5 ms·

> Free software development is not a democracy, and does not get driven by polls. Features and bugs are introduced by those who show up, within a community that

> Free software development is not a democracy, and does not get driven by polls. Features and bugs are introduced by those who show up, within a community that works towards a shared goal. And it is exactly to let themselves yell that, they work hard to alienate few normal devs left in the project. I understood now that Gnome 3.0 was from the start Redhat's fully intentional attempt to appropriate the project, and is not dissimilar to Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish. 1. Get command of some more abandoned parts of the project. 2. Push a series of guaranteedly unpopular sharp direction changes which will lead to loss of devs. 3. As devs leave, you get more reinforcement to your casus belli, saying that "nobody maintains this pile of garbage, so now I am taking it over too" 4. Rinse, and repeat.

stretchcat 6y ago
This sure seems accurate to me, from what I've personally observed, but I don't understand what motive they might have. What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it?
- baud147258 6y ago
  > What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? they'd be the only left able to offer (paid) support?
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Does GNOME really bring in much paid support momey? In the past I have worked at a company that did have RHEL5 workstations with GNOME by default, but everybody I knew treated that as a joke and sshed into the workstations from their (Windows) Thinkpads or Macbooks. The desktop software on those workstations was unwanted and unused.
    - lmm 6y ago
      That sounds like the ideal situation for RedHat's business model.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? I think, in their view, all comes after taking hold of the project. But here, they got that, and now what? Now, all lofty plans have to meet the cold reality. It's like a mutunineers on a ship throwing officers overboard, just to realise hours later that they are in the middle of an ocean, and they have no idea how to sail a ship without skilled crew. I saw that happening in public companies: a single asshole activist with puny few percents of the company keeps throwing big radical decisions onto every shareholder meeting, until he gets everybody so discombobulated, or the company so disfunctional that others either leave the company to him for taking, or he gets a legal casus belli to sue the company to try to wreck it further, and then seize it. For such people, it doesn't matter if the company in question dies, as long as they come out with gain. Some are plainly idiots with too much legal education, and some are genuine degenerates doing it with full knowledge of consequences.
- Chyzwar 6y ago
  A lot of people like it. Just because there are old timers that cannot move past gnome 2 it do not mean that Gnome 3 is bad. It faster and more polished that KDE. Workspace management and screen real estate is supierior to anything I used.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    I believe the 'graying of GNOME' discussed here a few weeks ago is evidence that fewer and fewer people like GNOME each year. New developers would naturally be drawn from the ranks of enthusiastic users. (Why would a developer volunteer their labor for software they don't use and care about?) The graying of GNOME shows that the pool of enthusiastic users has been shrinking since GNOME 3. That's about when GNOME tipped over the edge and started losing developers faster than it gained new ones. The missing new developers would be new developers, not old timers. If it were only old timers who feel alienated, I wouldn't expect GNOME to have trouble recruiting new developers.
    - Chyzwar 6y ago
      Gnome 3 is default for most popular distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Debian etc) If anything gnome is getting more popular thanks to Ubuntu switching. There fewer people contributing because programming in C is no longer fun or hip. It is not Gnome problem but the whole Linux ecosystem. Gnome is slowly adopting rust but the core framework is still C. There is plenty of active forks of Gnome2 people can contribute there.
cycloptic 6y ago
Please do not spread these unfounded conspiracy theories. If you are a developer and you don't agree with direction changes, you don't have to work on them, you can work in the direction of your choosing. AFAIK there are numerous forks of GNOME over the years that are still going.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > If you are a developer and you don't agree with direction changes, you don't have to work on them I would tell the same to Poettering, Clasen, and co. There is really nobody who obligates them to work on their "innovations" in GNOME with religious zeal if the rest of the project showed no interest, speaking lightly. If nobody wants to work on their stuff, they can't claim "victimhood" as if that happens as a result of somebody's ill intents. I have to reference Torvalds vs. SystemD here as an example how Sievers, Poettering, and co. instantly drew up a picture of kernel community being some kind of a bullying ring when the only thing they did to them was to ignore their (bad quality) patches.
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    I would advise holding off judgement on specific individuals unless you have worked with them closely and you have a deep understanding of why certain decisions were made. Again, if you are a developer and you disagree with someone's choices, you are free to take it in your own direction. You do not have to work on anybody else's stuff if you don't want.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      > if you are a developer and you disagree with someone's choices, you are free to take it in your own direction. That would be best said to persons named above. They were free to fork GNOME into their touchscreen based imaginary future, and experiment with it even more freely as a minority group, rather than trying to hijack the project, and getting stalled half-way because of popular pushback.
      - 6y ago
arpa 6y ago
Screw Red Hat, the amound of crapware and bad attitudes coming from them is astounding. And of course, since they have big bucks, it gets shoved down everyones' throats.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  The amount of their contributions is astounding https://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-program-office/contributions https://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-program-office/c...

stretchcat 6y ago

This sure seems accurate to me, from what I've personally observed, but I don't understand what motive they might have. What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it?

baud147258 6y ago
> What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? they'd be the only left able to offer (paid) support?
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Does GNOME really bring in much paid support momey? In the past I have worked at a company that did have RHEL5 workstations with GNOME by default, but everybody I knew treated that as a joke and sshed into the workstations from their (Windows) Thinkpads or Macbooks. The desktop software on those workstations was unwanted and unused.
  - lmm 6y ago
    That sounds like the ideal situation for RedHat's business model.
baybal2 6y ago
> What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? I think, in their view, all comes after taking hold of the project. But here, they got that, and now what? Now, all lofty plans have to meet the cold reality. It's like a mutunineers on a ship throwing officers overboard, just to realise hours later that they are in the middle of an ocean, and they have no idea how to sail a ship without skilled crew. I saw that happening in public companies: a single asshole activist with puny few percents of the company keeps throwing big radical decisions onto every shareholder meeting, until he gets everybody so discombobulated, or the company so disfunctional that others either leave the company to him for taking, or he gets a legal casus belli to sue the company to try to wreck it further, and then seize it. For such people, it doesn't matter if the company in question dies, as long as they come out with gain. Some are plainly idiots with too much legal education, and some are genuine degenerates doing it with full knowledge of consequences.
Chyzwar 6y ago
A lot of people like it. Just because there are old timers that cannot move past gnome 2 it do not mean that Gnome 3 is bad. It faster and more polished that KDE. Workspace management and screen real estate is supierior to anything I used.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  I believe the 'graying of GNOME' discussed here a few weeks ago is evidence that fewer and fewer people like GNOME each year. New developers would naturally be drawn from the ranks of enthusiastic users. (Why would a developer volunteer their labor for software they don't use and care about?) The graying of GNOME shows that the pool of enthusiastic users has been shrinking since GNOME 3. That's about when GNOME tipped over the edge and started losing developers faster than it gained new ones. The missing new developers would be new developers, not old timers. If it were only old timers who feel alienated, I wouldn't expect GNOME to have trouble recruiting new developers.
  - Chyzwar 6y ago
    Gnome 3 is default for most popular distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Debian etc) If anything gnome is getting more popular thanks to Ubuntu switching. There fewer people contributing because programming in C is no longer fun or hip. It is not Gnome problem but the whole Linux ecosystem. Gnome is slowly adopting rust but the core framework is still C. There is plenty of active forks of Gnome2 people can contribute there.

cycloptic 6y ago

Please do not spread these unfounded conspiracy theories. If you are a developer and you don't agree with direction changes, you don't have to work on them, you can work in the direction of your choosing. AFAIK there are numerous forks of GNOME over the years that are still going.

baybal2 6y ago
> If you are a developer and you don't agree with direction changes, you don't have to work on them I would tell the same to Poettering, Clasen, and co. There is really nobody who obligates them to work on their "innovations" in GNOME with religious zeal if the rest of the project showed no interest, speaking lightly. If nobody wants to work on their stuff, they can't claim "victimhood" as if that happens as a result of somebody's ill intents. I have to reference Torvalds vs. SystemD here as an example how Sievers, Poettering, and co. instantly drew up a picture of kernel community being some kind of a bullying ring when the only thing they did to them was to ignore their (bad quality) patches.
- cycloptic 6y ago
  I would advise holding off judgement on specific individuals unless you have worked with them closely and you have a deep understanding of why certain decisions were made. Again, if you are a developer and you disagree with someone's choices, you are free to take it in your own direction. You do not have to work on anybody else's stuff if you don't want.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > if you are a developer and you disagree with someone's choices, you are free to take it in your own direction. That would be best said to persons named above. They were free to fork GNOME into their touchscreen based imaginary future, and experiment with it even more freely as a minority group, rather than trying to hijack the project, and getting stalled half-way because of popular pushback.
    - 6y ago

arpa 6y ago

Screw Red Hat, the amound of crapware and bad attitudes coming from them is astounding. And of course, since they have big bucks, it gets shoved down everyones' throats.

sergeykish 6y ago
The amount of their contributions is astounding https://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-program-office/contributions https://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-program-office/c...