3 ms·

I really resent the use of "culture" in tech spaces. Maybe in some really active and storied chatrooms and forums here and there. But generally no. The xyzlib

I really resent the use of "culture" in tech spaces. Maybe in some really active and storied chatrooms and forums here and there. But generally no. The xyzlib code repo contributors don't have a "shared culture." They're not a "community." They don't have anything useful to offer "as a community" on the great questions our world faces. They don't need to have a defined set of opinions about issues beyond the unresolved issues in the repo. Iranian nuclear scientists, Israeli settlers, Palestinian militias, Democrats, Russians, and even Republicans are all active users of and contributors to these intrinsically neutral tools being created. And there's actually a magic in that which is lost when projects feel compelled to try to define and enforce some sort of imagined culture and community.

Mordisquitos 4y ago
I would say the problem is in the overload of the meanings of "culture" and "community", and the almost moral implications of these words in their colloquial sense. Technically, on a purely scientific level, contributors to a given library do have a "culture". There are rules and attitudes that they follow, more or less consciously, that are different from those that are followed by the contributors to a different library. Each of these groups also technically form a "community", as they are groups of individuals that share a common purpose. A hypothetical research paper that compared the inner workings of different open source contributor groups would be very legitimised in using the words "culture" and "community" to describe them, and researching these topics can be of great interest. However, the problem arises when these terms are reified towards laypeople, sometimes with somewhat of a self-serving, marketing, or self-congratulatory purpose from the user of the words: «Everyone knows Culture is a good thing! As is Community! And this Community has this Culture! Let's talk about the Culture of this Community! Are you a part of this Community? What can we do for this Community? How can we work on its Culture?» (I felt mentally exhausted just by writing this caricature)

Mordisquitos 4y ago

I would say the problem is in the overload of the meanings of "culture" and "community", and the almost moral implications of these words in their colloquial sense. Technically, on a purely scientific level, contributors to a given library do have a "culture". There are rules and attitudes that they follow, more or less consciously, that are different from those that are followed by the contributors to a different library. Each of these groups also technically form a "community", as they are groups of individuals that share a common purpose. A hypothetical research paper that compared the inner workings of different open source contributor groups would be very legitimised in using the words "culture" and "community" to describe them, and researching these topics can be of great interest. However, the problem arises when these terms are reified towards laypeople, sometimes with somewhat of a self-serving, marketing, or self-congratulatory purpose from the user of the words: «Everyone knows Culture is a good thing! As is Community! And this Community has this Culture! Let's talk about the Culture of this Community! Are you a part of this Community? What can we do for this Community? How can we work on its Culture?» (I felt mentally exhausted just by writing this caricature)