From c71a8ae6ba7baf72b77148cd79fbaeb951d1f2d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neale Pickett Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2022 07:53:43 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] This thing serves no purpose but making me angry every time I stumble across it --- content/papers/floss-sucks.md | 187 ---------------------------------- 1 file changed, 187 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 content/papers/floss-sucks.md diff --git a/content/papers/floss-sucks.md b/content/papers/floss-sucks.md deleted file mode 100644 index 050052c..0000000 --- a/content/papers/floss-sucks.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,187 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: FLOSS Development Sucks -section: computing ---- - -This Article Is A Work In Progress -==================== - -I'm not even sure where I'm going with this. -Maybe I just needed to vent. -I think there might be advice in here somewhere, -but right now I'm tired of feeling pissed off, -so I'm just going to save this and move on with my day. - ------------- - -This morning I thought I'd mention to a couple old colleagues -that I was still working on our codebase, -and I was considering splitting it off into something new -because it was looking like it might diverge pretty significantly. - -I've been on this IRC channel for about a month. -There have been a sum total of 5 lines pasted, -all of them saying "hello" and "help" before anybody answered. -5+ years ago, -it was just me, the author of the package, -and another guy (the author of ratpoison), -mostly just shooting the breeze about bicycles. -The author had mentioned several times that the package was basically out of his hands, -once it got merged into emacs. - -I've submitted a couple patches in the past, -and they've been accepted upstream. - -So I tossed this out there expecting, if anything, a multi-day turnaround, -hopefully from the author: - -> 08:32 neale> hello -> 08:32 neale> I think I'm going to have to fork rcirc :( -> 08:33 neale> I'm making too many changes and I don't have time to get them merged into emacs. - -And then went back to work. - -> 08:44 ams> what changes are you doing? - -Whoa, somebody responded! - -> 09:09 neale> I added a notion of "network" so you could have and distinguish multiple connections to the same server -> 09:09 neale> umm... - -At this point I struggle to do a diff against the upstream source, -to see what else I've done. -I definitely wasn't expecting this right away, -I figured I'd maybe put things up on github or something. - -> 09:11 ams> you can already do that afaik -> 09:11 [neale raises an eyebrow] - -Who is this person? -I read over the code pretty thoroughly before I added this in, -I think I would have noticed if anything resembling my changes had existed already. - -Back do the diff, it looks like all my prior changes have actually been merged upstream, -after five years or so! -That's a pleasant surprise! - -> 09:12 ams> but if you cannot .. that doesn't seem like a hard thing to merge -> 09:12 neale> I'm going to have to figure out a way to hack in support for channel passwords -> 09:12 neale> that's going to probably need to break syntax -> 09:12 ams> break syntax? of what? -> 09:13 ams> you are being incoherent. -> 09:13 neale> next on the list is I need a way to have channels default to lowpri/ignore when created, so, probably going to tack that on to rcirc-server-alist - -This happens sometimes on IRC. -While I was writing that long line, they posted two more. -I see I should now answer their other questions. -But now they're insulting me? -Who *is* this person? -Are they just wasting my time because they like arguing? - -> 09:13 neale> of /join -> 09:13 neale> right now /join takes a space-separated list of channels, I'll probably need to bring that in line with how other clients handle multiple channels with a single join (or more likely change it to space-separated) -> 09:14 neale> sorry, change it to comma-separated - -I'm getting flustered here. -I wasn't expecting to need to defend my changes. - -> 09:14 ams> why? -> 09:14 ams> setting default priority should be trivial, and no need to change rcirc-server-alist - -This didn't even register with me until I started writing this paper. -I told them I needed channels to start with a certain priority, -so I was going to add that to the list of channels to connect to at startup. -They referred me to the mechanism to set a global default. - -> 09:14 neale> ams: see, this is what I was saying about not having time to merge upstream :) -> 09:15 neale> but it's good to know that there's somebody alive in here :) - -Yeah, I think this person isn't going to help. -It's pretty typical that you have to do a sales pitch, -over and over, -to get your changes accepted. -And I don't have time for that. -I've already wasted enough time just trying to convince this one person -that there was even a need for the work I've done so far. - -> 09:15 ams> you just said you haven't even written it .. -> 09:15 ams> there is nothing to merge. -> 09:15 neale> LOL okay - -Still feeling this person is just trying to waste my time and get me into an argument. -I probably should have just stopped here, but... - -> 09:15 ams> and half of the things you mention can already be done -> 09:15 neale> maybe you could write up how to do those things then, because it certainly wasn't obvious from the code :) - -If this person had been paying attention, -a full 20% of last month's channel traffic had been requesting this exact feature. - -> 09:17 ams> i don't see the use for multiple connections to the same host on the same port, most networks prohibit that. -> 09:17 neale> hahaha, excellent -> 09:17 ams> you can already connect to multiple hosts though with different port numbers -> 09:17 neale> Stop Wanting That! - -Now I'm mad! -They're not even interested in why I would want the feature I coded up. -They just want to tell me I'm wrong. -This is the point at which I completely gave up, -and was just saying words out of anger. - -I don't do well when I'm like this, -but I know some people who are *excellent* in this situation, -like my friend Nick. -Sometimes I wish I were better, -because people like this, -I feel, -need to be put in their place, -and stop being hostile to everybody. - -> 09:17 ams> simply specify a different port -> 09:17 ams> ok, you are trolling. i'll go back to doing something else. -> 09:18 neale> I'm trolling, eh? -> 09:19 neale> Man, look, I'm coming in with a need, you're telling me that a) it already does what I want, b) I don't actually have changes, and c) there's no need for me want what I said - -I'm still trying to (angrily) convince them -that this is a horrible way to treat people they don't even know. - -> 09:19 ams> no, i didn't say that at all. now you are just spouting lies. -> 09:19 ams> 17:19 /ignore neale -> 09:19 neale> Who's trolling? Anyway what happened to rcy and sabetts? They were friendly :( -> 09:20 neale> Wow, infuriating. - -But it's a lost cause. - ----- - -This is pretty frequently how things go. -I wish I'd saved the 20-minute argument I had to endure -to convince some plan9 people -that some users might want a their three-button mouse to have a scroll wheel. -They eventually accepted that, -yes, -some users might actually want that, -and what was the mouse I'd found that does this? - -This is not okay. -The community is selecting for people who are good at arguing. -We should not require every code contributor -to champion their code's worth -by besting the local troll in combat. -Even though I envy Nick's level-headedness during empassioned debate, -that skill has no correlation to the ability to make useful code contributions. - -In the troll's defense, -this is just human nature. -Say there's this group of men discussing mortise and tenon joints, -and you have a better technique. -The way things work in FLOSS, currently, -is that you must step into this group an tell them they're doing it wrong. -It takes an extraordinary individual to *not* tell you to fuck off. -And you know that, -which is why your social instincts are screaming at you to be very uncomfortable. -So when the "fuck off" happens, -you've steeled yourself for it, -and then you get a slap fight. - -There has got to be a better way.