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We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

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Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#31

Post by milesrout »

theden wrote: post #17
foxes wrote: post #4

Calling yourself the “thin blue line” like a reference to police really doesn’t seem like a way to have an enduring community. Police don’t serve the community; I guess they think in the same way then.

I agree with you, and the reference _is_ politically loaded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line ): >The thin blue line U.S. flag has been banned by some police departments in the United States for its associations with ideologies described as "undemocratic, racist, and bigoted." >According to a 2018 law review article, "thin blue line" also refers to an unwritten code of silence used to cover up police mis…

Law review articles are largely written by students. They are not authoritative.

Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was dogwhistling about undemocratic, racist, bigoted police violence when he named his police sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" or do you think perhaps your dislike of the police has led to you associating negative attributes with anyone that happens to use any phrase related to the police?

Where I am from, the police is a respected, largely unarmed institution. Imperfect, as all institutions are. American left-political dislike of law enforcement isn't universal and most people don't have instant negative mental associations with everything police-related...

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#32

Post by llm_trw »

Diggsey wrote: post #30
jf wrote: post #27

> One of the things which gets very frustrating from the maintainer's perspective is development teams that are only interested in their pet feature, and we know , through very bitter experience, that 95+% of the time, once the code is accepted, the engineers which contribute the code will disappear, never to be seen again. This was painful for me to read as someone who has seen how corporations think about “Open Sou…

He's not wrong, but he hasn't addressed the problem: Some maintainers are rejecting changes as a way to block a project they disagree with - ie. there is no path forward for the contributor. I wouldn't assume this normally, but they're not hiding this fact, it's self proclaimed. On the other hand, Linus has been largely in favour of the R4L project, and gave the green light for it to go ahead. The Linux kernel mainta…

It's not the maintainers job to make your project happen.

It's yours.

If you need someone to do free work but you can't convince them then you either get their boss to tell them to do it, you take over their job, or - the one thing that no one under 30 ever seems to do - fork and do the work yourself without anyone stopping you.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#33

Post by strstr »

Being an upstream maintainer is incredibly under-appreciated. It’s an unfathomably hard, and somewhat thankless, job (at least if you do it well). A friend of mine was in a cab with Ted Ts’o at a conference and he was reviewing patches on his phone to keep up with the workload (or maybe he was bored who knows).

Despite incredible effort from maintainers, getting necessary changes into Linux can take forever. In the subsystem I depend on (and occasionally contribute to directly) it’s kinda assumed it will take at least a year (probably two) for any substantial project to get merged. This continuously disappoints PMs and Leadership. A lot of people, understandably, chafe against this lack of agility.

OTOH, I’ve been on the other side of kernel bugs. Most recently, a memory arithmetic bug was causing corruption, and took my team at least an engineer year to track down. This makes me quite sympathetic to maintainers demands for quality.

I’ve also been on the other side of the calibration discussions where Open Source work goes under appreciated. The irony never stops (“They won’t merge our patches!” “Are you having your engineers review theirs?”). That and the raw pipeline issues for maintainers (it takes a lot of experience to be a maintainer, which implies spending a lot of a bright engineer’s time on reviewing and contributing upstream to things unrelated to immediate priorities).

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#34

Post by milesrout »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #11
foxes wrote: post #4

Calling yourself the “thin blue line” like a reference to police really doesn’t seem like a way to have an enduring community. Police don’t serve the community; I guess they think in the same way then.

[flagged]

They are largely there to enforce the law and investigate transgressions of it. If you've ever reported a theft lately you'd know that they are not resourced - at least around here - to put any priority on protecting anyone's property. They have their hands full dealing with domestics and drug and alcohol related offending.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#35

Post by milesrout »

adastra22 wrote: post #18
anon-3988 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police in your area maybe?

Look into the history and meaning of “thin blue line.” It’s an endorsement of the us vs. them mindset prevalent in American policing that is the source of many (most? all?) police scandals.

It doesn't even originate in the US, mate.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#36

Post by Diggsey »

llm_trw wrote: post #32
Diggsey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not wrong, but he hasn't addressed the problem: Some maintainers are rejecting changes as a way to block a project they disagree with - ie. there is no path forward for the contributor. I wouldn't assume this normally, but they're not hiding this fact, it's self proclaimed. On the other hand, Linus has been largely in favour of the R4L project, and gave the green light for it to go ahead. The Linux kernel mainta…

It's not the maintainers job to make your project happen. It's yours. If you need someone to do free work but you can't convince them then you either get their boss to tell them to do it, you take over their job, or - the one thing that no one under 30 ever seems to do - fork and do the work yourself without anyone stopping you.

Noone's asking the maintainers to make the project happen.

It is the maintainers job to determine whether a project should be pursued at all.

If a maintainer says "yes I'd be happy to accept feature X", and then simply rejects all PRs implementing X without giving feedback then they're a bad maintainer!

That's essentially what's happening here due to the fact that the kernel maintainers have not come to a coherent decision regarding R4L.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#37

Post by llm_trw »

Diggsey wrote: post #36
llm_trw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the maintainers job to make your project happen. It's yours. If you need someone to do free work but you can't convince them then you either get their boss to tell them to do it, you take over their job, or - the one thing that no one under 30 ever seems to do - fork and do the work yourself without anyone stopping you.

Noone's asking the maintainers to make the project happen. It is the maintainers job to determine whether a project should be pursued at all. If a maintainer says "yes I'd be happy to accept feature X", and then simply rejects all PRs implementing X without giving feedback then they're a bad maintainer! That's essentially what's happening here due to the fact that the kernel maintainers have not come to a coherent de…

>Noone's asking the maintainers to make the project happen.

If you're asking them to accept your code then yes, you' are asking them to support your project forever.

If you weren't sending them patches then they couldn't block you. Since you are they can.

Again, it's not their job to support this great idea you have that means they have to change how they've done everything for the last 30 years.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#38

Post by mouse_ »

thayne wrote: post #26

> But what isn't appreciated, is that it is precisely because people who are long-term members of the community are trusted to stick around and will support code that the have sponsored. Ok. But if you make it too difficult for new developers to contribute, and the experience too stressful, then no one new will stick around to be long time maintainers, and when the old ones retire or die, there won't be anyone to rep…

The whole community shows symptoms of organizational sabotage.

https://files.catbox.moe/u6rold.png

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#39

Post by defrost »

milesrout wrote: post #31
theden wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, and the reference _is_ politically loaded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line ): >The thin blue line U.S. flag has been banned by some police departments in the United States for its associations with ideologies described as "undemocratic, racist, and bigoted." >According to a 2018 law review article, "thin blue line" also refers to an unwritten code of silence used to cover up police mis…

Law review articles are largely written by students. They are not authoritative. Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was dogwhistling about undemocratic, racist, bigoted police violence when he named his police sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" or do you think perhaps your dislike of the police has led to you associating negative attributes with anyone that happens to use any phrase related to the police? Where I am from, the…

> Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was ...

No, but Ben Elton certainly was when he created and wrote it, even before hiring Atkinson to star in it . . .

When I last spoke to him Elton didn't view the entire UK Police force with disdain but he absolutely felt it was riddled with clusters of bigoted and violent police. You can see that in his other works such as the The Young Ones and various novels.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#40

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

milesrout wrote: post #31
theden wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, and the reference _is_ politically loaded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line ): >The thin blue line U.S. flag has been banned by some police departments in the United States for its associations with ideologies described as "undemocratic, racist, and bigoted." >According to a 2018 law review article, "thin blue line" also refers to an unwritten code of silence used to cover up police mis…

Law review articles are largely written by students. They are not authoritative. Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was dogwhistling about undemocratic, racist, bigoted police violence when he named his police sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" or do you think perhaps your dislike of the police has led to you associating negative attributes with anyone that happens to use any phrase related to the police? Where I am from, the…

I'm not a left winger, and I generally respect the police, but everybody I've met with a "thin blue line" American flag decal or sticker has been a total asshole. It's not just hatred of the police. Connotations change over time, and the general connotation of "the thin blue line" in the US at the moment is unabashed support of far-right authoritarianism.
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