On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 13:26 UTC (Thu) by gb (subscriber, #58328)
Parent article: On the sickness of our community

Why really why this guy still working for the Red Hat? How does he work on key Linux component if "My involvement with the kernel community ended pretty much before it even started, I never post on LKML, and haven't done in years." - position so closed and principal. Position of the confrontation.

If community is such an awful place - why not leave it and find some 'good' community, there everyone is polite, friendly, sun shines all day round, and no need to deal with 'assholes' and all this 'shit'?

This Poettering even more dangerous for the Linux. First he targeted key Linux components and replaced them with something completely new and certainly non-UNIX way things. Now he targets the community and leaders of the community in attempt to prove that key persons are assholes. Guys, community should work on technical issues and don't focus on personal relations. Focus on personal relations very dangerous and can destroy whole system.

Assholes or ideal or not, but system were made by great involvement of this people and it happened _only_ because of their involvement.

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On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 13:31 UTC (Thu) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (6 responses)

So you suggest that he just give up on everything he is interested in? That he give up his job? That we as a community give up on a valuable contributor? And this to protect the people who subject him to all kinds of abuse?

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 13:54 UTC (Thu) by gb (subscriber, #58328) [Link] (5 responses)

If you don't fit some place you can:
1. change you to fit;
2. change place to fit you;
3. find other place.

He is not going to do (1), and actively attempting to do (2). The consequences of (2) are actually undefined. Yes, may be community will become better place. But also it may be that it will become hollow empty place, so it is very dangerous.
(3) is not bad at all - you just join new place there people are thinking in the same way as you. And stop wasting the time in discussion of the 'obvious' things. Everyone happy - you, new place, old place.

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 13:59 UTC (Thu) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (4 responses)

"Everyone happy - you, new place, old place."

Except for the next victim. Or do you think that if the abusers win and Lennart leaves the community that they will quietly go back to whatever else they like to do? That they will not feel confirmed in the behavior and look for a new target to vent their anger at?

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 14:12 UTC (Thu) by gb (subscriber, #58328) [Link] (3 responses)

I am unsure that there is a 'victim' and 'abuser's here. Take a look into the article. He does exactly thing he protests against: 'pours the shit' over someone. 'There are assholes in community' ... ' Linus said: ... '. For me this is like: Look, I can prove that Linus is asshole!

And I could see it that victim is actually Linus and community in this case.

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 14:20 UTC (Thu) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (2 responses)

Pours the shit? Really? Saying that someone is bad as a role mode is "pouring shit"?
And what do you call people who's funniest idea for a "joke" is suggesting to pool bitcoins to hire a hitman or to quote "cut his hands, so he will not be able to write any new line of code". Mind you that there was not a single smiley, grin, "but seriously" or any other indication that this was spoken in jest. It's just an interpretation that this was a joke. But regardless of that, I'd go forward to call such people "assholes". They clearly fit the definition.

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 18:26 UTC (Thu) by gb (subscriber, #58328) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, reviving things someone done 2 years ago pointing person by name is "pour shit" at full scale.

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 10, 2014 1:02 UTC (Fri) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

Like the guy taking a 4 years old video of Datenwolf and Lennart to say that Lennart is always criticizing people ?

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 9, 2014 14:39 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

Now he targets the community and leaders of the community in attempt to prove that key persons are assholes. Guys, community should work on technical issues and don't focus on personal relations.

This comes after literally years of people trying to convince us over and over again that Lennart Poettering is an asshole. What an insight.

I'm not really happy with Lennart's post either. It is clear that there is a serious problem but I don't think that Linus or the LKML crowd are directly to blame for the situation with systemd, Lennart Poettering's death threats etc. As such it is a bit of a cheap shot, especially since Lennart himself can be pretty abrasive if he wants to. Nobody in that discussion should be too eager to cast the first stone.

The sad thing is that something like systemd is urgently needed and there is nothing remotely similar around that has a more congenial developer community. The situation is not unlike the one before Postfix came out, when qmail was the go-to MTA but its developer community was a tornado compared to systemd's gentle summer breeze. The facts that Postfix was a lot less “my way or the highway” and Wietse Venema's crowd was a lot easier to get along with (not to mention the obvious difference between Wietse and DJB in the arrogance department) probably played a large role in Postfix's subsequent rise and qmail's descent into near-obscurity.

As long as nobody of Wietse Venema calibre steps up and delights us with a Postfix to systemd's qmail (and note that Postfix does what qmail does and then some, so simply forking systemd and leaving unwanted stuff out probably won't cut it) we seem to be stuck with systemd and its community. In the meantime it would probably be a lot better for everybody concerned if the general atmosphere around systemd could improve. That would include stopping the gratuitous “systemd sucks because it's not Unix and I don't like it” prayer mills as well as actively looking for reasonable cooperation and compromise on both sides in areas where systemd could be more accommodating without sacrificing technical excellence (the journald vs. rsyslog issue comes to mind).

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 12, 2014 6:26 UTC (Sun) by agrover (guest, #55381) [Link]

You make a really good analogy.

It'll be lot easier for an alternative to arise now that an initial implementation has defined what the requirements really are. Indeed, having at least two alternatives for every software niche in the FOSS world seems very common. I'm sure we all could think of many examples.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 3-5 years there was a credible alternative. Either because of a disagreement with development philosophy, or license, or personality clash, or implementation language, or just because somebody got bored.

On the sickness of our community

Posted Oct 10, 2014 1:14 UTC (Fri) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link]

Your whole comment kinda remind me the whole staged gamergate controversy.

The same "why is this person still working for $employer/$industry_field" ( which is mostly a attempt to use anchoring effect )

The same "but this single person by his action is destroying completely a multi million dollar industry" ( because yes, free software and linux can be considered as such given how many people are paid to work on it, etc ), which is a bit hyperbolic, and if 1 person could destroy a industry this big, we would have enough example.

The same "if you do not like, leave it" argument.

The only innovation is the appeal to dogma ( the old "non unix way"trick ), and the tentative of ignoring that a community is about people, not code. Sure, it may make you uncomfortable to confront the fact that there is more than technical discussions, but that's not by burying the head in the sand that you will make problems go away.