Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#91

Post by Certhas » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

dexen wrote: post #77

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #60

I would like to propose something that has long been simmering in my mind: zero tolerance to toxicity from the open source community at large. Too often I see entitled developers show up in these forums and just hurl abuse at the people who provide these wonderful tools free of charge. I propose that, if the request is anything less than respectful or if they, say DM a maintainer with abuse or what have you, they get…

>zero tolerance to toxicity That's a straightforward path into irrelevance. Every user and developer has a bad day or two; every user and developer has an obscure subject that riles them up well beyond what's reasonable. Zero tolerance here means they do go elsewhere, where quality of discussion is at maybe 90% instead of 100%, but at least they can partake in the discussion. Lastly, assholes make for effective leade…

"Lastly, assholes make for effective leaders."

I wish that this idea would die out. I have seen no evidence for it. The most effective leaders I have worked with and under, and those I try to emulate were never assholes. Or if so then only in rare moments that they regretted (and I agree that everyone can get triggered). Effective leaders need to be strict, they need to make unpopular decisions, but they never need to be assholes.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#92

Post by rorykoehler » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

dessant wrote: post #20

rorykoehler wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a don't be a dick clause to the license and revoke the keys of anyone who is.

That can be cathartic, but normalizing hostility towards users will ultimately hurt both you and your project. There are no winners in this context once you decide to draw your weapon.

It's not about winning or losing, it's about setting healthy boundaries. No one owes anyone anything but if you are giving the fruits of your hard work away for free you get to set the rules. I have fired clients who were being dicks before and they were paying me good money. This is no different.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#93

Post by untangle » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

tannhaeuser wrote: post #52

nextos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the desktop environment they have developed, Cinnamon. But I agree with this LWN thread about their broken approach to packaging. Furthermore, I tend to find people commenting in LWN really respectful even if they are critical, as it was the case here. We are currently going through a bit of a Cambrian explosion of Linux distributions, but some do have indeed shaky technical foundations. Many distributi…

Cambrian explosion? The main distros (Debian/Ubuntu, RH/Centos, Arch, Mint, Gentoo, Suse, Slackware) haven't changed in like ten years or more, the only relatively recent additions being the Devuan branch of Debian, and Alpine. Or have I overlooked something?

Check out Calculate Linux.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#94

Post by rsa4046 » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 12:11 PM UTC

O1111OOO wrote: post #90

JudgeWapner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Arch. Kind of complex reasons, I guess. It wasn't that LM was deficient in any way, just figured it was time to really dig in and understand what my OS was doing. Arch has the best documentation, so I decided to switch to it.

> Arch has the best documentation, so I decided to switch to it. Not an Arch user but their documentation is amazing (small sample[0]). I toyed with FreeBSD years ago and have never forgotten just how well documented the entire system was too[1]. Well-written documentation (with plenty of real world examples) is severely underappreciated in modern tech. It's not only empowering but it's just plain fun getting under t…

> Well-written documentation (with plenty of real world examples) is severely underappreciated in modern tech. It's not only empowering but it's just plain fun getting under the hood.

This can't be said enough. Complete, well-written, well-maintained documentation is a key divide separating open- and closed-source. It's expensive and time-consuming to produce — and absolutely essential. Trying to understand how to access a critical setting that some UI wizard has hidden from view in Windows? GLWT.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#95

Post by vikingcaffiene » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #77

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #60

I would like to propose something that has long been simmering in my mind: zero tolerance to toxicity from the open source community at large. Too often I see entitled developers show up in these forums and just hurl abuse at the people who provide these wonderful tools free of charge. I propose that, if the request is anything less than respectful or if they, say DM a maintainer with abuse or what have you, they get…

>zero tolerance to toxicity That's a straightforward path into irrelevance. Every user and developer has a bad day or two; every user and developer has an obscure subject that riles them up well beyond what's reasonable. Zero tolerance here means they do go elsewhere, where quality of discussion is at maybe 90% instead of 100%, but at least they can partake in the discussion. Lastly, assholes make for effective leade…

I would respectfully ask you to re-read my comment. I did acknowledge that zero-tolerance would be impractical (perhaps not as clearly as I should have) but its the ideal to strive for. A sort of "shoot for the moon and hit the stars" type thing. I think that we need to deter abuse in OSS as a whole. Right now it's a way for developers to vent frustration into a faceless void which is part of where the vitriol comes from I think.

To your point, I think also that practicality dictates an escalating type of warning system such as we see in social networks. You mistreat developers in a forum you get a warning about it, next you can't comment for 30 days, finally you are just banned. If you send a direct message to a maintainer or the like with abuse, you get immediately banned. Something like that. The point is, it's not cool to abuse people who make you stuff for free that you use to earn a living. Just a giant hell no.

And lastly, I would like to tell you that you are dead wrong about assholes being effective leaders. Effective leaders are people who are right more often than they are wrong. Effective leaders have vision. Effective leaders inspire people to be better than themselves. If they also happen to be an asshole that is in SPITE of their success. Not because of it.