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Who controls glibc?

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

kelnos wrote: post #79
drb91 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling. I can't say I'm mourning the loss of people who think it's childish, or that it's a bad thing--at most it's a silly distraction. If you care, why don't you rewrite his stuff to be more…

> I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive That's a weird argument to make. Why write them at all, then? RMS has a long history of trying to persuade people of the benefits and virtues of Free Software; his writing on related topics is obviously meant to persuade, at least how I see it. I agree with the parents' point: if the intention is to persuade, then the words used matte…

> That's a weird argument to make. Why write them at all, then?

To fire up people who already generally agree (or simply need to know which problem their cult leader wants to direct them against and don't need convincing), not to convince people who have a different pre-existing opinion.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#92

Post by yongjik »

zeth___ wrote: post #54
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://…

Here is a mantra every programmer should repeat every morning: >RMS was right. It doesn't matter what the topic, or how insane what he says sounds. He is always right and you're just not developed enough to understand why that's the case.

Poe was right!

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Re: Who controls glibc?

#93

Post by d1zzy »

RIMR wrote: post #38
lsh wrote: post #28

To call it a joke is a bit of a stretch, more like a turn of phrase or wink to the reader. As far as explicitly inserting one's politics into communal tools, this case is so mild it's hard to fathom any grounded person wasting time on it. However, there is a case at the moment of the author of the BFG tool for git adding a paragraph of text about fighting trump at the end of his tool's output. He won't get rid of it…

Or, if you're going to be subtly political (as GNU often is), at least be current. That joke was 20-something years old. It ran its course. Also, as far as calling LGBT rainbows "political", I would have to disagree. You either view LBGT people as equal, or you can be a hateful person. There's no good reason to pander to the latter, but plenty of reasons to stand up in unity with the former. There are some concepts t…

I don't understand your logic. You say that putting LGTB rainbows in a tool is not a political act and then go on to compare it with the civil rights movement, one of the major political storms of its time. Is it political or is it not?

As to political activism in computer tools... there is a time and place for everything (almost?) and I personally disagree that a computer tool is a place for some random political activism.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#94

Post by Jasper_ »

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…

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 make people aware of, it reads like a clunky abortion joke, and one that isn't very funny.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#95

Post by coliveira »

Stallman is completely right. A patch that removes jokes is not making any technical contribution, it is just trying to deface a political instance taken the authors of the code. This is the opposite of contributing.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#96

Post by RIMR »

geofft wrote: post #62
bitwize wrote: post #35

Given his penchant for offensive, inappropriate humor, and how little tolerance the modern FOSS community has for such in the prevailing political atmosphere, this is not a hill RMS wants to die on. Save the rank pulls for something really important, Richard.

It is a little interesting to me that the joke in question is making fun of a US-right-wing political position, so the fact that it's clear to everyone that this atmosphere disagrees with the joke would seem to remove some credence from the "FOSS is turning into a liberal echo chamber" argument that's been getting popular. There is a political shift / push happening, but "liberal echo chamber" isn't it.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the consensus is that the joke is disagreeable, but that it is not an appropriate joke for the documentation.

I am a staunchly pro-choice, but this joke is out-of-date and out-of-place. I would personally vote for it to go.

I really don't want to see the political divide fragment the GNU/Linux community because people are determined to inject their opinions into code.

If you run a small repo and the development community agrees with political interjections in the software, then go for it. If the community doesn't like it, they can fork it.

But maybe, if the both the developers and the users of a major piece of software found on hundreds of millions of machines think your political joke should go, that's just not a hill worth dying on...

Re: Who controls glibc?

#97

Post by bhhaskin »

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.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#98

Post by jcranmer »

lsh wrote: post #28

To call it a joke is a bit of a stretch, more like a turn of phrase or wink to the reader. As far as explicitly inserting one's politics into communal tools, this case is so mild it's hard to fathom any grounded person wasting time on it. However, there is a case at the moment of the author of the BFG tool for git adding a paragraph of text about fighting trump at the end of his tool's output. He won't get rid of it…

The joke is confusing if you're not well-acquainted with US abortion politics, and, if you read the entire email thread, there were actually quite a few people who didn't get the joke properly (you can include myself in that list as another example).

RMS's stance is quite galling here. First, he's making it very adamant that the entire purpose of the joke is political commentary. Second, he's resisting any mechanism to actually make it clear that it is political commentary. Finally, he's effectively trying to use dictatorial powers to make his views go through over the strident objections of the consensus view of the maintainers.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#99

Post by gus_massa »

wyldfire wrote: post #2

What an unexpected schism! > "As the head of the GNU Project, I am in charge of what we publish in GNU manuals. I decide the criteria to decide by, too" Interesting. Sounds decidedly authoritarian to cite (sole?) control of the content and criteria. > "I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are…

> the copyright holders for the source code

FWIW from https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Contribution%20checklist#F...

> The Free Software Foundation (holder of the glibc copyrights) requires copyright assignment for all legally significant changes by a particular author (read not a company). [...]

Re: Who controls glibc?

#100

Post by geofft »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #71

Never been a big fan of the "Code of Conduct" wars that seem to be going on. On the surface, yeah, it seems great. Everyone be nice and get along. But for some odd reason, the enforcement always tends to favor one side. Case in point, the pointless NodeJS TSC drama [1] from yesteryear. I don't like JS to begin with, but that makes me want to avoid the project like the plague. The problem with letting thin skinned peo…

One, there was no public crucifixion here, no court, no treason, even as an analogy. Had Stallman not replied on the list to insist on his own personal veto over glibc changes, the project would have moved on, nobody would have asked about whether that veto makes sense, and if he showed up on some technical thing two months later people would have absolutely listened to him with extra weight. And even so, nobody is questioning him as a person, nor attempting to care about what he says or police his project participation based on his views - multiple people in favor of the removal have quite clearly said that he can say what he likes on stallman.org and nobody cares. They're just questioning his veto.

Two, what is the "one side" being favored here? It's not aligned on political axes - Stallman is a left-leaning person making fun of a right-wing policy, which is the opposite of many accusations I hear about codes of conduct. If it is aligned in favor of the consensus of the active maintainers of a project and against individuals, no matter how important, that seems like a very good thing that projects should be aligned on.

Three, I don't know what "thin-skinned" means here. I'd call the project maintainers who are holding to a consensus decision in the face of threats by their own project leader thick-skinned, and the man who can't admit that his irrelevant, unfunny joke from 25 years ago is irrelevant and unfunny thin-skinned.

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