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Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

betterbird.eu

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Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you do with someone who is relentlessly rude?

It's not that it's wrong (I wouldn't know, I haven't seen any evidence of rudeness, and the description of rudeness in the email seems really weak), it's that it assumes an unwarranted and overreaching position of authority.

> position of authority

What authority?

They can’t force him to not talk to anyone or not Tweet at anyone. He can do whatever he wants.

They’re just saying he’s not welcome in their community if he does. It’s their club so their rules.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#72
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot find any search result that slightly or strongly support your claim that "Brave browser creator was banned from Mozilla". Any links?

It's complicated. Brave was founded by Brendan Eich, long-time Mozilla developer, long-time Mozilla CTO, briefly Mozilla CEO. Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work) and California law says that if you donate more than [some sum of money], you must specify your employer. So, suddenly, a few days after Brendan Eich was nominated CEO, someone…

> Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work)

Presumably the donations were of money that he made at work.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#73
post #5

I really love Thunderbird; I've been using it for at least a decade now. There are definitely places where it still needs improvement, after years and years. While Betterbird seems exciting in theory, the attitude of the project leader (who it seems is a banned former contributor to Mozilla Thunderbird), and honestly even the arrogance in the name itself gives me pause. The issues laid out in this[0] email thread are…

Can you give more details on netgate v wireguard? I can't really find the "drama" other than it being added and then pulled

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that it's wrong (I wouldn't know, I haven't seen any evidence of rudeness, and the description of rudeness in the email seems really weak), it's that it assumes an unwarranted and overreaching position of authority.

> position of authority What authority? They can’t force him to not talk to anyone or not Tweet at anyone. He can do whatever he wants. They’re just saying he’s not welcome in their community if he does. It’s their club so their rules.

Right, I wasn't asserting that they're literally getting Twitter to prevent him from making tweets. I just don't think they should even be attempting to set a rule like that. As you said, they're saying he's not welcome in "their community"; that's the part I think is toxic. A project is not a society. People don't live in Thunderbird.

There's a widespread forum rule: "don't import drama." The idea behind it is when you enter a certain forum, you may know people from elsewhere but you leave that context at the door and enter a new context with different rules. I think that ability to codeswitch into and out of social contexts is an important part of common civility, and overbroad declarations like this undermine it.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#75

I firmly believe there are two classes of email, those who use exchange servers and those who dont. While i dont really care so much about the mail client in itself, I would gladly use something else besides outlook, if it would integrate itself into the exchange protocol so well. It feels like E-Mail is a solved problem, but its really not we all have just more or less agreed that its good enough. I Remember when i…

While I personally am mostly happy with using Exchange via IMAP (through Postbox), and therefore cannot speak to or against it, there is Owl[1]. Have you ever tried that, and if so, what's your experience been like?

[1]: https://www.beonex.com/owl/

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#76
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you propose as an alternative to people who just… constantly fill mailing lists with attacks on people or the like? Reasonable people don’t need to have such harsh actions applied of course. But reasonable people don’t end up getting to this point! I am a bit partial to messaging when someone is banned like this, but there are definitely cases where people will just keep on arguing about something forever…

It's more the idea of an organization claiming they have the authority to forbid you from tweeting at members . It's like they're trying to split the world into two halves, organization members and outsiders, draw a fence around the organization membership and assume control over who is allowed to cross that fence and how. To be clear: I don't think any organization should ever have that sort of power. If it was just…

I had the same initial reaction as you but actually think that in such situations asking people not to interact with the members of the organization is appropriate. Sometimes people do need to be put in timeout, and I read this as a formal way of requesting the problematic user stays away from the community for a bit.

Private interactions with members of the community, as well as interactions in other contexts (eg working on a different project), I would assume to be fine. They don't want the problematic member to be harassing other members through unofficial channels, and the only consequence would be not being re-integrated in the community.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#77
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the worst, this speaks a lot more about the Thunderbird project leaders than about this person. I read this as a thoughtful, passionate, plea for project (governance) improvements. You can certainly disagree with him (I don't enough much about the project to judge either way, although his arguments ring true to my general software development instincts), but he was not attacking anyone or being a jerk.

Given this particular email is hosted on his own website it seems unlikely that it's "the worst". On the other hand, the exact terminology used in the details of the ban here[0] do lean toward the less severe side of CoC violations. It seems likely that it was death-by-a-thousand-papercuts (frequent & persistent small violations coupled with an evident unwillingness to accept feedback), rather than one big blowout in…

Well he got a ban but the letter does not even provide an example of his violations. I would say Mozilla governance is broken and hope more forks appear with respective organic funding. Will definitely be looking at betterbird.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the idea of an organization claiming they have the authority to forbid you from tweeting at members . It's like they're trying to split the world into two halves, organization members and outsiders, draw a fence around the organization membership and assume control over who is allowed to cross that fence and how. To be clear: I don't think any organization should ever have that sort of power. If it was just…

I had the same initial reaction as you but actually think that in such situations asking people not to interact with the members of the organization is appropriate. Sometimes people do need to be put in timeout, and I read this as a formal way of requesting the problematic user stays away from the community for a bit. Private interactions with members of the community, as well as interactions in other contexts (eg wo…

I mean, harassment is already against the Twitter ToS. I'm not sure of any social media site where it isn't. At some point, you have to assume that if a member doesn't want to be contacted, they're their own person enough to communicate that.

Anyway, I understand why Mozilla would want to make a declaration like this. I just think the fact that they believed that this was a declaration that they could make, and have be obeyed, reveals an uncomfortable sentiment of social ownership.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#79
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Linus or countless others did with Linux eh and a bunch of other world class open source projects? This is the lie people like you keep purporting in those VC money firehoses that have no grounds in the real world.

Linux is doing well. We don't know how what would have happened if Linus hadn't frozen out several kernel contributors before working on himself. I've seen the effect of a brilliant jerk first hand. People leave. I'm sure it's often a net negative. Btw, calling this discussion a "lie" comes across as overly aggressive.

I'm not sure it's that simple. Consider a situation where only one of two people A and B can stay; but if A causes B to leave it's obvious (because A is rude), and if B causes A to leave it's non-obvious (because B writes bad code and lowered the project standard enough to torpedo A's enthusiasm). In that situation, if iterated, it would look like 1. jerks clearly cause people to leave, but 2. projects get worse over time for no reason anyone can clearly identify. Identifying that you are in situation 2 would be difficult, in part because you'd kicked out everyone rude enough to point fingers at B.

I don't know how to solve that, if it's real.

Re: Betterbird: a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird

#80
post #72
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. Brave was founded by Brendan Eich, long-time Mozilla developer, long-time Mozilla CTO, briefly Mozilla CEO. Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work) and California law says that if you donate more than [some sum of money], you must specify your employer. So, suddenly, a few days after Brendan Eich was nominated CEO, someone…

> Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work) Presumably the donations were of money that he made at work.

As if the history of the dollars used is relevant. Chase money far enough and 90% of US bills have some trace of cocaine. Should we avoid any and all donations because it's drug money?
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