Bad NIH, good NIH (digression to Poettering, new Godwin's Law?) [LWN.net]

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 1:43 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I don't think it has anything to do with the companies they work for. These are passionate opinionated developers and they were absolutely right about the technical criticisms and Mir page got updated to reflect that.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 1:50 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

To add on to that, let's look at company/project affiliations of people participating in that Google thread who are critical of Mir

Kristian Høgsberg - Intel
Daniel Stone - Collobora
Dave Airlie - Red Hat
Mathias Hasselmann - Openismus
Carsten Haitzler aka Rasterman - Enlightenment

As you can see, it is a very broad group.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 10:20 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

So Poettering is only making valid technical criticisms on those pages? Or David Airlie? Random quote:

they barely have anyone competent enough to write a display server, the fact that they are actually quite ignorant of how wayland works makes it even more apparent.

Your intellectual dishonesty is staggering.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 12:01 UTC (Wed) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]

"It is for these things that Red Hat gets badmouthed by many community members."

That was you, upthread. If this was about one company unfairly dissing a competitor, that would be one thing. When it's basically the entire community, across multiple different companies (many of which aren't direct Canonical competitors) versus one individual organisation doing something different, that's another.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 13:14 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Intel and RedHat have financial ties, don't they? (Former is an investor in the latter).

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 15:15 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

[sarcasm]
I'm sure David checked his stock portfolio, chuckled, and pet his shaved cat before posting that, it had nothing to do with how he actually feels...
[/sarcasm]

These assumptions of corruption reflect more about how the writer sees the world and thinks in their own head than about the people who are the subject of their words.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 15:51 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Untrue, affiliations, including corporate alliances, can easily bias us and subconsciously at that. To scoff at that is to deny provable human nature.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:04 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and if some free software programmer's view of something *were* biased because, e.g. that something was the product of a competitor of their employer or their employer's corporate allies, that does NOT make them a bad person. Indeed, I would *expect* a person to be biased toward acting in the interests of their employer - that would make them a *good employee*.

Such biases do exist, at various levels of consciousness. That is not to condemn them. However, we should be aware of them, and take care to note affiliations.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:16 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

While at some level what you say is true I'm not sure it applies strongly in this case. Linux developers come from a wide range of companies and while they may be directed to work on a particular part of the system which is strategically important to their employer, they generally show more loyalty to Linux itself than to whichever company is currently paying them.

As far as I can tell, dissing Canonical provides no tactical or strategic benefit to any particular vendor who is involved in this discussion

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:28 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Perhaps in this case, not strongly, sure.

However, there's been a number of times over the last few years where from several rouge capped free software people have snipped at Canonical, with a common theme that Canonical is somehow free-riding. The sub-text seems to be that Canonical gets more of the user-base with Ubuntu and recognition than their share of the work deserves. Guess who employees a lot of the people doing the work?

To think there is absolutely no element of corporate competition to this story seems, I'm sorry, a little naïve. Both in terms of Canonical choosing not to hitch their wagon to Wayland, and in the (predominantly) RedHat and Intel employees' reactions to that. There are pure, technical elements too, of course...

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 19:34 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

> There are pure, technical elements too, of course...
Like what? So far, every technical reason named by Canonical either has been disproven or is phrased too vaguely to ever be.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 15:56 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

[counter-sarcasm]
I am sure David calmly and dispassionately reviewed once more the payroll list of Canonical, and checked the LinkedIn skillsets of all employees. Then ignoring all subconscious biases he might once have possessed, decided that they didn't have anyone competent enough to write a display server.
[/counter-sarcasm]

Your naïveness would be somewhat refreshing, I have to admit, were it not so biased at heart. Reinforced prejudices are very dangerous.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:11 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

You are just so adorable! 8-)

In any event pointing out the clear lack of familiarity with the technologies they are (not) using is not pre-judice, it's post-judice. I don't think it's unfair to also say that they have not demonstrated technical leadership very often in the underlying infrastructure technologies they depend on, bzr and upstart being two examples. They need not just the cojones but the talent to pull this all off.

I should also point out that I wish nothing but the best for Ubuntu, which is why I'm talking about this in the first place, if I didn't care I wouldn't comment.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 20:38 UTC (Wed) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Yes Paul,

Intel told Red Hat to tell me to say this. Thats exactly how it went down.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 20:48 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

And that's not in any way what I was suggesting Dave.

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Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:33 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I am sorry but you seem to be obsessed with Lennart for some reason. It is rather disturbing. My list of people did not include Lennart but developers across the community who have expertise in the Xorg/Mesa/Wayland stack and yes, David's statement was accurate and Canonical has subsequently revised the Mir page to retract their criticism against Wayland.

"Intellectual dishonesty" is just a weasel word for lying and if you want to accuse me of that because I disagree with you that this is somehow a Red Hat specific thing when I have clearly shown you otherwise (yet another criticism from KWin developer - http://www.reddit.com/r/LinuxActionShow/comments/19qcix/k...), then I don't think you get to advocate against vitriol or badmouthing. If you have a counter point, please express is politely.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 17:12 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

It is true that your list did not include Poettering, but why? He is clearly badmouthing Mir (comparing to some engineering disasters, not very ingeniously as it happens), he offers no valid technical points, he is a Red Hat employee. I am not obsessed with him, but I think he employs dirty tactics in his fight for systemd and against Upstart. You have still not refuted this point other than substracted this particular person from the argument, for some reason. That is intellectually dishonest IMHO.

Let us leave him aside; another Red Hat employee (David Airlie) also badmouthed Canonical without offering any valid technical points, as quoted above (saying they don't have competent technical people). Other people expressed their opinions, in a mostly polite form, and with valid technical reasons; Airlie only made baseless accusations (such as lamenting the lack of source code, which was not true) and silly jabs (Jumping Sharks).

That is just one random Google+ thread, there are many other examples that I have linked above. I am not in the mood to curate any more examples for you.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 17:44 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I have already refuted this point already by telling you two things

1) Lennart's dislike for Canonical is not based on his organizational affiliation. It has a much longer history.

2) it has nothing to do with the current discussion

David's points were already shown to be true. You are however just engaging in the same tactics you seem to be critical of.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 17:50 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I knew this was not worth my time. Anyway, just a clarification: being intellectually dishonest is not the same as being a liar, it is rather to be a self-liar. You choose to see the reality in your own terms and disregard what doesn't fit. Is it intentional or not? I don't know and frankly I am not interested.

Now you will no doubt accuse me of the same, and so on. Bah.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 17:58 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

So "intellectual dishonesty" is your fancy way of saying, you disagree with me! and of course I do. If you see this thread, the only real badmouthing is from you.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 20:58 UTC (Wed) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

You have to realise I can be a bit of a dick sometimes.

http://airlied.livejournal.com/76828.html

I summed up my thoughts at the time here, in the end C removed the lies, but I'll still bet we'll see them repeated by fanbois across the Internet for years, and developer time will have to be spent correcting them.

I'll update the blog post to mention that they have removed the original source of the technical untruths.

The thing is if you think this is was a purely technical decision at Canonical's end you are already sucked into their event horizon, sometimes you have to realise technical isn't the game that you are being played in and address it as such.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 21:32 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Of course I don't think it's a purely technical decision from Canonical. Also, I don't necessarily think it is a good decision, either for them or for Linux as a whole. But I do think that many good things can come out of it: new ideas, new code, encouragement for Wayland devs to finish their job.

As to the downside, there may be bad consequences, but I don't see how we may end up with three (or four!) different, incompatible display servers. Either they will be compatible somehow or only one will survive. Hey, even GNOME and KDE have agreed to a lot of standards, making our life easier.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 23:36 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

> But I do think that many good things can come out of it: new ideas, new code, encouragement for Wayland devs to finish their job.
Name one reason why new ideas and code can't be created by extending Wayland.

> As to the downside, there may be bad consequences, but I don't see how we may end up with three (or four!) different, incompatible display servers. Either they will be compatible somehow or only one will survive. Hey, even GNOME and KDE have agreed to a lot of standards, making our life easier.
Yeah right. Gtk applications look alien on Qt-based Desktops to this very day. If anything, the Gnome/KDE history is a cautionary tale.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 20:51 UTC (Wed) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

how could I make technical criticism of a project that didn't exist in public before yesterday, and is only a few thousand lines of badly written C++?

Here's the thing, Canonical came out of the gate and bashed wayland. I'm not wayland's biggest supporter, but I don't like when companies uses lies and fanboi bases to make their arguments, to me it usually means they are hiding something.

As I've pointed out on my blog they are hiding something or they are technically incompetent. If they are hiding something, its most likely a control problem. If they really misunderstood how wayland worked and believed in what they posted, then its a competency problem, and I'd rather not base the future of Linux compositing on work done by people too incompetent to read and understand the few thousand lines of code that is wayland.

The other thing is Red Hat (as a corporation) doesn't even see this stuff, they do pay me to see this stuff, but they don't direct how I respond and I don't speak on their behalf. My job is to do what I think is best for Linux graphics in the long term, like seriously that is actually what they pay me for, and if I think pointing out flaws in Canonical's arguments for NIHing things is best for Linux then I'll go ahead and do it!

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 21:25 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Let me wear my sophist hat for a minute. Where to start.

If you cannot make technical criticism, why do any criticism at all? After all you started with your criticism before even knowing there was a public repo, making a blunder in the process ("I remember when open source project announcements used to come with source").

Once you found the missing repo, why not take your time and make criticism of the few thousand lines of code? If Wayland is also a few thousand lines of code, is it enough to define it or not? Apparently a few thousand lines of code is not enough for you to understand, since you cannot make technical criticism; but it should be enough for Canonical engineers to not only make technical points (which after all can be superficial), but to completely understand it. And apparently not taking the time to understand another project in depth before criticizing it is equivalent to not being competent. Or perhaps a few thousand lines of code are not sufficient to evaluate and understand a complex project.

As I've pointed out on my blog they are hiding something or they are technically incompetent.

Maybe they are hiding something; after all they work for a company as you do and it has its agenda, just as yours. But that is a false dichotomy; maybe they just need something that moves faster and believe they can pull it. Or maybe Shuttleworth as a kid promised himself he would one day build a replacement for X; use your imagination instead of accusing others of incompetence. It will be more interesting.

The other thing is Red Hat (as a corporation) doesn't even see this stuff, they do pay me to see this stuff, but they don't direct how I respond and I don't speak on their behalf. My job is to do what I think is best for Linux graphics in the long term, like seriously that is actually what they pay me for, and if I think pointing out flaws in Canonical's arguments for NIHing things is best for Linux then I'll go ahead and do it!

Read what you wrote carefully. First you say that you don't speak on Red Hat's behalf, but then you go on to say that they pay you to speak your mind if you think something is wrong. Amazing.

Red Hat as a corporation sees this stuff, since you are part of that corporation and are paid to see it. As others have said, you would not be a good employee if you had not interiorized some business principles, such as avoiding projects not under the direct control of your corporation. Sometimes the goals of that corporation will align with the interests of Linux, sometimes it will not (like not publishing a git repo for the kernel). You think Mir is a not good idea; fine. You might also say "Let us wait and see what they come out with; there may be good ideas that we can adapt, and it is Free software after all" or "They have come with good stuff in the past that has served Red Hat well, like Upstart", but hey.

However, you are not only pointing out flaws in Canonical's arguments; you are actively despising them in public ("They should call the next Ubuntu Jumping Sharks"). It points to some kind of internal hostility towards Canonical, which somehow cannot surprise anyone at this point.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:05 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Because technical criticism isn't the be all and end all, as much as people would like to believe. You should always question people and companies motives, you seem to be happy to question my motives, but can't apply that to Mir/Canonical?

If they aren't hiding something, and we can believe they believe they have the technical competence to design a replacement for wayland/X then you'd expect them to have the technical competence to understand wayland/X? Its generally considered a good idea to understand the thing you are trying to displace. Now if you write a page of falsehoods on the things you are trying to displace, you are either acting from malice, deliberately lying, or stupidity, lying through lack of knowledge. As I said on my blog posting, neither of these reasonings are the things I want to see from the group designing the next generation of display server.

What part of, I do not speak for Red Hat, makes no sense to you. Just because someone gives me a pay cheque it doesn't translate me into a mouthpiece for them. I know its probably hard to understand for people who've never worked in an environment like Red Hat. I have a position in the Linux community and I make statements that I feel like making, if something pisses me off, I say this pisses me off, and try to analyse why! so what if I don't like Canonical, their methods of open source development are anti-community and the direct opposite of how every open source project I've worked on has worked. So maybe I make petty one liner statements, shoot me, its the Internet.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:20 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Great, so you dislike Canonical and badmouth them in public. That is exactly what I was trying to establish (and something that other commenters obtusely refuse to see). It is your choice, but expect no sympathy for your cause from those grateful for Ubuntu.

Do you apply the same criteria always? Because I am eagerly awaiting your criticisms of Google Android, Tizen and the GNU project, just to name three prominent examples that are run more or less behind closed doors. (GNU is more open but still requires contributors agreement; the others are worse because AFAIK they don't even accept external contributions.)

Me, I am grateful for what I get, and contribute back what little I can.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:34 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Android never posted a criticism of a project I cared about, they did their own thing, I don't like how they do it, but I feel no need to comment on something that exists in its own universe. If they attempted to bring that universe into collision with mine, then yes I would be vocal about it.

If you believe signing the GNU contributors agreement equates to the Canonical contributor agreement, I have no further time for you, because frankly I expect to discuss things with people intelligent enough to interpret the agreements they sign and who they assign copyrights to.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 0:47 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I find strange that doings things behind closed doors would be more palatable (or at least less deserving of your ire) than posting public documents. But everyone is entitled to their own contradictions, aren't we?

As to the GNU project, I think they do a great and necessary job, but their contributor agreement (reasonable as it is) and their development policies (cathedralicious according to some) have been criticized before. They are certainly less agile than they might be, and probably unlike every other project where you have worked before. Hence the comparison.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 1:35 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Android development model gets lots of criticism from lots of people, in the embedded space and everywhere else. Look at the kernel merge fun ongoing for years.

I have given out about Android and their encouragement of closed source graphics stacks before, and I do quite often at conferences and anywhere else. I've bitched about HW designs like the raspberry pi and I believe the FSF encouragement of such designs is totally anti their real mission.

Again you say the GNU project, but really its not one big monolith, you seem to be unable to distinguish individual pieces moving in their own directions, GNU projects are not beholden to some GNU development overlord.

some of them are more agile than others, the GNU project is an umbrella framework. Contributors to GNU projects again come from many companies and all believe that GNU is a good steward of the copyrights. (even if they don't use it enough to beat GPL violators with).

The thing is I don't believe Canonical is a good steward for my copyrights or anyone elses, and I think contributing code as an equal to their projects is very difficult. I've gone from 0 to being an integral part of 3 major projects *before* I joined Red Hat, and have never felt my company affiliation mattered in any of them, and was never asked to assign copyrights in any of them. Why would I want to give Canonical rights to take my code proprietary when they don't give me the same right? If you want the right to take code proprietary license it under MIT, and give the same right to other contributors (ala the Mesa 3D stack and X.org), if you don't want it use a GPL variant like the kernel. I also disliked Qt for doing the same for years, and MySQL also ran like that. It discourages individuals and other companies from making any decent contributions to your codebase, so in general you lose a major benefit of being open-source in the first place.

Its generally okay to give copyrights to a foundation that is setup correctly, but to individual companies, my personal believe is it doesn't end well.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 8, 2013 14:29 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Sheesh. The GNU project was cathedralicious *sixteen years ago*. It's not any more.

Not a cathedral, not a bazaar

Posted Mar 8, 2013 15:05 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

You are right (and I should know since I have been a voluntary Savannah admin for a few years). When handling code it is still not as agile as other environments, but it is certainly not centralized. The decision process however remains largely in the hands of a couple of people, and there have been some complaints about it recently.

Let us see a practical example: inclusion in the project.The GNU project says about it:

Based on the evaluators' report, Richard Stallman (the Chief GNUisance) makes the final decision on whether to accept the contribution. [...] Thus, becoming a GNU maintainer is a somewhat formal process, since affiliating with the GNU project as a maintainer means you must agree to work (within the confines of the maintenance) with the GNU project's mission for software freedom.

Contrast with inclusion in other software collections:

Debian: have a Debian Developer sponsor your package.
CPAN: register, wait two weeks and upload your package.
The PyPI: register and upload.
NPM: npm publish.

The GNU project may not be a cathedral of software, but it is not exactly a bazaar just yet... and probably it never will given its goals.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 4:05 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

"That is exactly what I was trying to establish (and something that other commenters obtusely refuse to see)."

Actually, no. What I refused to accept is that they are criticizing a project because of company affiliation. You are entirely wrong about.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 11:54 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

No one is accusing you of being a mouth-piece.

However, there is clear evidence that even well-intentioned, professional people tend to be affected by their affiliations. They tend to have biases toward arguing or acting in favour of the interests of their affiliations. This can happen subconsciously, even against the logical desires of the person. It's well documented in other fields, medical research particularly, and there are various psychological experiments you can do to demonstrate what is thought to be the underlying behaviour involved.

No matter how logical and dispassionate we try to be, our wetware just appears naturally to have a predilection for biasing us towards groups we are members of. There is no good reason to think software people would be immune to this.

Rather than deny this general fact, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it, so we then can find ways to minimise it or work-around it.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 12:23 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and these effects occur even with full information. In the real-world, an obvious/frequent source of affiliation bias, is of having more complete or better information about your affiliations than of others.

Or as other commentators put it, communication issues. :)

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 7, 2013 12:30 UTC (Thu) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

It's rather hard to be informed about what Canonical is doing when they do it behind closed doors. And that's actually what all this is about: the fact that Canonical utterly misses the point in Open Source Software: collaboration instead of competition.

Sources of bias

Posted Mar 7, 2013 12:41 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

In-group bias is another well-researched source of bias, that probably can be traced back all the way to primate groups. This is important not because it is more primitive, on the contrary: it is much more subconscious and entrenched than other, more cultural (you could say "human") biases. We want our group / tribe / company to thrive not because we will be better off, but because we are the best.

Sources of bias

Posted Mar 7, 2013 12:49 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Yeah, I must have put it clumsily. My point was that lack of information is one obvious source of bias. But even when we have full information, we *still* have a definite tendency to be biased toward group members - even if subconsciously, as per your link.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 8, 2013 14:27 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

However, you are not only pointing out flaws in Canonical's arguments; you are actively despising them in public ("They should call the next Ubuntu Jumping Sharks"). It points to some kind of internal hostility towards Canonical

Actually it's called a sense of humour. You might want to look that up, since it seems you were sadly deprived of one.