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Yes, the usual attack vector for entryists in an open source project is usually through non code contributions. Intensely political people figure this out prett
by elzbardico 3y ago
Yes, the usual attack vector for entryists in an open source project is usually through non code contributions. Intensely political people figure this out pretty easily.
But, what can we do? I like to believe that those anti-social elements are (very vocal) but a small portion of the universe of non code contributors. Project leaders just need to be a little less naive and keep an eye on this possibility to tackle the problem as soon as it appears.
- lolinder 3y agoIs it even really true, though? This feels like the kind of idea that circulates among techies who feel like "their people" wouldn't engage in that kind of politicking, even though it's been obvious everywhere I've looked that we're just as capable of making a mess of an organization as anyone else.
- elzbardico 3y agoI don't know. You could be right. I've found my share of intensively conniving and political techies too. Even some that were highly competent/skilled but had this passion for politics, and a tribal instinct of building a clique of a bunch of followers steamrolling over everyone else wherever they went. But on the other side, the non-tech infiltration route is also real.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoperception is reality, and there have been a few high profile cases of people injecting politics into the discussion.
- wolverine876 3y ago> perception is reality How does that apply here? That applies when people act on their perceptions; here we are talking about what the reality is.
- lolinder 3y agoYes, but the perception seems to be that those people are non-technical people who felt empowered to become involved because the project encouraged non-code contributions like documentation, bug reports, and helping out in the support forum. The reality as far as I've seen is that the people injecting politics into the discussion are developers, not "normies". The perception exists because some of us have a stereotype of a developer as someone who's only interested in the technical details of a project, so the people who bring unrelated concerns to the table must be non-technical.
- woodruffw 3y agoWhen people say things like this, the first thing I think of is ncurses' absolutely legendary licensing and social drama[1]. Be warned: reading that page in full will take you at least an hour. To find petty bickering, look no further than most technical contributors. Accusing non-technical people of this sort of thing isn't borne out. [1]: https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html
- cvwright 3y agoYour story is from 1996 and 1997. Of course all the bickering was between technical people — those were the only people around!
- lolinder 3y agoIt's just as true today, though. When the Rust mod team resigned en masse in 2021, it was announced by a programmer (the author of ripgrep) [0], and the conflict was with the core team (also programmers). A supermajority of the contributors to open source projects are programmers, so most famous meltdowns are going to be conflicts between programmers, not between programmers and the tiny minority of non-technical contributors. I'm still waiting for anyone to give an example of an open source project meltdown that was triggered by non-technical contributors. [0] https://github.com/rust-lang/team/pull/671 https://github.com/rust-lang/team/pull/671
- matheusmoreira 3y agoMore recent example: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/879 https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/879
- wolverine876 3y ago> attack vector Do you think people are looking to attack and want a vector? A much simpler, less paranoid explanation is that they get involved and then perceive problems. Some of those problems might even be real!