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Who controls glibc?

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#161

Post by djsumdog »

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…

I'm not that hardcore about it, but I still agree this really shouldn't be in the official docs. Maybe in a tutorial or a set of slides.

I do agree with some professionalism in things that want to be taken seriously. I don't even really like the "Apt with super cow powers."

I do agree this isn't about political correctness. At one time GNU tools were just a bunch of devs trying to write open source tooling for fun or to learn. But with it being such a huge part of our industry now, it does need to grow up.

If you're working on your own small open source projects, have fun with the docs and comments. But don't be like Stallman. Realize if your tools are really successful, those quips might get cut out one day. c'est la vie

Re: Who controls glibc?

#162

Post by djsumdog »

__s wrote: post #151
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…

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

I think that's a little different. Even with the fun variable names, the Python docs are pretty damn professional.

They haven't always been that way. The Python docs back around 2000 were not that great. A lot of work has been put in by people in the community to get them to the state they're in.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#163

Post by _8j50 »

Rms was in the clear wrong. This is a professional setting,that joke wasn't professional.

If you wouldn't say it at a work meeting then it's probably not a good idea to say the same in a commit or a serious thread of a foss project.

Although I don't like the joke,it's not so much the content of the joke but rather where the joke was spoken that seemed inappropriate.

I am not offended. much like a coworker coming to work topless in shorts won't offend me;I'd just think that attire is best for outdoors or the beach instead of an office.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#164

Post by davexunit »

RMS needs to be removed from his dictator position in GNU. This is just one of many times that he has hurt a GNU project. He has held many projects back because he is so behind the times and stubborn, not to mention holding the FSF back. This behavior isn't limited to mailing lists, either. He breaks LibrePlanet conference rules every year to interject and rant during talks he disagrees with. I appreciate him for founding the free software movement and writing so much great software in the early days, but it's no longer the RMS show.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#165

Post by ubernostrum »

bhhaskin wrote: post #97
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…

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 wish I could make RMS, and you, and everyone who agrees with you, live in a sort of reverse-Kantian world, where whatever you advocate for as acceptable behavior when you do it becomes a universal law of conduct for other people to use when interacting with you.

No matter how much of a "thick skin" you may think you have, I'd lay money that in a world which truly worked this way, you'd last under an hour before abandoning your position and calling for stronger social norms against being an ass to people.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#166

Post by timb07 »

thsowers wrote: post #39

While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community, he seems to undermine some of his core points with trivial matters. For example, his piece "Reasons not to use Facebook"[0] contains some great points, but I find them undermined by the unnecessary usage of the word "useds" Similarly, this seems like an extremely trival case to "exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely" as he puts it. [0]: https://…

"While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community"

RMS would vehemently disagree with you: he founded the Free Software community, and has nothing to do with Open Source Software.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#167

Post by djsumdog »

motohagiography wrote: post #108

The discussion is a proxy for how executive decisions are made for glibc, and in particular by whom. The merit of a stale joke from the 90s is meaningless, and posturing about its appropriateness is disingenuous. Open source principals have always been eccentric (Torvalds, Raymond(!), etc.), and the FOSS community tolerated it not only because of their technical contributions, but because the open source community it…

I just finished reading The Dictators Handbook and it's crazy how these same principals seem to apply to OSS organizations.

This is more about politics than anything else, and hopefully everyone involved will learn it shouldn't be.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#168

Post by _wmd »

loeg wrote: post #51
_wmd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#169

Post by iajrz »

matthewbauer wrote: post #117
Jasper_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, it's vague enough that you can probably find what you want in it. For that reason alone, there probably is a legitimate case to remove it. I think it's interesting how one's background can affect this too. I think everyone agrees that GNU & FSF are left-wing projects but where the "left" falls on different issues depends on where you're from. For RMS & most American lefties, "freedom" includes things like aborti…

I don't know why you say the left in Latin America favors restrictions on abortion.

I am a Latin American and can say it's just not so - at least in the countries I know, the left is usually pushing for more sex ed, and more availability of abortion.

It'd be interesting to know _where_ in Latin America the left favors the restrictions on abortion - at least to document that perspective and share it around.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#170

Post by pishpash »

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…

The early days of computing was very informal and full of jokes. Didn't stop people from creating some of the most long-lasting and technically successful tools.
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