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"Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

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Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#291

Post by sbierwagen »

tessierashpool wrote: post #275

Re this part, about Linus Torvalds being aggressive and insulting to his contributors: But no, it's not an efficient way to run a community. If Linux had success, then that certainly happened despite, not because of this behaviour. You have to have been utterly brilliant to invent git. I don't know enough about operating system internals to say if the same is true for Linux, but I know enough about git to say it's tr…

I'm not sure git is an example of capital-G Genius, since Linus had been using BitKeeper, a commercial distributed revision control system, for about five years by the time he wrote git.

Git is good, but it's not new.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#292

Post by nanoscopic »

Alupis wrote: post #279
nanoscopic wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific bug was in the Varnish reverse proxy. It had to do with the non-functionality of the ESI ( Edge Side Includes ) "support". I really like Varnish and was making great use of it, and was happy to learn it supported ESI. I thought that if you change the contents of an ESI file, and then invalidate that file in Varnish, that Varnish would know the files that include it and invalidate them as well. Nope. Varn…

Just to parlay - This page has not been edited in over 3 years and says Varnish does not have full ESI support: https://www.varnish-cache.org/trac/wiki/ESIfeatures Perhaps you missed it, or perhaps this anecdote took place prior to this page's posting. In either case, seems it was a misunderstanding - which goes back to my first comment about a reported bug is not always a real bug just because one (or a few) users b…

There is zero mention in varnish documentation of how ESI and forced cache invalidation occur. ( because it simply doesn't support it ) That was and is my point, and is not addressed on that page or anywhere else.

I realize that would require more extensive changes to support; my only point is that I wanted to use ESI specifically in relation to forced invalidation.

I reported the bug quite clearly, and the main dev said I was wrong and to this day refuses to acknowledge that forced invalidation does not work sensibly in regard to ESI.

I would like to point out again, that this is water under the bridge. I still support Varnish and respect the developer. I simply wish we could all get along and acknowledge limitations of what we do, rather than denying valid points made about software.

That is the true source of the anger in open source; developers refuse to acknowledge that people use their software in ways they didn't expect, and that you have to listen carefully to appreciate what people want. As a developer, it is unreasonable to brush off and ignore people who are trying to help.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#293

Post by dscrd »

PaulHoule wrote: post #55
bad_user wrote: post #51

This doesn't pertain to " Open Source " in general, the same argument can be said about companies and closed-source products, which can be just as well run by jerks. I have a couple of small projects published on GitHub and the people that interacted with me have been very professional and thankful for my work. I am also a part of big open-source communities which are very professional and asshole behavior is definit…

I think if you're involved in a closed-source company and you act like an ass too many times you'll get fired.

Except that Linus isn't fireable in this analogy. He's on the top of the hierarchy, equivalent to a major shareholder and CEO of a company. Such a person can certainly act like an asshole every second inside his organisation and keep his position.

The notable difference is that due to the nature of the enterprise, Linus pours shit in public. In a company, it might perhaps happen in a smaller gathering, like a board meeting.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#294

Post by kazinator »

DonHopkins wrote: post #198
kazinator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot moderate mailing lists because they are not centralized. When you hit "reply all" in a mailing list, the replies go directly to everyone who is on the To: or Cc: list. The list robot is just one of those parties. And of course, private replies are possible that the list robot doesn't even see. Some lists try to fix this by abusing Reply-to: to try to steer discussion replies to the list address, but that i…

That's not what a mailing list is. What you are describing is an email message with multiple recipients, not a mailing list. Mailing lists don't include the email addresses of all of the recipients in the distributed messages To or CC fields, and the From and Reply-to is the address of the mailing list, never a list of all users on the mailing list. Mailing lists are centrally managed, and have a "reflector" or centr…

> Mailing lists don't include the email addresses of all of the recipients in the distributed messages To or CC fields, and the From and Reply-to is the address of the mailing list, never a list of all users on the mailing list.

Counterexample to your claim: browse the linux kernel mailing list archive at https://lkml.org/

On any message you can click [headers] to view the headers. You can see rich Cc: lines full of addresses. Well, you can't see the addresses because they have been scrubbed. But you can count the commas! For instance:

   Cc: Rusty Russel , , , , John Smith ,
means that it was CC'd to 6 e-mail addresses, four of which were in the "local@domain" format, with no display name, not wrapped in angle brackets.

For instance, exhibit A:

https://lkml.org/lkml/mheaders/2014/9/30/320

Note how "Kernel Mailing List " is on the Cc: line, too.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#295

Post by Kalium »

Diederich wrote: post #204
vidarh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had this been Kay's first mistake of this magnitude, it would indeed have been reasonable to expect Linus to have been more civilised. Anyone who has followed this more closely would know that this was nowhere near the first time Linus had issues with his code. Yet he did not appear to be interested in listening no matter what Linus told him.

I am aware of the fact that this wasn't his first 'offense'. Nonetheless, my question still stands: how is a verbally abusive diatribe in any way better than a shorter, more reasoned, and perhaps final response?

It makes the reader aware of the writer's true position on the matter, adding emphasis and clarity to the situation. It strengthens the impact.

It could have been "This code is bad. I will not accept this code.". Except that would not have communicated the same message.

It's not always desirable to strip away emotional content.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#296

Post by rbanffy »

freehunter wrote: post #10
rbanffy wrote: post #3

> in particular ones where losing face is a major issue This touches an interesting point. Feedback must be accurate. If you are actually provably wrong, I am not doing you a favor by telling you you that you are "not right". Losing face is a fact of life. When I'm wrong, I want to know I am wrong, what I am wrong about and just how wrong am I. If possible, tell me what can I do to be right the next time. It must als…

>If you are actually provably wrong, I am not doing you a favor by telling you you that you are "not right". Saying "you're wrong" isn't the issue here. Saying "your mom should have aborted you and i hope you die" is the issue. I don't think people in cultures where losing face is a big issue much care if they're told they're wrong. They care is they're told they are so wrong they should kill themselves or be killed.…

Maybe, just maybe, "your mom should have aborted you and i hope you die" is just an overly elaborated form of saying you are wrong and should not be taken literally.

> They care is they're told they are so wrong they should kill themselves or be killed. Honor killings are unfortunately still a big deal in some parts of the world.

Nobody is wrong enough to warrant that. I see the "elaborate insult" thing can get out of hand, but, still, it should not be taken at face value. I believe the proper way to deal with this is to either engage in an escalation of extremely elaborate insults (provided you accompany that with technical argument defending your "bad" idea) signalling the insult is not the topic being discussed (but it's "adorning" the arguments) or stating, privately, that the insult crosses a line and asking the person to please not to that again. It usually works.

Disclaimer: I am a caucasian straight married male in his mid-40's. I probably belong to the demographic least susceptible to bullying and some of the situations described here are probably very alien to me. I appreciate constructive feedback, however. I do not know how the moderators would react to an insult war, however, so I advise against it, even if you think it proves your point.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#297

Post by mwfunk »

pekk wrote: post #84
chris_wot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I read Linus write: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F✦CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?" https://lkml.or…

Not to excuse this, but this involved a person with a Finnish name who specifically CC'd Linus complaining about a perceived regression when doing things a wrong way. Note that there is even a phrase about a Finnish phenomenon, "management by perkele," referring to a militaristic managing style which steamrolls dissent with a lot of profanity. Therefore, I doubt that a random person on LKML that wasn't CC'ing Linus t…

I have no idea who these people are that you think celebrate Steve Jobs' asshole behavior. Those are not people who actually know anything about him; those are randos on crappy tech forums if they exist at all. He was an unusual person with many good and bad qualities, not all of which were factors in his success.

Usually when people cite Steve Jobs' (or Linus', or anyone's) asshole moments as being somehow constructive, it's because they wish they could act the same way towards the people around them but they can't get away with it due to their own lack of power. It's not an attractive quality for someone to have. It's one thing to be somebody's lousy manager, it's another thing entirely to be envious of lousy managers.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#298

Post by Kalium »

pyre wrote: post #196
yummyfajitas wrote: post #138

So I'm a blogger with posts that occasionally go semi-viral [1], and I've been subject to unpleasant comments on a few occasions. Here are a couple of posts which have gotten me quite a bit of hate: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/basic_income_vs_basic... http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/equal_weights.html In both cases they are posts about mathematics which use other topics (economics, dating) as concre…

To summarize: The tech community has become weak because we have taken a look at ourselves and realized that many among us are brutish, brash, and generally all-around assholes. But since these people are highly skilled, we should feel that the fact that they are assholes should be swept under the rug and we should "just deal with it." I get that these things exist and that we have to deal with them (change doesn't h…

The unfortunate realization that many of us have come to is that there really is a choice between rejecting the assholes and getting things done. An open, warm, inviting, inclusive, and friendly community that cannot author useful code is of immense social value but very little technical value.

Before setting out to change things, I advise figuring out what the desired end-state looks like. And what means of getting there are acceptable.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#299

Post by jalfresi »

jalfresi wrote: post #262

The Linux kernal dev community is a community of rough tough programmer bastards. If you can't handle the knocks there, maybe that's not the community for you? I'm sure there are other less abrasive communities you can join? It certainly says a lot about someone who believes that they are entitled to join a community and to demand to have their voice heard and to have the community adapt to their wants and desires. I…

Why the down vote? I never apologized for the violence leveled at him, just that you are not entitled to be a member of any community, and that you cannot expect the culture of a community to change simply because you want it to.

Communities require membership contribution to change. You want to change the culture, you have to get involved. IF the communities culture is too poisonous for you, then maybe that's not the community for you.

Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"

#300

Post by squeaky-clean »

vidarh wrote: post #89
chris_wot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I read Linus write: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F✦CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?" https://lkml.or…

> (p.s. the irony of posting such an offensive post by starring out the u in fuck... does he not see the irony?) Linus is fully capable of writing "fuck", as evidenced by e.g. [1]. If he stars it out, assume it is a stylistic choice for that particular message. > then I don't think I'd ever contribute to the LKML. If you can't handle a message like that, then perhaps it's just as well. Note the context (though I can…

>1 byte reads with sys-calls is a beginner mistake. Kay was/is not a beginner. He also had at that point had repeated complaints from Linus about the quality of his code, and showed no sign of listening. This conflict eventually culminated in Linus making it clear he'd had enough, and will no longer merge code from Kay until he cleans up his act

Then this is all Linus had to say. This, exactly, is a great sentence on why you'll no longer be accepting code from a party, and sums up both what they can do to get back in, and what other developers can learn from this. There's no need to sink to insults, especially at the level Linus can dish out.

We have to deal with clients so clueless, I don't know how they manage to even email us with the stupid questions. But we're polite to them and when speaking about them publically. We keep the abortion-comments private, between the developers whenever we go out for happy-hour. It's not very hard for the open-source community to do the same. (I know the majority of the open source community does not do this. But a vocal minority do, and the rest of the community seems to be okay with this, when it's not okay).

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