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Who controls glibc?
- loeg 9y agoLWN covers the topic: "Who controls glibc?"[0] (accessible to non-subscribers in two weeks). [0]: https://lwn.net/Articles/753646/ https://lwn.net/Articles/753646/
- _wmd 9y agosubscriber link via lobste.rs: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/753646/c869537af7d612a6/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/753646/c869537af7d612a6/
- loeg 9y agoObligatory if you find LWN valuable (check out their backcatalog of weekly issues), consider subscribing! (I do.)
- _wmd 9y agoAnnoyingly since they moved to the continuous publishing model I'm disincentivized to subscribe, as I haven't the discipline to defer reading until Thursdays, and so I can't continue enjoying LWN like I had for the previous decade -- half an hour or more of uninterrupted high quality reading guaranteed once a week If I don't renew my subscription on the other hand, I get a week-old weekly edition just like I want. My subscription lapsed for a few months recently, and honestly the experience was better. It's infuriating!
- wyldfire 9y agoWhat an unexpected schism! > "As the head of the GNU Project, I am in charge of what we publish in GNU manuals. I decide the criteria to decide by, too" Interesting. Sounds decidedly authoritarian to cite (sole?) control of the content and criteria. > "I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are entirely autonomous." That sounds puzzling. "It turns out my rank actually supersedes yours and always has, I've just never exercised it until now." In general I've always thought that Stallman is to be admired. He's made a fantastic contribution to society. I don't really have a position on the issue at the heart of this manpage content debate, but on the meta-issue of what his role is/should be, his position seems like an odd one. Ultimately, the copyright holders for the source code (and to some extent the manuals) have the real power regarding "who controls glibc?". I suspect that no one will care strongly enough about this particular issue in order to drive a real fork.
- LinuxBender 9y agoI know of one distro that uses muslc [0] vs. glibc and they have a wrapper that allows most build tools to work (mostly) as expected. Are there any other options? [0] - https://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html https://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html
- wyldfire 9y agoFor open source libc? musl, glibc, dietlibc, bionic are the only I know of. The supported targets vary widely among these, though.
- earenndil 9y agoThere is the freebsd libc; they run their own.
- rurban 9y agoWhich is in fact the most used, and arguably technically superior to glibc. freebsd -> darwin, openbsd, netbsd and dragonfly bsd. openbsd and netbsd like to add their own stuff on top of it also. The Open Watcom libc and bionic are also superior. bionic is getting better and better recently. musl is in some parts better, in some parts worse. Same for Embarcadero C++ libc. Worse than glibc are only: the two MS libc's, msvcrt and ulibc (which is getting on par), the wine libc, newlib (arguably with dietlibc the worst), uClibc, minilibc.
- earenndil 9y ago> Worse than glibc are only [lists as many libcs as are better than it] Perhaps glibc isn't that bad...
- rurban 9y agoOh it is. I've listed more quirks here, from the testsuite I've written for all libc's. https://rurban.github.io/safeclib/doc/safec-3.3/d1/dae/md_doc_libc-overview.html https://rurban.github.io/safeclib/doc/safec-3.3/d1/dae/md_do...
- djsumdog 9y agoI am one of those people who subscribe to some of Stallman's crazier ideas, and one of those people who thinks trigger warnings are often misused[1]. That being said, I am really for professionalism in code and documentation. This might have been a fun joke for a pet project at one point in time, but I totally agree it should be removed. I really feel like Stallman is lacking some serious maturity here as well. It nothing to even do with being offended about the joke, it's just a basic idea of professionalism around documentation. It'd be different if the joke was in a comment, or even in a tutorial on how to use a library (if it wasn't an official tutorial or was intended to have a humorous tone). To be clear, I don't even like the stupid "Apt has super cow powers" at the bottom of apt-get. If you want to make jokes, put them in your blog, or your YouTube screencast, or at most in the comments. [1]: Trigger warnings came from the idea of post traumatic stress. But you don't know what can trigger memories of trauma. A rainbow could invoke a PTSD episode for someone who associates that with a loved one that was killed. I think a better approach is the old TV saying, "Viewer/Listener discretion is advised" if something might be offensive.
- djur 9y agoI don't see the difference between "viewer discretion is advised" and trigger warnings. "This show contains scenes of domestic violence, viewer discretion is advised" and "Trigger warning: domestic violence" are just different ways of saying the same thing. A lot of people are using "content warning" or "content advisory" these days anyway, partially to avoid the impression that it's strictly about PTSD.
- ww520 9y agoActually it has nothing to do with joke or professionalism, it's pure political power play through and through.
- modbait 9y agoRMS has been arguing for technical freedom for decades. Ironically, all the technical freedom in the world won't save us from political correctness.
- SEJeff 9y agoEmail thread: https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html That gets a bit whacky when RMS asserts control over glibc as the GNU project maintainer and asks them to add it back: https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00149.html https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2018-05/msg00149.html
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThe email thread is far more interesting/informative. I would argue it would be a better link for the main headline.
- SEJeff 9y agoHN won't let me edit the URL. I guess only a mod can do that. @dang, can you do the honors sir^
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bagels 9y agoI disagree. Neither one of those links actually show the 'joke' that was removed.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt's described in the thread a few posts in I believe, but I also don't think the text of the joke is the point. The LWN article linked elsewhere in this thread probably better highlights the real issue: That RMS has made an authoritarian demand that his joke remain in the manual despite most everyone who maintains glibc opposing that.
- xxpor 9y agoIs there a mirror somewhere? Sourceware seems to be getting HN'd
- adamwong246 9y agoI don't get it
- laken 9y agoIf additional context is needed: this was in the documentation for the `abort()` function
- xur17 9y agoI think this is it [0]? Has it been changed since this discussion, or was it not removed? I honestly don't get the joke. [0] https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Aborting-a-Program.html https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Aborting-...
- loeg 9y agoThat's it. It's a stupid joke.
- peterwwillis 9y agoExactly! That is literally the best reason to remove it and nobody is talking about how lame this joke is. It's not even like a European wrote it and so an awkward translation makes it land weird. It's just stupid.
- laken 9y agoIt was reverted earlier after RMS saw the commit, and added himself to the email chain. RMS said that as the leader of the GNU Project, he gets the final say, and said to the maintainers that they are under him. One of the maintainers then reverted the commit. To explain the 'joke': In the box at the bottom of that page, it's basically RMS saying that if the government outlaws abortion, they'll have to not give any information on the `abort()` function, and instead say it's not an "acceptable way of terminating a program" (or rather, "acceptable way of terminating a pregnancy")
- LeoPanthera 9y agoCalling it an "abortion joke" is a politicized headline. It's a political/protest joke, maybe. Either way, the glibc documentation is not the ideal place for it.
- MBCook 9y agoIt’s a political joke. About abortion. Seems fitting enough.
- jonhendry18 9y agoIt's a political joke. About free speech. About abortion.
- Buge 9y agoIt kind of stretches the definition of free speech. Your speech would only be limited if you're taking US government funding. Is glibc taking US government funding? You could similarly say that 501c3 tax code is a limit of free speech because if you take tax deducted money, you cannot make political speech.
- jonhendry18 8y agoThe abortion gag seems a bit different to me, because it could limit what a doctor could say to a patient, even if for medical reasons the patient actually needs an abortion.
- slededit 9y agoI don't really get this "joke" but man do I hate the trend of removing any personality from code. Programming used to be FUN and a way to express yourself. Easter eggs exemplified this. Now its cold and business only.
- GW150914 9y agoEveryone who decided they’d rather have a giant paycheck than have fun made it happen. This site is full of people who make and made that choice, who chase VC money, and consequently have little right to complain about how corporate their working lives are.
- slededit 9y agoMoney has always been around, but even "corporate" was not nearly as stifling. 90s era Microsoft code is quite colorful - as I'm sure it would have been at most other companies of the era.
- quotemstr 9y agoEven today, the Windows source code contains quite a few long, narrative comments that are both historically educational and entertaining to read.
- slededit 9y agoShortly before I left someone on the coding standards committee espoused the idea that good code was code where you couldn't tell who wrote it. I feel as though the last vestiges of the BillG era died that day.
- quotemstr 9y agoI've never liked style committees. I've never seen one do anything to actually improve code comprehension, but I've seen plenty of bullshit that kills velocity and sucks all the joy out of programming.
- supergirl 9y agoit's a cringey joke but the PC police trying to convince RMS to remove it is equally cringey. with this trend soon we won't allow ourselves to say anything because words lead to feelings and we can't have that, for some reason.
- lsh 9y agoTo call it a joke is a bit of a stretch, more like a turn of phrase or wink to the reader. As far as explicitly inserting one's politics into communal tools, this case is so mild it's hard to fathom any grounded person wasting time on it. However, there is a case at the moment of the author of the BFG tool for git adding a paragraph of text about fighting trump at the end of his tool's output. He won't get rid of it until he's out of office. Another case where Atlassian was putting in LGBT rainbow stuff into the output of a successful push. Really obnoxious stuff. I don't mind devs having a personality but develop a sense of decorum. As weak as the RMS line was, best keep any snifter of politics out of your tools. It's just lame at the end of the day.
- RIMR 9y agoOr, if you're going to be subtly political (as GNU often is), at least be current. That joke was 20-something years old. It ran its course. Also, as far as calling LGBT rainbows "political", I would have to disagree. You either view LBGT people as equal, or you can be a hateful person. There's no good reason to pander to the latter, but plenty of reasons to stand up in unity with the former. There are some concepts that need to be aggressively viewed as truths rather than opinions. The civil rights movement was won by people standing up and putting their own enrichment aside to say "You are wrong and we stand up in unity with the people you view as subhuman". No reason to shame anyone from doing that again today.
- dragonwriter 9y agoIt's kinda evergreen, as the global gag rule is, to notable controversy, retracted or reinstated with each change in Presidential party since Reagan, most recently reinstated last year by the Trump Administration. Of course, it's still inappropriate for glibc docs.
- smsm42 9y agoWhat's the global gag rule you are referring to?
- andmarios 9y agoI am with RMS on this one. It is not an abortion joke, it is a censorship joke. He doesn't take a stance on abortion (a sensitive matter) but on whether they (FSF or a foreign NGO for example) are allowed to talk about abortion.
- lsh 9y agoConversation about the "old joke" that was removed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017037
- zeth___ 9y agoFork if you don't like it. That's the whole point of free software. Edit: I find it disturbing that so many people want to erase hacker culture from the internet. Consensus is a Bay Area idea, one that came quite late to the world of computers, and one that many of us disagree with.
- MBCook 9y agoThat’s the really odd thing in this situation. The maintainers all seem to want to remove it, and the project governance says the maintainers are supposed to decide based on the quorum. RMS just over ruled that. Because it was his joke and he felt like it. Which seems like it goes against the whole “community“ thing.
- zeth___ 9y agoIf you read the waiver you have to sign before contributing anything to the fsf you surrender all your copyrights to them. This is so they can keep moving software into newer GPL versions. The maintainers are just mechanics working on someone else's car and have as much say in choosing the interior decor. The beauty of the system is that if they get sick of that state of affairs they get an identical copy of the car for free and can then do whatever they want to it.
- josefx 9y ago>This is so they can keep moving software into newer GPL versions. That is already an optional part of the GPL itself afaik.
- gpm 9y agoThe maintainers don't own the project though, GNU (RMS) does. If the maintainers want to control the project they are maintaining it does seem that they need to fork it and continue under a new name. (Or at least that's what I got from this thread. Certainly it's possible that GNU/RMS/Whoever originally had rights has passed those rights to the maintainers, but it doesn't happen simply by virtue of them maintaining it.)
- 9y ago
- bitwize 9y agoGiven his penchant for offensive, inappropriate humor, and how little tolerance the modern FOSS community has for such in the prevailing political atmosphere, this is not a hill RMS wants to die on. Save the rank pulls for something really important, Richard.
- zeth___ 9y agoIf Stallman cared for what hill the mainstream thought he should die on he'd still be hacking lisp/emacs at MIT. Him being completely irrational about pet causes is the reason why we have an opensource community today. I trust him a whole lot more than anyone else in FOSS, including all the glibc developers put together.
- jimmies 9y ago>in FOSS He isn't "in FOSS" though. I used the word FOSS with him once and he said I shouldn't use it, lol. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#FOSS https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#FOSS
- geofft 9y agoIt is a little interesting to me that the joke in question is making fun of a US-right-wing political position, so the fact that it's clear to everyone that this atmosphere disagrees with the joke would seem to remove some credence from the "FOSS is turning into a liberal echo chamber" argument that's been getting popular. There is a political shift / push happening, but "liberal echo chamber" isn't it.
- RIMR 9y agoI wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the consensus is that the joke is disagreeable, but that it is not an appropriate joke for the documentation. I am a staunchly pro-choice, but this joke is out-of-date and out-of-place. I would personally vote for it to go. I really don't want to see the political divide fragment the GNU/Linux community because people are determined to inject their opinions into code. If you run a small repo and the development community agrees with political interjections in the software, then go for it. If the community doesn't like it, they can fork it. But maybe, if the both the developers and the users of a major piece of software found on hundreds of millions of machines think your political joke should go, that's just not a hill worth dying on...
- thsowers 9y agoWhile RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community, he seems to undermine some of his core points with trivial matters. For example, his piece "Reasons not to use Facebook"[0] contains some great points, but I find them undermined by the unnecessary usage of the word "useds" Similarly, this seems like an extremely trival case to "exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely" as he puts it. [0]: https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html
- drb91 9y agoI'm not sure I follow. What's wrong with his term? Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing, in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all. So you just don't like the term. This is fine! But you've failed to make any point.
- Jasper_ 9y agoWriting an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling.
- drb91 9y ago> Writing an essay to persuade someone means talking to them on their terms. If you start off with the "Micro$oft"s and the "Windoze"s you're going to lose the people you want to reach, especially when it reeks of childish namecalling. I can't say I'm mourning the loss of people who think it's childish, or that it's a bad thing--at most it's a silly distraction. If you care, why don't you rewrite his stuff to be more friendly? I'm gonna go ahead and guess he licenses his content liberally. I gotta say, his essays don't come across as intending to be generally persuasive, and I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion. His audience is fundamentally one that self-selects to think for themselves, and his diction is one way of achieving that. What you are suggesting is making a non-compromising person into a compromising person, which we have far too many of already.
- briandear 9y agoMaybe I just don’t have the sophistication to “get” it, but what the heck is this all about. At first glance this just seems like something childish. Someone educate me.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- NeoBasilisk 9y agoI believe it is in reference to the US government's (or possibly some states') policies concerning abortions.
- tzs 9y agoSpecifically it probably refers to the "Mexico City policy", which is a US government rule that has been in effect under Republican presidents and rescinded under Democratic presidents going back to Reagan. For most of its existence, it basically said that no foreign NGO could receive US funding for family planning if that NGO performed or promoted abortion for family planning. President Trump has expanded it to say that no foreign NGO can receive any US global health assistance if it performs or promotes abortions. Providing accurate medical information about abortion is interpreted by some as falling under the Mexico City policy.
- jrochkind1 9y agoyou are missing nothing.
- nxc18 9y agoIt's juicy gossip about RMS with sprinklings of information about how the glibc org works and how that fits into the bigger open source picture. Some people are into gossip and accept it, other people are into gossip and deny it. I've met very few people who don't love gossip, especially high-quality gossip like this. (Note: I'm sure there are many exceptions, but as a generalization, this one's about as good as they get)
- 9y ago
- jacquesm 9y agoHilarious that they would censor the lines that refer to censorship and miss that entirely.
- caio1982 9y agoAt the same time I think the change was overzealousness and that still it's a fair debate to have and why not remove it if they eventually reach consensus (as per their own official definition of consensus [linked somewhere in those e-mails])? It's only to show glibc still have governance problems after the Ulrich Drepper era, it has nothing to do with abort() and its possible meanings in a manual.
- komali2 9y ago>Stallman, however, replied that "a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space'". He suggested the possibility of adding a trigger warning about functions that create child processes, since childbirth is "far more traumatic than having an abortion" "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." -Michael Scott
- zeth___ 9y agoRMS is pro voluntary pedophilia: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-aug.html#05%20Jun... If you don't know what libertarian means you're going to have a bad time trying to apply liberal labels to people who were around the internet before tumblr.
- komali2 9y agoWonder why the above is being downvoted... verbatim from Stallman's website: >I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. I guess context is needed here. Does he mean... like.. 16 year olds? Younger? Having sexual encounters with someone from their school that happens to be 18, or older adults?
- zeth___ 9y ago>Wonder why the above is being downvoted I have fans that follow me around the internet and downvote everything I say. In this account I'm smart enough to not reveal any true personal information so I can't get doxxed again. But to answer your question: he means anyone with the ability to speak. It is pretty shocking to the current generation of techies what was considered mainstream in the 70s [0], wherein every important French left wing intellectual of the period signed in support. >Such a long time in remand to investigate a simple `vice’ affair, where the children have not been victims of the slightest violence, but have to the contrary testified before the examining magistrates that they consented — although the law at present denies them their right to consent — such a long time in remand we do consider scandalous in itself. Today they risk to be sentenced to a long prison term either for having had sexual relations with minors, boys as well as girls, or for having encouraged and taken photographs of their sexual plays. We believe that there is an incongruity between the designation as a `crime’ which serves to legitimize such a severity, and the facts themselves; even more so between the antiquated law and the reality of every day life in a society which tends to know about the sexuality of children and adolescents [0] https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/00aug29b1_from_1977.htm https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/00aug29b1_from_1977.ht...
- DannyBee 9y agoToday we discover why EGCS required a way to appeal Stallman decisions as a condition of reunification
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt is sometimes a bit stunning to me that people look up to someone who is constantly willing to place his own opinion (and in this case, his own sense of humor) above everyone else. Perhaps RMS is the original real world House M.D., but I don't really think so. IMHO, if he places his own joke over the views of all of the developers doing the actual work on glibc, those developers should leave/fork. If RMS was, indeed, right, then GNU's version will win.
- bjt2n3904 9y agoNever been a big fan of the "Code of Conduct" wars that seem to be going on. On the surface, yeah, it seems great. Everyone be nice and get along. But for some odd reason, the enforcement always tends to favor one side. Case in point, the pointless NodeJS TSC drama [1] from yesteryear. I don't like JS to begin with, but that makes me want to avoid the project like the plague. The problem with letting thin skinned people decide what you can and can't say, is they have a very long (and often contradictory) list. Suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a kangaroo court facing charges of high treason, guilty until proven innocent. The sentence? Public crucifixion. Stallman made the right call. https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_violations_by_nodejs_board_member/ https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_v...
- geofft 9y agoOne, there was no public crucifixion here, no court, no treason, even as an analogy. Had Stallman not replied on the list to insist on his own personal veto over glibc changes, the project would have moved on, nobody would have asked about whether that veto makes sense, and if he showed up on some technical thing two months later people would have absolutely listened to him with extra weight. And even so, nobody is questioning him as a person, nor attempting to care about what he says or police his project participation based on his views - multiple people in favor of the removal have quite clearly said that he can say what he likes on stallman.org and nobody cares. They're just questioning his veto. Two, what is the "one side" being favored here? It's not aligned on political axes - Stallman is a left-leaning person making fun of a right-wing policy, which is the opposite of many accusations I hear about codes of conduct. If it is aligned in favor of the consensus of the active maintainers of a project and against individuals, no matter how important, that seems like a very good thing that projects should be aligned on. Three, I don't know what "thin-skinned" means here. I'd call the project maintainers who are holding to a consensus decision in the face of threats by their own project leader thick-skinned, and the man who can't admit that his irrelevant, unfunny joke from 25 years ago is irrelevant and unfunny thin-skinned.
- bjt2n3904 9y ago> there was no public crucifixion here, no court, no treason Yes, you're correct. In this instance, there was no crucifixion, because the CoC/inclusivity crowd didn't have enough political capital. See the NodeJS TSC drama I referenced. That's the "one side" being favored. That's the end result of pandering to people who take offense at the drop of the hat. This is simply Stallman refusing to concede to the notion that everything must be unoffensive.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- coliveira 9y agoStallman is completely right. A patch that removes jokes is not making any technical contribution, it is just trying to deface a political instance taken the authors of the code. This is the opposite of contributing.
- _sdegutis 9y agoRegardless of whether he has the right to veto the consensus vote to remove the joke, by ignoring the general attitude that it’s not in good taste, he’s alienating everyone. That’s not a good position to put himself in, and I wonder if he’ll soon find himself the head of a dead project while a forked one lives in in his spirit but without his name.
- noobermin 9y agoThis[0] is relevant. He's possibly alienating only a group of vocal people. It isn't clear form the article that it's the consensus more than it is the consensus of people in an email thread. After clicking around the mailing list, it looks more like what [0] suggests than it being a clear majority of contributors to glibc. That said, alienating anyone could be problematic. [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/753720/ https://lwn.net/Articles/753720/
- olliej 9y agoThat group being the maintainers?
- noobermin 9y agoI'll admit I'm not big into the who's who behind glibc, but I saw 4 or so people speak against it. Are those 4 the only main maintainers of glibc? Do you know?
- adrianratnapala 9y ago> That said, alienating anyone could be problematic. Heckler's vetoes are also bad for the public.
- dragonwriter 9y agoIt doesn't seem to be about good taste, but the purpose of technical documentation. And, further, about project governance.
- madrox 9y ago
- matthewbauer 9y agoSo what annoys me about this discussion is that both sides are not being very honest. Calling it an "abortion joke" is to me highly misleading. It's an "abortion law joke" & has nothing to do with the procedure of abortion! The people arguing against it seem to be implying its much more inappropriate than it is. Anyway, no where in the article is the actual "joke" mentioned. So I'd like to include it here just so people can judge for themselves. "Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program."
- Jasper_ 9y agoAs someone that was not aware of the gag rule before the mailing list thread brought it up, I thought it was an abortion joke, especially with the "we would be required to say this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program". It is in the man page for abort(). The context clues are there, but the wrong ones. So, on that level, it fails as a joke: if you aren't aware of the policy it's trying to criticize and make people aware of, it reads like a clunky abortion joke, and one that isn't very funny.
- matthewbauer 9y agoYes, it's vague enough that you can probably find what you want in it. For that reason alone, there probably is a legitimate case to remove it. I think it's interesting how one's background can affect this too. I think everyone agrees that GNU & FSF are left-wing projects but where the "left" falls on different issues depends on where you're from. For RMS & most American lefties, "freedom" includes things like abortion rights. I think in other countries like Latin America & Catholic Europe the "left" generally favors restrictions on abortion. Lots of people that have become involved in the free software movement recently are from Latin America & RMS probably doesn't pick up on what his core audience believes on these things.
- iajrz 9y agoI don't know why you say the left in Latin America favors restrictions on abortion. I am a Latin American and can say it's just not so - at least in the countries I know, the left is usually pushing for more sex ed, and more availability of abortion. It'd be interesting to know _where_ in Latin America the left favors the restrictions on abortion - at least to document that perspective and share it around.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- motohagiography 9y agoThe discussion is a proxy for how executive decisions are made for glibc, and in particular by whom. The merit of a stale joke from the 90s is meaningless, and posturing about its appropriateness is disingenuous. Open source principals have always been eccentric (Torvalds, Raymond(!), etc.), and the FOSS community tolerated it not only because of their technical contributions, but because the open source community itself is an expression of tolerance based on shared objectives. Of course others would like to wield their influence in the generation of the DNA of the internet, and there is a tremendous amount to be gained by scandalizing, discrediting, and isolating its core maintainers. Perhaps eventually RMS will come around and remove the joke himself, after finding it does not stand the test of time. But it would go a long way to resolving this if they could demonstrate they aren't just using the joke as a pretext for scandal to undermine the decision making structure of a project. It's clearly not about the joke.
- geofft 9y agoThis seems to ascribe a high amount of ill will to glibc maintainers who have been faithful and productive GNU maintainers for many years, and I don't believe there's any other evidence that they wish to undermine RMS' authority. However, if those maintainers find that their faithfulness is rewarded by being told that they don't actually maintain the project, they're just tending it while RMS is busy, it seems entirely reasonable to me that they would become upset at RMS trying to undermine the decision-making structure of glibc. The principals here, the people making the technical contributions, are the glibc maintainers.
- motohagiography 9y agoExcept that perhaps RMS's approval and veto are no longer legitimate? It's not ascribing ill will at all. They've stumbled on a canary or a "brown M&M," where regardless of how good they think they are, they've transgressed a boundary of the implicit agreement of who has final say. They would have to be good and faithful to have contributions approved to glibc, so I would argue that's not the point. As the principals age, the question of succession and governance in key open source projects will become more explicit. Seems they walked into this one.
- ezoe 9y agoI agree with RMS on this one too. Another reason not to set foot on US soil for I cannot trust the US law at all.
- erik_seaberg 9y agoThis particular policy is only in effect outside the US.
- rdiddly 9y agoI could get behind keeping the joke in there, if it were actually funny. I object to it on grounds of joke-craftsmanship and economy. It wastes space being insufficiently funny. And by the way, it's not unfunny because it's about abortion; abortion, death, Nazis, murder, child molestation and other taboo topics are precisely the things we should laugh at. (If possible. Obviously don't do it around someone recently traumatized. But laughter is how humans cope and heal, so if you can laugh you know you've got whatever-it-is licked.) As for Stallman's supposed authority: Anyone who believes in acquiescing to the wishes of a central authority obviously hasn't been listening to Richard Stallman.
- Zopieux 9y agoI like the fact this joke is 100% US-centric and this alone never came forward as a reasonable argument for its removal. Glibc is used worldwide, people outside the US (they exist!) would have no clue what this joke is about: civilized countries do not have this terrible gag rule.
- tptacek 9y agoThe US doesn't have this gag rule either; I think pretty much everyone is scratching their heads about what it is RMS is on about here.
- favorited 9y agoIt is, in fact, a US policy[0]. Proponents call it the "Mexico City policy," and opponents usually refer to it as the "Global Gag Rule." It tends to be rescinded whenever a Democrat is elected President, then reinstated whenever a Republican is elected. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy
- badrabbit 9y agoRms was in the clear wrong. This is a professional setting,that joke wasn't professional. If you wouldn't say it at a work meeting then it's probably not a good idea to say the same in a commit or a serious thread of a foss project. Although I don't like the joke,it's not so much the content of the joke but rather where the joke was spoken that seemed inappropriate. I am not offended. much like a coworker coming to work topless in shorts won't offend me;I'd just think that attire is best for outdoors or the beach instead of an office.
- eesmith 9y agoI have tried, but failed, to understand what "wasn't professional" means. As far as I can tell, it is a synonym for "doesn't upset the status quo." Clearly there are work meetings where this sort of joke/commentary would be voiced. For example, the writers' room at the various satirical news shows. There are, after all, professional comedians, including those which work blue. I've heard people say that children in the workplace isn't professional. Then I think about professional teachers and pediatricians who have children at a workplace. As a child I sometimes went with my father to his job. I don't think he was considered unprofessional for that. I've heard people say that drinking alcohol on the job isn't professional, and that one should follow a dress code. Then I see people on the job at a conference, drinking, and at one Python conference dressed up in unicorn costume. It's therefore very context dependent, which is why I don't think "professional" is a useful way to think about the topic. FWIW, I had a co-worker who was topless in shorts at the office. We were coming back from lunch in a downpour one summer. He wasn't prepared for it, his shirt was sopping wet, and keeping it on was a problem in the A/C'ed room. Having his shirt off wasn't a problem, and he wasn't considered unprofessional for doing so. That's because it didn't upset the status quo.
- badrabbit 9y agoYou have to consider who your coworkers are. It's all about being considerate of the other people that work alongside you. In a small group everyone might know each other well enough to make that sort of a joke. But when your coworkers could be literally anyone, from a guy in his undies coding as a hobby to someone at a fortune 100 working in a cubicle farm sporting a tuxedo. It seems like the goal is to not offend anyone because that exactly is the goal -- anyone can work on it. There is no way to get to know every participant of a large foss project on a personal level so much so that you understand what jokes they find acceptable or not. So, simply don't make comment irrelevant to the work at hand. Some foss groups specifically dedicate mailing lists and chat rooms for the purpose of socializing where similar jokes and possibly offensive content might be tolerated. When it comes to commits,dev lists,posts or threads it isn't professional to insert irrelevant commentary (at least for a public foss project,one can always have their own company culture and rules for intra-company or private projects)
- davexunit 9y agoRMS needs to be removed from his dictator position in GNU. This is just one of many times that he has hurt a GNU project. He has held many projects back because he is so behind the times and stubborn, not to mention holding the FSF back. This behavior isn't limited to mailing lists, either. He breaks LibrePlanet conference rules every year to interject and rant during talks he disagrees with. I appreciate him for founding the free software movement and writing so much great software in the early days, but it's no longer the RMS show.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoBasically, he started a political project that produces software furthering his political views. You like the software, but dislike the politics, so you want to take the software and get rid of politics. The more I read the views like that, the more I understand GNU's insistence on GPL and copyright sign-offs for contributions. For instance, GPL's whole point is to prevent you from taking the software and removing the politics.
- davexunit 9y agoI like the software and the politics. I have completed FSF copyright assignment paperwork. I contribute to GNU projects. I worked for the FSF. But RMS is toxic to both GNU and the FSF at this point.
- jboynyc 9y agoWhen "the politics" has become an ego show, there's sadly not much of a political project left...
- zeveb 9y ago> Basically, he started a political project that produces software furthering his political views. A political software project that produces software furthering his political views about software. > You like the software, but dislike the politics I like the software & the software politics. rms's opinion on other political matters is irrelevant to the FSF or GNU. I find some of his non-software political views spot-on, and others completely abhorrent. I have no problem supporting the FSF if it limits itself to its remit; I cannot support it if it exceeds it and ventures into other territory.
- tptacek 9y agoLots of people seem to be rooting around like truffle hogs looking for the partisan politics embedded in this story, but you won't find any. The conflict happening here is between maintainers, who don't want a dated left-leaning joke embedded in the glibc documentation, and Stallman, who does. If there's "political correctness" involved, it's right-leaning. But, as a left-leaning pro-choice person: there's no "political correctness" here at all. It's a story because Stallman has played the "I'm the boss, you can't outvote me" card, not because anyone's in a tizzy over the politics.
- jsmthrowaway 9y agoI’m much more concerned about him playing the “childbirth is far more traumatic than having an abortion” card in the discussion about the patch. Until this moment, I wasn’t even aware that was a card. It’s difficult to fathom the logic that would arrive at that statement making sense to someone typing it, particularly a person who will never experience the situations upon which he’s speaking conclusively. You’re right, the conflict is elsewhere. However, something about Richard Stallman making that statement, which marginalizes the intense conflict women often feel over intentional abortion in their own lives, not to mention traumatic abortions brought on by rape or medical issues, really speaks to a yawning gap existing between him and empathy for other people. It seems to imply that he thinks women leveraging their right to choose are pleased or joyful that they can do so, and this distantly makes the joke worth keeping. He might be pro-choice, and keen to defend it, but the way he defends it models an entire cadre of people who look up to him. He’s speaking from a position with multiple layers of privilege, on account of his stature, race, and gender, and basically saying “abortion, no biggie, right?” How does that help us recruit women in tech? Did my nose find it, or do we care more about who maintains a C runtime? Immediate future prediction: -4 on this comment, a disengaging reply from you, a barrage of comments below me lining up to defend Stallman (likely calling him Dr. Stallman) or tell me I’m misinterpreting a direct quote and/or its context, and I sign out again and return to dormancy and lament this community’s symptomatic demonstration of this industry’s faults: it’s about who runs glibc! That matters! Ignore everything else, it’s a tizzy! Just look at the top thread. Not an abortion joke, an abortion law joke. That makes it all better. Edit: Oh good, we are on to the apt-get cow.
- madrox 9y agoThe craziest thing to me about this, from reading the comments, is people are on wildly different sides of this, yet no side thinks this is a big deal.
- utahcon 9y agoIt's a comment that doesn't actually lend any knowledge on the issue. Striking it makes the documentation clearer to the end user. Seems like it's time to fork the repo.
- chris_wot 9y agoThough I can’t stand Ulrich Drepper, what he said in the glibc 2.2.4 release notes is true: “The morale of this is that people will hopefully realize what a control freak and raging manic Stallman is. Don't trust him. As soon as something isn't in line with his view he'll stab you in the back. NEVER voluntarily put a project you work on under the GNU umbrella since this means in Stallman's opinion that he has the right to make decisions for the project.” https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-announce/2001/msg00000.html https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-announce/2001/msg00000.html
- peterwwillis 9y agoThis part has a morale, too, and it is almost the same: don't trust this person. Read the licenses carefully and rip out parts which give Stallman any possibility to influence your future. Phrases like [...] GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. just invites him to screw you when it pleases him. Rip out the "any later version" part and make your own decisions when to use a different license since otherwise he can potentially do you or your work harm. I never noticed this before. Whether it was intentionally conspiratorial or not, it's certainly an important legal and organizational consideration.
- erik_seaberg 9y agoThe legal landscape changes, if slowly. You have to decide up front who has the right to update the license, because otherwise with mixed copyright holders the answer is "nobody, ever".
- eesmith 9y agoIt was what enabled the compatibility with the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license that the Wikimedia Foundation used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License#Compatibility_with_Creative_Commons_licensing_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License... It could seemingly be used for malice, eg, if there's a hostile takeover of the FSF and the new owners change the license. However, the copyright contribution agreement that people make with the FSF essentially contractually promises that the contributions will only be used for free software, making that scenario impossible.
- ddtaylor 9y agoBitcoin fights over 1MB versus 8MB for 4+ years and glibc fights over a cosmetic joke in the manual page. I often wonder how many man years of labor are wasted with this kind of bike-shedding nonsense.
- jaboutboul 9y agoLooks like a new generation just got introduced to RMS.
- throw7 9y agowell, in cases like this, i wish drepper was still around. this would have been closed with malice as it should have been.
- jkFeiwi 9y agoI'm not offended by the joke at all. I'm pro choice. But I think it's unprofessional to have these kinds of jokes in an important piece of software. This sort of thing just hurts the free software movement's credibility (though not by much).
- anonlastname 9y agoClassic RMS. Love that guy.
- gumby 9y agoThis is the kind of attitude that lead to forking gcc, the formation of the steering committee etc: https://gcc.gnu.org/news/announcement.html https://gcc.gnu.org/news/announcement.html
- tempz 9y agoThe ideological control - via identity politics and associated infantile concepts of safe spaces, trigger words and the 'right not to be offended' - has finally landed on the mainstream open source software development, after preparatory excursions into gaming, Tor and few other 'fringish' niches. This ideological carpet bombing was neccessary because there is no other way to control the open source community - there is no simple corporate hierarchy and money by itself is too slow and doesn't always work. It serves the purpose - the servility is rewarded, and the opposition is punished. The end result is more pliable "open source workforce" - yes, there is such a thing, and the assurance that it will not engage in controversial developments, for the simple reason that personal servility to political correctness is highly correlated to personal servility to the prevailing power. In this particular case, it is about Orwellian purging of the inconvenient history. This comment was document of its time, several decades ago. Software has history. Everything humans do has history. The abort() itself is a history, as someone thought of it few decades ago. Are they going to change it to freedom() now? Why do manual pages have to look 'nice' to victims of arrested development? What is next?
- Allan_Smithee 9y agoI'm curious: is this really the hill Stallmanistas have chosen to die on? Really? A not very funny, not very helpful, and to anybody not living in the sphere of Batshitstania (a.k.a. the USA) absolutely incomprehensible joke? This is what you want to go to war over? Talk of identity politics overriding common sense!
- keiyakins 9y ago> This comment was document of its time, several decades ago. Software has history. Everything humans do has history. So, should we never change documentation once it's written? When the technical details change, should the documentation become inaccurate because it's a record of the time? When the political and linguistic context changes and makes a joke cause confusion rather than laughs should we continue including it in new versions? No, of course not. We should fix it. History is indeed important, that's why version control was invented. Access to the old versions isn't going anywhere.
- MichaelMoser123 9y agoi think somebody is bored with maintaining this huge runtime library (its an important, but not the most exciting type of project) and needs a little bit of diversion...
- Steeeve 9y agoThis discussion has been a complete waste of time since its inception. Everyone with an opinion needs to go stand in the corner and think of better ways to spend their time.
- maxlybbert 9y agoGNU info pages have had a few jokes sprinkled around for long enough that I assume it has something to do with the environment at the MIT AI lab (e.g., https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/strfry.html https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/strfry.ht... , https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Error-Codes.html#index-EIEIO https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Error-Cod... ). So I'm not surprised to see RMS push back on the change. I am surprised that he isn't effective at it. glibc seems to be something that causes non-technical disputes every few years. I'm sure that's because it's central to almost everything but the kernel.
- hossbeast 9y agoMechanically speaking, does RMS have the ability to enforce his will on this issue? Say the maintainers unanimously just refuse to revert the patch; can he "fire" them?
- Illniyar 9y ago"a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space" That blows my mind. Really? Why? A technical instruction manual should definitely be a safe place.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoWait, what? A safe space is meant to be a safe space. A technical manual is meant to be whatever the hell the authors want it to be. Some choices may make it worse or better at communicating the technical knowledge, true, but those are choices the authors make.
- GyYZTfWBfQw 9y ago"technical instruction manual" and "safe place" in one sentence. That blows my mind. I'm genuinely confused, what is going on with the world? Who cares about a joke here or there? Grep the Linux codebase or the ioquake3 codebase for "fuck" or whatever, too. Does that offend you in any way, too? But then again, what do you mean by safe place?
- chx 9y agoStallman has his problems. He is like Cassandra, talking, talking, talking for decades about dangers, they come true and still noone listens. Already in 2002 and 2010 he has expressed suicidal thoughts https://www.wired.com/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1/ https://www.wired.com/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1/ I am saying to help understand him not to say he is right here.
- dc443 9y agoCassandra who?
- 45h34jh53k4j 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor) RMS is typically correct, even if at the time the industry thinks he is being melodramatic. Everything he said has come true. You either listen to his rants and consider the ramifications, or you watch as all your digital rights are eroded.
- mdimec4 9y agoI would be polliticaly on the oposite side from RMS on this one. But I also respect a good joke, and I wuldnt try to remove it, especialy of just because it might hurt some feelings. About the leadersheep I am suprised why this came out only now. I wuld think that they have things sorted out after all this time. I think that RMS is still central figure in FSF
- osmala 9y agoWell it is free so people have freedom to edit and have a repository of free software without jokes. But nobody has right to demand what goes to someone else's repository. If glibc maintainers choose to make their own repository which Stallman has has no right demand anything they are free to do so. And then it becomes distributors freedom to choose who's repository they prefer.
- z3t4 9y agoThis reminds me of a Facebook story and why they don't want browsers to have "view source". Apparently they get complains now and then after someone has accidentally got into view source. Something about appending and removing childs.
- coldtea 9y ago>1. It's fair to say that the joke is unprofessional, and doesn't have a place in documentation. Every time I read something such as this, I want to get out of software and into farming or something...
- coldtea 9y agoBores and prudes will remake everything in their image.
- FundThrowaway 9y agoWhen did HN get so political? In the last couple of months I've noticed an increasing amount of argumentative political discussion. Both sides seem so convinced of their moral superiority, it was somewhat amusing at first but now I'm tired of it. I thought this was one of the last places I could come to get away from it but not anymore.
- manangatangy 9y ago100% agree
- midasz 9y agoEverything is politicized now. /r/soccer used to be my favorite place, but since the whole Russia & Qatar appointment - even that place is not safe.
- sigi45 9y agoInteresting to see that a person like Stallman forces a stupid joke into a project. I'm only 31 and write only stupid / unnecessary things into my code base for fun/home projects. I would love to add more easter eggs and little things into professional code but its unnprofessional. Especially for someone so eager about GNU and principles.
- rootlocus 9y ago"I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing." Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990) https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-3.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/...
- eadmund 9y ago> I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are entirely autonomous. 'I'm sorry, did you think you were free?' Really, the only response to this is to fork the project and start flibc: Free libc.
- concrete-faucet 9y agoIf RMS thinks that dumb jokes in documentation are worth having, I say we wholeheartedly embrace it. For example: * GNU/Hurd - almost as traumatic as childbirth. or * childbirth - if it takes as long as it takes to write GNU/Hurd, may God have mercy on your soul. or * RMS - I know how to program computers (maybe), so obviously I am an expert on female reproductive issues.
- jlv2 9y agoMy wife and I were at a garden party in the early 90s where RMS was at also. We were talking about various things and somehow the fact that my wife was pregnant with our first child came up. RMS started talking about how maybe people shouldn't just be allowed to have children. In particular, he brought up that some towns require people to have dog licenses before they can own a dog. He pondered that the government maybe should require reproduction licenses before allowing people to have children. Granted some people can make terrible parents, but I don't think allowing the government a voice in deciding whom can be parents is a better solution. My son (now 26) is a EFF member and free software advocate.
- favorited 9y agoI remember him complaining when the maintainer of some GNU project (emacs maybe?) was stepping aside to focus on starting a family. Stallman was writing about how being the maintainer of emacs is more important than having children, so this guy was making the wrong move. If that's his belief, that's fine – I personally don't plan on having children, so I suppose I could empathize with his view – but he came across as a total ass. It seemed inconceivable to him that other people have different priorities in life than he does.
- djpowell 9y agoI'm reminded of the old comment at the bottom of the man page for 'su', where rms argues for why the implementation is deliberately less secure: "Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keep- ing it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.) However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers. I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first."
- JoachimS 9y agoTo me the most interesting aspect of the story is not that RMS has a God card. The interesting aspect is that RMS decided that blocking the change was so important that using the card was warranted. As RMS stated himself, he is using this power so rarely that developers don't know that it exist. Why was preserving an old joke important enough to do this?
- badsectoracula 9y agoMy understanding is that RMS doesn't see it as just a joke but a form of protest through a joke relevant to the name of the function in question and that asking him to remove it is seen similarly to asking a protester to only protest in designated protest areas during designated protest hours where they cannot bother anyone. If you see it like that and not just as a harmless old joke, it makes more sense why RMS is riled up.
- oblio 9y agoKind of late to the party: IMHO Stallman should not be the main decision point for GNU, as it stands. He should be in charge of an NGO which tries to raise awareness about Free Software, but he should not be involved in the day-to-day management of software projects, and definitely not ones with such huge visibility as GCC, Emacs, bash, etc. Why not? GCC vs EGCS, Emacs vs XEmacs, etc. He has had a ton of huge contributions to the software world, but ask yourself this question: in today's networked world, where internet is widespread and cheap, where it is easy to organize software projects online and Open Source is quite well established, do you think that Richard Stallman would have the same visibility as he has now, as a sort of historical figure? Also, before you answer, remember the FSF/GNU/Stallman were not the only authors of Open Source back in the day so even without him we'd have Open Source Software (MIT, Berkeley, etc.).
- BrandoElFollito 9y agoCan someone explain what the joke is (I am from France and this seems to be a legal discussion in the US ?)
- cwmma 9y agoIt's a reference to the Mexico City Policy[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy
- grawprog 9y agoLol god everyone today just wants the world to be such a dull miserable place where everything must offend nobody. Richard Stallman's a crazy bastard but I agree with him here.
- rayascott 9y agoWhat's tragic and shocking is that RMS actually believes the joke is now more important than before when asking that the joke not be removed. "The point of this joke is even more important now than it was when I first wrote it. Please do not remove it." What's next? GnuJoke?
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- guilt 9y agoI seriously wonder why C libraries have to deal with political issues now. Pretty sure a fork() of this library is the apt thing to do here. Aren't there eglibc, musl and a variety of other implementations people use already?
- RightMillennial 9y agoSo even those with socialist political views can't have their jokes anymore? This is getting interesting. Look, I'm pro-life and anti-abortion but let the man keep his joke. It's not that big of deal.
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