RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community
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GitHub also drastically lowered the bar for contributing to free software. Contributing to a project used to mean subscribing to a mailing list, submitting a patch there, and not much would usually happen. With GitHub you fork, submit a PR, get your PR automatically built and unit tested with CI, the project owner can merge your PR with a single button click. It's fine to prefer an e-mail patch workflow, but GitHub has shown that for most of the population, submitting patches through PRs is a much lower bar.
At this point, GitHub is largely unnecessary. Most of the features have been copied and reimplemented better in FLOSS alternatives such as GitLab, Gitea, Gogs, etc. But since they were one of the first, people will stay due to network effects.
Did it? I remember starting two projects which made not much sense at all. I vaguely remember the process was automatic then. Has it changed with time?
Once you complete your registration, you must wait a few days for the SourceForge administrators to review your request and set up the infrastructure. You should receive an email response informing you of the project's creation when it is ready. You can check the status of any of your project requests by visiting your SourceForge home page: http://sourceforge.net/users/your-userid/ . There, you can view all of your SourceForge projects. Also, on the 'my projects' page you can see all your projects regardless of their approval status.
Source: https://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Plugging-into-Sourc...
Here's a paraphrased version of what he's saying:
"GitHub [...] has done terrible harm to our community.
GitHub was so bad for free software, all along[.]"
Now, if you were to define "our community" as the open source community, this would be laughable - very few people would argue that open source software has been terribly harmed by GitHub (on the contrary, the rise of GitHub has seen many projects flourish). I don't necessarily think he means the wider open source community, though - he's referring to his own Stallman flavor of free software.
I wanted to say that he cares very deeply about free software and the whole philosophy of it, which can make him appear as "radical" to some people.
I hope I was able to clarify.
If Free Software was a religion like Christianity, Stallman would probably be called an extremist preacher.
It would look very reasonable on Twitter or Reddit. (of course he doesn't use that)
That said, GNU and the GPL have been very helpful, sometimes instrumental, in fostering and protecting open source code and developers, so I'll put up with his ivory tower vision for the practical benefits it's brought us.
Call him crazy (and he probably is), but he's been a net benefit to society, which is a lot more than most achieve.
I claim that RMS has never said anything like that, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
He’s consistently said that it’s better if software was copylefted (like GPL) than if it was simply free software (like BSD), but he has consistently reserved the, like you say, “spawn of the devil”-type categorization for proprietary software and worse, like malware, etc.
GitHub mainly flipped the default view from "project description, forums, and downloads" to "code" which was the massive change.
obviously he prefers "GPL2 or later" and "GPL3 or later"
does github offer that?
so not only is it an option, but it is the default option, because an extra step is needed to change that.
unfortunately, in my opinion, the whole choosealicense site could be improved a lot. for example the license templates could be actual form fields letting you fill in the details needed, and then producing a license text that is correctly filled out. as it is, some users will likely miss some fields
He also makes a point that you cannot select "GPLv3 or latter" which is the licence GNU recommends.
There are lots of FOSS advocates who were turned off to the whole movement because of him; what might they have done with him absent?
This makes more people distribute OSS, and most devs do probably not care as much about OSS licensing as RMS would like and therefore do "mistakes".
RMS has a high horse stance, I think that easier access to OSS is better even though it might come with some side effects.
This argument of 'Oh, he'd be singing a different tune if he had to deal with today's reality' is so naive.
The fact that he doesn't (/doesn't have to) deal with everyday reality is his whole point -- he has claimed that it is unrealistic to use software that confirms to his set of values, so he denied to participate in that reality.
Some repositories take this to the extreme. There are some closed source software vendors that use GitHub as an issue tracker and collection of Markdown files.
If GitHub wants to permit such uses - it's their party.
> GitHub's encouragement of sloppy licensing, no licensing, or licensing under only a single version of the GPL, has done terrible harm to our community.
There's many projects out there that are meant to be open source, but the author never put a license on it, so it's, legally speaking, "all rights reserve" and you aren'y even allowed to use the software yourself. Github doesn't really encourage this; in fact, it even offers initializing a new repo with a license, but it still happens that project owners just don't
> GitHub was so bad for free software, all along, that I could imagine Microsoft's making it less bad
First of all, this is obviously just his opinion; I can't really attack or defend it like "good" or "bad" are some sort of mathematical constants. The fact is: github does serve as a platform for non-free software (heck, every single one of my projects is either MIT or public domain, which means it can be put into a closed-source project), so if your ultimate goal is for all software to be "free" in the FSF sense, then yes, github has caused much harm.
> We should judge by what actually happens, not by prejudice.
This statement is so obviously correct, there's just no way you could interpret it in any unreasonable way.
> GitHub was so bad for free software, all along, that I could imagine Microsoft's making it less bad, or making it more bad. We should judge by what actually happens, not by prejudice.
> Keep in mind that Apple is much worse than Microsoft.
The title this thread "Github has done terrible harm to our community." is a very selective quote.
But now he needs a handler. My god, man. Get it together.
If you assume RMS is smarter than you, or at least more analytically rigorous (like a computer)[1], then you'd be hard pressed to find anything RMS has said which isn't consistent with the entire body of his thinking--including his opinions on certain age-related matters and his recognition of and apology for the insensitive manner in which he expressed them. Which isn't to say you would consequentially agree with him, just that his reasoning is about as impeccable as is possible for such insoluble human social issues. You almost always end up having to wrestle with and reject his premises, which can be difficult because his premises are often agreeable on their face. But by doing so you develop and strengthen your own views. RMS is like Socrates, a pacemaker in a race, or the Energizer Bunny--absolutely exhausting, but if you're disengaging then more likely than not you're the one falling behind, not him. Which is fine--the biggest premise of all is that any of this matters, and if you have your doubts it's impossible to match his stamina; just don't pretend like he's the one slowing down or tripping up.
[1] I want to say that one should simply apply the HN rule of assuming the best version of the argument. But RMS almost always puts forth the best version of the argument, at least from a logical perspective, though certainly not necessarily a rhetorical perspective. Thus with RMS the better habit is assuming he's smarter than you, regardless of whether that's true or not, as it forces you to identify and trace the elements and threads of his reasoning, which are invariably present in plain sight.
After microsoft puchased Github, they encouraged "Codes of Conduct".
So now 40k "opensource projects" hace CoC's.
Obviously men won't be contributing to said projects, other than
the people allready in them.
https://www.businessinsider.com/linus-torvalds-linux-time-aw...
I do agree however that at no times should criticism of code or work become personal.
And now they're just as misogynistic, but we don't get to enjoy their code. They're also hidden from view so it's less likely that someone is going to tell them to cut the crap and maybe re-evaluate their world-view. They've essentially been shoved into an echo chamber.
In the end, arguing about code of conduct means arguing about the core ideas of free speech, one of them being: Do we want to segregate wrongdoers, or attempt to deal with them?
I'd rather get the code of all the women who were driven out of tech by their bigotry and hate than whatever they'd write, even if it was legendary golden code spewed forth from the fount of all wisdom.
However, many of the people who are pushing for CoC in projects do not themselves meet these requirements.
When the game moved into a sequel we changed the rules. Now it says "Treat others with respect and courtesy", which don't really qualify as a CoC since its basically common sense. People see it as so obvious that it not even a rule, more of a guideline.
This new rule has since then been pretty stable. It keeps out exactly those who can't behave but welcomes everyone else. There has not been a single instance of arguments about selective enforcement or favor-ism in terms to how the rules get enforced.
My own experience from that seems very similar when people complain about CoC. Long CoC lists tend to create fear, uncertainty and doubt within the community. It creates tiers of people where different class of people get the rules enforced differently. This in turn create a deep seated distrust.
For example, the code of conduct on dev.to [1] states that:
-------------
We pledge to prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:
‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as 'leave me alone,' 'go away,' or 'I’m not discussing this with you.'
Someone’s refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts
Criticisms of racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions
-------------
Note the "we will not act on complaints regarding [...] reverse racism". As someone who 100% disagrees with the idea that "reverse racism" is a thing (although I find the word dumb; it's just plain racism, nothing "reverse" about it) I have to ask myself: Does this mean the rules differ based on skin colour? Is something acceptable when said by a black user to a white user, but racism if it's the other way around?
It's things like these that, I believe, end up turning a "code of conduct" into a de facto political manifesto designed to keep out not only unwanted behavior, but also unwanted world-views. It's those codes of conduct that create direct harm.
Replace text with code and think about how the supposed 'meritocracy' of open source deals with the problem? Isn't 'nobody is stopping you from forking it', 'submit a pull request', 'the community/bdfl has final say', not apply here as well? Or do the benefits of open collaboration stop at code?
> It's a wretched, insidious *code* sneaked in by very bad
> actors into mainstream open source repositories.
Isn't it the presumption that whatever gets absorbed / pulled in, reflects the consensus of the community involved and that the future of the project is determined by the sort of natural evolution ? ...the bazaar ? So, if the bazaar now puts value on CoCs ...you may either contribute or dissent and start up your own competing replacement. Isn't that the way it was supposed to work ?
The post I replied to said that they were put off by a CoC and alleged that this is being pushed by bad actors. My point was to say that the CoC exists in the repos because of the same reasons open source exists. Not because of insidious acts of bad actors.
How is that you're opposed to CoC _in general_?
The most common objection to CoC is that they are not enforced equally. Different classes of people get treated differently and enjoy different rights. The enforcement have no transparency and no check and balances.
To take two recent well known examples, we had during the last year the stackoverlfow controversy over the new CoC, and wikipedia ban of an admin over CoC. In both cases there were major issue of transparency and selective enforcement. In the wikipedia case there was also problem with lack of check and balances. In the stackoverflow case there was also voices raised about other common rules now being unenforced in order to comply with the CoC creating a situation where different people get enforced by different rules.
Laws can be good. Rules and Boundaries can be a positive thing. They are not all good, not all positive. It depend. Without careful process and system for fairness it is very likely to turn bad as the above examples illustrates.
Sure, some CoC rules may be not great. But having some rules written down at least indicates leaders thought about the problem.
Don't you see the absurdity of the argument ?
Reasonable people will have no problem with mandating such treatment of all contributors.
Reasonable people won’t let their ego force them to oppose respectful conduct simply because it’s codified.
Reasonable people don’t believe their technical prowess entitles them to be dicks.
Seems reasonable, eh?
In either case, I suggest you stop using the internet. It mostly runs on (GNU/)Linux servers, which were strongly influenced by RMS who you probably disagree with, so none of that can be any good for you.
If you can’t contribute without being a dick, why would anyone want your contribution?
I, for one, want it because it's a contribution to open source, and I am pissed at people who feel otherwise and try framing their dumb opinion as more than just that.
Why would you want their contribution? I don't know, it's not my problem, and you don't speak for me. You don't speak for many people. Maybe you speak for a majority of the community, maybe not even that.
At the end of the day, rejecting good code because someone else doesn't like the contributor, that's just dumb and it holds open source back.
> that technical prowess exempts them from such from getting involved
What does one have to do with the other? Just because someone behaves like an asshole doesn't mean they need to be excluded from everything. Assholes can open bank accounts too, does that mean banks somehow agree with them?
My hypothesis, and I have no way of proving this, is that a substantial part (at least 20%) of the people attacking someone elses "toxic behavior" in the programming community are just pissed that they're not as good. Sorry if I'm bursting anyones bubble, but some people just suck at programming. Some people just can't deal with how someone they really don't like is better than them at the skill they identify with.
It includes things like:
* The use of sexualized language * insulting or derogatory comments * Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting
Obviously on the face of it these are extremely reasonable. The problem is that they are also extremely vague. Is it ok to say "fuck" in a comment? Or is that "sexualized language"? Can I say "this code is stupid" or is that too insulting? What if it isn't directed at anyone?
The fear is that there is a certain kind of person who loves picking people up over these sort of inconsequential rule ("social justice warriors"). For some reason they like to get into positions of power and then enforce petty rules.
I don't think that happens 99% of the time, but it does seem like CoCs encourage it and I've never seen evidence that extensive CoCs help so why bother? Just put a comment in your readme like you suggested - "CoC: Thou shalt not be an asshole."
> The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind
This is a perfect example of rules that are simply too broad. Say I write a comment `//normalize file path because fuck windows`. I said fuck; does this count as "sexualized language"? Do I need to be banned over this?
Also, a more "fun fact" example (from the same document):
> Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
Did anybody consider that this is excluding psychopaths from the community based on a psychological condition? They are, by definition, unable to feel empathy. So much for inclusivity, I guess.
Imagine doing the wonderful things RMS did in the past, being a hero of both FOSS and software in general. Imagine then being remembered for the ahole tricks that came later instead.
Github opened up both software and FOSS to me. I found projects despite not having a computer science education, not working full time in software, not having a personal network of academic buddies, not using irc. Very occasionally I contributed, and my submissions were taken on the value of the bugs I fixed, despite my lack of reputation.
RMS is a gatekeeping mysogynist pxxxx. He is failing to damage the community despite his best efforts because he has marginalised himself by his behaviour.
Ps. I haven't started a repo on github in a while, but I firmly remember it suggesting you add a license, and linking to explanations of the different licences. Did RMS want them to force it on you?