this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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Free and Open Source Software
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Who cares? It's run by reactionary incels, transphobes, and racists. https://cmdr-nova.online/2024/07/03/serenityos-and-ladybird/
Wait until you find out who runs Lemmy development.
Good news, most folks at beehaw know and the admins have decided to move to a new platform
Correct. We're moving to Sublinks very soon. Buckle up.
oh boy I can't wait for all of the integrations to break
also is it just me or is deciding what software you use and do not pay for based on the political views of the people who create it (who again in no way benefit from its use by people who don't donate) incredibly fucking stupid
Don't call people "incredibly fucking stupid". Be(e) nice.
@AVincentInSpace @remington The Lemmy devs are infamously difficult to work with. They've repeatedly shown an unwillingness to even acknowledge the existence of the many problems that instance admins face. That has been a big driver in Beehaw's decision to move platforms, not just because of a difference in political views, and they've been pretty open about discussing it. You're way off-base.
Do you know what topic brought you here?
"Hey guys, let's not use this free software, because of their views."
"Maybe we shouldn't use this other free software because of their views."
"Why are you guys worried about which free software you use based on their views?"
"We can all tell you aren't new, why are you complaining about our unofficial pastime?"
Will it federate with Lemmy? I would miss you folks.
It's my understanding that it will...I believe that's, also, what it means when they (Sublinks developers) said it would be "Lemmy compatible".
I am overjoyed to hear that we'll be staying in the fediverse and I can stay with beehaw.
It will be "Lemmy compatible", so hopefully all of Lemmy apps should work fine.
The demo on that link is literally Lemmy lol
Lemmy devs are awesome. 1 more reason to use the platform.
Didn't they fly off the handle on someone for politely pointing out that the text shouldn't use the word "he" and assume that every user is male?
That's not political, thats flat out unprofessional. I would think it's a pretty junior mistake if any of my colleagues filed a non-gender neutral PR in the first place, and would flat out fire them if they ever reacted to a review that unprofessionally.
No, it didn't. Go read the PR, it's extremely polite. I in fact, would challenge you to try and think of a more polite and less accusatory way of bringing up the same issue. I can't.
Yeah, you know what else has only been around for the past "few" decades? Literally every single computer and piece of software ever made, you know what literally none of them do? Refer to their users as "he".
You want to make it sound like it's a simple ESL mistake? That's fine you're welcome to believe that, but do you know how I respond to translation mistakes when I'm speaking a foreign language? I laugh and say oops, sorry, my mistake I'll fix that. I don't say "don't bring your politics into this".
I'm sorry but you are making up a fantasy to try and believe that the author wasn't being an explicit asshole.
This was what I thought as well. The PR was a simple request that I thought wasn't political at all, just a matter of inclusion which I thought fit. Kling got aggressive thinking it was a political move or some shit then the rest piled on calling him names and such.
I think he just thought it was bringing politics into his project, I don't think he was taking any sides at all but people made up their minds. His silence is a bit concerning, probably ignoring it all but, whatever, It's his project.
I mean, the whole point is kind of that the problem is getting defensive rather than making a change.
That's the root of a lot of these problems. People are intimidated by 'wokeness' because they think that caring about how they affect other people means that if they have the wrong idea they're irredeemable. Clearly that isn't compatible with continuing to feel alright about themselves, so they become defensive and double down. But the reality is, if they'd just like, quit it with the callousness and cruelty they'd be eliminating the problem to begin with.
Lack of acknowledgement of there being an issue becomes the primary motivator for making the issue worse.
It's like becoming a hoarder because you're too embarrassed to acknowledge what a mess your house is to clean it. Rather than pick the trash up off the floor, they shout about how clean their house really is and how deluded we all are for talking about the smell.
That’s not unprofessional. That’s just how English works.
There are a million and one ways to phrase everything in the English language, it's flexibility is one of its most notable features. There is literally no instruction or label that requires non gender neutral language to be in it unless you're talking explicitly about gender.
Go ahead and name a label or instruction that you think requires you to use the word he and doesn't have a gender neutral equivalent.
While I don't disagree, it is possible that Kling picked up the writing style of he/him for unspecified gender. Kling is Swedish, and Swedish only recently made their gender neutral pronoun official. On the English side, it seems he/him for unspecified gender started getting pushed in the 1800s, though I can't find info on when they/them regained usage.
Sometimes terrible people can do good things.
Those good things should be supported.
Judge a project on it own merits.
People still use the Autobahn.
"What about the good things Hitler did?" Is not the flex you think it is. Also, using the Autobahn does not send support to Nazis
Using Lemmy without donating to the developers does not send support to them. Same goes for Ladybird, does it not?
Adding to popularity does support them.
Great analogy and perspective.
It's not that great an analogy because the autobahn isn't still maintained by Nazis.
The thing here is that Ladybird and SerenityOS are both the community and the code. One cannot live without the other because the code will always need its community to develop it. And in this case, it is not possible to support them without supporting the people who, y'know receive the money. I think nobody is arguing against an independent browser engine - the argument is against the implementation of it.
Boring hit piece that way overblows some issues on the topic.
The piece was definitely slanted.
Was what the devs did great? No. Does the whole project need to be outcast/abandoned due to what language they use? No. There needs to be nuance with these issues. Open source does not owe individuals anything and that is why it is provided without warranty. On the flip side, individuals can choose not to use it.
We should be promoting open source software and not have infighting when open source software doesn't have much mass market appeal to begin with.
Just as a side note, I want open source software / free software to have appeal because it is good for people. If the way the promote it to the masses is enabling awful people, I'm really not interested anymore.
Letting fascists loose on github doesn't make open source software more appealing. Look at how much worse twitter is to be on after relaxing the moderation standards. Now imagine that for open source. We need to make sure open source is approachable to everyone and that means being careful with our language and not being dismissive when someone opens a PR to make the language more approachable to all
No, I'm actually with them on that one. The he / they issue in of itself is tiny, I agree, and if they'd just changed it from gendered to gender neutral language then nobody would've even cared. Most of us tend to write in a gendered way out of habit or because we think about our own gender, and in a casual conversation that isn't that important. But this is about a piece of software that, surely, is not just meant for male audiences. It's just unprofessional to address someone as male by default. Most importantly though, being this stubborn on having the user specifically male is just a weird hill to die on, but even weirder if that particular action is the one that is actually causing the drama - which they allegedly claim wanting to prevent by dismissing "politics". And I'm sorry, but changing a "he" to "they" is not politics, it's just including non male users. Nothing more, nothing less. So why is it such an issue to not just address specifically male users? It really only would be because those people hold some very questionable views, which, in my opinion, clash heavily with the whole concept of free and open source software, which is supposedly for everyone. So if your actions and views are this flawed, how can you be trusted on such an important project?
Also, in regards to this news... "no code from rivals" also is just a stupid thing to say and do. There's plenty of good open source code that they could and probably even SHOULD use. But whatever. I'm not gonna support this project and predict it will fail anyway.
I've no love lost for the developers in question. But between the original two PRs and associated comments being from over three years ago, and the "trans woman [being called] 'spam" comment being said about a PR that seems pretty strongly to me to be meant as a sarcastic insult rather than a genuine contribution, I can't help but find it a little unconvincing.
It's not without merit by far. I feel that Kling's blog post not addressing the drama was in poor taste and may indicate a lack of self-improvement regarding the initial fuckup, and saying you want to "avoid alienating people" when closing a PR that aims to improve inclusivity is more than a little pathetic. I also understand not wanting bigots to be able to just bury their past and pretend they were never bigoted. It's just that the fiery response this has gotten still ends up feeling a bit disproportionate given how old the truly insulting issues were. Am I missing something?
I do, I feel like we desperately need some more competition/options in the browser engine space.
“reactionary”. Self-aware much?
I do not know either of you.
That said, on the one hand we have a guy that trivial research reveals has been dramatically transparent about his own life, struggles, and frailty in a really humble and disarming way. He shares his talent freely not only with code but mentorship and teaching. He has created a thriving and closer-knit community working together to do interesting and valuable things ( OS and browser ). His somewhat famous tagline is “well, hello friends”. He has also showcased both his wife and other females on his channel. Unless I misunderstand the term “incel”, you are demonstrably and factually wrong on that front at least. The biggest complaint I could find about him elsewhere is that his is “too neutral”. Perhaps that is at play here.
On the other hand, we have somebody directly peddling destruction, slander, and hate ( you ). And why? As far as I can tell, the only contribution the SerenityOS founder has made to this “discussion” is the sentence “This project is not an appropriate arena to advertise your personal politics.”. Is that really it? Overreaction?
That sentence spawned all of this? I must have misunderstood which of you we were labelling as “reactionary”.
Regardless of if the project should have accepted the commit or not ( a valid debate ), I cannot possibly side with this reaction. It is awful.
Downvotes welcome. I would rather be ethical than popular.
Oh didn't you hear? It's fine now because a PR was finally accepted well after being called out and ~~stepping down~~ stepping aside from the project
/s
Imagine that talking with people about issues and not just shouting and brigading them actually works. Who would have known.
Like the first time it came up, politely with a complete PR, and it was just shut down?
you mean this one https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814 three years ago? yeah that was not the nicest reaction. Bridgading in that old thread and the thread about the accepted and merged PR was not nicest reaction as well.
Also the merged PR was way more of substance and didn't just replace
hewiththeyin that one line whereas there were several occasion where that issue occured in the same file. If the original one would have been merged, the documentation file would be inconsistent.As someone who hasn't bothered to read any of the detail about this whole mess until just now, the comments from three years ago were all relatively civil, even if the response by the developer was dismissive. That this was corrected within 6 weeks and people are still talking about it is pretty impressive, though. Looks like people are trying to make enemies, not converts.
What does that have to do with the code tho