4 ms·

Absolutely. This is why I'm absolutely hostile towards current-day Gnome. Even if they do make some incremental improvements, the reluctance to do so in a "shar

by jrm4 5y ago

Absolutely. This is why I'm absolutely hostile towards current-day Gnome. Even if they do make some incremental improvements, the reluctance to do so in a "share-it-back" way is the exact opposite of why I got into Linux in the first place. I quite literally wish it failure. (But KDE? I don't know, I don't use it much, but it seems like at least their stuff is mostly-compatible-if-you-work-it-a-bit, unlike Gnome's full on hostility to 'cross-compatibility.')

md8z 5y ago
Please avoid such hostility, open source is a team sport and we are all on the same team, even projects that do things in ways that may be not immediately useful to you or I. That kind of hostility is what leads to open source people burning out. I am not sure why you think they don't have a "share-it-back" mentality or why you would wish any project failure. They use mostly the same set of open source licenses as KDE.
- jrm4 5y ago
  No. You don't get to simply declare we're on the same team if you're obviously trying to score points for the other side. In this case "the other side" is exclusivity and Gnome keeps doing it. As a lawyer, I hate to inform you that the entire point of licenses is to put real teeth on ideas that people are likely to renege on. LIKE HERE.
  - md8z 5y ago
    I am not trying to score points for any side, all of these projects can and do share code when it's practical and useful to do so. There is no "exclusivity", I'm sure you know that most of these licenses in use are compatible with each other. The end result is that we are already unwittingly on the same team, it took me a while to realize it but that's the whole reason things like Github and such have taken off. I'd love to discuss your experiences with that as a lawyer if you have any interesting stories, but I would have to ask you to please avoid the hostilities, that doesn't help when trying to fix issues. We both have the same access to the same code.
    - jrm4 5y ago
      When Gnome stops being hostile to people who want to modify it in the original spirit -- not necessarily just letter, but SPIRIT -- of free/open source, I'll stop being hostile. I'm not trying to "fix issues." I'm trying to point out that, sure, Gnome may be technically following the rules, but the entire project is being a collective jerk about it. Now, we can go deeper on why -- I have no reason to believe individual developers are jerks. I understand there there's money and influence and (cargo-culting) pressure from large companies involved. But presently - Gnome is a collective putting out a product that is harmful to the environment -- not in an ecological way, but one that reinforces bad ideas about how to make software, aka "only do the bare minimum to comply with the license, otherwise try to dominate via whatever means possible."
      - md8z 5y ago
        I don't know what you mean spirit. To me the spirit has always been "here's some code, do what you want with it" i.e. the exact opposite of what you're saying. I think you may have some missed expectations, I can't understand how you'd perceive that as being dominating or what you mean by someone being a jerk. Both you and I have the same access. Edit: In my experience, pointing out how someone is a jerk doesn't really help in open source either. That usually just causes them to become defensive and only increases the hostility. Since the code is open it's much better to just fix it for yourself and not worry about what someone else thinks. That is, if you think the situation is truly unrecoverable. If not, then it's better to set aside your differences and work it out.
        jrm4 5y ago
        I'd say "learn your history?" This all came about because of Richard Stallman et al, who absolutely were not "here's some code, do what you want with it." They were "We have a good thing with this Unix deal and how we do it, we share freely, backwards AND FORWARD. How might we continue this in a wider fashion; knowing that some might be inclined to take and not give back?" And thus, the GPL was born. MIT-style licenses are fine in some cases, but you're working of the back of Linux, and that's GPL territory.
smoldesu 5y ago
I'm in the same boat. Trying to negotiate with GNOME developers only got me laughed out of the room, now I couldn't care less about what they think. They promised to kill sacred cows, and all we got was this lame desktop that gutted 90% of the things I liked about GNOME 3.38. Luckily, it doesn't look like we need to wish it failure much these days. I don't know many people who use GNOME since 40 (much less any developers on it), and compared to the KDE development roadmap their progress is utterly lethargic. If anything, it's a project that is sustained by a few paid contributors from Red Hat and a miasma of third-parties who have some vision of GTK and GNOME converging into an Apple-like platform.
- md8z 5y ago
  There actually are a good number of paid contributors from small companies, and also a good number of volunteers too. That's what I have seen. Don't feel discouraged if your first contributions didn't make it in, GNOME is a big project so I'm sure you could find some other areas to contribute to if you really wanted. Keep in mind that core areas such as the shell and GTK are probably bad places for first time contributors as they tend to be very complex, it's best to start with a smaller app/library and go from there. Of course if you don't want to contribute then you don't have to either, but I think all of this applies to most large open source projects that I have seen.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I'm not mad that my patches were rejected, the GNOME team is notorious for neglecting basic functionality like thumbnails in the filepicker for almost two decades, even with literally hundreds of pull requests with suggested fixes. I'm mad because the current maintainers have no interest in extending the discussion around what GNOME should be. For all their talk of inclusion and diversity, their attitude runs in the complete other direction. They're encroaching on the same issues that systemd made, where their software's scope is expanding way too far with far too little substance. I've been told to "not bother" making apps that I don't plan to distribute via Flatpak. I've been told that disliking Adwaita is paramount to fascism, and when I try to reason with people and explain myself I get told to read the Code of Conduct. You're painting this out to be a personal issue, which it isn't. The culture among GNOME developers is one of the most toxic I've ever seen, and it's continuing to poison a desktop environment I desperately want to love. Every time I suggest something I get shut down though, so why bother? Why would I willingly hurt myself in the process of trying to make a usable desktop? The only thing I can do now is share my experience as a warning to other developers who want to make Linux-native experiences: GNOME does not want your help, don't waste your time trying.

by jrm4 5y ago

md8z 5y ago

Please avoid such hostility, open source is a team sport and we are all on the same team, even projects that do things in ways that may be not immediately useful to you or I. That kind of hostility is what leads to open source people burning out. I am not sure why you think they don't have a "share-it-back" mentality or why you would wish any project failure. They use mostly the same set of open source licenses as KDE.

jrm4 5y ago
No. You don't get to simply declare we're on the same team if you're obviously trying to score points for the other side. In this case "the other side" is exclusivity and Gnome keeps doing it. As a lawyer, I hate to inform you that the entire point of licenses is to put real teeth on ideas that people are likely to renege on. LIKE HERE.
- md8z 5y ago
  I am not trying to score points for any side, all of these projects can and do share code when it's practical and useful to do so. There is no "exclusivity", I'm sure you know that most of these licenses in use are compatible with each other. The end result is that we are already unwittingly on the same team, it took me a while to realize it but that's the whole reason things like Github and such have taken off. I'd love to discuss your experiences with that as a lawyer if you have any interesting stories, but I would have to ask you to please avoid the hostilities, that doesn't help when trying to fix issues. We both have the same access to the same code.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    When Gnome stops being hostile to people who want to modify it in the original spirit -- not necessarily just letter, but SPIRIT -- of free/open source, I'll stop being hostile. I'm not trying to "fix issues." I'm trying to point out that, sure, Gnome may be technically following the rules, but the entire project is being a collective jerk about it. Now, we can go deeper on why -- I have no reason to believe individual developers are jerks. I understand there there's money and influence and (cargo-culting) pressure from large companies involved. But presently - Gnome is a collective putting out a product that is harmful to the environment -- not in an ecological way, but one that reinforces bad ideas about how to make software, aka "only do the bare minimum to comply with the license, otherwise try to dominate via whatever means possible."
    - md8z 5y ago
      I don't know what you mean spirit. To me the spirit has always been "here's some code, do what you want with it" i.e. the exact opposite of what you're saying. I think you may have some missed expectations, I can't understand how you'd perceive that as being dominating or what you mean by someone being a jerk. Both you and I have the same access. Edit: In my experience, pointing out how someone is a jerk doesn't really help in open source either. That usually just causes them to become defensive and only increases the hostility. Since the code is open it's much better to just fix it for yourself and not worry about what someone else thinks. That is, if you think the situation is truly unrecoverable. If not, then it's better to set aside your differences and work it out.
      - jrm4 5y ago
        I'd say "learn your history?" This all came about because of Richard Stallman et al, who absolutely were not "here's some code, do what you want with it." They were "We have a good thing with this Unix deal and how we do it, we share freely, backwards AND FORWARD. How might we continue this in a wider fashion; knowing that some might be inclined to take and not give back?" And thus, the GPL was born. MIT-style licenses are fine in some cases, but you're working of the back of Linux, and that's GPL territory.

smoldesu 5y ago

I'm in the same boat. Trying to negotiate with GNOME developers only got me laughed out of the room, now I couldn't care less about what they think. They promised to kill sacred cows, and all we got was this lame desktop that gutted 90% of the things I liked about GNOME 3.38. Luckily, it doesn't look like we need to wish it failure much these days. I don't know many people who use GNOME since 40 (much less any developers on it), and compared to the KDE development roadmap their progress is utterly lethargic. If anything, it's a project that is sustained by a few paid contributors from Red Hat and a miasma of third-parties who have some vision of GTK and GNOME converging into an Apple-like platform.

md8z 5y ago
There actually are a good number of paid contributors from small companies, and also a good number of volunteers too. That's what I have seen. Don't feel discouraged if your first contributions didn't make it in, GNOME is a big project so I'm sure you could find some other areas to contribute to if you really wanted. Keep in mind that core areas such as the shell and GTK are probably bad places for first time contributors as they tend to be very complex, it's best to start with a smaller app/library and go from there. Of course if you don't want to contribute then you don't have to either, but I think all of this applies to most large open source projects that I have seen.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I'm not mad that my patches were rejected, the GNOME team is notorious for neglecting basic functionality like thumbnails in the filepicker for almost two decades, even with literally hundreds of pull requests with suggested fixes. I'm mad because the current maintainers have no interest in extending the discussion around what GNOME should be. For all their talk of inclusion and diversity, their attitude runs in the complete other direction. They're encroaching on the same issues that systemd made, where their software's scope is expanding way too far with far too little substance. I've been told to "not bother" making apps that I don't plan to distribute via Flatpak. I've been told that disliking Adwaita is paramount to fascism, and when I try to reason with people and explain myself I get told to read the Code of Conduct. You're painting this out to be a personal issue, which it isn't. The culture among GNOME developers is one of the most toxic I've ever seen, and it's continuing to poison a desktop environment I desperately want to love. Every time I suggest something I get shut down though, so why bother? Why would I willingly hurt myself in the process of trying to make a usable desktop? The only thing I can do now is share my experience as a warning to other developers who want to make Linux-native experiences: GNOME does not want your help, don't waste your time trying.