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Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

marcan.st

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#241

Drama needs to be worked against, not expanded upon. A lot of what I’m reading seems to make me feel that drama was… not avoided by this person, putting it charitably. And I'm someone who I believe still sponsors them! Asahi Linux is an awesome, and dare I say necessary, project. There is value in learning how to relinquish a constant "defensive posture" mentally. (I have struggled with, and am still working through…

Agreed. There's such a victim mentality throughout this post. While it's clear that marcan faced into headwinds, they're also definitely not somebody that I want to be around me in any kind of leadership position.

If you're trying to convince people to do things, certainly don't shit talk them on social media (even if you think it's true).

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#242
post #166

I think if I was indicted by Linus and told I'm a problem over spreading awareness about a position on social media, I too would burn out pretty quickly. That's how you crush motivation. There's a deeper issue in open-source culture where harshness and gatekeeping drive away passionate contributors.

Ok, so you are just "spreading awareness" but Linus is "indicting". I guess it is good if you and Linus go their separate ways.

This is a rude comment that isn't downvoted because of hive mind effects. Not biting.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Putting my dusty Linux Distro Maintainer Hat on] First of all, I wholeheartedly applaud Marcan for carrying the project this far. They, both as individuals and as a team proper, did great things. What I can say is a rest is well deserved at this point, because he really poured his soul into this and worn himself down. On the other hand, I'll need to say something, however not in bad faith. He needs to stop fighting…

It's not just that "people are hard" - it was clear that this will end up this way the moment marcan started ranting on social media about having to send kernel patches via e-mails. Collaborating on software development is a social activity and stuff like convincing maintainers to trust you and your approach is just as important part of it (if not more important) as writing code. Not realizing that is a sure road to…

> it was clear that this will end up this way the moment marcan started ranting on social media about having to send kernel patches via e-mails. Collaborating on software development is a social activity and stuff like convincing maintainers to trust you and your approach is just as important part of it (if not more important) as writing code.

Yeah but FFS using email for patches when there are so much better ways of doing development with git? The Linux Foundation could selfhost a fucking GitLab instance and even in the event of GitLab going down the route of enshittification or closed-source they could reasonably take over the maintenance of a fork.

I get that the Linux folks want to stay on email to gatekeep themselves from, let's be clear, utter morons who spam on any Github PR/issue they can find. But at the same time it makes finding new people to replace those who will literally die out in the next decade or two so much harder.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#244
post #139

I'm not sure about why they are upset with the issue of upstreaming the changes into the kernal. They want to upstream drivers for a device that the creator of clearly has no interest in allowing others to use outside of their walled garden. The knowledge around it is from a massive , albeit impressive, RE effort. Who is going to support it? Where is the demand for it? It would be different if Apple were to provide p…

linux on game consoles might be a small part of the market, but it's a reality. there's a fair amount of manufacturers, devices and people buying them.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#245
post #93

Marcan links to an email by Ted Tso'o ( https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250208204416.GL1130956@mit.ed... ) that is interesting to read. Although it starts on a polarising note ("thin blue line"), it does a good job of explaining the difficulties that Linux maintainers face and why they make the choices they do. It makes sense to be extremely adversarial about accepting code because they're on the hook for maintaining…

> This is par for the course I guess, and what exhausts folks like marcan. I wouldn't want to work with someone like Ted Tso'o, who clearly has a penchant for flame wars and isn't interested in being truthful.

I am acquainted with Ted via the open source community, we have each other on multiple social media networks, and I think he's a really great person. That said, I also recognize when he gets into flame wars with other people in the open source social circles, and sometimes those other people are also friends or acquaintances.

I can think of many times Ted was overly hyperbolic, but he was ultimately correct. Here is the part of the Linux project I don't like sometimes, which was recently described well in this recent thread. Being correct, or at least being subjectively correct by having extremely persuasive arguments, yet being toxic... is still toxic and unacceptable. There are a bazillion geniuses out there, and being smart is not good enough anymore in the open source world, one has to overcome those toxic "on the spectrum" tendencies or whatever, and be polite while making reasonable points. This policy extends to conduct as well as words written in email/chat threads. Ted is one of those, along side Linus himself, who has in the past indulged into a bit of shady conduct or remarks, but their arguments are usually compelling.

I personally think of these threads in a way related to calculus of infinitesimals, using the "Standard Parts" function to zero away hyperbolic remarks the same way the math function zeros away infinitesimals from real numbers, sorta leaving the real remarks. This is a problem, because it's people like me, arguably the reasonable people, who through our silence enable these kind of behaviours.

I personally think Ted is more right than wrong, most of the time. We do disagree sometimes though, for example Ted hates the new MiB/KiB system of base-2 units, and for whatever reasons like the previous more ambiguous system of confusingly mixed base-10/base-2 units of MB/Mb/mb/KB/Kb/kb... and I totally got his arguments that a new standard makes something confusing already even more confusing, or something like that. Meh...

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#246
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt him about the stalking problem (by online trolls, not necessarily IRL). He was a prominent voice in the trans supporter community and was regularly attacked by Kiwifarms.

Well, if anyone broke the law or harmed him he needs to go to law enforcement or the FBI. Outside of that, just get used to be thrown abuse of all kinds. If you get tagged by a group like that the more you talk about them the more you give them ammo.

We don't know if he's gone to the cops, but more often than not the police will not be able to help you in these sorts of situations. The way that Kiwifarms target people is incredibly hard to stop and I don't think they particularly need ammo; the way to not "give them ammo" would be to stop standing up for trans rights, and the fact that he hasn't is commendable.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Putting my dusty Linux Distro Maintainer Hat on] First of all, I wholeheartedly applaud Marcan for carrying the project this far. They, both as individuals and as a team proper, did great things. What I can say is a rest is well deserved at this point, because he really poured his soul into this and worn himself down. On the other hand, I'll need to say something, however not in bad faith. He needs to stop fighting…

Marcan's career as a developer includes lots of development on hostile systems where he's jailbreaking various consoles to allow homebrew. Asahi Linux is similar, given how hostile and undocumented Apple Silicon is, but it has a great amount of expectations of feature completeness and additional bureaucracy for code changes that really destroys the free-wheeling hacker spirit.

I understand. While I'm not as prolific as him, I've grown with systems which retrocomputing fans meticulously restore and use, so I had to do tons of free-wheeling peeking and poking.

What I found is being able have this "afterburner mode" alongside "advanced communications" capabilities gives the real edge in real life. So, this is why I wish he can build his soft skills.

These skills occupy different slots. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#249
post #145

If Marcan (Hector Martin) is serious about quitting Linux development, he will stop contributing to the project using his Asahi Lina persona as well. Until then this is just empty posturing trying to elicit a reaction from the community.

Is he really still pretending that his vtuber persona is a different person? That makes this way more of an embarrassing attention-grab than it already was.

Re: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead

#250
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if anyone broke the law or harmed him he needs to go to law enforcement or the FBI. Outside of that, just get used to be thrown abuse of all kinds. If you get tagged by a group like that the more you talk about them the more you give them ammo.

> Well, if anyone broke the law or harmed him he needs to go to law enforcement or the FBI I think it's naive to suggest this would achieve anything when the platform is anonymous and he was based outside the US. > Outside of that, just get used to be thrown abuse of all kinds. This is far easier to say than to do. Particularly when you have a public profile as part of your work. > If you get tagged by a group like t…

These sorts of things come part and parcel if you are on the internet for any length of time. It's just not possible to have one not the other.
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