"Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
1–10 of 487 posts
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#2Yeah, this was discussed about an hour ago, and it hit the flame filter pretty fast. I'd suggest that it won't last very long on the front page.
Incidentally, I find it very sad that we can't discuss this on HN. What has happened to Lennart, and the behaviour of Linus Torvalds as a bully, is probably something decent to talk about.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#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 also be kind. You do not point someone is wrong to humiliate the person and you should take care not to (I try and I fail more often than I'd like to) fall into the trap of judging a person for his or her first efforts.
Having said that, I am almost sure all the exaggerated discourse on the Linux kernel mailing list is not really part of the message, but should be understood as more like a sport, a game, where the one with the most elaborately crafted insult wins. When Linus says you should be retroactively aborted he most likely wants to say you are very wrong and your idea is really bad and that, maybe, you should be more thorough the next time you submit a patch. Their time is a finite resource.
Is this the most efficient way to run the community? Probably not. We just don't know what is the most efficient way to do it and it can just be that Linus found a local maximum.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#4[deleted]
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#5[deleted]
Because what has happened to Lennart is pretty horrible.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#6I'm not sure how this pertains to Open Source communities across the board..? Seems to be a pretty targeted indictment of the Linux dev community. There are plenty that don't stand for the type of bad acting described here.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#7Yeah, this was discussed about an hour ago, and it hit the flame filter pretty fast. I'd suggest that it won't last very long on the front page. Incidentally, I find it very sad that we can't discuss this on HN. What has happened to Lennart, and the behaviour of Linus Torvalds as a bully, is probably something decent to talk about. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8414859
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.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#8[deleted]
This misses the point.
Open source projects often have small numbers of people who know each other quite well. Even these projects can have toxic people as members of the group.
And people are capable of being assholes under their real name. Read comments in any online newspaper for examples.
Online communities need to work their way between no vested contributors and avoiding concern trolls.
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#9Yeah, this was discussed about an hour ago, and it hit the flame filter pretty fast. I'd suggest that it won't last very long on the front page. Incidentally, I find it very sad that we can't discuss this on HN. What has happened to Lennart, and the behaviour of Linus Torvalds as a bully, is probably something decent to talk about. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8414859
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.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495
then I don't think I'd ever contribute to the LKML.
(p.s. the irony of posting such an offensive post by starring out the u in fuck... does he not see the irony?)
Re: "Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"
#10> 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. Honor killings are unfortunately still a big deal in some parts of the world.
What you say in defense of the mailing list insults is the same thing that has been said about casual racism or casual misogyny in other groups normally dominated by white men. It scares away other groups and cultures, and it's not acceptable anywhere.