On the right to rant.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@sockpuppet7 what does it say about our society when it takes spending big bucks on legal protection for other people to stop being dicks?
It says that people have weird ideas about what it means to be a dick. And sometimes we won't agree but that's still probably OK.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
Maybe it's just me and Blakey having lower tolerance for shitty behavior.
Or maybe I have a lower tolerance for JWZ shitty behaviour.
Someone being a dick doesn't justify your own shitty behavior any less shitty. I'm all for "an eye for an eye" - just be honest about it still being a dick move.
Although I agree with the general sentiment here, you have to admit that in practice, things are not black and white. "He started it" never really excused shitty behaviour, but OTOH it does weaken the moral standpoint of the person who actually did start it. In other words: if you're a jerk to other, this doesn't excuse others for being a jerk to you, but you're unlikely to attract much sympathy by complaining about it.
(read his "reasons" for refusing ports of his code to Windows for a nice example of all that)
Well, his reasons are totally valid and I'd 100% support him in it - but only if he restricted himself to "ain't gonna do it myself and please nobody brands their port as "XScreenSaver" - make up your own name if you must".
Yes. I disagree with some of his reasons, but I understand his position and frankly, I don't really care about his reasons, him saying "I ain't gonna do it" is perfectly fine by itself. Nobody is entitled to him doing any specific work.
I agree that "don't you dare port my code to Windows at all" is going too far and such attitude is very harmful to the community.
And yes again. Actively going after people who do it is a huge dick move.
But you must admit that replying with bad porn was a whole new level of being a dick, and was totally uncalled for.
Well, we only have his side of the story here. Sure, if JWZ sent a nice polite email and got dick pics as the immediate answer, that's a dick move (pun intended). But JWZ being JWZ, I very much suspect that the porn came after some heated exchange.
And like someone just said, "someone being a dick doesn't justify your own shitty behavior any less shitty".
If you say "do as you wish", you cannot claim the other party is a dick for doing as they wish.
There's a difference between saying "do as you wish" and saying "I have no legal power to stop you from doing this, but please please please please don't do this". JWZ did the latter.
It's not "I have no legal power to stop you" but "I voluntarily yield the power to stop you".
Again, you can't really have it both ways. You can't really say that you like free software and the ability for anyone to do as they please with it, and then whine when someone takes advantage of this. Even assuming that he is naïve enough to not know how to find a different license (I don't believe that argument for a second, given his experience and background), there are tons of ways he could make it clear that it is his software and that he doesn't want other people to change anything without his approval.
For me, he is twisting the idea of open-source software to suit him. He takes from it the benefits for him (more people exposed to his software i.e. more users, more people voluntarily helping him finding/fixing bugs...), but then when he sees something wrong for him (people can modify without his consent), he flies off the handle. That's why I said a license is a contract (be it a legal or moral one) between two persons. There are some terms imposed on the users of the code, but there are also some terms imposed on the writer of the code.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
Do you think it's fair to expect developers to spend time and money figuring out all these details if they want their wishes regarding their own creation to be respected?
Uh, yes, I do. Because in the end that is what is protecting users. Can you imagine if, basically, saying something on your private blog could be taken as being an enforceable license? "Oh yeah I learnt that <political party> was using my software, and obviously I don't like them so, well, don't be jerks guys, don't use my software."
Does that sound to you like a world in which you really want to live? Where the developer of a program can put any weird arbitrary limitations on how you can use his software, without having to actually write a license that covers this?
If you (as a developer) have specific wishes about how your software should be used, it is up to you to make these wishes crystal-clear from the start, and if that means writing a license, well suck it up and write something. It might not be ironclad against an army of lawyers (nothing is, anyway...) but at least it's there.
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Which of those do you dispute:
- the "obsolete version" popup is some stupid shit
- that popup needs to be removed to be usable
- he said "don't remove this"
?
That has to be the first, 'cause the other two are pretty factual and clear. The first one, I guess you might not call it "stupid" or "shit".
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska By 1) using a different license
What stock open-source licenses require end users to be informed they're using an old version?
Obviously I meant using a license that requires rebranding forks by 3rd parties.
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Yes he did?! What is this discussion even about, otherwise?
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@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
Maybe if I find some time I'll look into porting it to Windows, just to piss him off.
Don't forget to NOT change the name, to piss him even more
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
Maybe it's just me and Blakey having lower tolerance for shitty behavior.
Or maybe I have a lower tolerance for JWZ shitty behaviour.
Someone being a dick doesn't justify your own shitty behavior any less shitty. I'm all for "an eye for an eye" - just be honest about it still being a dick move.
Although I agree with the general sentiment here, you have to admit that in practice, things are not black and white. "He started it" never really excused shitty behaviour, but OTOH it does weaken the moral standpoint of the person who actually did start it. In other words: if you're a jerk to other, this doesn't excuse others for being a jerk to you, but you're unlikely to attract much sympathy by complaining about it.
But the offender isn't going to get sympathy either. In feces slinging competition, the audience usually doesn't pick sides but stays as far as they can from both teams. After reading the blog post linked in OP, a healthy person's take should be "OMG Linux devs are such assholes, all of them".
But you must admit that replying with bad porn was a whole new level of being a dick, and was totally uncalled for.
Well, we only have his side of the story here.
Nobody would admit to watching bad porn if it weren't true.
Sure, if JWZ sent a nice polite email and got dick pics as the immediate answer, that's a dick move (pun intended). But JWZ being JWZ, I very much suspect that the porn came after some heated exchange.
Yeah, maybe. Although I really can't imagine any such exchange where sending NSFW pics would be an appropriate response.
And like someone just said, "someone being a dick doesn't justify your own shitty behavior any less shitty".
Yes, but some behaviors are worse than others. Being a dick is a spectrum.
If you say "do as you wish", you cannot claim the other party is a dick for doing as they wish.
There's a difference between saying "do as you wish" and saying "I have no legal power to stop you from doing this, but please please please please don't do this". JWZ did the latter.
It's not "I have no legal power to stop you" but "I voluntarily yield the power to stop you".
It's not voluntary if doing otherwise is insanely hard or outright impossible.
Again, you can't really have it both ways. You can't really say that you like free software and the ability for anyone to do as they please with it, and then whine when someone takes advantage of this.
Are you saying that open source software should only ever come in the "no strings attached" variant? Are you saying that adding additional conditions of any kind, legally binding or otherwise, is morally wrong and such practices should be either outlawed or at least heavily scorned by society? Because otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with saying "you can do whatever you want with this code except take out this one function".
Even assuming that he is naïve enough to not know how to find a different license (I don't believe that argument for a second, given his experience and background)
The problem isn't finding "a different" license. The problem is finding a license that forbids what you say he should've forbidden in the license instead in the code comments, while still allowing everything he wants to allow, in particular freely modifying and redistributing the rest of the code.
there are tons of ways he could make it clear that it is his software and that he doesn't want other people to change anything without his approval.
But he WANTS people to change things without his approval. Except this one function, and except porting to Windows.
For me, he is twisting the idea of open-source software to suit him. He takes from it the benefits for him (more people exposed to his software i.e. more users, more people voluntarily helping him finding/fixing bugs...), but then when he sees something wrong for him (people can modify without his consent), he flies off the handle.
You forget that by releasing his software for free at all, he's done huge service to the community - more than anybody's done to him through bug reports. He's voluntarily sharing his own creation for free, and he should be able to do it on his own terms. If people don't like his terms, they should stop using his software.
That's why I said a license is a contract (be it a legal or moral one) between two persons. There are some terms imposed on the users of the code, but there are also some terms imposed on the writer of the code.
You say "license is a contract", but based on the rest of your post, I think what you actually mean is that "everything that's not a license, isn't a contract" - which is what I disagree with. Is this really what you claim, or am I misinterpreting your words? In particular, do you think there's nothing morally wrong with disregard explicitly stated restrictions on how the code should be modified if the restrictions are written in a block comment somewhere in source code and not in the license text? Not necessarily in this particular case, but in general - from moral standpoint, are restrictions written somewhere else than in license text to be ignored?
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@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska By 1) using a different license
What stock open-source licenses require end users to be informed they're using an old version?
Obviously I meant using a license that requires rebranding forks by 3rd parties.
Can it be done without official trademark? I'm pretty sure it can't be done without official trademark.
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Yes he did?! What is this discussion even about, otherwise?
About annoying warning. It still functions properly - it just displays annoying warning.
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
Do you think it's fair to expect developers to spend time and money figuring out all these details if they want their wishes regarding their own creation to be respected?
Uh, yes, I do. Because in the end that is what is protecting users. Can you imagine if, basically, saying something on your private blog could be taken as being an enforceable license? "Oh yeah I learnt that <political party> was using my software, and obviously I don't like them so, well, don't be jerks guys, don't use my software."
Did I say it should be enforceable license? I just said it should be respected. Generally. And there's a big difference between random blog post and a block of text pleading you not to delete some function right before the code of said function. It's pretty much impossible for you not to be aware of that block of text if you want to delete that function.
If you (as a developer) have specific wishes about how your software should be used, it is up to you to make these wishes crystal-clear from the start
They WERE crystal clear in this case. There is NO ONE who claims they were unaware of those wishes, or didn't understand the meaning.
and if that means writing a license, well suck it up and write something.
And if it's done through other means than writing a license? Such as, putting a comment right in front of the code you want to delete asking you not to delete it?
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Which of those do you dispute:
- the "obsolete version" popup is some stupid shit
- that popup needs to be removed to be usable
- he said "don't remove this"
?
The second. The popup doesn't make the software unusable.
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
you cannot claim the other party is a dick for doing as they wish.
I can, yes, and in this case have.
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@remi Do you even understand the actual problem here which prompted all of this?
His users are sending him bug reports for versions that are years out-of-date. Which is a gigantic waste of his time. Like, you haven't even responded to the actual reason he put that message there in the first place, and I'm starting to think you have no idea what the actual problem here is.
If Debian shipped an old version, and nobody wasted JWZ's time by constantly posting/emailing bug reports for bugs that have already been fixed, I'm sure he would be perfectly fine with it. It's not the "shipping an old version" part that's the problem.
If someone had a policy that wasted a large amount of my time, I'd be pretty annoyed at them too. Especially if they were benefiting from something I made and I didn't charge them a penny.
AND STOP MENTIONING THE FUCKING LEGAL CONTRACT! Yes, we know, all open source-y people are COMPLETELY FUCKING OBSESSED WITH SOFTWARE LICENSES and spend like 57 hours a week arguing what license something should be or what you can do with license X and all that frankly utterly boring shit. It's not an issue here, it has nothing to do with anything. I am not obsessed with software licenses, and even if I were, it's irrelevant to this case which is about parties being dicks to each other.
The issue is JWZ volunteered his labor, and, because of Debian's policies he's being rewarded by having his time wasted. That's Debian being a complete asshole. That's the issue.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Yes he did?! What is this discussion even about, otherwise?
About annoying warning. It still functions properly - it just displays annoying warning.
I'll file that under "stupid shit that needs to be removed".
About sympathy / being a dick, consider the following contrived scenario:
Torvalds is the original creator of Linux and he's put it under the GPL. Now, imagine he's tired of bug reports and puts in a time bomb that spams out warnings to the console "you're running a kernel that's over 2 years old, please update" if, well, you're running an old kernel. And of course he can't stop you from removing it, but he put's in a "pretty please don't remove this code".
Now you come along, see this and think I'm putting this on some kind of embedded system (or whatever), I can't update the kernel. And you can't have the spam messages either. So do you 1) stop using Linux, potentially costing you lots of invested money, 2) rebrand the thing, potentially causing massive confusion among your existing users, 3) just remove the damned message?
All things considered, 3 causes the least harm.
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@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
The issue is JWZ volunteered his labor, and, because of Debian's policies he's being rewarded by having his time wasted. That's Debian being a complete asshole. That's the issue.
Maybe he shouldn't put stupid shit in his software designed to annoy users.
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We're starting to build nice walls of text, but I'm not sure we're getting any closer to understanding each other... I'll try to avoid repeating what we've said before, even if we disagree on it, it's not leading us anywhere.
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
In other words: if you're a jerk to other, this doesn't excuse others for being a jerk to you, but you're unlikely to attract much sympathy by complaining about it.
But the offender isn't going to get sympathy either. In feces slinging competition, the audience usually doesn't pick sides but stays as far as they can from both teams.
Yes, if you see both sides as flinging as much feces and with as much strenght or gusto. This definitely isn't the case here for me.
After reading the blog post linked in OP, a healthy person's take should be "OMG Linux devs are such assholes, all of them".
My take is more along the lines of "Debian devs are uncompromising and somewhat holier-than-thou-ish, but JWZ really is a true asshole." Not really a symmetrical situation here.
Sure, if JWZ sent a nice polite email and got dick pics as the immediate answer, that's a dick move (pun intended). But JWZ being JWZ, I very much suspect that the porn came after some heated exchange.
Yeah, maybe. Although I really can't imagine any such exchange where sending NSFW pics would be an appropriate response.
You've been vaccinated by too much time spent in the garage here. My experience is that we're a pretty unusual community in the harshness of the discussions, while somehow managing to keep nuclear meltdowns to a minimum. In years of reading various forums, I've rarely seen that degree of aggression with so little pure disruptive shit (à la Fox).
It's not "I have no legal power to stop you" but "I voluntarily yield the power to stop you".
It's not voluntary if doing otherwise is insanely hard or outright impossible.
Are you saying it's insanely hard to start his README or download page with something like "I picked this license because I can't be bothered to find another one, but in reality what I want is that if you use my code you should only modify it in ways that I agree with, and not remove parts of it without my approval"?
Again, you can't really have it both ways. You can't really say that you like free software and the ability for anyone to do as they please with it, and then whine when someone takes advantage of this.
Are you saying that open source software should only ever come in the "no strings attached" variant?
No, I'm not, I've said so in so much words many time here. But if you want to attach some strings, well, attach them in plain sight. Do not attach them years after the software was initially made, only mentioned in that one function deep in the code (and clearly, given his stance on Windows, there are in fact in his mind many more strings attached, but nobody will know them until someone unintentionally cuts one of those).
I don't see anything wrong with saying "you can do whatever you want with this code except take out this one function".
I don't see anything wrong with that either, provided you actually say that from the start. Which he didn't. It's only when he realized that Debian was using an old version, and when he got annoyed by all the bug reports (knowing him, that might actually be one, but that doesn't matter), that he decided to add that condition in the code. And when he realized that this was an important matter to him, and that others were not ready to follow him on that (i.e. Debian wasn't going to budge), he still decided to not officially mention it in any other place than the code itself. Do you really expect people to read all the code of a software to find out a single comment that puts some restriction on what they can do with it? Does that seem like a fair thing to do?
The problem isn't finding "a different" license. The problem is finding a license that forbids what you say he should've forbidden in the license instead in the code comments, while still allowing everything he wants to allow, in particular freely modifying and redistributing the rest of the code.
Yep, it's almost as if he wants to have his cake and eat it. If there is no possible way to find a license that does that, then maybe he should reconsider his motives. Maybe there is no such license because what he's asking is morally untenable.
But he WANTS people to change things without his approval. Except this one function, and except porting to Windows.
First, that is not what I'd call a reasonable position, I believe he somewhat contradicts himself here.
Second, you have to browse his website or the code itself to find out about these restrictions. Even assuming they were somewhat defensible, presenting them in this way is not. Which other exception is there, hidden deep inside the code, that we haven't seen yet? (case in point: if I had not mentioned the Windows restriction, would you know about it? would you have thought about this restriction in our discussion here, or would we still be discussing on the merit of that single popup only?) Or worse, which other thing will he take exception to when someone will add it later on? Nobody knows, because he's shown that he can add exceptions whenever and however he likes, and that all other devs are morons for not guessing them?
For me, he is twisting the idea of open-source software to suit him. He takes from it the benefits for him (more people exposed to his software i.e. more users, more people voluntarily helping him finding/fixing bugs...), but then when he sees something wrong for him (people can modify without his consent), he flies off the handle.
You forget that by releasing his software for free at all, he's done huge service to the community - more than anybody's done to him through bug reports. He's voluntarily sharing his own creation for free, and he should be able to do it on his own terms. If people don't like his terms, they should stop using his software.
Once more, he is the one setting the terms. The terms that I can see anywhere are not "I can't be arsed to try and find a license that matches my beliefs but here are the conditions that I would like you to honour: 1) keep that popup 2) no Windows 3) that is the end of this list I will never add anything to it". The discussion would be very different if he had actually set such terms.
The service he gave to other people is no excuse for him acting in a bad way. This is the excuse of volunteers all over the world when they don't follow rules, and it's never a good excuse.
That's why I said a license is a contract (be it a legal or moral one) between two persons. There are some terms imposed on the users of the code, but there are also some terms imposed on the writer of the code.
You say "license is a contract", but based on the rest of your post, I think what you actually mean is that "everything that's not a license, isn't a contract" - which is what I disagree with. Is this really what you claim, or am I misinterpreting your words?
You are misinterpreting, see above. For me you can set stuff in a license that is not legally enforceable but that should be morally binding. Don't call it a license if you prefer to keep that word for legal stuff only, but that stays the same.
Let me rephrase that slightly:
"There is a legal contract (a license) and a moral one between two persons. There are some terms imposed on the users of the code, but there are also some terms imposed on the writer of the code."Some of those terms are purely legal, some are more along the line of a gentlemen's agreement.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
The popup doesn't make the software unusable.
To each his own, I guess, but from what I understand the popup shows at every start up. A popup that you get at every startup and that you have to explicitly dismiss would be pretty high on a list of usability issues to me. It's the kind of things that (rightly) makes @blakeyrat goes on a rant, because that's fucking annoying. So OK, maybe not "unusable", but for a software whose purpose is to sit unobtrusively in the background until the moment where you're no longer in front of the computer to see it doing its work, that really sounds like a bad, bad bug.
@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
you cannot claim the other party is a dick for doing as they wish.
I can, yes, and in this case have.
Well I can also claim you are wrong, but that doesn't get us anywhere.
@remi Do you even understand the actual problem here which prompted all of this?
His users are sending him bug reports for versions that are years out-of-date. Which is a gigantic waste of his time.
I'd really start by questioning this. How many bugs did he get, himself, directly, vs. those sent to Debian's bugtracker? 'cause Debian has a clear policy, as far as I know, to do some triaging themselves and only forward to the original software developer the relevant bugs. If he follows that bugtracker, as it seems he does, and complains about bugs sent here, he's a moron for complaining there.
Now, if that's not the case and he gets those emails directly, then Debian are morons if they've not changed the contact email in the Help popup of the software or wherever most people find JWZ's email (they package the software, they should make sure any support URL/email in the package refers to themselves, not the original author).
Like, you haven't even responded to the actual reason he put that message there in the first place, and I'm starting to think you have no idea what the actual problem here is.
Yes, it's almost as if the issue is not so much that he got bored with out-of-date bug reports, but how he reacted like an offended diva and made a huge fuss about nothing afterwards.
The issue is JWZ volunteered his labor, and, because of Debian's policies he's being rewarded by having his time wasted. That's Debian being a complete asshole. That's the issue.
The issue to me looks more like JWZ can't stand that someone else change his work in a way that he doesn't approve of. This is why I brought up licenses. They exist for a reason, you know, and that reason is pretty simple: telling people how you'd like them to use your code. I've heard that it's easier when other tell you what they actually want, rather than trying to read their minds, but maybe you disagree?
If he doesn't want to hear anything about bugs from Debian, there are simple ways to do so, the easiest one being to remove his email from the software (in the Debian package) and let people go through Debian first. Add then a rant on his own website (next to his email) about how he hates Debian, that should be enough to ensure that anyone who's running Debian and has issues with his software will never contact him directly.
But no, he doesn't actually want to solve that problem, he wants to make sure his software is only used where and how he likes it (see the Windows part, which is definitely related as it shows clearly the possessive relationship he has with his code and how he does not actually see that code as "free"). That's the problem, and that's the part I disagree with.
But sure, go ahead, tell me how Open Source developers every whims should be honoured, even when doing so makes the whole system less user-friendly and usable. 'cause they "volunteered their labour" so obviously nothing they say about their work can ever be wrong.
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@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
@topspin said in On the right to rant.:
or 2) not putting in stupid shit that needs to be removed to be usable and then say "don't remove this".
Except he never put anything like that in his software.
Yes he did?! What is this discussion even about, otherwise?
About annoying warning. It still functions properly - it just displays annoying warning.
I'll file that under "stupid shit that needs to be removed".
Which is completely different than "...to be usable".
About sympathy / being a dick, consider the following contrived scenario:
Torvalds is the original creator of Linux and he's put it under the GPL. Now, imagine he's tired of bug reports and puts in a time bomb that spams out warnings to the console "you're running a kernel that's over 2 years old, please update" if, well, you're running an old kernel. And of course he can't stop you from removing it, but he put's in a "pretty please don't remove this code".
Now you come along, see this and think I'm putting this on some kind of embedded system (or whatever), I can't update the kernel. And you can't have the spam messages either.In this highly hypothetical scenario, you should have picked a kernel that can actually be put on an embedded device with highly limited resources. In this highly hypothetical scenario, Linux isn't such kernel, and you should've know better than using it here.
So do you 1) stop using Linux, potentially costing you lots of invested money
Was the time bomb known to exist? If the goal was to make people update regularly, making it a secret wouldn't make sense. But oh well, isn't the point of hypothetical scenarios to not care about whether they make sense or not, as long as they prove the opponent wrong?
- rebrand the thing, potentially causing massive confusion among your existing users
When you have a device that can't handle additional 20 bytes/second of messaging, just how many people do really have to know if it's running on Linux? How many would even be able to learn that fact at all?
- just remove the damned message?
All things considered, 3 causes the least harm.
No, I really think the harm done to the author of software outweighs the harm of half dozen MSc's having to learn Libux is rebranded Linux. Both are miniscule, but the latter is more miniscule.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
you should have picked a kernel that can actually be put on an embedded device with highly limited resources. In this highly hypothetical scenario, Linux isn't such kernel, and you should've know better than using it here.
Yeah, Windows 10 IoT would be way better
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@boomzilla said in On the right to rant.:
Maybe he shouldn't put stupid shit in his software designed to annoy users.
You're mixing up cause and effect. He put that in because his time was being wasted, and it basically just says "hey before you report a bug, note that this version is way out of date"
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
No, I really think the harm done to the author of software outweighs the harm of half dozen MSc's having to learn Libux is rebranded Linux.
If the author express something before I use his code I would consider respecting it before adopting his code. If he does that after I put effort into using it he can go @!?# himself.
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@jmp said in On the right to rant.:
Have we ever seen JWZ and blakeyrat in the same room?
It would certainly be a good disguise. JWZ is anti-Microsoft, and blakey is anti-Linux.
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
To each his own, I guess, but from what I understand the popup shows at every start up.
My understanding is that it only shows when the user visits the "About" dialog, presumably because they're looking for how to file bugs.
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
Well I can also claim you are wrong, but that doesn't get us anywhere.
You can think I'm wrong, that's fine. It's just silly to say "you can't complain about X" in a thread full of people doing exactly that.
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
If he doesn't want to hear anything about bugs from Debian, there are simple ways to do so, the easiest one being to remove his email from the software (in the Debian package) and let people go through Debian first.
He'd have to convince the Debain asshole packager to do that, though. His copy of course would include that.
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
But sure, go ahead, tell me how Open Source developers every whims should be honoured, even when doing so makes the whole system less user-friendly and usable. 'cause they "volunteered their labour" so obviously nothing they say about their work can ever be wrong.
If I volunteer at a soup kitchen for the homeless, and my "reward" for doing so is getting 3 calls a day asking for my soup recipe for the next 4 years, what do you think the odds are I'd ever volunteer again?
Now obviously if the soup was inedible, then you can be criticized for the soup being awful. But the fact that dozens of people want the recipe shows that it isn't.
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
Was the time bomb known to exist? If the goal was to make people update regularly, making it a secret wouldn't make sense. But oh well, isn't the point of hypothetical scenarios to not care about whether they make sense or not, as long as they prove the opponent wrong?
The funny thing is that Debian was supposed to audit all security-related software, and somehow they missed it entirely.
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Really dumb question - why are Debian users filing bug reports with him directly? At least in Ubuntu what I've seen is somebody posts a bug to Ubuntu and if necessary one of their devs raises a bug with upstream. Seems reasonable. Is this not the standard Debian process?
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@mikehurley said in On the right to rant.:
Really dumb question - why are Debian users filing bug reports with him directly? At least in Ubuntu what I've seen is somebody posts a bug to Ubuntu and if necessary one of their devs raises a bug with upstream. Seems reasonable. Is this not the standard Debian process?
If I wanted to report a bug in a software, I would report it to the author, not to the distro master. (Unless I already knew, as in this case, that it was actually the "fault" of the distro.)
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@tharpa said in On the right to rant.:
It would certainly be a good disguise. JWZ is anti-Microsoft, and blakey is anti-Linux.
My favorite conspiracy theory is he being Theo de Raadt, it sounds like "Theo, the Rat"
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@sockpuppet7 You guys are going to be so surprised when you figure out I'm Donald Trump.
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@tharpa said in On the right to rant.:
@mikehurley said in On the right to rant.:
Really dumb question - why are Debian users filing bug reports with him directly? At least in Ubuntu what I've seen is somebody posts a bug to Ubuntu and if necessary one of their devs raises a bug with upstream. Seems reasonable. Is this not the standard Debian process?
If I wanted to report a bug in a software, I would report it to the author, not to the distro master. (Unless I already knew, as in this case, that it was actually the "fault" of the distro.)
That seems backwards since the distro is in charge of its packages and frequently makes its own patches or other changes. Those patches are not always accepted upstream.
To be clear - I'm only talking about packages available from the distro's package repos. If you download a rpm/deb file from the author then obviously they're the one who should get the bug report.
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@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@sockpuppet7 You guys are going to be so surprised when you figure out I'm Donald Trump.
Spoilers.
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@sockpuppet7 said in On the right to rant.:
@tharpa said in On the right to rant.:
It would certainly be a good disguise. JWZ is anti-Microsoft, and blakey is anti-Linux.
My favorite conspiracy theory is he being Theo de Raadt, it sounds like "Theo, the Rat"
So the reason he's anti-Linux is because it's a competitor to BSD? Plausible.
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
After reading the blog post linked in OP, a healthy person's take should be "OMG Linux devs are such assholes, all of them".
My take is more along the lines of "Debian devs are uncompromising and somewhat holier-than-thou-ish, but JWZ really is a true asshole." Not really a symmetrical situation here.
I guess it comes down to personal opinions on which awful behavior is more awful - and our opinions seem to be different on this subject.
Sure, if JWZ sent a nice polite email and got dick pics as the immediate answer, that's a dick move (pun intended). But JWZ being JWZ, I very much suspect that the porn came after some heated exchange.
Yeah, maybe. Although I really can't imagine any such exchange where sending NSFW pics would be an appropriate response.
You've been vaccinated by too much time spent in the garage here. My experience is that we're a pretty unusual community in the harshness of the discussions, while somehow managing to keep nuclear meltdowns to a minimum. In years of reading various forums, I've rarely seen that degree of aggression with so little pure disruptive shit (à la Fox).
I'm sure people sending dick picks out of spite exist. All I'm saying it was almost surely uncalled for in that case.
It's not "I have no legal power to stop you" but "I voluntarily yield the power to stop you".
It's not voluntary if doing otherwise is insanely hard or outright impossible.
Are you saying it's insanely hard to start his README or download page with something like "I picked this license because I can't be bothered to find another one, but in reality what I want is that if you use my code you should only modify it in ways that I agree with, and not remove parts of it without my approval"?
Would you respect it then? Would you respect it more than if the part about not being able to remove particular fragment was put in source comment immediately preceding the code fragment in question?
Again, you can't really have it both ways. You can't really say that you like free software and the ability for anyone to do as they please with it, and then whine when someone takes advantage of this.
Are you saying that open source software should only ever come in the "no strings attached" variant?
No, I'm not, I've said so in so much words many time here. But if you want to attach some strings, well, attach them in plain sight. Do not attach them years after the software was initially made, only mentioned in that one function deep in the code
If the restriction is about the newly added code, and only in versions that contain the newly added code (I mean, duh), I don't find anything wrong with it.
(and clearly, given his stance on Windows, there are in fact in his mind many more strings attached, but nobody will know them until someone unintentionally cuts one of those).
FWIW, he does mention the Windows thing on the official download page.
I don't see anything wrong with saying "you can do whatever you want with this code except take out this one function".
I don't see anything wrong with that either, provided you actually say that from the start. Which he didn't.
Because the code didn't exist. As soon as it started existing (or more precisely - at the same moment it started existing), he added this notice.
It's only when he realized that Debian was using an old version, and when he got annoyed by all the bug reports (knowing him, that might actually be one, but that doesn't matter), that he decided to add that condition in the code.
And he did so in the new version. And this version always contained this notice. He didn't retroactively change old versions.
And when he realized that this was an important matter to him, and that others were not ready to follow him on that (i.e. Debian wasn't going to budge), he still decided to not officially mention it in any other place than the code itself. Do you really expect people to read all the code of a software to find out a single comment that puts some restriction on what they can do with it? Does that seem like a fair thing to do?
Yes, hiding this "feature" was a dick move, no one questions that. But that doesn't absolve people who disregard the author's wishes about the source code of his application.
The problem isn't finding "a different" license. The problem is finding a license that forbids what you say he should've forbidden in the license instead in the code comments, while still allowing everything he wants to allow, in particular freely modifying and redistributing the rest of the code.
Yep, it's almost as if he wants to have his cake and eat it.
You grossly overestimate the benefits of having your software open source. Also, Debian team isn't any better - they want to take this program for themselves, but only the bits they like!
If there is no possible way to find a license that does that, then maybe he should reconsider his motives. Maybe there is no such license because what he's asking is morally untenable.
Really? Are you seriously claiming that any terms that cannot be written as binding legal conditions are based on sinister motives? I don't disagree that what he did was wrong (hiding the timer, not the timer itself) - I disagree with how you came to that conclusion.
But he WANTS people to change things without his approval. Except this one function, and except porting to Windows.
First, that is not what I'd call a reasonable position
No one says it's reasonable. But being reasonable shouldn't be precondition for managing your property. And that code is his property.
I believe he somewhat contradicts himself here.
How so? And to avoid admiral_p-esque circling around the question, I want you to quote (or paraphrase) two of his position that cannot both exist without creating logical contradiction, and by logical contradiction I mean
p ∧ ¬p. Wanting 99% of your code to be completely open to modification but closing up the 1% isn't a contradiction. You can call it inconsistent, but inconsistency isn't a bad thing itself.Second, you have to browse his website or the code itself to find out about these restrictions.
You have to browse his website to find the program in the first place, so.
Even assuming they were somewhat defensible, presenting them in this way is not. Which other exception is there, hidden deep inside the code, that we haven't seen yet?
That I agree with. Not informing about conditions is a dick move. But once you know about the conditions - and if you're about to remove that code, you know about the conditions - you don't have that excuse for what you do afterwards.
(case in point: if I had not mentioned the Windows restriction, would you know about it? would you have thought about this restriction in our discussion here, or would we still be discussing on the merit of that single popup only?)
If I just wanted to discuss in this topic, no. But if I wanted to actually make a Windows fork, then I'd definitely know about it because it's mentioned on download page, which is the only official place you can get source code from.
Or worse, which other thing will he take exception to when someone will add it later on? Nobody knows, because he's shown that he can add exceptions whenever and however he likes, and that all other devs are morons for not guessing them?
At this point, I wonder why anybody uses his software at all. Surely there's only so many times you can take getting fucked in the ass?
For me, he is twisting the idea of open-source software to suit him. He takes from it the benefits for him (more people exposed to his software i.e. more users, more people voluntarily helping him finding/fixing bugs...), but then when he sees something wrong for him (people can modify without his consent), he flies off the handle.
You forget that by releasing his software for free at all, he's done huge service to the community - more than anybody's done to him through bug reports. He's voluntarily sharing his own creation for free, and he should be able to do it on his own terms. If people don't like his terms, they should stop using his software.
Once more, he is the one setting the terms. The terms that I can see anywhere are not "I can't be arsed to try and find a license that matches my beliefs but here are the conditions that I would like you to honour: 1) keep that popup 2) no Windows 3) that is the end of this list I will never add anything to it". The discussion would be very different if he had actually set such terms.
So your complaint is that he didn't make those clear enough? And not making things clear right from the start is enough excuse to disrespect his wishes once you get to know them and see where he wrote them?
The service he gave to other people is no excuse for him acting in a bad way.
And the service others gave to him is no excuse for them acting in a bad way. I only mentioned that because you mentioned that.
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@TimeBandit said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
you should have picked a kernel that can actually be put on an embedded device with highly limited resources. In this highly hypothetical scenario, Linux isn't such kernel, and you should've know better than using it here.
Yeah, Windows 10 IoT would be way better
If in this highly hypothetical scenario Windows 10 is made to be extremely light on resources and extremely stable, I don't see why not.
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@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@boomzilla said in On the right to rant.:
Maybe he shouldn't put stupid shit in his software designed to annoy users.
You're mixing up cause and effect. He put that in because his time was being wasted, and it basically just says "hey before you report a bug, note that this version is way out of date"
I assure you that I am not.
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@mikehurley said in On the right to rant.:
Really dumb question - why are Debian users filing bug reports with him directly?
Because he did a very stupid thing that was very common in the 80s and 90s - he put his name and email in "About" dialog.
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@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
To each his own, I guess, but from what I understand the popup shows at every start up.
My understanding is that it only shows when the user visits the "About" dialog, presumably because they're looking for how to file bugs.
Mmm... yes, looking at the screenshot again, that looks like it, you're right. I guess that makes it a much less serious issue (the dialog itself, not the ensuing shitfest between JWZ & Debian).
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
It's just silly to say "you can't complain about X" in a thread full of people doing exactly that.OK, M. Robot, I should have said "you shouldn't".
@remi said in On the right to rant.:
If he doesn't want to hear anything about bugs from Debian, there are simple ways to do so, the easiest one being to remove his email from the software (in the Debian package) and let people go through Debian first.
He'd have to convince the Debain asshole packager to do that, though. His copy of course would include that.
By "his copy" I guess you mean JWZ's copy (distributed through his own website)? Yes, of course, it still would have his own address if he wants to. As for Debian, I don't really see why they would not agree with this request. Heck, if they're playing assholes and ignoring him, he could even submit it as a bug into the Debian bugtracker (as in "bug report email address in software does not refer to Debian bugtracker"). But really, apart from "to piss him off", I don't see any reason why Debian would refuse to do so (unless they already have a specific policy for that).
If I volunteer at a soup kitchen for the homeless, and my "reward" for doing so is getting 3 calls a day asking for my soup recipe for the next 4 years, what do you think the odds are I'd ever volunteer again?
Yeah but if next time you come to the kitchen soup you insist on every pot of your soup being served by anyone in the kitchen having a big bold label saying "cooked by @blakeyrat and here's his phone number but do not ask him for the recipe", don't you think you'd be seen as an asshole?
Besides, if you put your name on the soup (ok, the analogy completely breaks down here), you are kind of inviting people to contact you. I mean, it's not like people had to go out of their way to contact JWZ, he made it easy for them. Again, there is some lack of coherence in his actions. Regardless of what Debian distributes, there are bound to be many people out there who don't use the latest version of his software. So he must be used to dealing with these things, Debian or not Debian.
(also, I would really like to know how many emails we're talking about here... from all we know, it could as well be 1 per year as well as 3 per day, but the annoyance factor is far from being the same!)
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@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@sockpuppet7 You guys are going to be so surprised when you figure out I'm Donald Trump.
You can't be. There haven't been any tweets about TDWTF.
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@dcon SAD!
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@dcon said in On the right to rant.:
@blakeyrat said in On the right to rant.:
@sockpuppet7 You guys are going to be so surprised when you figure out I'm Donald Trump.
You can't be. There haven't been any tweets about TDWTF.
So... @Karla isn't Senator Shoshana but blakey is?
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
Yeah but if next time you come to the kitchen soup you insist on every pot of your soup being served by anyone in the kitchen having a big bold label saying "cooked by @blakeyrat and here's his phone number but do not ask him for the recipe", don't you think you'd be seen as an asshole?
I hope you realize how completely incomparable the situation you described is to the one we're talking about in this thread?
Besides, if you put your name on the soup (ok, the analogy completely breaks down here), you are kind of inviting people to contact you. I mean, it's not like people had to go out of their way to contact JWZ, he made it easy for them. Again, there is some lack of coherence in his actions. Regardless of what Debian distributes, there are bound to be many people out there who don't use the latest version of his software. So he must be used to dealing with these things, Debian or not Debian.
He put his name and email in the about box because HE WANTS PEOPLE TO CONTACT HIM! Debian users too! He only doesn't want people contacting him about bugs he already fixed, which is caused by people having old version. So he put warning to people using old version, so they'd know (and possibly bug distro maintainers to update packages).
(also, I would really like to know how many emails we're talking about here... from all we know, it could as well be 1 per year as well as 3 per day, but the annoyance factor is far from being the same!)
How does it matter? He could totally make this scenario up and never have actually received such emails, and his reasons for including the warning would be just as valid.
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This thread makes me want to start distributing xscreensaver v4.0 or something.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
I guess it comes down to personal opinions on which awful behavior is more awful - and our opinions seem to be different on this subject.
That's probably a pretty accurate summary of most of these posts...
Are you saying it's insanely hard to start his README or download page with something like "I picked this license because I can't be bothered to find another one, but in reality what I want is that if you use my code you should only modify it in ways that I agree with, and not remove parts of it without my approval"?
Would you respect it then? Would you respect it more than if the part about not being able to remove particular fragment was put in source comment immediately preceding the code fragment in question?
It's hypothetical and I'm not in Debian shoes, so I can answer whatever I want... but in all honesty, yes, I think I would.
When I'm searching for some stuff for my work, sometimes I stumble onto code I'd like to try and maybe use. The first thing I do is check the license -- not because I'm obsessed by it like Blakey says, but because this is the contract, both moral and legal, that the author wants to put on his code. If that license said (in legalese or in a more informal way) to not change his code, and then when I download it I find a bit that I'd like to change, I would certainly feel bad for changing it (without consulting the author etc.). If, on the other hand, the license said "do as you wish" and then when digging into the code I saw a comment saying "I'd rather you don't change this one function", I'd be more likely to ignore that, because I'd feel somewhat cheated by the author. It would feel kind of like a bait-and-switch trap. "Look at this nice thing, you can change it anyway you want... come and take it... oops, no, actually you can't!"
It's human psychology, and I don't claim this is either universal or a Good Thing, but I think that's how I would personally react.
No, I'm not, I've said so in so much words many time here. But if you want to attach some strings, well, attach them in plain sight. Do not attach them years after the software was initially made, only mentioned in that one function deep in the code
If the restriction is about the newly added code, and only in versions that contain the newly added code (I mean, duh), I don't find anything wrong with it.
I see your point, but since it's deeply embedded into the rest of the software, and not really a core function either (I mean, I could understand that someone who writes a screensaver could not like it very much if someone changed it to being a, I don't know, screen recorder, without changing anything otherwise in the proclaimed author etc.), it still feels dishonest to me.
Plus, again, if he's starting to add restrictions that are clearly contrary to the license terms (and again, I'm not talking only about the legal document), he should somehow mention it there as well.
(if other people have contributed to the software up to that point, there might also be the tricky question that these people might not want this kind of restriction to be added, and would say that they would not have contributed in the first place if that restriction existed -- probably childish behaviour, I agree, but we're already talking about such things, so... not entirely unrealistic)
Yep, it's almost as if he wants to have his cake and eat it.
You grossly overestimate the benefits of having your software open source. Also, Debian team isn't any better - they want to take this program for themselves, but only the bits they like!
No, Debian here is taking the literal license and following it to the letter. They are being uptight and all legalese about it, I don't deny that. They have an history of being stupidly narrow minded (some would say high principled...) on that, mostly the Iceweasel thing... That doesn't make them nice people, but they do follow a very clear procedure here, so I find that less asshole-ish. Matter of taste, I guess.
If there is no possible way to find a license that does that, then maybe he should reconsider his motives. Maybe there is no such license because what he's asking is morally untenable.
Really? Are you seriously claiming that any terms that cannot be written as binding legal conditions are based on sinister motives?
No, but maybe if you can't find a simple way to express it, and nobody has done so before either, then maybe what you want is not very smart.
I believe he somewhat contradicts himself here.
How so? And to avoid admiral_p-esque circling around the question, I want you to quote (or paraphrase) two of his position that cannot both exist without creating logical contradiction, and by logical contradiction I mean
p ∧ ¬p. Wanting 99% of your code to be completely open to modification but closing up the 1% isn't a contradiction. You can call it inconsistent, but inconsistency isn't a bad thing itself.For me that inconsistency is what I'd call self-contradiction. But again, to each his own.
At this point, I wonder why anybody uses his software at all. Surely there's only so many times you can take getting fucked in the ass?
TBH, it's been years since I used it and all systems I know of have more modern ways to lock the screen, so...
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@remi said in On the right to rant.:
Are you saying it's insanely hard to start his README or download page with something like "I picked this license because I can't be bothered to find another one, but in reality what I want is that if you use my code you should only modify it in ways that I agree with, and not remove parts of it without my approval"?
Would you respect it then? Would you respect it more than if the part about not being able to remove particular fragment was put in source comment immediately preceding the code fragment in question?
It's hypothetical and I'm not in Debian shoes, so I can answer whatever I want... but in all honesty, yes, I think I would.
When I'm searching for some stuff for my work, sometimes I stumble onto code I'd like to try and maybe use. The first thing I do is check the license -- not because I'm obsessed by it like Blakey says, but because this is the contract, both moral and legal, that the author wants to put on his code. If that license said (in legalese or in a more informal way) to not change his code, and then when I download it I find a bit that I'd like to change, I would certainly feel bad for changing it (without consulting the author etc.). If, on the other hand, the license said "do as you wish" and then when digging into the code I saw a comment saying "I'd rather you don't change this one function", I'd be more likely to ignore that, because I'd feel somewhat cheated by the author. It would feel kind of like a bait-and-switch trap. "Look at this nice thing, you can change it anyway you want... come and take it... oops, no, actually you can't!"
It's human psychology, and I don't claim this is either universal or a Good Thing, but I think that's how I would personally react.
Okay, fair enough. As long as you acknowledge it's a bad thing to do (we can disagree on how bad exactly, but it's worse than neutral).
Yep, it's almost as if he wants to have his cake and eat it.
You grossly overestimate the benefits of having your software open source. Also, Debian team isn't any better - they want to take this program for themselves, but only the bits they like!
No, Debian here is taking the literal license and following it to the letter.
So is JWZ. Putting time bombs in code, as well as talking shit about Debian, is completely legal and allowed under GPL.
If there is no possible way to find a license that does that, then maybe he should reconsider his motives. Maybe there is no such license because what he's asking is morally untenable.
Really? Are you seriously claiming that any terms that cannot be written as binding legal conditions are based on sinister motives?
No, but maybe if you can't find a simple way to express it, and nobody has done so before either, then maybe what you want is not very smart.
He has no problem expressing that simply - he's done that in code comments as well as on homepage. But "simple" and "legalese" are two completely different things.
I believe he somewhat contradicts himself here.
How so? And to avoid admiral_p-esque circling around the question, I want you to quote (or paraphrase) two of his position that cannot both exist without creating logical contradiction, and by logical contradiction I mean
p ∧ ¬p. Wanting 99% of your code to be completely open to modification but closing up the 1% isn't a contradiction. You can call it inconsistent, but inconsistency isn't a bad thing itself.For me that inconsistency is what I'd call self-contradiction. But again, to each his own.
The difference between inconsistency and contradiction is that inconsistency is quite subjective (it's a special case of decision-making rules where what we perceive as slight or insignificant change in input conditions results in what we perceive as major change in output), while contradiction is absolute and provable (if contradiction cannot be proven, there exists no contradiction).
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@boomzilla said in On the right to rant.:
This thread makes me want to start distributing xscreensaver v4.0 or something.
Ensuring maximal screen burn, right?
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@dcon said in On the right to rant.:
@boomzilla said in On the right to rant.:
This thread makes me want to start distributing xscreensaver v4.0 or something.
Ensuring maximal screen burn, right?
I know just the guy.
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@boomzilla Total dick move, right there.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
No, Debian here is taking the literal license and following it to the letter.
So is JWZ. Putting time bombs in code, as well as talking shit about Debian, is completely legal and allowed under GPL
And the GPL allow you to remove the time bomb. Which JWZ is complaining about, and you're saying he's right to do it
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@Gribnit said in On the right to rant.:
@boomzilla Total dick move, right there.
You can tell because it feels so good!
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Someone did port xscreensaver against his wishes
GitHub - katahiromz/XScreenSaverWin: XScreenSaver for Windows
XScreenSaver for Windows. Contribute to katahiromz/XScreenSaverWin development by creating an account on GitHub.
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@sockpuppet7 said in On the right to rant.:
Someone did port xscreensaver against his wishes
And it looks like he was trying to charge for it at some point.
OSS · Issue #6 · katahiromz/XScreenSaverWin
Are you making people pay for a port of a FREE software hosted on Github? Is that even possible?
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@boomzilla that's not a dick move that's free enterprise that is
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@Gribnit correct.
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@TimeBandit said in On the right to rant.:
@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
No, Debian here is taking the literal license and following it to the letter.
So is JWZ. Putting time bombs in code, as well as talking shit about Debian, is completely legal and allowed under GPL
And the GPL allow you to remove the time bomb. Which JWZ is complaining about, and you're saying he's right to do it
My whole point is that being legal doesn't mean being right to do.
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@Gąska said in On the right to rant.:
If in this highly hypothetical scenario Windows 10 is made to be extremely light on resources and extremely stable
That's a HUGELY hypothetical scenario
