Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 487 posts

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

#31

Post by forca »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #15
chris_wot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because what has happened to Lennart is pretty horrible.

I agree. It's disgusting. Luckily he's a brilliant engineer and was able to withstand the flames long enough for people to recognise how good his software is. Pulseaudio and systemd are two of the best things to happen to Linux in years.

Pulseaudio took way too long to get ironed out, IMHO. ALSA was bad in a lot of ways, but was workable. I agree moving forward is good, but the issue with alot of OSS software is it's used a replacement for working software when it's not quite ready. PA was not ready for primetime when it was initially released. Everyone knows this. It works fine now after many fixes and considerable time. systemd is the same. A lot of people dislike change and systemd is a radical shift from the init that was. While I still prefer the old init, I'm not shying away from using Debian because of it. What I don't like is the hooks that systemd places into software it has no business touching, like Gnome. Userland software should not be touched by this. Full stop. An init system should do one thing well. Userland software shoudl do what it does well. In too many growing instances, systemd is a requirement for userland software and this should never be.

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

#32

Post by nanoscopic »

I think this is an important point for people to accept, acknowledge, and keep in mind as a reason to strive harder to be open and accepting to people, especially those you don't agree with.

I got a bunch of attacks from members of the open source community, due to developing my XML parser. ( Grant McLean and others ) I also got attacked by Poul-Henning Kamp, and then threatened that he would "shame" me for pointing out bugs in his software that he refuses to acknowledge. Additionally, the founder of Perl Mongers, Brian D Foy, argued with me about the naming of my application framework, and then refused to approve the naming of my module even after other people on the newsgroup discussed it with me and we came to a good resolution. ( which led to the vanishing of "registered" modules on cpan imo )

The open source community, at large, is not a happy helpful place, and I have gone through a lot of harassment just contributing my own free open source stuff to the world. Also, I can't say I have ever been thanked for contributing. Just kicked in the face.

I am referencing names of individuals so that people can lookup these events and see the truth in what I'm saying; NOT to shame these people. They are all good developers, and I value their contributions ( don't necessarily like these people but what does that matter ). There should be respect in the community regardless of whether you like or dislike people's projects.

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

#33

Post by RVuRnvbM2e »

fidotron wrote: post #30

He's just the new Drepper. Coming from almost anyone else this might be reasonable, but him? Just pointing out someone else is an asshole does not negate you being an asshole. Honestly, it's people like him and the systemd noise on all sides that have made me lose faith in Linux. By contrast Linus has git too, which is potentially as big a contribution as Linux was in the first place. History may even demonstrate git…

I'd be very interested if you could provide evidence of Lennart being an asshole. I've honestly never seen him be anything other than professional.

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

#34

Post by netrus »

nanoscopic wrote: post #32

I think this is an important point for people to accept, acknowledge, and keep in mind as a reason to strive harder to be open and accepting to people, especially those you don't agree with. I got a bunch of attacks from members of the open source community, due to developing my XML parser. ( Grant McLean and others ) I also got attacked by Poul-Henning Kamp, and then threatened that he would "shame" me for pointing…

Don't you think adding your real-name would be a nice move when you choose to give names of people you disagree with?

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

#36

Post by danielweber »

lmm wrote: post #21
chris_wot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because what has happened to Lennart is pretty horrible.

What he's done to many people's systems, mine included, is pretty horrible. He doesn't deserve death threats. But users should be able to opt out of his software, and he's deliberately making that as hard as possible.

As someone who thinks systemd, as well as the entire OSS practice of "we're bored, let's re-invent the wheel"[1], is taking everything in the wrong direction: you still don't handle this with abuse. You deal with it via forking.

[1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

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

#37

Post by sergiosgc »

chris_wot wrote: post #9
freehunter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a real shame because it's really true and really needs to be addressed. We've had these conversations about gamers, about startups, about tech in general, but when it comes to Linux (and related open source projects) it's somehow impossible to talk about. The community just isn't friendly and isn't inclusive, and that bad behavior goes far enough as to shut down any talk of the bad behavior.

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…

Linus is great enough, and known enough, to be allowed some idiosyncrasies. If you follow LKML long enough you realize these hard language comments do not carry one tenth the negative message a primary read would convey.

Note that this happens because you can read it with knowledge of the writer's personality. If it were an anonymous author, your impression would be perfectly correct.

No, I know that the standard reply here is that no one is above being polite. I disagree. This is a Linus' flaw, of course, but one we can live with in the context of his hugely positive net contribution.

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

#39

Post by AznHisoka »

nateabele wrote: post #25

Re: "the Open Source community is full of assholes" s/Open Source community/human race/ Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

true. there's nothing different from open source ppl that makes them more kind, or compassionate than the average human being.
Post reply on HN