6 ms·

What is the vitriol being directed at Drew DeVault? I enjoy reading his blog posts and am a fan of SourceHut.

riffic 4y ago
yeah, drew is pretty awesome as a builder. I don't get the negativity other than haters gonna hate.
bckr 4y ago
I think it's a good idea if you find out on your own and we don't make this thread about it. That said, I don' t know and couldn't tell you.
skybrian 4y ago
I don't understand the harassment and I think it's terrible that a maintainer got so much criticism that they felt they had to resign. But more generally, I think he has a negative reputation largely because of his blogging. He has criticized others in strong terms, in blog posts that get a lot of attention. We aren't that into reading another criticism when the previous ones didn't seem that well thought out. Sometimes the advocacy for his own work is also based on strong criticism of others for doing it wrong. It's "my way is good and other projects are harmful" rather than "I think my way is better, but other projects have different goals and people have their reasons for preferring their workflows." But he's getting attention because people keep sharing his blog posts in various forums, and he's not responsible for that. (Including this blog post appearing in Hacker News.)
kzrdude 4y ago
He has his own ideas. I think it's refreshing, he's not afraid of going against some popular opinions. Sometimes he's controversial or showing some risky humor - like the time he was encouraging destruction through npm, but not really. (quote: https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html )
- danenania 4y ago
  That’s fine and I enjoy reading his posts quite a lot (haven’t used any of his services but they seem very cool in a particular HN minimalist kind of way). However if you’re going to traffic in language war melodrama and controversy-for-clicks (let’s be real, it’s a deliberate content strategy), then it’s sort of weak to cry about others not being nice enough in their criticisms of your own stuff. Pot meet kettle and all that /shrug. Regardless, I hope he gets through the rough patch and I look forward to reading more of his posts that may or may not eloquently shit all over some of my favorite programming tools :)
mattl 4y ago
- VoidWhisperer 4y ago
  The username he goes by is sircmpwn. Hence the 'sir' in the first part of the email address. It isn't too out there as far as emails go.
  - mattl 4y ago
    - nix23 4y ago
      - mattl 4y ago
        nix23 4y ago
        mattl 4y ago
        nix23 4y ago
        dang 4y ago
        You broke the site guidelines very badly in this thread, and repeatedly. We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd appreciate it. That includes no more swipes and no more personal attacks.
The_Colonel 4y ago
I don't know what he's referring to, but he's kind of guilty of jumping on the hate wagons as well, e.g. https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html or https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmful.html https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmf...
- garren 4y ago
  I don’t see either of those as particularly hateful. He’s got strong opinions, yes, and you’re certainly free to disregard his posts for whatever reasons you’d like, but they don’t strike me as obviously derogatory or repulsive. He makes good points in both - electron is great in some ways, but terrible in others, and dependency management with npm/node is, charitably, problematic.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
    > Electron enables lazy developers to write garbage > The reason people choose Electron is because they are too lazy to learn the right tools for the job. > For the love of God, learn something else. Now contrast with what he complains about in this blogpost: > SourceHut’s email-oriented approach might not be for everyone, and instead of simply not using it, skeptics must harass any projects that do. His blogpost on electron was fueling this exact brand of hate.
    - 1MachineElf 4y ago
      To his credit, the blog post about electron was made on his own platform. It's not like he went out of his way to spread Electron developers on public forums. You can never achieve on a personal blog the vitriol Twitter, etc. can bear.
  - xoxoxoxox 4y ago
    I'd call your summarization of his takes more even-handed than the source material. I suspect, though, that his post wouldn't have gotten the traffic it did were all of it easy to nod along with.
skyfaller 4y ago
I use Sway and I pay to host my code on SourceHut. I admire Drew and I think he is making invaluable contributions to FOSS. That said, he has a history of... rash? impulsive? reactions to situations that might have been resolved with less bad blood if he had stepped away from the keyboard until he was less upset. The classic example is when he got upset about people wanting to unofficially add favicons to the Gemini protocol, and he threatened to blackhole any IP address which requests a favicon. https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/issues/199 https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/issues/19... I do not know if there is some specific recent event triggering vitriol, but the way this post is written, it sounds like Drew thinks it is resulting from less recent actions like the favicon threat. In Drew's defense, he has made (limited) apologies and I do believe he is trying to do better. https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disaster.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disas... has a note at the bottom, saying: > I realize that my blog has been a source of a lot of negativity in the past, and I regret how harsh I've been with some of the projects I've criticised. I will make my arguments by example going forward: if I think we can do better, I'll do it better, instead of criticising those who are just earnestly trying their best. But it is also true that many people will not be quick to forgive him, and some people never will. It will take him time to undo the negative image he has created with some people, but after seeing Linus Torvald's positive changes, I am optimistic that Drew can change for the better if he wants to, and help create a welcoming community for everyone. If he doesn't give up first.
- jbiason 4y ago
  Dunno if he still have his Mastodon account, but after seeing continuous posts calling GNOME devs "complete idiots" and constantly bashing Rust for their decisions, I stopped following him completely. You're seeing the posts in his blogs. His timeline was full of bashing devs of other open source projects. Never a constructive criticism, just plain bashing (with occasional self-congratulatory comment for his own decision). PS: I think part of his Rust criticism was towards the attempt to make Sway use wlroots-rs and it not fitting his idea. So, instead of saying "Sorry, it didn't work", he jumped into full bashing Rust for not doing what he was trying to do.

yeah, drew is pretty awesome as a builder. I don't get the negativity other than haters gonna hate.

bckr 4y ago

I think it's a good idea if you find out on your own and we don't make this thread about it. That said, I don' t know and couldn't tell you.

skybrian 4y ago

I don't understand the harassment and I think it's terrible that a maintainer got so much criticism that they felt they had to resign. But more generally, I think he has a negative reputation largely because of his blogging. He has criticized others in strong terms, in blog posts that get a lot of attention. We aren't that into reading another criticism when the previous ones didn't seem that well thought out. Sometimes the advocacy for his own work is also based on strong criticism of others for doing it wrong. It's "my way is good and other projects are harmful" rather than "I think my way is better, but other projects have different goals and people have their reasons for preferring their workflows." But he's getting attention because people keep sharing his blog posts in various forums, and he's not responsible for that. (Including this blog post appearing in Hacker News.)

kzrdude 4y ago

He has his own ideas. I think it's refreshing, he's not afraid of going against some popular opinions. Sometimes he's controversial or showing some risky humor - like the time he was encouraging destruction through npm, but not really. (quote: https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html )

danenania 4y ago
That’s fine and I enjoy reading his posts quite a lot (haven’t used any of his services but they seem very cool in a particular HN minimalist kind of way). However if you’re going to traffic in language war melodrama and controversy-for-clicks (let’s be real, it’s a deliberate content strategy), then it’s sort of weak to cry about others not being nice enough in their criticisms of your own stuff. Pot meet kettle and all that /shrug. Regardless, I hope he gets through the rough patch and I look forward to reading more of his posts that may or may not eloquently shit all over some of my favorite programming tools :)

mattl 4y ago

VoidWhisperer 4y ago
The username he goes by is sircmpwn. Hence the 'sir' in the first part of the email address. It isn't too out there as far as emails go.
- mattl 4y ago
  - nix23 4y ago
    - mattl 4y ago
      - nix23 4y ago
        mattl 4y ago
        nix23 4y ago
        dang 4y ago
        You broke the site guidelines very badly in this thread, and repeatedly. We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd appreciate it. That includes no more swipes and no more personal attacks.

The_Colonel 4y ago

I don't know what he's referring to, but he's kind of guilty of jumping on the hate wagons as well, e.g. https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/16/Cash-for-leftpad.html or https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmful.html https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmf...

garren 4y ago
I don’t see either of those as particularly hateful. He’s got strong opinions, yes, and you’re certainly free to disregard his posts for whatever reasons you’d like, but they don’t strike me as obviously derogatory or repulsive. He makes good points in both - electron is great in some ways, but terrible in others, and dependency management with npm/node is, charitably, problematic.
- The_Colonel 4y ago
  > Electron enables lazy developers to write garbage > The reason people choose Electron is because they are too lazy to learn the right tools for the job. > For the love of God, learn something else. Now contrast with what he complains about in this blogpost: > SourceHut’s email-oriented approach might not be for everyone, and instead of simply not using it, skeptics must harass any projects that do. His blogpost on electron was fueling this exact brand of hate.
  - 1MachineElf 4y ago
    To his credit, the blog post about electron was made on his own platform. It's not like he went out of his way to spread Electron developers on public forums. You can never achieve on a personal blog the vitriol Twitter, etc. can bear.
- xoxoxoxox 4y ago
  I'd call your summarization of his takes more even-handed than the source material. I suspect, though, that his post wouldn't have gotten the traffic it did were all of it easy to nod along with.

skyfaller 4y ago

I use Sway and I pay to host my code on SourceHut. I admire Drew and I think he is making invaluable contributions to FOSS. That said, he has a history of... rash? impulsive? reactions to situations that might have been resolved with less bad blood if he had stepped away from the keyboard until he was less upset. The classic example is when he got upset about people wanting to unofficially add favicons to the Gemini protocol, and he threatened to blackhole any IP address which requests a favicon. https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/issues/199 https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/issues/19... I do not know if there is some specific recent event triggering vitriol, but the way this post is written, it sounds like Drew thinks it is resulting from less recent actions like the favicon threat. In Drew's defense, he has made (limited) apologies and I do believe he is trying to do better. https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disaster.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/04/26/Cryptocurrency-is-a-disas... has a note at the bottom, saying: > I realize that my blog has been a source of a lot of negativity in the past, and I regret how harsh I've been with some of the projects I've criticised. I will make my arguments by example going forward: if I think we can do better, I'll do it better, instead of criticising those who are just earnestly trying their best. But it is also true that many people will not be quick to forgive him, and some people never will. It will take him time to undo the negative image he has created with some people, but after seeing Linus Torvald's positive changes, I am optimistic that Drew can change for the better if he wants to, and help create a welcoming community for everyone. If he doesn't give up first.

jbiason 4y ago
Dunno if he still have his Mastodon account, but after seeing continuous posts calling GNOME devs "complete idiots" and constantly bashing Rust for their decisions, I stopped following him completely. You're seeing the posts in his blogs. His timeline was full of bashing devs of other open source projects. Never a constructive criticism, just plain bashing (with occasional self-congratulatory comment for his own decision). PS: I think part of his Rust criticism was towards the attempt to make Sway use wlroots-rs and it not fitting his idea. So, instead of saying "Sorry, it didn't work", he jumped into full bashing Rust for not doing what he was trying to do.