3 ms·

First you find me one person who isn't influenced by PR.

by fartcannon 4y ago

rglullis 4y ago
This is a total, BS-grade shade throw. If I answer "Me", what is going to change for you?
- fartcannon 4y ago
  You seem like a cool guy so I'm gonna answer you. If that is true, and if you could figure out how to teach it, you should, because it would literally save the world.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Thanks for the compliment, but I still don't see how this relates to your first point. Do you believe that the same people that are (justly) upset at the Copilot debacle are going to forget the issue because of a PR move? Moreover, why would be so hard for people to separate judgement between specific issues and the company as a whole? As in, Microsoft is still a corporation that is not going to get my sympathy, but we can still acknowledge that giving some money to FOSS developers is better than not giving anything.
    - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
      The directly affected people (people who have spent a significant portion of their working lives building open source software) won't forget. The general developer population (people who use but don't necessarily contribute to open source) sees a payment in support of open source and moves on. It's a PR campaign aimed at copilot users who aren't directly affected but found the whole episode discomforting.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        > The general developer population (people who use but don't necessarily contribute to open source) sees a payment in support of open source and moves on. That cuts both ways. One could just as easily make the case that this PR move can lead to other companies interested in supporting FOSS. My point is: instead of judging the merit of "they are doing this for PR", why don't you judge the merit of the action, and simply ignore the meta-opinion about how they are spinning the story?
        TAForObvReasons 4y ago
        If this were part of an effort that started last year, or if GitHub had a serious history in donating to maintainers of open source software (either in the 10 years as a private company or 4 years as part of Microsoft), then this would be judged on the merits of donating to open source. But they don't have that sort of history, so "why are they starting now as opposed to years ago?" is a natural question to ask.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You can (and should) ask as many meta-questions as you want. But what I am seeing is that people are trying to judge the main topic based on these meta-questions, and that is... I don't know, kind of stupid? Again: you are fully entitled to like or dislike Microsoft. But if you hear "BigCorp gave $500k to FOSS" and your opinion of this depends on "which BigCorp did it?", I'll take it as a sign that your opinion is biased and should be completely ignored.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Fence sitters, yeah, absolutely. You should definitely look up the power of PR. It's insane.

First you find me one person who isn't influenced by PR.

rglullis 4y ago

This is a total, BS-grade shade throw. If I answer "Me", what is going to change for you?

fartcannon 4y ago
You seem like a cool guy so I'm gonna answer you. If that is true, and if you could figure out how to teach it, you should, because it would literally save the world.
- rglullis 4y ago
  Thanks for the compliment, but I still don't see how this relates to your first point. Do you believe that the same people that are (justly) upset at the Copilot debacle are going to forget the issue because of a PR move? Moreover, why would be so hard for people to separate judgement between specific issues and the company as a whole? As in, Microsoft is still a corporation that is not going to get my sympathy, but we can still acknowledge that giving some money to FOSS developers is better than not giving anything.
  - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
    The directly affected people (people who have spent a significant portion of their working lives building open source software) won't forget. The general developer population (people who use but don't necessarily contribute to open source) sees a payment in support of open source and moves on. It's a PR campaign aimed at copilot users who aren't directly affected but found the whole episode discomforting.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      > The general developer population (people who use but don't necessarily contribute to open source) sees a payment in support of open source and moves on. That cuts both ways. One could just as easily make the case that this PR move can lead to other companies interested in supporting FOSS. My point is: instead of judging the merit of "they are doing this for PR", why don't you judge the merit of the action, and simply ignore the meta-opinion about how they are spinning the story?
      - TAForObvReasons 4y ago
        If this were part of an effort that started last year, or if GitHub had a serious history in donating to maintainers of open source software (either in the 10 years as a private company or 4 years as part of Microsoft), then this would be judged on the merits of donating to open source. But they don't have that sort of history, so "why are they starting now as opposed to years ago?" is a natural question to ask.
        rglullis 4y ago
        You can (and should) ask as many meta-questions as you want. But what I am seeing is that people are trying to judge the main topic based on these meta-questions, and that is... I don't know, kind of stupid? Again: you are fully entitled to like or dislike Microsoft. But if you hear "BigCorp gave $500k to FOSS" and your opinion of this depends on "which BigCorp did it?", I'll take it as a sign that your opinion is biased and should be completely ignored.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Fence sitters, yeah, absolutely. You should definitely look up the power of PR. It's insane.