Who controls glibc? [LWN.net]

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 8, 2018 17:08 UTC (Tue) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059)
In reply to: Who controls glibc? by mjg59
Parent article: Who controls glibc?

Counterpoint: "The presence of less-than-100%-PC humour is likely to *attract* some number of developers to the project. Therefore let's leave it in."

to post comments

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 8, 2018 22:12 UTC (Tue) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (8 responses)

Re-counterpoint: unfounded assumption.

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 8, 2018 22:22 UTC (Tue) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059) [Link] (5 responses)

Well the point is what is the burden of proof? I could point to ... myself ?! ... as someone who generally prefers a more relaxed type of community. I'm not the only one. So this is a reciprocal of the "if it turns someone, anyone away, it's bad" argument.

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 8, 2018 23:22 UTC (Tue) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link] (2 responses)

Interesting point. I usually sometimes find myself re-phrasing and re-phrasing commit messages and even code comments over and over, especially when it's correcting a mistake someone made, at least at work. It's easier for private projects, but the potential to offend genuinely scares me.

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 10, 2018 11:16 UTC (Thu) by zenaan (guest, #3778) [Link] (1 responses)

To paraphrase you: "The work to avoid offending the various categories of snowflake safe-space-junkies, can be a real cost, can be significant, is a detriment, and the chilling effect this all has is real."

THAT is the reason this particular joke (by RMS) should stay in the glibc manual.

"The triggered" and "the oppressed" are redefining permissible speech - which is ironically apropos RMS' original joke.

The redefinition of allowed speech is dangerous and literally tyrannical in the underlying intent of doing so (whether conscious, or unconscious) - refer Dr Jordan Peterson who puts this exact point so succinctly.

Create your world, folks,

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 10, 2018 22:11 UTC (Thu) by tvld (guest, #59052) [Link]

You keep advertising this opinion throughout this comment thread. But do you actually know the glibc developer community? Do you know what they think works well for them, and what helped them make all the technical progress on the project in the recent years? Have you attended a GNU Tools Cauldron, for example, to see how they work together and what kind of environment the actual developers want? The glibc community *is* building the environment they want.

Speaking as someone who has contributed to glibc in the recent years, my impression was that nobody was or felt bullied. Developers just *wanted* to be friendly to each other. IOW, you misjudge what drives this.

There's nothing wrong with a majority wanting to be friendly people in the first place and not being interested in bothering with unfriendly behavior.

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 9, 2018 0:02 UTC (Wed) by likryol (guest, #115542) [Link] (1 responses)

I hear you but I think we can have a "relaxed community" without making questionable jokes in an official, long lived, and widely seen media.

Also I derailed the original point of this comment thread which is I think to say that if anything is adding up to "RIP glibc" it isn't the removal of OT content, it's the BDFL being excessively authoritarian.

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 10, 2018 16:43 UTC (Thu) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link]

I think that's also something people in this debate often forget, the intent of the original committer is probably not to censor RMS or derail the project by starting this debate.

Who controls glibc?

Posted Jun 6, 2018 17:32 UTC (Wed) by clicea (guest, #75492) [Link] (1 responses)

Have a counterexample: I've stayed very far away from Rust just because they seem very heavy-handed on policing their developers.

Who controls glibc?

Posted Jun 7, 2018 16:27 UTC (Thu) by peter-b (guest, #66996) [Link]

Yes, I agree that the Rust community moderation policy works really well at fostering a productive and friendly atmosphere.