[split] On the future of X

[szatox]

[flexibeast]

[pingtoo]

Do we need to split again?

[lars_the_bear]

[szatox]

[eschwartz]

I would say that in many cases there is a kind of ethical social obligation to... not listen to every user's demands, but to either have the project be in some opaquely defined state of "good shape" or else hand over the project maintenance to someone who will. You see this a lot with the way many projects prefer to be developed by "an organization" with "a lead developer" rather than be a one-person show on a private website.

By publishing software, you freely invite people to use it or not use it as they please, and refrain from complaining about it -- after all, no warranties! But by *campaigning* to have your software used by others, you make a (non-legally-binding) statement "hey, I'm a reliable person who cares about making this project useful to others. I'm going to stick around! I'm going to respect my users! I'm going to do my best to make this a great project!"

In some cases, there's a considerably stronger guarantee. For example, software that comes from an organization that takes (usually tax-deductible) donations for administration, or pays people for their time working on the project (even if it isn't a full time job, just a hobby bonus).

In some particular examples, you have e.g. GCC, binutils, glibc, the GNOME foundation, the linux kernel... and people are paid full time salaries by major corporations to work on those projects in the interests of that corporation, which often entails becoming (or getting hired because you are already) a domain expert, and ending up with a seat on some kind of board or steering committee. In a very real sense, e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is paying their employees to have, as their day job, "be an expert at the GNU Toolchain and gain the trust of the FOSS community". I would flip out and have some rather pointed demands if for some reason I thought that those developers were turning the compiler into a personal toy for RHEL experiments to the detriment of my own and the broader world of FOSS use cases. (I don't feel that this has ever been a real concern, however.)

But I wouldn't demand specific features from any maintainer of any project -- even if I demand that they engage in good faith to make the project better "for its users", and even if I demand that they not abandon the project.

This state of affairs works out pretty well, for the most part, anyway.

The relationship to Xorg vs Wayland is interesting, because both are indeed large projects that represent industry-wide standards for operating a graphical user interface, with various stakeholders from both FOSS hobbyists and corporate interests, and there are people whose dayjob is (at least in part) to maintain both projects. Do I have a right to insist that RHEL employees improve Xorg on my behalf? I don't think so. But I feel a bit like I do have the right to demand that they keep Xorg in maintenance mode for as long as Wayland isn't a full replacement, that they review in good faith and accept well written patches by the community that advance the goals of Xorg (including adding new features, if the community is inspired to design such things, without rejecting it by saying "no, we don't want Xorg to get better")...

... or that they turn over the project to people who are willing to do that, if that's what ends up being better for Xorg.

I think they are doing their duties admirably, either way. Their arguments in favor of Wayland as a replacement to Xorg are founded in good faith personal belief that Wayland is a better future. They haven't abandoned Xorg, only put it into maintenance mode. There aren't really any exciting new Xorg features, but that's because nobody is offering any. And they are committed to ensuring Xorg remains as usable as it has been up until now, "until future notice".

I'm sure they want to abandon Xorg entirely, and it's likely that someday they will be able to say in good faith "we believe Wayland now solves all use cases from Xorg, there is no reason for anyone to want Xorg anymore", although I doubt that day will come in the next decade given the continuing quirks that make people prefer Xorg.

I *still* expect some people to be very unhappy about Xorg going away, and insisting on continuing to use it, and I think the ethical choice is that the project should hand over the reins to the remaining Xorg enthusiasts and say "go wild, knock yourself out. Enjoy your Xorg, its all your responsibility now".

[Anon-E-moose]

Even if distros quit packaging Xorg*, I'm pretty sure the source code will be around for quite a while.
Grab a copy and work on it, or keep it as is and you can still be using X in 2050 (whether the hardware of the time will allow it, is a different matter)

I find that for many people it's not that wayland won't work instead of X,
it's that they're too set in their ways, to want to learn to do things in a (possibly) different way.

But I've heard the same whining when gtk2 went away, then kde3, then kde4, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
_________________
UM780, 6.1 zen kernel, gcc 13, profile 17.0 (custom bare multilib), openrc, wayland

[pjp]

[flexibeast]

@szatox:

i found your response very patronising. You don't know what i've been through, and what i'm going through. (Though my comment in an earlier post in this discussion, "i have a disabling chronic illness, which i've had for 25+ years and which shows no sign of going away, and i'm also trying to provide support to two family members with significant disabilities", should perhaps have clued you in a bit.) You have no idea how resilient i've had to be to in order to be here today, and that i've had a psychologist comment on just how resilient i've been.

What's the metamessage communicated when people are seemingly more willing to write long posts telling people to be more stoic and resilient than they are to write a short comment to people haranguing and bullying volunteers, saying "Hey, that's inappropriate. Please treat volunteers with respect"? Even trying to create a generally - not perfectly! - supportive culture for volunteers is apparently impossible, but it's fine to lecture volunteers on being more stoic and resilient? What's the metamessage communicated to those doing the bullying and haranguing? "What you're doing won't be challenged, carry on; the targets of your behaviours will be told they need to harden the f*** up."

If the threshold for contributing to FOSS is "You must be this stoic and resilient to be part of this ride", and that it's okay for volunteers who are insufficiently stoic and resilient to be driven away, because their contributions are not valuable enough to even try to counter haranguing and bullying that's taking a psychological toll on them, and despite - based on my decades of experience with FOSS - such bullies often not actually doing any volunteer work themselves .... Well, i feel that says a lot.

i have indeed left communities to which i was making substantial contributions because i could no longer continue to handle the problematic attitudes and behaviours, because people would rather lose my contributions than to stand up to bullies.

i feel i've made my core points. If people continue to nevertheless feel that the onus is on the bullied to change their attitudes and behaviours, rather than on the bullies, i don't know what more to say. i won't be contributing further to this sub-thread; others can have the last word.
_________________
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Flexibeast

[szatox]

[eschwartz]

[pingtoo]

For the past posts between szatox and flexibeast and others that responded to them.

I must said I am side with szatox.

I found szatox have gave good advise for dealing with things one perceive as bully. I use "perceive as bully" because on internet is mixed culture. Because it is after fact there is no way we can understand the context. But I accept that a bully did happen and therefor given out sympathy is not the right answer.

I think respond from flexibeast is also not being consider. When szatox is not trying patronising but only suggest how to deal with one's feeling when being upset by others. I believe szatox intention are good.

Although later szatox respond is not necessary being polite but I think being blunt is good in this case. flexibeast post have large degree of self-pity in it. and for my experience there is no better way to tell one with self-pity than being blunt. Other wise one will be draw into a flow going nowhere.

Don't get me wrong I am not condoning bully. but there is no help after fact that said "yeah bro, I hear you and I feel the pain, i am sorry for what happen". we can only give advise for how to deal when it happen again.

[pjp]

[lars_the_bear]