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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?"
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.
"Why, for example, would I possibly to see OpenOffice humiliated?
I don't often possibly to see.
But when I do, I ask myself why would I.
For example.
I think, if we can just be patient and take the time to learn a bit more about each other, we can—quite possibly—finally get along with one another. No more fighting. No more squabbling. No more arguing about who or what is better. We learn to coexist.
Ya know, I think we may be on to something here. Before we lose this moment, let's just jot down those thoughts quickly...in emacs.
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.
At least when it comes to forks, a lot of what decides the winner is momentum. People who don't feel strongly either way about the divide who just want to work on their non-related part of the project and will eventually switch, but not until after the fact. That is why many dysfunctional projects and organizations keep on going, you might feel that your fork is the long term better way and you're just waiting for the old project to die and wither away so you can effectively get behind one rally flag again. From your perspective it's not so much a competition as the car ahead of you swerving all over the road to keep you behind him, so you get pissed. And sometimes there is a lot of sour grapes that you stole their thunder too.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I hope Slashdot adds a filter so I can automatically hide comments that contain "SJW". At this point I'm not sure if the real benefit would be the improvement in intelligent discussion or the savings in bandwidth!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
BRIAN: Brothers! Brothers! We should be struggling together!
FRANCIS: We are! Ohh.
BRIAN: We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!
EVERYONE: The KOffice Project?!
BRIAN: No, no! Microsoft Office!
EVERYONE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
"am I supposed to ignore GNOME's outstanding interface designs?"
Uhh? What? Where's this outstanding interface design, and why haven't they told anyone about it?
Look, we're not ignoring it. They just haven't shown it to us! Please, why keep that a secret and release Gnome 3 shell instead?
Stefan Axelsson
Indeed, those who use the phrase as a pejorative essentially label themselves as angry idiots. It also doesn't mean anything. I've seen SJWs blames in the comments on almost everything including quite diametrically opposite things.
I even saw them get blamed for making sci-fi about dystopia, and that was an AC modded up to +3 insigntful so clearly some people agreed.
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".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Tribalism a.k.a. "us" versus "them" is one of the oldest and deepest-seated human instincts (chimpanzees are also very tribal, which suggests that the instinct goes back to the common ancestor of humans and chimps).
The overwhelming instinct is to choose a group to belong to and to want to see competing groups humiliated. Breaking out of this is very uncomfortable, as the effort will not be appreciated by your "tribe mates", who will consider you a traitor.
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
I think Urban Dictionary has already a good definition.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Why, for example, would I possibly to see OpenOffice humiliated?
Because it never tells you when you accidentally a word, that's why.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
...Tribalism is a thing.
If we don't have nationalism (or patriotism as it's sometimes termed) we get irate and defensive over our favorite football team, or whether we liked the Partridge Family more than the Brady Bunch.
We're chimps, that's it.
-Styopa
"Why, because I have a personal preference for KDE, am I supposed to ignore GNOME's outstanding interface designs?"
Because there is no such thing as "GNOME's outstanding interface designs". But the rest of your argument makes sense :)
about "GNOME" and "excellent interface design", aren't you?
Canonical earned their black eye in spades by giving no advance guidance to their dual-head power users while knowingly ruining the dual head experience in the service of a reconceived user interface which might or might not be all for the best in the long run.
It was their blasted refusal to honestly inform their dual head power users that the dual head power user experience would be unavailable in Ubuntu for several releases so that we could plan accordingly that caused me to set the Canonical bit in my bozo register.