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It's a big shame that whenever anything related to Calibre is posted, top comments will often be how arrogant is author is. I used to think the same. But when I

It's a big shame that whenever anything related to Calibre is posted, top comments will often be how arrogant is author is. I used to think the same. But when I read his comments history in GitHub, he doesn't seem a dick to me at all. So I googled his name, and end up in a forum. It completely changed my mind. Contrary to what people believe, Dovid Goyal is the most friendly programmer to his users. He spent lots of time answering questions in the forum https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166. His answers include where is a menu located, how to convert a book from one format to another, helping the user to debug the exact the problem with Calibre. He has been doing this daily and is very responsive. You can expect an answer to your question in the same day. (The forum used to allow you to read user's comments history anonymously, but now you need a account to do so)

thackerwayac 6y ago
>Dovid Goyal Kovid Goyal
- auggierose 6y ago
  Wow, his name is really Kovid?? :-D
  - wonks 6y ago
    I know, I feel so bad for him.
fireattack 6y ago
Mobileread is THE forum for ebook and users there are amazing in general. And they reply fast. I once asked a question there and get 3 to 4 useful, relevant answers in 5 minutes. Edit: as for Kovid, he's just the type of person who speaks direct to the point without any extra words. Some people are not used to that. He's very helpful and responsive for feedback/bug report and really hard-working.
ziotom78 6y ago
I agree. I am an enthusiastic fan of the Kitty terminal emulator [1], another of his creatures, and I am following its development (though I never managed to contribute with some code). Kovid's answers on the GitHub forum are often short and sound a bit harsh sometimes, yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. If only there were more coders like him! [1] https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/index.html https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/index.html
- Tankenstein 6y ago
  Wow, I didn't realise it's the same guy. Kitty truly is a terrific piece of software, and it seems Kovid is also a terrific product engineer.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  I tried to see if it's available for Windows but now luck or did I miss something?
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  > yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. I think this is fine and somebody who cant accept this needs to go outside and breathe. Sometimes you gotta put your foot down about something until you are convinced otherwise.
- Tijdreiziger 6y ago
  For a second I thought this was the KiTTY Telnet/SSH client [1], but it appears to be an unrelated piece of software. [1] http://www.9bis.net/kitty/#!index.md http://www.9bis.net/kitty/#!index.md
- geewee 6y ago
  Oh damn it's the same guy who made Kitty? That is one fine piece of software
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. Over the years, the community has volunteered time and time again to develop a new UI for Calibre that would at least bear some resemblance to all the other applications we use on our computer. They would do all the work. His response has always been no. And there has been his hostility to criticisms of security flaws in his code.
toyg 6y ago
One of the reasons Calibre has become the de-facto gold standard for ebook managers is that he always tried very hard to help users, who are often non-technical (they are largely just "book people"). I think he's just a bit fed up with geeks who like to question everything at every turn; he is not the sort of person you should look to for philosophical debates on the state of software. For years, Calibre got a bad rap for the interface not looking "cool" enough, meanwhile he was busy actually helping people do what they want to do with their books, for free. Plus, his mother tongue is not English and some communications can come off as brusque even when they are just meant to be direct and to the point.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >I think he's just a bit fed up with geeks who like to question everything at every turn TBH who doesn't hate that? I think a lot of open source developers just gave up on their project because of ungrateful and entitled reactions from some stickler geeks.
- biophysboy 6y ago
  Its funny you say this. I remember initially being turned off by Calibre because it looked like library software, and I naively thought "if it looks ugly, it works ugly". Later on I learned how wrong I was. Its so easy to use.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- liability 6y ago
  I can't say I'm a fan of the GUI (part of this is me not needing most of its many features, which are doubtlessly useful for others), but the Calibre command line tool `ebook-convert` is fantastic and handles conversions pandoc can't. I love Calibre for this.
- athms 6y ago
  >One of the reasons Calibre has become the de-facto gold standard for ebook managers Gold standard? What the hell are you smoking? The software is absolute garbage. The reader is slow and conversion is broken. I have tried every version for years and it never improves. It can't even convert tabular data properly.
nvarsj 6y ago
I think Kovid is awesome. He produces extremely high quality OSS for free and he's been doing it for years, while providing almost instant support to anyone that has a question. It makes me sad that people like to shit on someone doing so much good for so many people for free. By the way, kitty is amazing, it's the only terminal that properly renders wide unicode characters - even Alacritty has many bugs in this area still. And it's blazing fast, has a built in terminal multiplexer, and native wayland support.
moocowtruck 6y ago
I think most of it had to do with the security holes that he refused to fix that left a bad taste in peoples mouths. I think it had to do with https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027 https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027 etc.
- callmeal 6y ago
  Well, reading that thread, he fixed every vulnerability in the helper utility that had a demonstrable exploit. Some of the others he didn't fix because they were not easily exploitable: keep in mind, the utility was only used if the core os functionality was not present. That whole thread came across as "I am a security researcher who gets paid lots of money to find CVEs so you should listen to me" and Kovid taking issue with that attitude.
ziml77 6y ago
I wonder how many commenters were just parroting what they had heard about him. I get the feeling it's not uncommon for negativity about someone to be amplified by people doing that. With enough comments saying the same thing, it's easy to believe it's true. Personally I never participated in spreading that, but I absolutely was swayed by the negative comments to avoid touching Calibre. I already find myself fact-checking a lot of things given how much bullshit people spread, but I guess I have to step that up and be more wary about what people say here (I've been more trusting of things on HN than on sites like Twitter).
- barkingcat 6y ago
  Remember this idea whenever you see people online talking about other open source projects. 9/10 people are doing exactly this: parroting what they heard with no research done. Especially on hacker news, remember this idea so the next time you enter a thread, you won't be the one parroting things you heard from other people. Calibre itself is awesome. I've been using it for over 10 years and it's a testament to its software excellence (which reflects on its owner/creator) that it's still an excellent and useful piece of software.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Goyal makes a lot of people uncomfortable because he is obviously on the spectrum. Of course a lot of Free Software hobbyists are, and I wouldn’t dare to exclude myself from that. But there is certainly a feeling that it would be better for a project to use neurotypical volunteers for the public-facing aspects of development, like taking feature requests. It would save both Goyal and the people posting on the various forums a lot of rancor.
- nsomaru 6y ago
  It boggles that Internet strangers can make blanket statements like this.
- efreak 6y ago
  > Goyal makes a lot of people uncomfortable because he is obviously on the spectrum. Never mind the first question that popped up in my head (Why would you care?), but _Why would that even occur to you?_ Why would you even look at people that way to begin with?
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Assuming that Goyal is on the spectrum is the charitable thing to do. It allows one to excuse his brusqueness and defensiveness as simply something he was born with. That is the conclusion I gradually made over years of watching Calibre development and a conference appearance of his on YouTube. Many of his critics probably just think that he is a jerk and egomaniac who refuses to see things from others’ perspectives.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      > Assuming that Goyal is on the spectrum is the charitable thing to do. It allows one to excuse his brusqueness and defensiveness as simply something he was born with. Alternately: His first language wasn't English.
- cedilla 6y ago
  I don't think it's appropriate to speculate about other people's neurodiversity. Also, for the most part he is "the project".
billman 6y ago
Thanks. Its refreshing to see someone giving props in the comments.
Siira 6y ago
I once opened an issue on his kitty project, asking about right-to-left support. He answered me by saying (falsely, and condescendingly) that the problem was with the CLI apps I ran. But I had screenshotted just typing “echo یک نوشته راست چین” (or sth similar, it was months ago). I, unfortunately, replied to this with a non-respectful (but not rude) comment, which he then answered with another nonrespectful comment and closed the issue. Overall, my impression of him is that he is a kind, productive, but arrogant person; I’m thankful of the man.
capedape 6y ago
Last week I asked him a question on MobileRead. Something simple that I overlooked on the UI and he could have been snippy about it. He answered the same day and was cool about it. In fact, I’ve probably asked 15 questions there over the years and he’s always been quick to respond and polite.

thackerwayac 6y ago

>Dovid Goyal Kovid Goyal

auggierose 6y ago
Wow, his name is really Kovid?? :-D
- wonks 6y ago
  I know, I feel so bad for him.

fireattack 6y ago

Mobileread is THE forum for ebook and users there are amazing in general. And they reply fast. I once asked a question there and get 3 to 4 useful, relevant answers in 5 minutes. Edit: as for Kovid, he's just the type of person who speaks direct to the point without any extra words. Some people are not used to that. He's very helpful and responsive for feedback/bug report and really hard-working.

ziotom78 6y ago

I agree. I am an enthusiastic fan of the Kitty terminal emulator [1], another of his creatures, and I am following its development (though I never managed to contribute with some code). Kovid's answers on the GitHub forum are often short and sound a bit harsh sometimes, yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. If only there were more coders like him! [1] https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/index.html https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/index.html

Tankenstein 6y ago
Wow, I didn't realise it's the same guy. Kitty truly is a terrific piece of software, and it seems Kovid is also a terrific product engineer.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
I tried to see if it's available for Windows but now luck or did I miss something?
giancarlostoro 6y ago
> yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. I think this is fine and somebody who cant accept this needs to go outside and breathe. Sometimes you gotta put your foot down about something until you are convinced otherwise.
Tijdreiziger 6y ago
For a second I thought this was the KiTTY Telnet/SSH client [1], but it appears to be an unrelated piece of software. [1] http://www.9bis.net/kitty/#!index.md http://www.9bis.net/kitty/#!index.md
geewee 6y ago
Oh damn it's the same guy who made Kitty? That is one fine piece of software
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> yet he's ready to accept others' suggestions and stand corrected when needed. Over the years, the community has volunteered time and time again to develop a new UI for Calibre that would at least bear some resemblance to all the other applications we use on our computer. They would do all the work. His response has always been no. And there has been his hostility to criticisms of security flaws in his code.

toyg 6y ago

One of the reasons Calibre has become the de-facto gold standard for ebook managers is that he always tried very hard to help users, who are often non-technical (they are largely just "book people"). I think he's just a bit fed up with geeks who like to question everything at every turn; he is not the sort of person you should look to for philosophical debates on the state of software. For years, Calibre got a bad rap for the interface not looking "cool" enough, meanwhile he was busy actually helping people do what they want to do with their books, for free. Plus, his mother tongue is not English and some communications can come off as brusque even when they are just meant to be direct and to the point.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>I think he's just a bit fed up with geeks who like to question everything at every turn TBH who doesn't hate that? I think a lot of open source developers just gave up on their project because of ungrateful and entitled reactions from some stickler geeks.
biophysboy 6y ago
Its funny you say this. I remember initially being turned off by Calibre because it looked like library software, and I naively thought "if it looks ugly, it works ugly". Later on I learned how wrong I was. Its so easy to use.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
liability 6y ago
I can't say I'm a fan of the GUI (part of this is me not needing most of its many features, which are doubtlessly useful for others), but the Calibre command line tool `ebook-convert` is fantastic and handles conversions pandoc can't. I love Calibre for this.
athms 6y ago
>One of the reasons Calibre has become the de-facto gold standard for ebook managers Gold standard? What the hell are you smoking? The software is absolute garbage. The reader is slow and conversion is broken. I have tried every version for years and it never improves. It can't even convert tabular data properly.

nvarsj 6y ago

I think Kovid is awesome. He produces extremely high quality OSS for free and he's been doing it for years, while providing almost instant support to anyone that has a question. It makes me sad that people like to shit on someone doing so much good for so many people for free. By the way, kitty is amazing, it's the only terminal that properly renders wide unicode characters - even Alacritty has many bugs in this area still. And it's blazing fast, has a built in terminal multiplexer, and native wayland support.

moocowtruck 6y ago

I think most of it had to do with the security holes that he refused to fix that left a bad taste in peoples mouths. I think it had to do with https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027 https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027 etc.

callmeal 6y ago
Well, reading that thread, he fixed every vulnerability in the helper utility that had a demonstrable exploit. Some of the others he didn't fix because they were not easily exploitable: keep in mind, the utility was only used if the core os functionality was not present. That whole thread came across as "I am a security researcher who gets paid lots of money to find CVEs so you should listen to me" and Kovid taking issue with that attitude.

ziml77 6y ago

I wonder how many commenters were just parroting what they had heard about him. I get the feeling it's not uncommon for negativity about someone to be amplified by people doing that. With enough comments saying the same thing, it's easy to believe it's true. Personally I never participated in spreading that, but I absolutely was swayed by the negative comments to avoid touching Calibre. I already find myself fact-checking a lot of things given how much bullshit people spread, but I guess I have to step that up and be more wary about what people say here (I've been more trusting of things on HN than on sites like Twitter).

barkingcat 6y ago
Remember this idea whenever you see people online talking about other open source projects. 9/10 people are doing exactly this: parroting what they heard with no research done. Especially on hacker news, remember this idea so the next time you enter a thread, you won't be the one parroting things you heard from other people. Calibre itself is awesome. I've been using it for over 10 years and it's a testament to its software excellence (which reflects on its owner/creator) that it's still an excellent and useful piece of software.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Goyal makes a lot of people uncomfortable because he is obviously on the spectrum. Of course a lot of Free Software hobbyists are, and I wouldn’t dare to exclude myself from that. But there is certainly a feeling that it would be better for a project to use neurotypical volunteers for the public-facing aspects of development, like taking feature requests. It would save both Goyal and the people posting on the various forums a lot of rancor.

nsomaru 6y ago
It boggles that Internet strangers can make blanket statements like this.
efreak 6y ago
> Goyal makes a lot of people uncomfortable because he is obviously on the spectrum. Never mind the first question that popped up in my head (Why would you care?), but _Why would that even occur to you?_ Why would you even look at people that way to begin with?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Assuming that Goyal is on the spectrum is the charitable thing to do. It allows one to excuse his brusqueness and defensiveness as simply something he was born with. That is the conclusion I gradually made over years of watching Calibre development and a conference appearance of his on YouTube. Many of his critics probably just think that he is a jerk and egomaniac who refuses to see things from others’ perspectives.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    > Assuming that Goyal is on the spectrum is the charitable thing to do. It allows one to excuse his brusqueness and defensiveness as simply something he was born with. Alternately: His first language wasn't English.
cedilla 6y ago
I don't think it's appropriate to speculate about other people's neurodiversity. Also, for the most part he is "the project".

billman 6y ago

Thanks. Its refreshing to see someone giving props in the comments.

Siira 6y ago

I once opened an issue on his kitty project, asking about right-to-left support. He answered me by saying (falsely, and condescendingly) that the problem was with the CLI apps I ran. But I had screenshotted just typing “echo یک نوشته راست چین” (or sth similar, it was months ago). I, unfortunately, replied to this with a non-respectful (but not rude) comment, which he then answered with another nonrespectful comment and closed the issue. Overall, my impression of him is that he is a kind, productive, but arrogant person; I’m thankful of the man.

capedape 6y ago

Last week I asked him a question on MobileRead. Something simple that I overlooked on the UI and he could have been snippy about it. He answered the same day and was cool about it. In fact, I’ve probably asked 15 questions there over the years and he’s always been quick to respond and polite.