and examine the interplay between the glibc maintainers and RMS, and I think that's an interesting conflict all of its own.

But... there's also an unnecessary joke in the public documentation of an important free software project involved here, and I think it's also interesting (perhaps even important) to talk about the content of the joke, and if things like that are ok/productive/positive/offensive/bad/exclusionary in our world.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't really expect any discussion of this latter point to be particularly productive on HN. I don't say this with any amount of derision; I just feel that's the way it is.

(For the record, I say good riddance to that particularly unfunny joke, and I think it's worthwhile to remove dreck like that from our projects.)

Re: Who controls glibc?

#314

Post by TeMPOraL »

freedomben wrote: post #194
ubernostrum wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Django started out, the original two biggest contributors were "BDFLs" (i.e., had final decision-making authority). They stepped back from that years and years ago. If for some reason there's a decision that desperately needs to be made, but for which no decision is coming out of the normal processes, there's a technical board, elected by committers, rotating every release cycle, that can be asked to make the ca…

Sadly, I very much agree. I think RMS has done an incredible amount to protect software freedom, and virtually every single person in the world benefits in some way or another. However, this is an authoritarian response and assertion of control where one need not be. We have plenty of power-hungry dicks out there, we don't need them to have a famous example to emulate. Note: I am not convinced yet that RMS was seriou…

I don't think you can have one without the other. GNU was successful in large part because of RMS's uncompromising position on issues both big and small. RMS is not, and never was, a "power-hungry dick". He just has strong and well-defined political views, and the GNU project was created to reflect those views.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#315

Post by gkya »

dralley wrote: post #204
ajross wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is one of those spots where RMS is stubbornly and stupidly standing up for principle in a context where the rest of us just clearly see that it shouldn't matter and he's just being a jerk. But... damn if he's not right about this. The joke has meaning. It still means what he meant when he wrote it. The issue is an important one (to RMS, at least). And no one else has a real argument here other than "it's u…

>The joke has meaning Only if you're American and also have the requisite background knowledge to understand it, which many don't. If you don't know the context, it's meaningless. Which is not a good thing to have in technical documentation.

I am not American but get the joke. Also, I can think of only a handful countries w/o any significant amount of opposers to abortion, and even those probably have quite a bit of them.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#316

Post by TeMPOraL »

Illniyar wrote: post #306

"a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space" That blows my mind. Really? Why? A technical instruction manual should definitely be a safe place.

Wait, what? A safe space is meant to be a safe space. A technical manual is meant to be whatever the hell the authors want it to be. Some choices may make it worse or better at communicating the technical knowledge, true, but those are choices the authors make.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#317

Post by shub »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #186
tptacek wrote: post #173

Lots of people seem to be rooting around like truffle hogs looking for the partisan politics embedded in this story, but you won't find any. The conflict happening here is between maintainers, who don't want a dated left-leaning joke embedded in the glibc documentation, and Stallman, who does. If there's "political correctness" involved, it's right-leaning. But, as a left-leaning pro-choice person: there's no "politi…

I’m much more concerned about him playing the “childbirth is far more traumatic than having an abortion” card in the discussion about the patch. Until this moment, I wasn’t even aware that was a card. It’s difficult to fathom the logic that would arrive at that statement making sense to someone typing it, particularly a person who will never experience the situations upon which he’s speaking conclusively. You’re righ…

RMS has always struck me as the kind of person you generally avoid, except when you can't because they're family, and when they say things you smile and change the subject. Where he's unusual is that the ranting isn't about minority groups or political parties, it's proprietary software.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#318

Post by chris_wot »

mycall wrote: post #253
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. At the end of the day, nobody really cares about the joke, and nobody in the conversation indicated they actually were offended or upset by it, as far as I can tell. The joke will not be the downfall of glibc whether it stays or goes. But RMS' order may be. He just reminded everyone working on that project that their authority ends on any given issue wherever RMS' whims begin.

Lets think how many hours RMS has put into GNU over the years. That should count for something, no?

There are a lot of other people who have spent countless hours on glibc, also.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#319

Post by rurban »

komali2 wrote: post #110
bhhaskin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.

I disagree with RMS because I don't think the joke adds to my ability to understand the usage of the function.

Then you didn't read the fine line. He was making a subtle reference to power politics how to abort a process. Properly or abrupt. A certain fraction of the group wanted to forbid this abrupt termination and only go through signals, so that everyone involved can have their say and be informed. This particular function sidestepped it, and as such was politically loaded. Removing this reference would remove the questioning of proper usage and the politics behind. But since current glibc maintainers are more worried about their profile than good documentation RMS vetoed.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#320

Post by zeth___ »

komali2 wrote: post #56

>Stallman, however, replied that "a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space'". He suggested the possibility of adding a trigger warning about functions that create child processes, since childbirth is "far more traumatic than having an abortion" "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." -Michael Scott

RMS is pro voluntary pedophilia:

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun...

If you don't know what libertarian means you're going to have a bad time trying to apply liberal labels to people who were around the internet before tumblr.

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