When Enthusiasm For Free Software Turns Ugly

An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Byfield writes for Linux Magazine about the unfortunate side-effect of people being passionate about open source software: discussions about rival projects can get heated and turn ugly. "Why, for example, would I possibly to see OpenOffice humiliated? I prefer LibreOffice's releases, and — with some misgivings — the Free Software Foundation's philosophy and licensing over that of the Apache Foundation. I also question the efficiency of having two office suites so closely related to each other. Yet while exploring such issues may be news, I don't forget that, despite these differences, OpenOffice and the Apache Foundation still have the same general goals as LibreOffice or the Free Software Foundation. The same is true of other famous feuds. Why, because I have a personal preference for KDE, am I supposed to ignore GNOME's outstanding interface designs? Similarly, because I value Debian's stability and efforts at democracy, am I supposed to have a strong distaste for Ubuntu?"

Comments

Why the surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are pack animals. They need to gather according to shared traits and then see an enemy of everyone who does not fit. It happens with politics, religion, sports, cultural preferences, sexual preferences, computer platform choice and so on. The only thing going for nerd pack mentality is that slapfights and internet rage are funny. You want to get a good laugh at those losers flinging spitballs at each other over irrelevant minutiae. And then you want to twist their arms behind their backs and drown them in a toilet because they don't fit in.

Re:Why the surprise?

[gl4ss]

yeah why indeed should you have strong dislike for ubuntu when their pulseaudio shitfest resulted in rebootings and rebootings and tinkering when simply staying at a friends place and trying to listen music while partying!

*srsly, I got a dislike for ubuntu from that and what they've been doing since has not made that dislike any less.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the parent identifies a specific, articulable issue he's had with Ubuntu, and your response is flinging ad hominems at him (using poor grammar, no less) without even addressing the issue he raised, yet you're criticizing *his* attitude? Got it.

Re:Why the surprise?

[hairyfeet]

Thanks for proving the article, as he points out a specific issue with a piece of software fricking notorious for being brittle and buggy and you start throwing insults. Its because of guys like you that Linux usage has dropped soooo damned low its now listed as "other" and are still behind both Vista and Windows 8, the two most hated MSFT OSes since MSBob.

This is what happens when the users have NO WAY to influence direction, you get shit like Pulse and Systemd rammed down your throats. Metro showed that voting with your wallets does work as the users were able to force MSFT to not only get away from the "supergigantic smartphone" mentality that was ruining the desktop but even to go so far as for the first time in their history actually give away the flagship product to keep from risking Win 10 becoming another sub 5% Windows 8.

But without the power of the wallet users are helpless against corporate interests which is why even though a quite large section of the Linux userbase, from home users all the way to admins of large Linux server farms have said loud and clear SYSTEMD IS NOT WANTED and too damned buggy and brittle all they have gotten in response from the devs is this level of reply with devs even going so far as to copy verbatim Metro fanboys memes like "embrace the innovation" and "you're a luddite" and so the users have no other choice but to leave. If anybody thinks the woefully underfunded Devuan has a snowballs chance in hell with Poettering grabbing more and more shit for systemd at an ever faster pace? Then I have a bridge you may be interested in, hell even longtime apologist of all things FOSS Robert Pogson likens Poettering to Putin in that no matter what he gets he's not appeased and his ego has grown so much he's now blogging about how Torvalds is a bad role model and needs to behave and you think a practically broke group of devs is gonna be able to compete with THAT ego who is backed by Red Hat's big pile o' cash? Not happening.

With zero influence or control the users only choice is what they are doing now....leaving. I don't know how many server devs I've talked to that are leaving Linux over mission critical bugs in systemd, one long time Linux admin I talked to was royally pissed as he had a huge Linux farm and the order just came down from the top to switch it all to Server 2K12 because of systemd,while others are desperately trying to bone up on the BSD way of doing things and trying to make sure their critical apps work so they can jump ship. THIS is what happens when the users have no voice, THIS is what happens when their responses are like TFA nothing but insults and attacks, you become "other" as your share drops, the devs move to greener pastures, and your support structure withers. I hope everybody enjoys "Linux, a subdivision of Red Hat" because RH has made it clear that's the goal, make Linux a VM running atop systemd to support their cloud computing initiative, because without any measure of affecting development? You really have no choice other than "their way or the highway".

Re:Why the surprise?

[PvtVoid]

...rant...

This is either a masterful troll, or parent doesn't have the slightest sense of irony whatsoever.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Grishnakh]

Its because of guys like you that Linux usage has dropped soooo damned low its now listed as "other"

Wrong. While you're correct about your criticism of his behavior (complaining about specific problems is absolutely justified; if my car nearly got me killed because of poor design or manufacturing, I'd complain about that loudly too), that isn't why Linux usage is low. Linux usage was never high to begin with, and if it has dropped (which is probably nearly impossible to determine, since Linux users don't buy their computers pre-loaded with Linux), it's likely because of the rise of tablets. Anyway, the real reason Linux usage is so low is because of inertia and marketing. Go into any Best Buy and the computers all have Windows and MacOS, so that's what people use.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Ol Olsoc]

He writes

Thanks for proving the article,

This is what happens when the users have NO WAY to influence direction, you get shit like Pulse and Systemd rammed down your throats.

Then he does an even better job of proving it. By doing the same old thing he claims to accuse others of doing.

And it is so odd, because the last time I checked, I had a couple hundred choices: http://distrowatch.com/ or even the possibility of making my own linux distro, one so capable of "purity", that everything in it meant I put it there: http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Which is all to say, with a couple hundred choices out there, it is pretty obvious that this whole hate thing is based on a need to hate, not actual reality.

When you are done ranting here, there are some guys down at the corner gas bitching about Ford Versus Chevy. You'll fit right in.

Re:Why the surprise?

[LWATCDR]

Sorry I like all tech.
Back in the dark ages I love my C64 but the Atari was cool and I so wished I had the software base and slots of the Apple II line.
When I got my Amiga I still thought that Atari ST was cool and the Mac was interesting but out of my price range.
PCs? I own a Macbook and love OS/X. I write Windows code for a living but I also work on Linux. BSD? Also interesting.

Intel? ARM? AMD? MIPS? AVR? PIC? Yea it is all good.
So much cool stuff and so little time. Why do people need pick and be nasty when there's so much cool stuff.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Applehu Akbar]

The fundamental problem that Linux faces is the hardware platform. Two PCs are alike in the same way as two snowflakes. Accommodating these small differences is what made Windows so bloated and trouble-prone, and the same problem will at some point break any Linux version run on that platform.

Now if only some wealthy company would define one PC configuration as being its standard, with a small number of options for disk and monitor size, and then tailor a Unix to run on this specific hardware...Oh, wait--

Re:Why the surprise?

[Grishnakh]

For the average PC user the Linux desktop is a crappy experience

Bullshit. The average PC user has never even seen a Linux desktop let alone tried one. The average PC user hasn't even ever used MacOS. All they have ever seen or know is Windows.

For people that try it, Linux works great on the desktop: no viruses, no screwing around with antivirus software, no forced reboots due to updates, I could go on and on.

use a desktop that is clearly inferior to the alternatives.

How much is MS paying you for your troll posts anyway?

How a project is maintained

[jcdr]

Can make a big difference between projects. For example LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice because to much potential contributors was frustrated by the way the OpenOffice maintainers was with them in the past. The libav fork from libFFmpeg was also a way to solve different way of maintaining the project at some point in time. And I am certain that there is a lot of others examples.

There nothing wrong with this process. Better having two peaceful projects than a single one with frustration against it.

Re:How a project is maintained

[Tranzistors]

Hate between software camps is rarely fueled by the developers of the software itself. Forks might be driven by need, frustration or anything else, but once it is done, developers get on with their lives. When Canonical dumped GNOME panels (and Shell) to make unity, there was some bad blood for a month or so, Debian move to systemd was bit more brutal, but it all passed.

This is nothing compared to the hatefest that slashdot harbours. Any news remotely related to GNOME or systemd will quickly summon rabid commenters. Sure, if you agree with the haters, you will see it as a good thing (conformation bias?), but it does mean that comment section of this site is more suitable for gruesome entertainment than gaining additional information.

Case in point http://tech.slashdot.org/story..., where mildly interesting story about GNOME cash flow spawned comments that ranged form misunderstanding to misinformation to just pure fantasy. I was a bit surprised that someone from GNOME (Sri Ramkrishna) was still on /. and did try to clarify the situation, but it turned out that this was in his job description as a member of board of GNOME. This is how sick the /. community has become.

Not an Open Source issue

[houghi]

This is just human behaviour. This is like adding 'on the internet; to turn it into something new.

People have literaly killed because of their passion. This is not something new since Open Software. Not even since software or since computers. This has been going on since Kain and Abel.

People are passionate about things they care about: News at 11.

Re:Don't be mean to Lennart

[Ash-Fox]

It also doesn't mean anything. I've seen SJWs blames in the comments on almost everything including quite diametrically opposite things.

I've heard the same thing about rape, rape has been used to explain things like farts, sitting, listening to music, I guess that means 'rape' has no particular meaning any more when the follow the same logic.

So, I'd like to challenge anyone actually using the phrase to actually define what it means in a way that isn't a catch-all of "crap I hate on the internet".

I think Urban Dictionary has already a good definition.

Re:Just one note

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gnome keyring is nice for SSH keys and GPG keys is nice.

The rest of it is a direct violation of every one of Eric Raymond's guidelines in "The Luxury of Ignorance" essay about open source interfaces.

                    http://www.catb.org/esr/writin...

systemd has much of the same problem. Lots of "ooohh, shiny!!" and not much "let's make this clear to ordinary humans".