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Who controls glibc?

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#391

Post by geofft »

zeth___ wrote: post #382
geofft wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on a college campus within the last 10 years and I can only assume the people who genuinely think this either haven't or have their careers depend on pretending it's true (e.g. Turning Point USA).

Then you're either willfully blind, or extremely lucky. My alma mater allows talks about helping tweens transition to their preferred gender, but banned a talked by a "pickup artist" in the last 18 months. Last Thursday I looked up a dissertation from the graduate library for work and they had a sticker on every door un-ironically using "lgbtqia+ and allies". Here's another one that does the same: https://lgbtqia.ucd…

I'm not sure how any of this supports the point you're making (I believe the point you're making is "mentioning a traumatic event is as bad as causing the traumatic event" and/or "[these people are] authoritarians who want to remove all wrong think from the world").

If the point you're making is "I don't believe the concept of LGBTQIA+ and allies should exist," then yes, there would appear to be authoritarians who want to remove all wrong think from the world....

Re: Who controls glibc?

#392

Post by eesmith »

_8j50 wrote: post #368
eesmith wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried, but failed, to understand what "wasn't professional" means. As far as I can tell, it is a synonym for "doesn't upset the status quo." Clearly there are work meetings where this sort of joke/commentary would be voiced. For example, the writers' room at the various satirical news shows. There are, after all, professional comedians, including those which work blue. I've heard people say that children in th…

You have to consider who your coworkers are. It's all about being considerate of the other people that work alongside you. In a small group everyone might know each other well enough to make that sort of a joke. But when your coworkers could be literally anyone, from a guy in his undies coding as a hobby to someone at a fortune 100 working in a cubicle farm sporting a tuxedo. It seems like the goal is to not offend a…

Thank you for the follow up. I have a better sense of what you mean now.

Part of me still thinks "professional" means "don't upset the status quo", but I will continue to think about it.

You mentioned "irrelevant commentary". That made me think of what US employment law refers to as "bona fide occupational qualifications" where employers are allowed to discriminate based on gender, race, religion, etc. It is not workplace harassment to see pornography in the workplace if one works as a video editor in a pornography studio. Pornography at the workplace, therefore, is not an unambiguous sign of unprofessional activity.

Now, some software is designed such that the humor will offend some people. The first one that came to mind is Leisure Suit Larry, which is a mild example.

Can something like Leisure Suit Larry be developed as a public FOSS project, in a professional sense? Absolutely.

But in that case I think there is a bona fide requirement that participants understand that certain jokes are acceptable.

My view is that since 'professional' seems so contextual, it seems better to explain the specific context (as you did - thanks again!) than to say something isn't professional.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#393

Post by rurban »

rurban wrote: post #319
komali2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 questio…

The proper term for the first variant is "kill all children", which is equally loaded. Next would be to change kill child to something worse, and go away with master slave.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#394

Post by eadmund »

> I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are entirely autonomous.

'I'm sorry, did you think you were free?'

Really, the only response to this is to fork the project and start flibc: Free libc.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#395

Post by geofft »

makomk wrote: post #390
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…

The main justification for why it shouldn't be there is that it was offensive. The idea that software should not be political is, in fact, itself just as offensive to the community of campaigners who've joined the calls to have this removed as this joke is. The last big controversy I saw was the entire console jailbreaking community being declared a bunch of bigots because someone mocked the idea that code could have…

> The main justification for why it shouldn't be there is that it was offensive.

This is simply untrue; you can look at the patch's commit message and the review thread. The primary justification was that it wasn't appropriate, and the secondary one is that it wasn't actually funny and was tasteless. Nobody said "offensive". You can read the thread yourself.

https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-04/msg00595.html

(The April history shows the conversation between maintainers regarding the patch itself; if you want to see RMS' reply, go to the May index. RMS and Alexandre Oliva, the two people defending the joke, brought up the concept of "offense", and people repeatedly say in reply that they're not offended. Oliva later says he's offended by other people in the discussion.)

Of course, you're also welcome to believe that everyone who disagrees with you must be offended; you're entitled to your opinions.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#396

Post by scrollaway »

GyYZTfWBfQw wrote: post #374
scrollaway wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all Well, you'd be wrong then. It's like people writing "Micro$oft". No I can't focus on anything you're writing after you use terms like that because I'm picturing an immature child. And why would I listen to an immature child's arguments? Put it this way, it's like giving a talk…

I get your perspective, but just because someone has a red hair, it doesn't render their claims incorrect, or doesn't invalidate anything they say. I have seen many people being dismissed by others merely because of their voice, which I find funny because they were supposed to focus on the content. It's the content that matters. If the presentation is not to your liking, that doesn't mean that person is wrong. On top…

You'll note I didn't talk about the substance of Stallman's arguments. I am not saying he is wrong or right. I am saying he is probably not a net positive though and that is because of form, not content. His arguments may not be invalidated, they're still not useful if nobody except a few cultish followers listen to them.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#397

Post by humanrebar »

djur wrote: post #274
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…

Why is the joke dated? It refers to a current (and recently expanded) US government policy.

Current US poitical debates run in the other direction. Some states like Hawaii and California are mandating that anti-abortion preganacy counseling centers post prominent instructions on where their clients can get abortions.

So there is concern about free speech and abortion but the government is compelling pro-abortion (or at least anti-anti-abortion) speech this time.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#398

Post by geofft »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #201
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…

"Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop" This is a bad take. When wading through dry technical documentation a little humor can make it much less laborious. As long as the humor doesn't result in ambiguity, there's no problem. Something like "You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tune a fish." at the end of a manpage may elicit a chuckle but doesn't reduce understanding.

For what it's worth, at least one member of the glibc steering committee appears to agree:

"I agree with removing this joke. A bit of humor is fine - indeed, the manual could use a bit more than it has - but this attempt at humor does not work. The manual should be high-quality, and that includes high-quality jokes."

https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-04/msg00604.html

Re: Who controls glibc?

#399

Post by rurban »

DandyDev wrote: post #335
rurban wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The dictator in question certainly doesn't seem Benevolent to me in this case.

He certainly is. He tries to protect the project from morons, which invaded most bigger projects which are not cultured in technical discussions anymore.

Compare that to the education of doctors. They need to persist on proper terminology and are hardened in a long process. PC is absolutely counterproductive there.

Many obviously did not get the reference in this paragraph, but it still relevant, as this episode showed. Abort vs kill is loaded by a long fight, hence the reference about future censorship attempts.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#400

Post by humanrebar »

Jasper_ wrote: post #94
matthewbauer wrote: post #87

So what annoys me about this discussion is that both sides are not being very honest. Calling it an "abortion joke" is to me highly misleading. It's an "abortion law joke" & has nothing to do with the procedure of abortion! The people arguing against it seem to be implying its much more inappropriate than it is. Anyway, no where in the article is the actual "joke" mentioned. So I'd like to include it here just so peo…

As someone that was not aware of the gag rule before the mailing list thread brought it up, I thought it was an abortion joke, especially with the "we would be required to say this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program". It is in the man page for abort(). The context clues are there, but the wrong ones. So, on that level, it fails as a joke: if you aren't aware of the policy it's trying to criticize and m…

Even the term "gag rule" is a political position. The law was originally intended to keep national policy out of abortion, so consciences of abortion objectors won't be violated. It's commonly referred to as the Mexico City Policy. Similar rules have been in effect in the past on other highly controversial subjects like slavery.
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