4 ms·
Just an observation, here's something that's a result of the fact that self-published opinion pieces on the Internet don't necessarily go through an editorial p
by pwdisswordfish6 6y ago
Just an observation, here's something that's a result of the fact that self-published opinion pieces on the Internet don't necessarily go through an editorial process before publication:
> It has a real cost, you know, being a dick to maintainers. [...] We’re out here trying to make things better [...] We’ve sacrificed our spare time to build this for you for free.
Yes, but who are you addressing? There's a subtext here that discouraging behavior can be such a burden that it takes away resources from the project. Perhaps it takes such a toll that a maintainer just calls it quits on the whole thing. That makes sense when addressing your fans who are consuming your work but nonetheless burdening you. To a detractor, who isn't using Wayland and doesn't want Wayland to succeed, discouragement leading to burnout is not failure condition. This logical slip is probably the result of leaning too heavily on the vaccine metaphor.
Now playing Devil's advocate (contra this piece):
In the real world, anti-vaxxers benefit no matter what they believe. But that's not so in Wayland v. X11 duel, which is not only a genuine a matter of preference, but there are actually shades of a zero-sum relationship here. The idea of Wayland, like a vaccine, being good for you whether you know it or not doesn't hold up. If you're in the X11 camp and oppose Wayland, improvement to the Wayland ecosystem isn't bringing nice things like herd immunity. It's actually a threat if your vision is one where X11 remains entrenched for the foreseeable future. It would also be really easy for a detractor of Wayland to use this post for ammunition, for example labelling this as self-aggrandizement and maybe claiming that there's an attitude where Waylanders see themselves as saviors, rescuing others from a plight they don't even agree exists, and that it's an attitude indicative of the project as a whole.