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Bruce Byfield addresses the all-too-often-seen ugliness in open source software circles, and the tendency of open source enthusiasts, to start flame wars based on their personal preference.
He explains that most people working in open source development and free software have very strong feelings of satisfaction in their contributions to the community. But often these feelings have an ugly side.
The issue was brought to a head in an article about the decline of Apache OpenOffice, and the ascendance of LibreOffice. His email indicated that many writers wanted to see Apache humiliated due to differences in their approach even though the products were basically the same code-base.
What disturbs me is when the strong feelings devolve into insularity that excludes other free software projects.
Why, for example, would I possibly want to see OpenOffice humiliated? I prefer LibreOffice's releases, and -- with some misgivings -- the Free Software Foundation's philosophy and licensing over that of the Apache Foundation. I also question the efficiency of having two office suites so closely related to each other. Yet while exploring such issues may be news, I don't forget that, despite these differences, OpenOffice and the Apache Foundation still have the same general goals as LibreOffice or the Free Software Foundation.
[More after the Break]
This reminded him of the Desktop Environment wars, KDE vs Gnome, while several smaller players like XFCE, LXDE, and Enlightenment and a host of others, chug along largely unscathed. We see the same sort of camps forming around File Systems, Init Systems, as well as many user-space programs. We see user communities vilified, and companies trashed, usually for something tangential to the actual free or open source software involved. People become insular.
Sometimes, this kind of insularity may reflect which projects a person works on. However, at least as often, it is voiced by average users with no direct connection to any of the projects involved. It appears an expression of the human need to belong, although an unusually misguided one. ... In fact, I suspect that this insularity is responsible for much of the opposition to diversity efforts. After all, when your sense of who you are depends on externals and what you define yourself as not being, any change becomes uncomfortable -- and, often, an outright threat to your sense of self.
Personally, I'd have to say that what annoys me most about free and open source software are the forced marches imposed on the users, for frivolous reasons. To combat the insularity I see in myself, I try to install a different Distro, or a different OS every 6 months or so. I guess it's time to add a new Desktop Environment to those experiments. virtual machines are a godsend for this.
Bruce goes on to say
In theory, maybe some way exists to encourage the enthusiasm that free software inspires while discouraging the ugliness of insularity.
Soylentils: Do you ever force yourself to step outside your comfort zone with your choices of free software? If so, how, and how often?
(Score: 5, Informative) by joekiser on Sunday May 03 2015, @06:12PM
This is not about open source, it is about human nature. Don't tell me that turf wars and such do not happen in the private workplace.
Not only in software, but in most other industries as well. For example, I was recently searching for my first digital camera purchase in a decade, and having no idea where to even start, I read reviews (and comments) of dozens of cameras on Photography blogs. Good god, the elitism among pro/amateur photographers makes the systemd debate look civil. From reading those comments, unless you spend a minumum of $2000 for a camera lens and an equal amount for the camera, you might as well shove it up your ass.
Part of it is confirmation bias ... someone who just spent a lot of time or $$$ on a product, needs to make themself feel better by tearing down anything different. I remember ten years ago, I built a straight six truck motor with more torque and horsepower than larger V8's. I remember the idiot that I hired to weld the exhaust laughing at me the entire time, saying I was an idiot who had wasted my $$$. Maybe a V8 swap and build would have been cheaper, but it's not what I started out with, and he didn't have to tear down my decision.
Even recently, I would catch flack from colleagues because I carried around a BlackBerry Passport, and I still catch flack from peers because I haven't played with the Win10 demo (yet).
As for the original question, "Soylentils: Do you ever force yourself to step outside your comfort zone with your choices of free software? If so, how, and how often?"
Yes, I was a longtime BSD user who spent time learning Windows 8/2k12 and later systemd (or RedHat 7 to be more precise), because I can't imagine going into a job interview and explaining that I'm not familiar with those systems because I don't agree politically with their creators. I am a sysadmin, not a developer. Imagine trying to hire a car mechanic, only to find out that he can't work on any motor made in the past 30 years because he refused to learn electronic fuel injection.
Debt is the currency of slaves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:00PM
and I still catch flack from peers because I haven't played with the Win10 demo (yet).
Where do you work, Microsoft? What kind of morons would bash someone for not wasting their time on some stupid Windows demo? In the automotive world (to borrow from your truck engine anecdote), that's like making fun of someone for not buying a Pontiac Aztek.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:55PM
What kind of morons would bash someone for not wasting their time on some stupid Windows demo? In the automotive world (to borrow from your truck engine anecdote), that's like making fun of someone for not buying a Pontiac Aztek.
Best. Car. Analogy. Ever. All hail Grishnakh!!
(Score: 2) by joekiser on Sunday May 03 2015, @08:00PM
Unfortunately, there are packs of Windows die-hards at every sysadmin job I've had. When I say "packs," I mean groupthink mentality Microsoft know-it-alls looking for people to bash, like the unsuspecting customer who made the mistake of bringing their MacBook to work.
The last time one of these die-hards jumped on me for not installing Win10 preview baremetal on my newly-built desktop, I responded that I didn't want to put a keylogger on my machine. Lots of "what?" from the clan ensued, followed by the shill pulling out his Windows phone to look it up for himself.
The next day, he informed me that it's not really a keylogger, it's for analytics to help Cortana's development (I call anything that records your keystrokes and sends them off to a remote server a *keylogger*, Swype included). And besides, he went ahead and installed Windows 7 back on his Win10 machine because he suddenly got bored with it that night, so it isn't an issue anymore.
Debt is the currency of slaves.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:55PM
I was visiting my previous boss, in a Windows beige box shop, a couple of weeks ago. He knows I prefer Linux to Windows, so after a few minutes he said that nobody should be using Linux any more because the NSA has infiltrated their codebase with all sorts of nasty code. This, of course, would never happen with Microsoft products, in his mind.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @01:17AM
so after a few minutes he said that nobody should be using Linux any more because the NSA has infiltrated their codebase with all sorts of nasty code. This, of course, would never happen with Microsoft products, in his mind.
Wow, that's some seriously delusional thinking. Yeah, this open-source code which anyone can inspect at will (not that they actually do, but they can, and sometimes do) is infiltrated by NSA code, but Microsoft code which is closed-source and secret is completely trustworthy and there's no way Microsoft would comply with a National Security letter telling them to insert NSA code into their codebase! Sure...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @05:59PM
Is the keylogger for the technical preview (which I guess is aggressive but may have uses) or planned for the actual Windows 10 release?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @07:07PM
Road bike Reviews are the worst.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @03:17AM
I still catch flack from peers because I haven't played with the Win10 demo
because I can't imagine going into a job interview and explaining that I'm not familiar with those systems
Dawaaaht? For any sort of sysadmin win10 *will* become part of your life. To not even look at it is silly. You are letting your preconceived notions of 'good/bad' get in the way. Its just windows. Its not going to bite (though some of the design decisions will make you think for your sanity).
Pop it on a VM. Its not good, its not bad. It is rather 'meh' from my POV. But I do know this, it is what everyone will be using *very* quickly. MS is going to give the sucker away they are changing the way they release software (they are going to rolling release). Tons of people are going to snag it. They will be looking to me for advice. To shrug my shoulders and show that I am not familiar with it would hurt me just as much as what you claim with not knowing different bits of linux. MS is betting the farm on their cloud stuff. You should at least be semi familiar with it. It will come up. It even sounds like you work in an MS shop. There is one mark of death in tech it is to be the perceived laggard. Sure you may be very good at your job. But to ignore the reality of peoples perception of you will not help you in the future. In my shop no one bothers with it because they are too busy still fng around with visual studio 2008/10 and sql2008. I bring up the idea of 'upgrading tools' and they bury their heads and do not even want to discuss the matter.
It would be more like being a car mechanic and not bother to find out how bushings and li-ion batteries work because its not what you do. But you *will* be...