Why A Maintainer of the Linux Graphics Driver Nouveau Stepped Down (phoronix.com) 239
For over a decade Karol Herbst has been a developer on the open-source Nouveau driver, a reverse-engineered NVIDIA graphics driver for Linux. "He went on to become employed by Red Hat," notes Phoronix. "While he's known more these days for his work on the Mesa 3D Graphics Library and the Rusticl OpenCL driver for it, he's still remained a maintainer of the Nouveau kernel driver."
But Saturday Herbst stepped down as a nouveau kernel maintainer, in a mailing list message that begins "I was pondering with myself for a while if I should just make it official that I'm not really involved in the kernel community anymore, neither as a reviewer, nor as a maintainer." (Another message begins "I often thought about at least contributing some patches again once I find the time, but...")
Their resignation message hints at some long-running unhappiness. "I got burned out enough by myself caring about the bits I maintained, but eventually I had to realize my limits. The obligation I felt was eating me from inside. It stopped being fun at some point and I reached a point where I simply couldn't continue the work I was so motivated doing as I've did in the early days." And they point to one specific discussion on the kernel mailing list February 8th as "The moment I made up my mind."
It happened in a thread about whether Rust would create difficulty for maintainers. (Someone had posted that "The all powerful sub-system maintainer model works well if the big technology companies can employ omniscient individuals in these roles, but those types are a bit hard to come by.") In response, someone else had posted "I'll let you in a secret. The maintainers are not 'all-powerful'. We are the 'thin blue line' that is trying to keep the code to be maintainable and high quality. Like most leaders of volunteer organization, whether it is the Internet Engineerint Task Force (the standards body for the Internet), we actually have very little power. We can not *command* people to work on retiring technical debt, or to improve testing infrastructure, or work on some particular feature that we'd very like for our users. All we can do is stop things from being accepted..."
Saturday Herbst wrote: The moment I made up my mind about this was reading the following words written by a maintainer within the kernel community:
"we are the thin blue line"
This isn't okay. This isn't creating an inclusive environment. This isn't okay with the current political situation especially in the US. A maintainer speaking those words can't be kept. No matter how important or critical or relevant they are. They need to be removed until they learn. Learn what those words mean for a lot of marginalized people. Learn about what horrors it evokes in their minds.
I can't in good faith remain to be part of a project and its community where those words are tolerated. Those words are not technical, they are a political statement. Even if unintentionally, such words carry power, they carry meanings one needs to be aware of. They do cause an immense amount of harm.
The phrase thin blue line "typically refers to the concept of the police as the line between law-and-order and chaos," according to Wikipedia, but more recently became associated with a"countermovement" to the Black Lives Matter movement and "a number of far-right movements in the U.S."
Phoronix writes: Lyude Paul and Danilo Krummrich both of Red Hat remain Nouveau kernel maintainers. Red Hat developers are also working on developing NOVA as the new Rust-based open-source NVIDIA kernel driver leveraging the GSP interface for Turing GPUs and newer.
But Saturday Herbst stepped down as a nouveau kernel maintainer, in a mailing list message that begins "I was pondering with myself for a while if I should just make it official that I'm not really involved in the kernel community anymore, neither as a reviewer, nor as a maintainer." (Another message begins "I often thought about at least contributing some patches again once I find the time, but...")
Their resignation message hints at some long-running unhappiness. "I got burned out enough by myself caring about the bits I maintained, but eventually I had to realize my limits. The obligation I felt was eating me from inside. It stopped being fun at some point and I reached a point where I simply couldn't continue the work I was so motivated doing as I've did in the early days." And they point to one specific discussion on the kernel mailing list February 8th as "The moment I made up my mind."
It happened in a thread about whether Rust would create difficulty for maintainers. (Someone had posted that "The all powerful sub-system maintainer model works well if the big technology companies can employ omniscient individuals in these roles, but those types are a bit hard to come by.") In response, someone else had posted "I'll let you in a secret. The maintainers are not 'all-powerful'. We are the 'thin blue line' that is trying to keep the code to be maintainable and high quality. Like most leaders of volunteer organization, whether it is the Internet Engineerint Task Force (the standards body for the Internet), we actually have very little power. We can not *command* people to work on retiring technical debt, or to improve testing infrastructure, or work on some particular feature that we'd very like for our users. All we can do is stop things from being accepted..."
Saturday Herbst wrote: The moment I made up my mind about this was reading the following words written by a maintainer within the kernel community:
"we are the thin blue line"
This isn't okay. This isn't creating an inclusive environment. This isn't okay with the current political situation especially in the US. A maintainer speaking those words can't be kept. No matter how important or critical or relevant they are. They need to be removed until they learn. Learn what those words mean for a lot of marginalized people. Learn about what horrors it evokes in their minds.
I can't in good faith remain to be part of a project and its community where those words are tolerated. Those words are not technical, they are a political statement. Even if unintentionally, such words carry power, they carry meanings one needs to be aware of. They do cause an immense amount of harm.
The phrase thin blue line "typically refers to the concept of the police as the line between law-and-order and chaos," according to Wikipedia, but more recently became associated with a"countermovement" to the Black Lives Matter movement and "a number of far-right movements in the U.S."
Phoronix writes: Lyude Paul and Danilo Krummrich both of Red Hat remain Nouveau kernel maintainers. Red Hat developers are also working on developing NOVA as the new Rust-based open-source NVIDIA kernel driver leveraging the GSP interface for Turing GPUs and newer.
Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like he was no longer actively involved as a maintainer or reviewer of Nouveau code and hasn't been for quite some time. However, he used his official "exit" to launch a tantrum against someone who made a comment he didn't like.
It comes off as petty....at least to me.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because of what the thing said tells you about how the group works. Heroism is the simpleton's answer to complex problems: some hero will fix it. Institutionalizing heroism is normalizing systemic failure.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called virtue signaling, and this is basically the purest form of it. What you have here is a person who demands that all kernel developers share not only the same politics, but the same trigger words.
People like him are why Mexicans can't have Speedy Gonzales even though they seem to overwhelmingly love that character:
https://www.latimes.com/califo... [latimes.com]
Just white progressives taking offense on behalf of other people because they want to feel better about themselves over white guilt. In other words, just an IRL PC Principal like this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
Hi, I understand your perspective on this, but I think your viewpoint is very American-centric. Karol is German, Germany is currently facing a strong uptake in fascism, which makes a lot of (non-fascist) people legitimately upset. Germans observe the evolution of American politics with a lot of angst, because what is happening in your country is possibly the forecoming of what will happen all over the world soon, and if one country has not fully forgotten history yet, it's Germany. The comment about the "thin blue line" refers to something about American politics but it also resonates to things that happened in Germany's history (I won't remind you here about the role of the German police in WWII, you can Wikipedia it), and there are still many people in Germany who are very sensitive to these issues - and I mean sensitive in a different way than the people in the US, because they were the bad guys and "Nazi Guilt" is a thing which has roots in objective reality - and who would feel very bad about working with people who associate themselves, even if only in words or allusions, with fascism.
I'm going to give my own viewpoint on this now. Where I work now, there are liberals and conservatives. There are people on both sides with extreme opinions that I don't like. On the conservative side, there are people who are going to becomes fascist allies if fascism comes to full power. It's becoming obvious now that Trump is in power. Now, I'm paid to do my job, so I'm paid to interact with those people. I do this professionally, but I sure as hell don't spend any time outside of the office with them. But if I was working as a volunteer on a software project on my free time, I know for sure I would not take part in a project where the general atmosphere is fascist or crypto-fascist. I would probably not voice strongly against those people like Karol did, because like most people I would probably think that it's not worthy enduring all the online abuse after publicly stating my opinion. I would observe the atmosphere, and if I did not like it, I would walk away.
I don't think what Karol did is virtue signaling. I think there is some courage in stating out loud one's worries, specifically when knowing there will be a lot of backlash against him like what will happen now. I know I'm a bit of a coward myself and I would just walk away without stating why I'm leaving. I would be thinking of protecting myself first. I would not think it's worth risking my sanity to state that, well, I don't like fascism. But maybe he is right, maybe if we don't make strong statements now, then later we will regret it. I respect what he did.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The comment about the "thin blue line" refers to something about American politics but it also resonates to things that happened in Germany's history
Nope.
First, the color of choice for the connotation you touch upon is brown, not blue. And if you choose to mean today's police, it's mostly green (it isn't green anymore, but they used to be until a decade or so ago, so pretty much everyone born in the 1990s or earlier, would think of police as the "green-whites", not the "blues".)
Second, there is no "thin brown line" or "think green line" or even a "thin blue line" in Germany. If anything, there's nothing "thin" about them. Law enforcement nickname here i
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Just to add "thin blue line" is all about the rule of law, here in the UK. There was even a TV show of the same name.
The other meanings for it, co-opted by extremist nutjobs haven't (yet) travelled across the pond to us. I'm sure they will, but I seriously doubt any reasonable Brit would consider "the thin blue line" to be anything other than the difference between law and disorder.
I have no idea about Germany in this particular regard, but I would echo that the Germans have a very different, and very acute
Re: (Score:2)
Germany is... complicated.
Most "normal people" think there are hardly any Nazis, and any incidents are "isolated events" at best.
Most Nazis think there are hardly any people who don't, deep in the back of their heads, secretly agree with them.
I think both groups have it wrong. 90-95% of the population didn't choose one front or another, but there's a significant potential for Nazism and right-wing extremism in Germany (I'd say 50%?), which could easily surface under the right set of circumstances -- from wh
Re: Why is this news? (Score:3)
I guess Germany has no police today (because it's inherently fascist). An implication from your essay.
I'm still glad that you didn't call the guy who said "thin blue line" fascist. Almost. And not directly, anyway.
I don't know about German sensitivities, but in my country, if you go calling people fascist with such ease, and without giving them the benefit of the doubt, you're going to lose your teeth real fast. And not by fascists.
Re: (Score:3)
"Germany is currently facing a strong uptake in fascism"
Ask yourself why that is. Extremists take root when incumbent parties absolve their responsibility to protect the populace and treat them as fools.
Re: (Score:3)
On the conservative side, there are people who are going to becomes fascist allies if fascism comes to full power. It's becoming obvious now that Trump is in power.
I'm really interested in finding out how you can be so certain of this. Are they secretly carving nazi signs into the underside of their desks?
Re:Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
>But if I was working as a volunteer on a software project on my free time, I know for sure I would not take part in a project where the general atmosphere is fascist or crypto-fascist.
Aaand, one small comment about being the gatekeepers of good code and it's a "general atmosphere" of fascism? Get a grip!
>I don't think what Karol did is virtue signaling.
No, it's bonkers behaviour, and cancel culture at it's finest.
Re: (Score:3)
I am German and this is the first time I hear about "thin blue line" being associated with far right movements.
Our police uses blue as its color. They switched from green to blue a few years ago.
And we do have a far right party that has a lighter shade of blue as background in its logo and is typically show in blue in diagrams.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I do this professionally, but I sure as hell don't spend any time outside of the office with them. But if I was working as a volunteer on a software project on my free time, I know for sure I would not take part in a project where the general atmosphere is fascist or crypto-fascist.
You know, aside from the kooks, most conservative people here in the country responsible for all problems on earth, are not fascists, or hoping to implement a 5th Reich. But I wander - what asm I? I have actual friends from all over the spectrum, excluding the kooks. Or perhaps I have not fallen to the mandate that anyone who does not march in lockstep with my political view is either a fascist or communist - pick your enemy. Anyhow, if if makes you feel safe to be with a like minded group, by all means do
Re: (Score:2)
> Hi, I understand your perspective on this, but I think your viewpoint is very American-centric. Karol is German, Germany is currently facing a strong uptake in fascism, which makes a lot of (non-fascist) people legitimately upset.
Yeah, us too.
And I would probably have quit kernel development too between neo-fascist comments like that quoted and the general air of pissy entitled old timers upset at the new things that I'm seeing on the kernel lists at the moment, were I part of it. Life's too short to s
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
Are you saying that Theodore Ts'o made a neo-fascist comment, and the call to remove him from the kernel development community constitutes a legitimate criticism?
I hope that I'm mistaken and the answer to the above question is NO.
But... in the unfortunate case it's YES, then you, Sir, are on the same level of insanity as Mr. Herbst. You think that you defend the minorities, the oppressed etc. but in fact it's the exact opposite. It's the lunacy of people like you that brought Mr. MAGA Man to power. Hope you
Re:Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for your thoughtful post and perspective. From the POV of this American I would share this: In the U.S. I believe a key factor that propelled Mr. Trump to electoral victory was the attitude and responses to "right wing" thoughts just like Mr. Herbst's. I don't mean this in a way to deride him at all- I actually can understand why he feels that way (your post helps too!) and I personally don't like the "thin blue line" analogy. However, we are learning that reacting by attacking the person, denying the validity of their experience or point of view, or enforcing an orthodoxy that not all members of society agree on seems to be a terrible idea if you don't want those ideas to gain currency.
Some of us came up with a different interpretation.
The far left was dictating what the Democrats did or did not do, and the Republicans used that quite effectively.
One of the best examples is when Seth Moulton, a Democrat running unopposed, noted that he did not want biological males running over his daughters on the playing field. That provoked outrage, staff members quitting and demanding that Moulton apologize to the LGBTQ++ community, then step down.
The same people who claim to trust science do not believe in biology. The Republicans made hay with that.
Another thing is that in their unquestioned obedience to the far left, the Democrats forgot that men can still vote - even young guys.
And the far left kooks do not like men. So we have a couple generations of males who have lived every day being told how men are the cause of all problems, are ridiculed as stupid and that they are all rapists https://everydayfeminism.com/2... [everydayfeminism.com]
So now after the democrats bent the knee to people tho believe that every man is a rapist, young men who are told they are worthless and not needed, are now less educated, excluded from jobs if a woman applies, overlooked for promotions, and if they are hired, can be terminated without due process if a woman on staff accuses them of something, where women in gyms can come in wearing almost nothing, and set up a camera to complain about the creeps, and where social media and dating sites has over 80 percent of women going after a small subset of men.
While obviously not all ladies are like this, this is the narrative presented. The creepy TV show "Sex in the City" as a guidebook.
So these guys are expected to vote for the party that hates them?
Toward the end, even the campaign realized they ha a male problem, which led to the cringy "Men for Harris" commercials, which failed largely because they used the far left's ideas of what men are.
The idea that they were going to win because of a estrogen wave overwhelming the enemy - men. That Taylor Swift was going to lead an unstoppable force. Problems there. Not all women hate men. My guess is most do not. Many mothers see the world, and they are concerned - they love their sons.
An intellectual shift. Harris outright told the Teamsters that she was going to win with or without their endorsement. What was once the party of working people became the party of some far left academics and their minions.
The Democrats eroded many groups who were once considered reliable block voters. And despite their reaction, few people in the USA are fascists. I would hope that they take this curb stomping as a lesson, and stop taking their raison d'être from people who don't represent most Americans.
Re: (Score:2)
As always, an amalgam of different factors were at play for different people; the issues you identify might indeed have been important to many. Giving some attention to what the Democrats have done to contribu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What you have here is a person who demands that all kernel developers share not only the same politics, but the same trigger words.
No. You have here a kernel developer who wants neither politics nor trigger words to be used in the professional context. That isn't an unreasonable demand.
Re: (Score:2)
No. You have here a kernel developer who wants neither politics nor trigger words to be used in the professional context. That isn't an unreasonable demand.
The term itself is used to define people that try to protect order from chaos. That definition is perfectly adequate to describe maintainers in the context of the discussion that was going on.
It is IMHO unreasonable to demand forfeiting using terms that describe a situation well because in other contexts they are used to promote political ideologies that have nothing to do with the current discussion.
Said that, I also think there is nothing wrong in having "master" as branch name in git... so I guess it wi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
His list of trigger words is unreasonable. His reaction was unreasonable too. When you feel the need to step down, you do it with dignity.
Re: (Score:3)
It's called virtue signaling, and this is basically the purest form of it. What you have here is a person who demands that all kernel developers share not only the same politics, but the same trigger words.
People like him are why Mexicans can't have Speedy Gonzales even though they seem to overwhelmingly love that character:
I'm trying to grok how "thin blue line" triggered the person. That a simple statement meaning that there are a few people doing the job and keeping the code maintainable, suddenly becomes Non-inclusive, and The fscking USA, goddammmit!
If we make the words "thin blue line" a hate crime, the world will be a better place. /s
Re: (Score:2)
It's only offensive when it targets some demographics, it seems. For example, it is allowed to take a dump all over Italians' heritage with no consequences.
Re: (Score:2)
No consequences?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzy50ytziA
Re: (Score:3)
Cultural appropriation IS offensive.
Is it? Some cultures, like Japanese, consider it a compliment. They themselves often incorporate other cultures words.
And if you eat or prepare any food not of your culture, you are committing a cultural appropriation hate crime. https://www.snopes.com/news/20... [snopes.com]
fortunately, the people who know how things are supposed to be got those criminal women shut down. Who the hell do they think they are - must have been fascists
let us all be inclusive, and stratify and differentiate annd as you desire, dis
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
Good. We're cool, then.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:3)
Hijacking top comment to add a precision.
The evil bad guy who used the "thin blue line" expression is apparently Theodore Ts'o.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2... [kernel.org]
The guy is asking for Theodore fucking Ts'o to be removed from the kernel...
Re: (Score:3)
Well, if I'm Linus and some nervous guy gives me an ultimatum to choose between him and Theodore Ts'o, then this guy gets booted.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
Hijacking top comment to add a precision.
The evil bad guy who used the "thin blue line" expression is apparently Theodore Ts'o.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2... [kernel.org]
The guy is asking for Theodore fucking Ts'o to be removed from the kernel...
Rush conflict ends another Linux dev (Score:5, Insightful)
2 of them in 2 weeks? Again over Rust stuff?
Linus should consider if the "Rust community" is emotionally stable enough to deal with something as critical as helping maintain the Linux kernel.
Drama seems to follow in their wake.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
WHY ARE RUST DEVELOPER SOOOOO DRAMMMAATTIICCC??!?!?!!
Irony dies off-stage; C developer exits stage left; the fiefdom is saved.
Re: (Score:3, Flamebait)
You meant to say, a Rust developer demands to be treated special and gets told his toy fotw language is not going to get special treatment so he takes his ball and goes home after writing a short novel resignation letter only me and his mom managed to read in it's glorious entitled emotionally damaged entirety.
That's what you meant to say. FTFY. You're welcome.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We're not. In fact, neither of these guys were actively doing anything related to rust in the kernel at the time that they left. In both cases, they were getting offended on behalf of other people who almost certainly weren't offended to begin with. One guy was pissed off that nobody wanted to social media shame along with him. The other was pissed off because nobody else was triggered by the same phrase that he was. That just means they're progressives doing the typical shit that progressives do. They woul
Re: (Score:2)
But is the rust community unstable, or the C community incompatible with the rust community?
Not going to judge if a side is to blame about the two being incompatible.
Re: (Score:2)
If they're incompatible that's ok too. The Rust people can just go rebuild Linux in Rust or fork it and run it however they like.
Nothing stops anyone from writing in both languages. They're not mutually exclusive groups.
Re: (Score:3)
Again over Rust stuff?
To be clear: the summary refers to a thread that was started by a question about Rust, but my read of the rest of the summary suggests that Karol's departure had nothing to do with the language or even with technical issues; the departure was instead about Karol's reaction to the perceived politics of a metaphor someone chose while characterizing the role of code maintainers in general.
I thought it important to clarify this distinction, lest someone confuse this event as being about Rust.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I did consider that distinction.
You see that sort of emotionalism out of the Rust folks commonly but very rarely from the C side of the house.
Has any C kernel dev ever gone ballistic over some random trigger phrase and insisted the speaker be kicked out of the kernel dev group?
How often has there been some triggered thing happen from the Rust side that has literally nothing to do with tech?
This is definitely a Rust v C community emotional stability thing. At least when the C crew goes ballistic it is almos
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a Linux kernel developer now nor ever was. I haven't written more than a few lines of code since I retired years ago. I don't have a horse in this race. Just calling it like I see it. The Rust guys are dramatic and emotional and bring all sorts of unimportant shit into e conversation. Seriously, some other dev uses the thin blue line quote and this guy loses his shit and says he should be kicked out? Get over it. Jfc.
They could rewrite the whole Linux kernel in MS Basic for all I care.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. I'm an old man who is scared of people moving fast and breaking things. I actually wish Rust to succeed. For me this means that it will be taken over by professionals instead of hobbyists, and at least we will see a standard like Rust 2006, Rust 2007 or whatever, instead of the moving target that Rust is right now.
No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I've lived almost all of my adult life in deep blue Massachusetts. Why? Because even if I didn't agree with the crazy in most people's heads around here, and in my workplace, my job payed OK and the work was occasionally interesting.
I sat through the woke diversity trainings and held my tongue at the pronouns in colleagues' email sigs.
But this guy? One comment that he interprets as not aligned with his politics and he's out?
Grow a pair. Grow a thicker skin. Get a girlfriend. Lose your girlfriend. Stop drinking. Start drinking. Do whatever you need to do so that your professional life doesn't get derailed by scary words on the internet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno, it sounds to me more like the guy has wanted to quit for quite some time and had been looking for some sort of excuse to give himself permission to do so:
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Maybe yes maybe no. See above about compartmentalizing one's political opinions and one's professional obligations.
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if you'd have been totally in his corner if he'd used the phrase "woke bullshit" when he resigned.
If he was baselessly quoting another person's words as "woke bullshit" then yes, I personally would.
If he had simply said "I leave because this community is fascist", then I wouldn't.
Re:No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:5, Funny)
I sat through the woke diversity trainings and held my tongue at the pronouns in colleagues' email sigs.
Three words.
Gulf Of Mexico
Suddenly pronouns are a big deal.
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Gulf Of Mexico
I don't get why he ever wanted to do that to begin with. Though I also doubt that he's even aware that the US state of New Mexico actually got its name before the country Mexico did.
It likewise never made sense to refer to Denali as Mt McKinley, especially given president McKinley never even saw it, let alone go anywhere near it, chart it in any way, or even so much as commission an expedition.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not even sure why the country is called Mexico. Mexico means the country of Mexicas, a.k.a. Aztecs, which were an aggressive, warlike, imperialistic nation oppressing all of its neighbors with an iron fist.
Re: (Score:2)
Distraction. It's known as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's an unbelievably pointless issue that raises a lot of discussion so they overwhelm the public with ridiculous topics to hide or let more important things unchallenged.
Re: (Score:2)
Realistically though, what more can be said than Wittgenstein? "astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. We do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in as running up against paradox. This running up against the limits of language is ethics." It's pretty simple. Nothing can be more clear than Wittgenstein q
This is only a test (Score:2)
The nutjobs aren't done yet. Next he'll rename the East America Ocean and the West America Ocean. And after Canada becomes the 51st state, he'll rename the North America Ocean to complete the set. Right next to his personal resort of Orangeland, unless he decides to save that brand for the cleansed Gaza? Hey, that's the solution. Send the Palestinians to the former Greenland!
This was intended as a test of Poe's Law, but the nutjobs will probably take it as a pile of good ideas...
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds like IBM pays him to work on Mesa3D stuff; but given that this comes after a longer period of limited involvement with nouveau kernel driver work they apparently don't care much about him doing that.
You can certainly run out of venues if your standards for your hobby are too high, so there's a self-enforcing mechanism in place; but if something is supposed to be rewarding in itself why would you put up with it if it is both
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
held my tongue at the pronouns in colleagues' email sigs.
What exactly was it you had to hold your tongue from saying?
It clearly bothers you enough that holding back from dumping your opinions is an effort. You need to follow your own advice and grow a thicker skin. Someone putting pronouns in their email does not do you the slightest bit of harm.
"Grow a thicker skin" is almost always an in indication of a desire to be low grade crappy to someone without consequences. Just because your bugbears involve bein
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Dude, actually shutting up when you hear someone say something you find irritating bullshit, is having a thick skin.
Throwing a tantrum because someone used an expression that hurt your feelings, on the other hand, isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
No, a thick skin is being unaffected by it. Stewing over it then moaning isn't having a think skin, it's being thin skinned.
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Who says he's staying over it? Seems like you're protecting.
And if not saying anything is still being thin skinned, how do you describe someone who throws a tantrum over an expression, demanding the immediate removal and reeducation of someone else? No skinned? Hypersensitive? Childish? Intolerant? Authoritarian? Asshole?
Re: (Score:2)
I say he is. He said he had to "hold his tongue" and then told the world of at least/. About it.
Those are not the words of someone who is unbothered.
That's the reality of him, not the fanfic of a straw wokster you just constructed.
And er soaking of reality. You seem pretty angry. Have you considered growing a thicker skin so this doesn't bother you?
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
Telling about an anecdote here doesn't mean one is being bothered.
The fact I may seem angry to you doesn't in any way imply I am actually angry.
You seem to be projecting a lot, and trying to shift the debate's subject when you have no argument left.
And you know what the funniest thing is: from what I can see, I'm politically much closer to the tantrum throwing guy in TFS (and probably you), than to rightwingnutjob.
But I still find it much more pleasant to talk to him despite his opinions opposite to mine. A
Re: (Score:2)
Because like everyone who feels the need to claim their politics are not right wing, you actually, actually, a right wing asshole?
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
I'm left wing, by European standards.
But two can play that game. My turn: like everyone who calls people that don't 100% agree with them far right assholes, you are actually, actually, a so called far left progressive, who actually is way more authoritarian than progressive, right?
Re: (Score:2)
He sounded pretty bothered.
I've never told any anecdotes about email signature pronouns because it doesn't occupy enough space in my brain for it to every occur to me to do so.
I'm glad you enjoy taking to RightWingNutJob, you do you. I don't accept his dubious assertions about gender (especially as he won't back them up in a non self contradictory way). If you don't find that pleasant, I'm not really bothered to be blunt.
Why do you care about pronouns in email signatures?
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2)
You've been on slashdot long enough to most likely have told about other anecdotes that many people would think mean you have a thin skin.
Telling anecdotes about a subject doesn't mean you are bothered by that subject either.
And lastly, who said I care about pronouns in email signatures?
The more we talk, the more you try to put words in my mouth, and accuse me of things I didn't do, like your baselessand insulting thinly veiled accusation of transphobia just above.
You seem to consider me an enemy when in th
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It's absolutely amazing to me that you're desperately avoiding the point here because you know full well that it means you're asshole.
You just admitted that you got angry that someone had pronouns in their signature. How fucking sad can you be that that would make you angry? Leaving aside your transphobia is so bad that you're willing to throw Alex, Cameron, Charlie, Chris, Pat, Casey, et al, under the bus, together with all those co-workers with non-American first names that you have no idea whether are ma
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Nice deflection. What is it about pronoun statements you hate so much?
But anyway, My country swung to the left. I'm not going to hold my tongue because you're so angry about stuff you've been spoon feed by Murdoch that you're happy to vote for a pathological liar who will enrich his donors at your expense.
Re: No nutjobs in the critical path plz (Score:2, Interesting)
Honest answer?
I don't enjoy humoring people's delusions. I get paid to give my professional objective opinion on technical matters. Two and two make four for me, each time, every time. No matter how badly my client, my boss, or even I might want it to be three, five, or forty two. Delusions don't work. Nature cannot be fooled.
The idea that a biological male can become a woman or a biological female a man is a delusion. It's disguised in elaborate word games and emotionalism but it's still a delusion. There
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
If you believe two and two always make four, remind me to never hire you for your "objective technical opinion" on cryptosystems or error correction. Galois fields describe a different arithmetic.
The idea that a biological male can become a woman or a biological female a man is a delusion. It's disguised in elaborate word games and emotionalism but it's still a delusion
Mmm and what is your "objective technical opinion" on bullet proof definition of male and female anyway. You don't have one of course. No ma
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You appear to have accepted that gender isn't on fact a simply binary choice, referring to "a small percentage of pathological cases" (I'm ignore your unsourced claims beyond that). So... What do you propose in those cases? Take a wild ass guess and double down if you get their pronouns wrong?
And how do you know that, say, the behaviour that you decry doesn't have a genetic basis? Works that change your opinion of it did? If so why? If not, why?
And why must you be a party to it? You don't have to, but if yo
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Grunge and goth? How old are you? Those were moral panics from a few decades ago and are largely forgotten. Though I'm pretty sure grunge never rose to that level.
Anyhow you ducked the questions. They were pretty simple questions.
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You are way too young then. Grunge was almost home by the time you were old enough to know what it was!
Anyway you ducked the question again. They are simple questions and if you are confident in your claims you should be able to provide reasonable answers.
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Quack quack.
So you won't tell me what you will do with pronouns when you encounter one of those rare cases.
I am pretty sure what. You have obviously got it in your head that genetics is morally ok, but behaviour isn't. Therefore you are not comfortable saying you'd be a jerk to someone with a genetic condition. Thing is when you figure out precisely how not to be a jerk it's readily apparent you could easily do it for anyone, and that implies you are simply being a jerk for the sake of it.
I might be wrong.
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Seems we are going around on circles.
You speak about "biological male" yet you won't give a bullet proof definition. All you did was say things outside of the binary definition are rare and then swore a bit. You haven't said how you would deal with their pronouns.
It's a simple question, I suspect you can't answer because you cannot come up with an answer which is both logically consistent with your other views and doesn't also paint you as a complete jerk.
You also keep very pointedly ignoring my other point
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If you think the left is going to adopt encouraging taking women's healthcare away, banning gay people, trans people to commit suicide, getting science out of policy making, forcing religions on people, allowing institutions to be so dominated by certain sex/colour combinations that nobody else can get jobs (and the companies involve make easily avoidable errors), encouraging police violence against black people, etc, simply to win elections, you don't know us well.
There is no point in winning an election s
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The words did hurty hurty (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: The words did hurty hurty (Score:3, Informative)
I had no idea about the US specific meanings of "the thin blue line". To me, it just means the police, and I'm only aware of the phrase due to the comedy TV series of the same name.
I wonder what it meant to the person who wrote those words. Perhaps it is important to know...otherwise, it seems to me like some kind of projection.
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I had no idea about the US specific meanings of "the thin blue line".
That's because there isn't one, not outside a few nutcases on the extreme edges of the political spectrum. It just refers to police tasked with maintaining public order.
The nutcases will co-opt any phrase any time to mean anything they want it to mean. Just ignore them.
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Understandably, people who believe that definition don't like it.
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As a non-American I have no idea what sinister meaning the "modest proposal" idiom does carry. So please don't cancel me if I inadvertently use it.
US Americans think certain words/phrases are "racist" or "triggering" but seem completely ignorant of the history of those words outside the USA. Even though the rest of the world had police, slaves, and masters since long before the USA existed.
Some people (mainly Americans) get offended by the very name of the state of Montenegro.
Re: The words did hurty hurty (Score:2)
"A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick" by Jonathan Swift is a satirical essay suggesting the poor eat their children to solve issues of hunger and child-rearing.
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>US Americans think certain words/phrases are "racist" or "triggering" but seem completely ignorant of the history of those words outside the USA. Even though the rest of the world had police, slaves, and masters since long before the USA existed.
And this was a NON AMERICAN being "triggered" by an AMERICAN idiom of "thin blue line". So, not even local usage. Imported rage at the machine, I guess. I guess every idiom in every country should not be said by him if it triggers anyone.
So maybe he should just
Silly bastard (Score:2, Insightful)
Clearly he had sort of checked out already. Trying to blame his disinterest on "the thin blue line" and what he and many ultra-current-events people THINK this line means...well that is just dumb.
The line is meant as clear separation between what makes sense and anarchy just as real actual interpretations will read. What some moron on social media parades in the street for has nothing to do with the actual wording. There is an old movie named thin blue line too; which also has nothing to do with the real
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"Clearly he had sort of checked out already."
In more ways than one. I genuinely think people like him are suffering some kind of mental breakdown when they jump on innocuous phrases like this and read stuff between the lines stuff that just isn't there either. Or maybe he's doing it deliberatly for ideological reasons but that still doesn't sound like he's firing on all cylinders.
Re: Silly bastard (Score:2)
The worst in all that is that he doesn't care about the intent behind the words, he simply care that those specific words have been written, as if they are a primordial spell in old speech.
"Those words are not technical, they are a political statement. Even if unintentionally, such words carry power, they carry meanings one needs to be aware of."
It's the master slave, blacklist whitelist once again: meaning and intent of the words don't matter, only the form itself of the word does.
It's despairing to see pe
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Indeed. Another example is "coloured" vs "people of colour". Identical meaning in English but in the diseased minds of the woke for some reason the former is horribly racist but the latter is perfectly ok.
Responses are as expected... (Score:4, Insightful)
I get it, the call for inclusiveness brings out the obvious criticisms. Woke this, snowflake that, man up there, suck it up here...
I just think it is perfectly reasonable not to want to work with people who see maintaining a codebase as even remotely parallel with working the field of law and order. Seems a bit self important. no?
"Oh, maintainers are not all powerful, we are just the thin blue line (you know, like police that actually do have a lot of power). We can't command people to do anything (because we lack the ability to remotely motivate people beyond fiscal obligation). The only thing maintainers can do is stop things from being accepted (after all, why compromise when you can just shut anything down)"
Such motivational. Big energy.
These people are beyond exhausting to work with. They care more about being right than getting anything done. And if you have enough of them in a project, more and more people will move on.
Anybody can pull the "No True Scotsman" card when people are leaving. Keeping people engaged is harder. Bringing new people and making them productive, that's actually impressive.
Re: Responses are as expected... (Score:3)
He didn't mean that and you know it. Stop trying to excuse his tantrum.
Oh, and AFAIK, the Linux kernel is inclusive enough. Except if you reside in Russia and some other non-OK countries, of course.
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>I just think it is perfectly reasonable not to want to work with people who see maintaining a codebase as even remotely parallel with working the field of law and order.
I think it's perfectly reasonable that such a person is insane. It does
>Seems a bit self important. no?
It *is* "self important". If they F* up badly enough, do you have any idea the catastrophe we could see IN THE REAL WORLD?
>"Oh, maintainers are not all powerful, we are just the thin blue line (you know, like police that actually
This guy has some wires crossed (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone else used the words "thin blue line" and he went apeshit. He can't tolerate that the community hasn't cancelled the author of this godaweful utterance yet. While conveniently forgetting that the kernel now has its own CoC and ethical committee. Did he report these words? I bet that he was so angry that he forgot.
Two more notes. The kernel is an international effort where not everyone is obliged to be educated in the codewords of American politics. For example, although I'm not a kernel developers, I'm not from the USA, I'm aware of "thin blue line" referring to police, but till now I didn't knew that it could also refer to the BLM things. Therefore, I could have used these words in some forum and be canceled for that by nutjobs like this one. Please Americans, stop treating English language like you have some monopoly on it.
Second, I don't blame this guy. Burnout is a real and serious issue that has no clear solution. We should be respectful and thankful for his contributions, while calling out his current behavior.
Re:This guy has some wires crossed (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds a bit like the straw that broke the camels back.
He was burned out and been putting up with shitty behaviour for years. We know the kennel attitude Germans a thick skin. Finally something basically inconsequential from the outside pushed him over the edge. A straw is of no consequence, but it's a bad idea to blame the camel
The best par is he isn't even right (Score:3)
The "thin blue line" thing has been a reference to battle lines on a map going back to like the 19th century, perhaps earlier. It ha been a thing in detective novels and police dramas my entire life time. A quick google suggests it was stated to be used as early as the 1950s.
Basically it has exactly nothing to do with BLM, or only does if you are simply 'anti-policy' or opposed law and order more generally because you are some kind of anarchist or something.
Had the complaint been about "Back the Blue" that ones does seem to be much more associated with counter propaganda to BLM's various sloganeering. It is at least more overtly political, than the common "thin blue line" phrase that has been in wide use for at least decades before BLM even existed. I think you could reasonable conclude somethings about someones view points if they use "back the blue", whereas if they use of "thin blue line" I suspect you'll be as often wrong about their opinions on BLM, policing, etc, as not.
As is typical with the cancel mob, this little prick is demanding someone be kicked off / out of someone elses platform without more than a cursory and often erroneous understanding of what even happened.
Re: The best par is he isn't even right (Score:2)
"demanding someone be kicked off / out of someone elses platform"
No he isn't. He's leaving the platform.
Toxic (Score:2)
"This isn't okay. This isn't creating an inclusive environment. This isn't okay with the current political situation especially in the US. A maintainer speaking those words can't be kept. No matter how important or critical or relevant they are. They need to be removed until they learn. Learn what those words mean for a lot of marginalized people. Learn about what horrors it evokes in their minds."
What a horrifyingly toxic, aggressive, and destructive way of thinking. Woke and the airheaded shitheads who c
GD SF (Score:2)
Kids today. Get off my lawn.
I thought of the atmosphere (Score:2)
When I read "thin blue line", I thought of how the atmosphere protects life on the planet from the rather hostile environment of outer space.
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As a user, I do no really care if the driver is open source or not, as long as it works. I know that I won't be able to modify it even if it was open source, so, if it works, great.
I have a gaming PC with Linux and nvidia and I just use the closed source driver for it.
Re: NVIDIA CAUSED THIS (Score:2)
Jensen Huang read your opinion, took note and now he's laughing all the way to the bank.
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What to use instead? "He/She"? It's too awkward.
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"Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand." -- St. Augustine of Hippo
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Actually Linux is a great tool to allow misfits to contribute something useful for the whole humanity. The murderer Hans Reiser comes to mind with his quite good filesystem.
You allege that someone might put malicious code in the kernel, but this is not so easy as you seem to think.