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How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People
CoolVibe writes "Two Subversion developers talk at Google about how to keep pests and malcontents out of your open source projects. From the abstract: 'Every open source project runs into people who are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful. These people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. Come learn how to identify these people and peacefully de-fuse them before they derail your project. Told through a series of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences.'"
In this story, one of the links is apparent that it's to a video, since the URL is a video.google... link.
Oh, by the way, I *think* I'm one of the poisonous people they're referring to.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Seventy percent of the files in my repository are from subversion overhead. They used to even store a file called "zero" which was a zero-byte file under every svn-controlled folder. Over half the space is taken up by local copies (1.5g) even though I am on gigabit ethernet and haven't once done a 'svn revert' on the entire repository... but if I did it sure would be fast. Meanwhile the main benefit of local copies (fast diffs and status) is broken because if you edit/replace a file in 1 sec after doing an update then svn may completely ignore the changes. And yes this actually happened to me... build new binary -> svn update -> copy binary into svn tree -> svn ignores it.
It's no wonder they of all people should be giving a talk on how to deal with malcontents. Monotone may also have some problems of its own, but at least they get these things right and have a different approach. Subversion's claim to fame is that it is 'slightly better than CVS'. That makes me angry. I just wish next time they could give a talk on writing good software.
Is it really necessary to troll such a helpful forum, though?
What did they do that was helpful?
Why not troll someplace where people just flame you for not RTFMing? Those response are usually more entertaining for you, and you don't waste the time of those who are genuinely trying to help people. A regular win-win.
Oh, I've done that too. Except that I wasn't intending to troll; rather, someone made responses to me that appeared to be serious but were mind-numbingly stupid, so I rhetorically abused him before going away.
No, no link. s/n had too much identifying information.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
However, your behavior in that thread does illustrate exactly the sort of thing that drives a lot of very intelligent people away from those types of mailing lists. It's not easy trying to help people, with no compensation, when you get that kind of abuse for your trouble.
However, the design problems revealed in that thread do illustrate exactly the sort of thing that drives a lot of very intelligent people away from adopting Linux. It's not easy trying to help expand the Linux user base, with no compensation, when you get locked out of your computer and forced beg for arcane commands to re-establish access for your trouble.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
BTW - I take it you got your MBR fixed?
... believe it or not, some people don't immediately know where their Windows CD is.)
Yes, I had a family member fix it, I think by using a Live CD or a Windows CD. (No, I didn't pirate Windows
Did you ever go back to ubuntu or try any other distro?
No. Poor design is my "fingernails on a blackboard". The install setup (including instructions, download site, the HIGH RECOMMENDATION of Grub, etc.) was inexcusable, so I can't justify going back to Ubuntu until I see serious improvements. Since I found out you're supposed to have a spare box when installing a new OS, I'm going to wait until my next computer purchase to try Linux, in which case I'll probably get something from Linspire.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Where the HELL IS THE SUBVERSION CLIENT FOR LINUX?
Who are you to be giving advice on poison?
You ever try to recompile your code? Header.. Spec file.. What's that?
The issue you faced may or may not have been a design flaw,
... IS a design flaw. No "may or may not be" about it.
No, "HIGHLY RECOMMENDING" the wiping of the MBR, without informing the user of the possible consequences, and without informing the user of lower-risk alternatives, while not recommending *at all* the very tools you will need to fix it if anything goes wrong, and which you will be unable to get to if things actually do go wrong
You asked repeatedly for the logical next step, people gave you the logical next step, and you refused to take it.
It was the next logical step in the sense that "reformat and re-install" is the next logical step for any OS install failure. That "next logical step" was long, tedious, and infeasible. I had recently moved to a new city. I could not feasibly ask to borrow someone's high-speed connection and CD burner for an hour. I could not burn CDs at work. In the amount of time I would need to do that, I could easily have changed the three characters in the appropriate file that were messing it up.
You'll notice I *did* follow their advice through the command lines to get to the problem, and none of those did what they were expected to. I posted the results of these attempts (i.e., the *real* logical next step), and there were not followed up.
Even if the ultimate answer to the problem was "Ubuntu is hopelessly broken," you STILL would not have been justified in acting the way you did.
I wasn't claiming that in my response. I was claiming that the design problems revealed in that thread do illustrate exactly the sort of thing that drives a lot of very intelligent people away from adopting Linux, and that it's not easy trying to help expand the Linux user base, with no compensation, when you get locked out of your computer and forced beg for arcane commands to re-establish access for your trouble.
Even if you were paying for the support, that sort of abuse is unnecessary and usually (and definitely in this case) counter-productive.
Debatable. It was a wake-up call to anyone seriously confused as to why more people don't use it.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Which makes it almost ironic that: (Linspire To Switch To Kubuntu)
Well, I have to ascertain whether *all* Linux distros are built around poor design, or whether it was just an Ubuntu thing. The evidence leads to the former.
GRUB had an issue during your installation - which is unfortunate but possible with any software
Hundredth time: yes, that is possible with any software. But it's also possible that you can avoid unnecessary risks. You can, for example, not recommend wiping the MBR. You can have it boot from a separate drive. You can "HIGHLY RECOMMEND" the troubleshooting tools (here, the Live CD). And so on. My complaint is not that it failed, which is understandable, but that there was no backup mechanism whatsoever that the instructions said to use and that this failure locked me out entirely, making me far worse off than if I had never heard of Linux.
Personally, I always have at least one drive lying around with a full OS installed on it that I can throw in as 0 whenever I need an alternative boot.
Yeah, I had that too until Ubuntu HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that I wipe the MBR. I had it installed on a tertiary hard drive. It could have left the main one alone, but then -- that would have too much fault tolerance, wouldn't it?
You've hit a snag with moving OS, you've survived; learn from what happened and move on.
Am I not already doing that? I learned that Ubuntu would not recognize basic design principles it they bit it on the nose. Have I not predicated later actions on that knowledge?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Asshat.
It's a pity he's a hormone disaster because HE GETS LAID EVERY NIGHT WITH HIS WIFE and can CODE WITH ONE HAND WHILE DOING IT. Maybe he dumps too much hormone into the lady, that she now looks like the ol' Eric we once loved while the true Eric became to look like the lady he married.
Is the true Eric suck his nuts and sack upinto the abdomen attic, and his wife's ovaries descended with Finger #11?
Anyways. What are your accomplishments, Mr. Peabody.
Okay, I think I've built up enough upmods to post to this story again.
/exact/ same issues with WinNT, Win2k, WinXP and a handful of Linux distros.
:-P )
Each to their own, but it was GRUB that failed, not Ubuntu. I do understand that Ubuntu installed GRUB, but GRUB isn't Ubuntu.
Do you understand the thirty times I explained that the Grub failure is not what bothers me, but the software design surrounding it? I understand if Grub fails. I do not understand if the forums expect me to use troubleshooting tools that were never recommended to have ready before beginning the install. I do not understand the extreme negative consequences are not warned of, for Grub. I do not understand HIGHLY RECOMMENDING the wiping of the MBR when you can install on a separate drive with far less risk.
Objectively: I've had the
Once the MS boot loader is dead
Not objective. The difference is that Ubuntu is desperate for a user base, Windows is not. Sad, but true.
The point is, the boot loader has to be on the booting drive (primary master, normally). So if you left it in, in order for the new OS to be an option on boot (which most people installing would automatically want), it has to edit the MBR on the primary disc.
And what happens if you leave it out? It finds a different drive to boot from. And it can use the MBR on that drive. I could have set the Linux OS to load whenever the tertiary hard drive is booted from.
1) Turn on computer.
2) Hit F8.
3) Select tertiary hard drive.
4) Avoid losing week of computer usage and driving 200 miles to fix problem when Grub fails.
Or I could have it set so that selecting a CD drive loads the Linux OS.
Remember, Grub does not load until after I tell the computer which drive to boot from. How did I get back into the install screen, again?
The lessons you should have learnt from your experience is that a) leaving your only other bootable harddrive in when testing a new OS is a Bad ThingTM and that b) always having a bootable disc (CD, floppy, USB, whatever) available when messing with the part that makes your computer works is a Good ThingTM.
No, the lesson I got from this is:
"The Ubuntu website, if it were really intending to be an OS for all, utterly failed in basic design by not HIGHLY RECOMMENDING that you have a LiveCD or your original OS install CD ready when you try to install. If it can't even get that part right, it's hopeless."
And again -- I do accept personal responsibility for being stupid enough to believe the crap on the Ubuntu site. But what does that mean, exactly? It means responsible people should know better than to do what the Ubuntu website says.
I'm not trying to preach to you, or call you an idiot;
I wish the same were true in reverse. (Sorry, you set yourself up for that one
I've seen you post this thread around a few times, though, and I get the impression you're overly-passionate about the issue and need to realise that these things happen.
Again, my over-passion is due to my revulsion at poor design, and it wasn't the bad event that bothers me, but failure of the design to adequately mitigate it.
If your goal, however, is to promote caution and improved warnings for people trying out Linux for the first time, then I commend you.
Improved warnings, yes. Improved caution, no. Remember, I had boatloads of caution. Why do you think I set aside a large block of time for the install in case something went wrong? Why did I buy a new HD for it? Why did I research user-friendliness of distros? Why did I do EVERYTHING that was HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and nothing that wasn't?
Because I was cautious. That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee, but it won't do **** if you're not already an Ubuntu expert who knows to do all the stuff that the download site doesn't mention.
But ask yourself: is this really a matter of "oops, f
Apology to Ubuntu forum.