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I'll probably regret writing this but if you read the entire rant, the author had been trying get sixel support into VTE based terminals (GNOME terminal and fam

by _2paq 5y ago

I'll probably regret writing this but if you read the entire rant, the author had been trying get sixel support into VTE based terminals (GNOME terminal and family) but he was blocked, which isn't really surprising considering the "my way or the highway" approach of GNOME devs towards anything that they make. The recent theming fiasco is a good example for this. He also tried getting sixel support in tmux but was rejected again. All he did was make a hard fork to get the feature that he wanted. That's it. The end. There are some things that Windows does better and some things that Linux does better. Generalizing your anecdotal experience and implying that one is entirely "better" than the other is what fundamentalism and fanaticism looks like.

easygenes 5y ago
Yeah, I think OP wrote must of what they did in genuine frustation. Saladuh's response probably comes mostly from having read this paragraph from OP's rant: "This is why I released sixel-tmux. That's also why I use Windows besides the wonderful mintty being the number 1 choice for terminal afficionados, it gives more options in general: I like that because I don't like depending on people who seem stuck in a desire to be lord-of-the-flies. Unfortunately, there seem to be quite a few in the free software world..." Also they go on from there about how they want to encourage Linux users to jump over to Windows. Again, I think this is just frustration with their perception that there are too many control freaks in the opensource world acting as gatekeepers for important feature availabilities (the core of their rant is just that they really wish they could have done graphical plots in their default terminal when they were in school years ago). To my reading, it sounds like someone who wanted to support free software who jumped over to Windows in disgust, not really a "Windows fanboy."
- easygenes 5y ago
  The strangest thing to me though is that the OP finished this work last year and sat on it until very recently. They explain it as "I wrote this for a client and didn't feel like sharing it." That attitude seems a bit in contrast to the purported motivation to, "Make it so people don't suffer like I did in school." So I guess in a way OP is (sort of) seeing the light on free software here too. Don't like it? Fork it!
  - _2paq 5y ago
    Hard forks rarely get traction and are almost always lost in obscurity, unless the original project itself is abandoned. tmux isn't abandoned so I doubt this fork will end up being used by more than a handful of people. EDIT: Yup, as suspected, the author doesn't intend to keep his fork updated with upstream and I don't blame him for that. This essentially makes this fork a proof of concept, nothing more. Unless it gets merged in tmux itself, people might as well forget that this fork exists. https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1
    - csdvrx 5y ago
      Thanks for being understanding. To be honest, Windows fangirl? guilty as charged! But I try to keep my personal opinions separate, which is why my rants are on a separate page. Still, you nailed it: sixel-tmux was made to try to help correct the direction that has been taken, with 6 years wasted. I believe it's unfair that Linux users have fewer options than us Windows users, due to some people thinking sixel is "uncool". Desperate times call for desperate measures. Publishing this fork was a last resort move, for the exact reasons you stated: forks are often lost in obscurity. However, the situation seems to be changing: check the discussion in: https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 and you'll see there may be some light at the end of the tunnel! A compile time flag is not ideal, but if at least derasterize can be added by default, so that every tmux user can have some kind of graphics in the terminal, even if said graphics are not sixels but derasterized, that would be "good enough" to me.
      - _2paq 5y ago
        > Thanks for being understanding. No problem. I know maintaining forks isn't an ideal thing to do and support should ideally land upstream. > I believe it's unfair that Linux users have fewer options than us Windows users, due to some people thinking sixel is "uncool". I think the README page of termite pretty much sums up why getting involved in VTE, or any GNOME project for that matter, is a bad decision. https://github.com/thestinger/termite/blob/master/README.rst#termite-is-obsoleted-by-alacritty https://github.com/thestinger/termite/blob/master/README.rst... I'm just a random spectator but perhaps your efforts might've been better spent on an independent terminal project (like Alacritty, for example) rather than trying to get features merged upstream in a GNOME project. > However, the situation seems to be changing: check the discussion in: https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 and you'll see there may be some light at the end of the tunnel! Yeah, I read the entire conversation and if sixel support lands in tmux upstream, it would indeed be good news.
- _2paq 5y ago
  Yep, that's all it was. I have a few things that I can't stand and I have no problem ditching something that doesn't offer me what I want. For example, I ditched Kitty because it doesn't let me disable italic variants of monospace fonts. In a hypothetical scenario, if tmux/screen didn't exist and Kitty was the one terminal which had these features, I would be frustrated as well if the dev didn't budge from his position of not letting users disable italic fonts. Fortunately, tmux exists and Alacritty lets me disable italics. It's pretty naive and immature to get married to the tools you're using. Unfortunately, you see this a lot in the FOSS world.
- saladuh 5y ago
  No, my 'rant' came from this section of this other rant[0], which is linked in the rant in OP's linked repo. I suppose I should have made this more obvious instead of assuming everyone would read the links provided in the whole rant (because I did indeed read the whole entire rant, and I agree with a lot of it, just not the part about windows being better than Linux and everyone who disagrees is a "millennial" seeking "geek cred", which originally misquoted in my 'rant'). [0] https://github.com/csdvrx/cutexterm#wait-i-thought-people-said-windows-sucks https://github.com/csdvrx/cutexterm#wait-i-thought-people-sa...
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    If the other rant was distracting, then it too will be moved to another page. But yes, I do believe people claiming that Linux offers the best terminal experience are either doing that for social credit and validation of their peers (in an "emperor has no clothes" way) or due to misinformation and a lack of personal experience with alternatives (in a "micro$oft only knows embrace, extend, extinguish" way) Some do that for both reasons, and I'll let you make your own conclusion about their demographic group.

by _2paq 5y ago

easygenes 5y ago

Yeah, I think OP wrote must of what they did in genuine frustation. Saladuh's response probably comes mostly from having read this paragraph from OP's rant: "This is why I released sixel-tmux. That's also why I use Windows besides the wonderful mintty being the number 1 choice for terminal afficionados, it gives more options in general: I like that because I don't like depending on people who seem stuck in a desire to be lord-of-the-flies. Unfortunately, there seem to be quite a few in the free software world..." Also they go on from there about how they want to encourage Linux users to jump over to Windows. Again, I think this is just frustration with their perception that there are too many control freaks in the opensource world acting as gatekeepers for important feature availabilities (the core of their rant is just that they really wish they could have done graphical plots in their default terminal when they were in school years ago). To my reading, it sounds like someone who wanted to support free software who jumped over to Windows in disgust, not really a "Windows fanboy."

easygenes 5y ago
The strangest thing to me though is that the OP finished this work last year and sat on it until very recently. They explain it as "I wrote this for a client and didn't feel like sharing it." That attitude seems a bit in contrast to the purported motivation to, "Make it so people don't suffer like I did in school." So I guess in a way OP is (sort of) seeing the light on free software here too. Don't like it? Fork it!
- _2paq 5y ago
  Hard forks rarely get traction and are almost always lost in obscurity, unless the original project itself is abandoned. tmux isn't abandoned so I doubt this fork will end up being used by more than a handful of people. EDIT: Yup, as suspected, the author doesn't intend to keep his fork updated with upstream and I don't blame him for that. This essentially makes this fork a proof of concept, nothing more. Unless it gets merged in tmux itself, people might as well forget that this fork exists. https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    Thanks for being understanding. To be honest, Windows fangirl? guilty as charged! But I try to keep my personal opinions separate, which is why my rants are on a separate page. Still, you nailed it: sixel-tmux was made to try to help correct the direction that has been taken, with 6 years wasted. I believe it's unfair that Linux users have fewer options than us Windows users, due to some people thinking sixel is "uncool". Desperate times call for desperate measures. Publishing this fork was a last resort move, for the exact reasons you stated: forks are often lost in obscurity. However, the situation seems to be changing: check the discussion in: https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 and you'll see there may be some light at the end of the tunnel! A compile time flag is not ideal, but if at least derasterize can be added by default, so that every tmux user can have some kind of graphics in the terminal, even if said graphics are not sixels but derasterized, that would be "good enough" to me.
    - _2paq 5y ago
      > Thanks for being understanding. No problem. I know maintaining forks isn't an ideal thing to do and support should ideally land upstream. > I believe it's unfair that Linux users have fewer options than us Windows users, due to some people thinking sixel is "uncool". I think the README page of termite pretty much sums up why getting involved in VTE, or any GNOME project for that matter, is a bad decision. https://github.com/thestinger/termite/blob/master/README.rst#termite-is-obsoleted-by-alacritty https://github.com/thestinger/termite/blob/master/README.rst... I'm just a random spectator but perhaps your efforts might've been better spent on an independent terminal project (like Alacritty, for example) rather than trying to get features merged upstream in a GNOME project. > However, the situation seems to be changing: check the discussion in: https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/pull/1 and you'll see there may be some light at the end of the tunnel! Yeah, I read the entire conversation and if sixel support lands in tmux upstream, it would indeed be good news.
_2paq 5y ago
Yep, that's all it was. I have a few things that I can't stand and I have no problem ditching something that doesn't offer me what I want. For example, I ditched Kitty because it doesn't let me disable italic variants of monospace fonts. In a hypothetical scenario, if tmux/screen didn't exist and Kitty was the one terminal which had these features, I would be frustrated as well if the dev didn't budge from his position of not letting users disable italic fonts. Fortunately, tmux exists and Alacritty lets me disable italics. It's pretty naive and immature to get married to the tools you're using. Unfortunately, you see this a lot in the FOSS world.
saladuh 5y ago
No, my 'rant' came from this section of this other rant[0], which is linked in the rant in OP's linked repo. I suppose I should have made this more obvious instead of assuming everyone would read the links provided in the whole rant (because I did indeed read the whole entire rant, and I agree with a lot of it, just not the part about windows being better than Linux and everyone who disagrees is a "millennial" seeking "geek cred", which originally misquoted in my 'rant'). [0] https://github.com/csdvrx/cutexterm#wait-i-thought-people-said-windows-sucks https://github.com/csdvrx/cutexterm#wait-i-thought-people-sa...
- csdvrx 5y ago
  If the other rant was distracting, then it too will be moved to another page. But yes, I do believe people claiming that Linux offers the best terminal experience are either doing that for social credit and validation of their peers (in an "emperor has no clothes" way) or due to misinformation and a lack of personal experience with alternatives (in a "micro$oft only knows embrace, extend, extinguish" way) Some do that for both reasons, and I'll let you make your own conclusion about their demographic group.