Too many lords, not enough stewards

Posted Feb 1, 2018 18:59 UTC (Thu) by msnitzer (guest, #57232)
In reply to: Too many lords, not enough stewards by excors
Parent article: Too many lords, not enough stewards

Yeap, and like others your pattern matching is a bit too automatic. That's fine. I don't fault you for assuming the worst simply because I used the term "snowflake". I just think its use is sometimes apropos. This topic being one of those instances. Because there are assholes, snowflakes, egomaniacal people. And they can be called what they are. There are also kind, helpful and technically gifted _and_ instructive people in the Linux kernel community. There are even some who oscillate between both ends of that spectrum.

The question really is: can we harness the good to improve and innovate while also defeating the bad elements that are omnipresent? I think we do a pretty damn good job of it in the grand scheme of things. So when entire talks are dedicated to just how bad it is, that comes off as quite disingenuous. It isn't an accurate characterization of the broader community and the people who make it all work. And to speak so emphatically as if it is, that is a problem.

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Too many lords, not enough stewards

Posted Feb 2, 2018 0:22 UTC (Fri) by nivedita76 (guest, #121790) [Link]

You might want to reflect that perhaps your use of the term "snowflake" is a bit too automatic. The overlap between kind and helpful people and people who automatically pull out "snowflake" is nil.

Too many lords, not enough stewards

Posted Feb 8, 2018 11:05 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

I'm very sorry, but I think you have a language problem ...

I regularly use the term "black". The people I am talking about are not American, and would find the term "African" offensive.

Always remember the English and Americans are two peoples divided by a common language - and don't you dare translate the word "bum-bag" in my presence - the American equivalent is both offensive and sexist ... :-)

(It took me quite a while to realise what you saw as offensive ...)

Cheers,
Wol

Too many lords, not enough stewards

Posted Feb 2, 2018 12:50 UTC (Fri) by [email protected] (subscriber, #39252) [Link]

I have to say I agree. What you said reflects my own view quite well.

I also have to say that I feel personally offended by some statements made in the talk, even though I may agree with some points made in it too. Yes, I can get over this, but that doesn't particularly improve the taste in my mouth, so to speak.

Moreover, kernel code maintainers *are* contributors too. The majority of them actually contribute code changes, but even if they don't do that, maintaining a piece of kernel code is a significant contribution pretty much by itself, so positioning them against "contributors" as it was done in the talk doesn't appear to be fair enough.

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