We can only have true collaboration in FOSS if we stop treating it as a competition (a.k.a.

[karolherbst@chaos.social]

We can only have true collaboration in FOSS if we stop treating it as a competition (a.k.a. "this project is shit and my project is so much better for those irrelevant technical reasons that are in fact just opinions but they matter really much because I am the best coder on this world and decided so")

[hyc@mastodon.social]

@karolherbst don't forget the profit motive... the reason RedHat Directory Server exists is because we wouldn't sell OpenLDAP to them, so they bought Netscape instead, and advertise it as the only enterprise grade LDAP software, even though their code was so decrepit they finally had to adopt OpenLDAP's networking and database libraries.

Our project *is* better. But we refused to be owned by them.

[ozamidas@mastodon.social]

@hyc @karolherbst damn, wonder how many of those Red Hat has pulled

[neal@social.gompa.me]

@ozamidas @karolherbst Statements like this are unprovable unless actually legally confidential information held by everyone involved are released to the public. I personally would take it with a grain of salt.

[ska@social.treehouse.systems]

@karolherbst This is tone policing, aka the language of the oppressor.

Who's going to decide what technical reasons are relevant? Who's going to tell the difference between legitimate criticism and useless badmouthing?

We can only have true collaboration in FOSS if we can all operate as peers and discuss software quality in good faith, without any attempt at stifling criticism and appointing ourselves as guardians of what is allowed to be in the conversation.

[hyc@mastodon.social]

@neal @ozamidas @karolherbst it was 21 years ago, there's nothing privileged about the information now. https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/red-hat-acquires-aols-netscape-server-software/

It is a fact that Red Hat made offers to buy us out because they wanted to own a directory server. That was in 2003, when we first started obliterating others in benchmarks. And it was only after we rejected them that they went on to acquire Netscape.

[star@fed.amazonawaws.com]

@karolherbst i don't understand this post but maybe I am not into linux politics enough and this doesn't usually apply in my circles

[karolherbst@chaos.social]

@star it's about tech elitism where people claim that specific projects are trash (and forced upon everybody, if they are also into conspiracies) based on the existence or lack of characteristics they claim are universally good/bad.

Like imagine somebody hates bananas for being a bit slimey, but it's not enough they don't like it, they say it's a terrible fruit and nobody should continue to eat it and it's just forced on everybody through big fruit, because it's clearly bad.

[srazkvt@tech.lgbt]

@karolherbst @star got it, so you're talking about systemd

[karolherbst@chaos.social]

@SRAZKVT @star I'm not talking about anything specifically it happens with all sorts of projects and I'm seeing those kind of discussions where one just opens with "project X is shit, because $arbitrary reason. Can we just do this thing that makes sense in my niche use case but it's terrible in the general case, but I still say it's superior for every use case, because I know things" and then just make it sound like it's a hard fact they talk about where it's "simply" an opinion.

[srazkvt@tech.lgbt]

@karolherbst @star a lot of those ive seen aren't arbitrary reasons, but actual bad design decisions that gets shoved aside as unimportant. but maybe we see different things

[karolherbst@chaos.social]

@SRAZKVT @star "bad design" is also arbitrary to be honest.

Like who decide what's bad design? It's all made up. Not to say it's not real, or there isn't experience to know what works or what not.

But I think we treat those "technical reasons" too much of a hard facts where it's "simply" just opinions on what worked best in your own experience, but that shouldn't mean we should treat our own experience as universal laws of programming.

[karolherbst@chaos.social]

@SRAZKVT @star or maybe to put it into different words, we should treat programming more like art, where everybody has their own style and techniques due to experience, but we shouldn't just go around and tell others to do the thing we are doing, just because it worked out for us or because we think it creates good results.

Like sure, you can have opinions on those things, but it goes too far to start random wars and complain why everybody use the obviously sucking solution.

[srazkvt@tech.lgbt]

@karolherbst @star but software is made to be used, not just looked at, some design decisions will just hurt practicality, and those who pay for it at the end is end users

[ska@social.treehouse.systems]

Unless his account disappeared overnight, I think Karol blocked me 🤔

I'm sure disagreeing with him makes me a destroyer of FOSS, or a Nazi sympathizer, or something.

Be wary of anyone in a position of power who cannot accept dissent and frame it as your enemy. They are only in favor of collaboration as long as it serves their own interests, not necessarily yours. It is obvious in the way e.g. Google approaches Open Source; but unfortunately this mindset does not seem limited to big corporations.