Turd Cookies | Hacker News Reader

Turd Cookies

zedshaw.com

17 pointsmdemare7 comments

More info and context can be found on his related tweet: https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/625163642695086080

@zedshaw "[..] happens every time someone challenges FLOSS design decisions. It's a weird reaction, but part of insecurity about being wrong."

@infixum "Which project is it, what is the offending part, and who is Larry the sentient fly?" -> @zedshaw "All of them"

Part of the problem is that there's a dozen cookie shops, and overzealous FLOSS people will glibly recommend one simply on the basis that they've heard of it, rather than admit that they don't know, or that there isn't a good FLOSS cookie shop in town. Then when you complain that every cookie shop sells turds of some flavour or another, they'll say you should be grateful for all the choices you have.

btw I'm a somewhat zealous FLOSS person myself, which is why I've encountered this problem.

I could do without the scatological references. How about a serious discussion?

what is the context of this?

Turd cookie = Floss (Free, Libre, Open Source Software) project. You're not supposed to complain about anything free and so you don't. Meanwhile there are many turd cookies that could be edible if one would feel more free to complain and Turd-cookie bakers would draw lessons from the complaining, instead of moaning about how "one should not be complaining about free cookies".

The Turd-cookie baker could be having a full restaurant if he was not insulted so easily and willing to change his recipe.

Still, one should be free to bake Turd-cookies if one wants to. But I agree one should not be whining when someone spits it out and vents a bit of rage after having eaten a Turd-cookie. Also, if the praise from a sentient fly (your audience of 1 happy user) feels good to you, by all means, bask in it.

Maybe how tech companies behave. Some parts reminded me about Google. How they'll not listen to customers and instead focus on a big fly (management? someone else?) and abandon products. Google+ may be an example!

Or broadly, just companies listening to flies (advertisers etc) and service us turd.

The whole respect thing also reminds of how internet communities work. This is written close to reddit fiasco, so maybe that! Reddit is listening to advertisers. Or maybe they are listening to bad users who say shitty things but when you discuss something with them, they hide behind all this.

I think I am as confused as anyone here. Maybe zed can explain better!

I thought this was about antifeatures:

http://wiki.mako.cc/Antifeatures

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