Gnome developer calls Arch Wiki contributors “Clowns”

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge_requests/4829

by evasb • 4 years ago

33 22 4 years ago

gitlab.gnome.org

smoldesu7• 4 years ago

The GNOME development lifecycle, illustrated for newcomers:

1. Mark all current issues as stale or wontfix when no new work is getting done

2. Partner with/create new software feature that is going to "finally fix the Linux desktop"

3. Expand codebase around new feature, leaving an abundance of cruft and dead code in their wake

4. (YOU ARE HERE) When everything inevitably breaks, they abandon the new feature and blame some perceived open-source boogieman

5. Development falters, funding cuts out, maintainers bail or something else happens that causes progress to return to a standstill (return to Step 1)

dsp• 4 years ago

“The Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers Model”

https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

22c• 4 years ago

Links to jwz.org are not friendly to HN referrals.

torstenvl2• 4 years ago

It definitely seems like Gnome has developed a toxic anti-user culture lately. Calling wiki contributors "clowns" and Gnome users "the peanut gallery" is exactly the kind of behavior that will lead to being surrounded by nothing but sycophants. And that inevitably leads to ridiculous bugs and design failures, like not being able to set a desktop background color, or planning to remove support for X11, or not having preview thumbnails in a file picker.

smoldesu7• 4 years ago

It makes me embarrassed to use Linux. People ask about simple features like supporting Nvidia hardware or letting us move the dock to the left or right, and I have to explain to them that the reason those features don't exist is because of "developer politics". I can't even recommend desktop Linux anymore knowing that this is the way the desktop is headed. If GNOME's desktop metaphor is just going to be whittled down to iPadOS-tier functionality, they shouldn't even bother calling themselves a desktop environment. Hell, they should have just separated from the Linux kernel when they decided to implement Wayland and saved everyone else the trouble of cleaning up their mess. Maybe that's a harsh way of looking at things, but it's not like they see the scenario as benevolent either.

josephcsible2• 4 years ago

It makes me embarrassed to use Linux.

All of Linux? Why? There's a bunch of competing desktop environments you can use instead.

pengaru• 4 years ago

Color me disappointed.

subjectsigma• 4 years ago

Inflammatory title.

I'm a KDE guy through and through, however I think he is referring to a clown on the Arch wiki, not calling Arch wiki members clowns categorically.

Still not very pleasant.

EDIT: well, he did say clowns, plural. Meh. Assuming good faith and whatnot

phendrenad2• 4 years ago

TL;DR: There is a GNOME feature toggled by an environment variable, which tweaks how apps are rendered, sometimes making them better. This developer proposes effectively removing this (making it into a "debug flag", which seems to mean only those using debug builds can enable it), while linking to a page on Arch Wiki which details how to use this environment variable, and calling the Arch Wiki writers "clowns".

The absolute disdain and hate the GNOME team has for anyone who uses their software in a way they didn't intend is staggering. Where does it come from? What's it like working on the GNOME team? Is it a cult where you're indoctrinated into believing that GNOME has the one true way and the rest of the Linux community are barbarian hordes? I really want to know.

Gnome developer calls Arch Wiki contributors “Clowns”

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