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Applying Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

by kryten 13y ago

nicholassmith 13y ago
I've always liked Hanlon's razor, I think it's woefully forgotten in the tech community who often reach for the pitchforks without thinking.
huhtenberg 13y ago
Witty. Now please demonstrate how it looks applied to this case.
- TallGuyShort 13y ago
  Replace "malice" with "conspiracy to eradicate open-source MySQL" and "stupidity" with "bugs in the packaging code".
  - huhtenberg 13y ago
    Good, good, almost there. Now elaborate on "bugs in the packaging code" part. What does "the wrong set of copyright headers" do in a vicinity of the packaging pipeline and how it came to exist in the first place. It's easy to throw around flashy one-liners. It's a bit more work to actually try and read into the facts presented.
    - TallGuyShort 13y ago
      As has already been stated on this same page, there's a community edition and a commercial edition. They're likely part of the same packaging pipeline. Do not be condescending on Hacker News when someone is responding to your question. It's easy to jump to conclusions. It's a bit more to actually try and understand what happened - that is the point of Hanlon's Razor. This may have been intentional, yes. But it may also have been a bug.
      - huhtenberg 13y ago
        > Do not be condescending on Hacker News when someone is responding to your question. Do not dispense unsolicited advice on the Internets. That wasn't a reply. It was a highbrow remark that was as generic as it was barely applicable. A proper reply was the sibling comment that pointed at two editions.
        kryten 13y ago
        The context was implied and definitely applicable. This is now becoming pedantic so let's invoke Godwin's law and stop valuable electrons being pushed around for no reason. The nazis did it. Everyone happy now? :)
    - mathnode 13y ago
      it's even more work to edit your package management system to include a set of documents that have nothing to do with the anything released ever before it. I would love to the commit comment.

Applying Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

by kryten 13y ago

Applying Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I've always liked Hanlon's razor, I think it's woefully forgotten in the tech community who often reach for the pitchforks without thinking.

huhtenberg 13y ago

Witty. Now please demonstrate how it looks applied to this case.

TallGuyShort 13y ago
Replace "malice" with "conspiracy to eradicate open-source MySQL" and "stupidity" with "bugs in the packaging code".
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  Good, good, almost there. Now elaborate on "bugs in the packaging code" part. What does "the wrong set of copyright headers" do in a vicinity of the packaging pipeline and how it came to exist in the first place. It's easy to throw around flashy one-liners. It's a bit more work to actually try and read into the facts presented.
  - TallGuyShort 13y ago
    As has already been stated on this same page, there's a community edition and a commercial edition. They're likely part of the same packaging pipeline. Do not be condescending on Hacker News when someone is responding to your question. It's easy to jump to conclusions. It's a bit more to actually try and understand what happened - that is the point of Hanlon's Razor. This may have been intentional, yes. But it may also have been a bug.
    - huhtenberg 13y ago
      > Do not be condescending on Hacker News when someone is responding to your question. Do not dispense unsolicited advice on the Internets. That wasn't a reply. It was a highbrow remark that was as generic as it was barely applicable. A proper reply was the sibling comment that pointed at two editions.
      - kryten 13y ago
        The context was implied and definitely applicable. This is now becoming pedantic so let's invoke Godwin's law and stop valuable electrons being pushed around for no reason. The nazis did it. Everyone happy now? :)
  - mathnode 13y ago
    it's even more work to edit your package management system to include a set of documents that have nothing to do with the anything released ever before it. I would love to the commit comment.