Torvalds’s tirades for example were awesome and most of the time well-deserved for the idiot trying to accidentally the kernel, but are quite more of a bummer and a momentum-killer when looked at at a project-wide scope.
Sure, and the problem was the profanities and personal insults. He has toned down both and I think the project is much better for it, but I wouldn’t call his communication style “empathetic,” merely technical. If there’s an issue, he’s clear about it, minus the profanities and personal insults.
we now need to actually care and be watchful why or how something is being made to work
And I very passionately oppose that. I don’t care if the lead maintainer is a Nazi or a communist, I care that they keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project. For example, I strongly disagree with the Lemmy devs politically, yet I use Lemmy, have contributed patches, and will probably contribute more patches at some point if something pisses me off enough. The same is true for other projects. I disagree with Brendan Eich’s views on same-sex marriage, but that has zero impact on whether I’d use the Brave browser or Brave search engine.
If our standard for interacting w/ a project is “I agree with the developers on this unrelated thing,” then we’re not going to get anywhere. We should focus on technical soundness, and leave the individual contributors to their own views on other stuff.
That said, I draw the line at a lack of inclusiveness. If a project is actively discouraging others to join the project on purely unrelated grounds (i.e. excluding people based on gender identity, nationality, etc), then I’d prefer to avoid that project. But not being aggressively inclusive isn’t the same as being exclusive; as long as contributions are welcomed regardless of source, it doesn’t really matter to me what the personal opinions of someone involved in a project are.
Identity politics is stupid. I don’t care if the lead dev is trans, obese, or Russian, I care that their technical contributions are sound and they’re reasonably respectful to contributors.
Hopefully no one is asking developers to be virtuous (even tho, to be fair, if we are going to be asking that we should also expect the code to be wholly bugs-free!), but how many times they actually “keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project”? On whichever side. It’s just not a thing that can reasonably be avoided all the time between humans.
But the reality of these times is that behaviour outside the field of programming is representative and/or predictive of behaviour in the field of programming, when it comes to literally working with other people. And this is not only about the act of commiting changes or filing PRs, it’s about the why of programming and the ways of delivery as well. Someone who strongly associates with barbaric beliefs is less likely to want to spend their spare time working in peace for all, and more likely to be wanting to work on software that at least in some way carries or represents those beliefs, for example in capturing and using user data, or in aiding systems used by the military to kill children of “non-citizens”. So being “absolutely” uncaring does not really make sense.
Sure, and the problem was the profanities and personal insults. He has toned down both and I think the project is much better for it, but I wouldn’t call his communication style “empathetic,” merely technical. If there’s an issue, he’s clear about it, minus the profanities and personal insults.
And I very passionately oppose that. I don’t care if the lead maintainer is a Nazi or a communist, I care that they keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project. For example, I strongly disagree with the Lemmy devs politically, yet I use Lemmy, have contributed patches, and will probably contribute more patches at some point if something pisses me off enough. The same is true for other projects. I disagree with Brendan Eich’s views on same-sex marriage, but that has zero impact on whether I’d use the Brave browser or Brave search engine.
If our standard for interacting w/ a project is “I agree with the developers on this unrelated thing,” then we’re not going to get anywhere. We should focus on technical soundness, and leave the individual contributors to their own views on other stuff.
That said, I draw the line at a lack of inclusiveness. If a project is actively discouraging others to join the project on purely unrelated grounds (i.e. excluding people based on gender identity, nationality, etc), then I’d prefer to avoid that project. But not being aggressively inclusive isn’t the same as being exclusive; as long as contributions are welcomed regardless of source, it doesn’t really matter to me what the personal opinions of someone involved in a project are.
Identity politics is stupid. I don’t care if the lead dev is trans, obese, or Russian, I care that their technical contributions are sound and they’re reasonably respectful to contributors.
Hopefully no one is asking developers to be virtuous (even tho, to be fair, if we are going to be asking that we should also expect the code to be wholly bugs-free!), but how many times they actually “keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project”? On whichever side. It’s just not a thing that can reasonably be avoided all the time between humans.
But the reality of these times is that behaviour outside the field of programming is representative and/or predictive of behaviour in the field of programming, when it comes to literally working with other people. And this is not only about the act of commiting changes or filing PRs, it’s about the why of programming and the ways of delivery as well. Someone who strongly associates with barbaric beliefs is less likely to want to spend their spare time working in peace for all, and more likely to be wanting to work on software that at least in some way carries or represents those beliefs, for example in capturing and using user data, or in aiding systems used by the military to kill children of “non-citizens”. So being “absolutely” uncaring does not really make sense.