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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday May 03 2015, @04:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

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?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by zugedneb on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:33PM

    by zugedneb (4556) on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:33PM (#178275)

    If I would attempt to give you a serious answer to this questions, it would have the following outline:
    1: are there types of minds tailored for different tasks - a bit like types of ants in colony?
    2: is there a need for different mind types in the evolution of men?
    3: is it possible for evolution to create slightly deviating brains so they approximate these different types, broadly speaking, in tendencies?
    4: if these different types of minds exist, do they have differences in handling objects in life?
    sub-questions on 4:
    - what is the difference in halting time for thinking about different objects for the different minds?
    - what is the magnitude of the vision, when different types try to imagine the same object?

    To troll with some examples:
    - My mother-type friend Sabine can't stop talking about children, but my military-type friend Boris does not give a fuck... I can see on his face that he tries to envision what Sabine, but his imagination just can't cope with it, so he gets bored. He can other things though...
    - My social-scientist type friend Jimbo cant talk for hours, and indeed write a dissertation about how the muslim really feels, where I have problem envisioning them as one object at all... In many conversations I am tagged troll...

    --
    old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
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