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Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums

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On 9/27/2021 9:18 PM, Borden wrote:
> I sympathise with your frustrations.
>
> The open source "community" - especially Debian - is not known for its civility. There have been numerous articles (and backlashes) identifying the rampant misogyny, racism, arrogance, murder and general rudeness amongst its members and leaders. If you're expecting a well-governed organisation with a robust, even-handed and consistent method for handling problems, your princess is in another castle.
>
> Unfortunately, the old economic principle "You get what you pay for" applies. People who are good at what they do  charge good rates and are in too high demand to deal with us plebs for free. As in any volunteer organisation, positions attract people  with way too much free time and whose opinions of themselves (including their legal scholarship) exceeds their abilities. It's pretty tribal.
>
> I'm speaking very broadly here and not in reference to anybody in particular, but I have  numerous incidents from the past 20 years in mind.
>
> Many newcomers to open source are encouraged to read Eric Raymond's "How to ask questions the smart way" which is a rambling manifesto that establishes the caste system of project managers at the top and newcomers at the bottom. Contributors are to be worshipped as gods, and we must be grateful to them when they down from Nirvana to educate us.

As the original poster, I can say this hits the nail on the head. Most 
definitely, Andy Smith and others claim a right to call newcomers like 
me a laughingstock, damned, etc., on the basis of their supposed 
god-like status. The fact is, I solved my bug (#994899) and wanted to 
help the Debian project out. And as thanks I get called a laughingstock 
and that I would be "damning" myself further if I didn't stop my alleged 
"overreaction." By overreaction, he clearly means I refused to worship 
him and his ilk as the gods they think they are, even claiming the power 
and right to damn newcomers at will. Yet they are the ones unable to 
solve their bug (#991967). And they are the gods to be worshiped? Ha ha! 
I wouldn't pay any of them a dime to try to squash a software bug. I 
will just fix it myself. Debian is closing in on a million bugs. That's 
a lot, it takes about 97 new bugs per day over the 28-year life-span of 
the project to get to a number that high. And that is only the ones that 
are reported. I have seen many bugs in free software that I did not 
bother to report, and I am sure many others have as well.

I am inclined to say that if the truth be told, the only bugs that 
matter are the ones that Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, etc. want to 
get solved. I see many bugs are marked as patch available, yet the patch 
is never applied. My bug is marked as patch available. But I am not 
Google or Amazon. So I doubt my patch for my bug will ever make it into 
the distribution. Apparently I have committed the deadly sin of 
questioning the gods. If Debian wants to prove me wrong, then Debian 
should accept my patch into the distribution, or at least consider it 
and have the courtesy to tell me why they can't or won't accept the 
patch. If they do work with me to get a fix into the Debian software for 
my bug, then I will retract my statement that I believe only the bugs 
that are important to Debian are the ones giant multinational 
corporations want a fix for. Or, think of it this way. Maybe the big 
software companies plant bugs on purpose in free software (or worse, 
malware, ransomware, etc.) so most people have no choice but to pay them 
for their commercial products and security solutions, and it is not good 
for their bottom line if too many people can get a secure, bug-free 
product for free. Again, if Debian accepts my patch for my bug, then I 
would stand corrected.

Chuck

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Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Borden <borden_c@tutanota.com> - 2021-09-28 08:30 +0200
  Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-09-28 10:30 +0200
  Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Chuck Zmudzinski <brchuckz@netscape.net> - 2021-09-28 13:20 +0200
    Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2021-09-28 16:40 +0200
    Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Jonathan Dowland <jon+debian-user@dow.land> - 2021-09-28 17:40 +0200
      Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2021-09-30 02:50 +0200
        Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums Jonathan Dowland <jon+debian-user@dow.land> - 2021-09-30 13:00 +0200
          Re: Privacy and defamation of character on Debian public forums riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com> - 2021-09-30 21:50 +0200

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