He is not wrong though.
Number aside, if you have a hard requirement that in a committee board there should be someone from a minority then you will end in a situation where the committee perform worse because the "forced" member has no merit to be in, or at least it is an very high probability.
Others have replied pointing out this is a strawman and that merit doesn’t make any sense as a metric if you have discrimination.
So remove discrimination. Put in the CoC that any information about gender, race, religion and so on must not be disclosed since it is not relevant to the quality of the code/work you submit. Then you have merit only.
I really find stupid that someone really think that his contribution must be accepted just because he is from a minority, irregardless the quality.
I think people like you really don't understand what OSS software is.
What you don't understand is that OSS let you do what you want with the software I (an possibly others) created but not let you to dictate to me how I must run the project or what direction the project need to go.
We can discuss of course, and maybe sometimes I agree with you and sometimes not (and the contrary) but in the end I am the maintainer so I have the last word.
So no, if I create an OSS project and have a vision for it, if you don't agree I am fully entaitled to say "ok, just make your own, fork mine if you like" to you.
I think the easy answer to that is “because it is not as trivial as forking a small app that could run off of a git repo”, it’s a whole operating system involving a lot of infrastructure and a huge community around it.
This It's just an excuse. If the authors of the open letter are active developers and reflect what the majority of the community thinks then they already have the infrastructure (or big part of it, else how the fuck they work ?) and the community behing them. Man, it would not be the first time a distro to be forked.
You say remove discrimination and then use a discriminatory strawman.
Why ? Because I basically say "keep these personal informations for yourself since they are not needed while developing" ?
No one is suggesting a code contribution must be accepted based on a minority status.
But they are saying that a board member should be elected based on the fact that he came from a minority, which is as wrong as asking that a code contribution should be accepted based on the minority status.
They are saying that to get a decent functioning community for everyone you need a diverse range of people in positions that set the behaviour of the community.
Agree on this. My point though is that the people in these positions need to be there for the merit and not for a status.
You can’t get the CoC and enforcement of it right unless those affected are in positions that influence it.
Nope. You can enforce a CoC if the ones delegated to enforce it are acknowledged as authoritative people and there is a clear path to do it. If you put a person in charge to enforce the code "just becasue [insert your favorite minority reason]" you end in the same place: the CoC will be selectively enforced only on a certain group of people.
Your enforced anonymity doesn’t work because there are other ways of gendering and racialising people (e.g. based on who people talk).
Assuming you track them outside the project, yes you are right.
Additionally, what you are saying is that minoritised people have to hide who they are so they don’t get discriminated against rather than just deal with those doing the discrimination.
That is what you are saying now, not me.
I said that I don't care about what your identity is but only about the quality of your work, why did you assume that i mean that only the minorities should not disclose these informations ?
Else explain to me why it is relevant that the pull request just created is done by someone from a minority group.
You lose nothing by making sure people from all backgrounds have the same opportunity and enjoyment being part of it.
Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome. I lose something if a board member of the project I contribute is elected only because he is from a minority group because he replace a more knowledgeable member and the average quality of the work decline.
If you aren’t in a minority and don’t care about those that are then just say so!
It is not that I don't care, it is that in certain situation it not pertinent if you are from a minority or not. Software development, particularly OSS where the entry point is really low, is one of this situation: why I should care about the group you are part of when you submit a contribute ? How it is pertinent. Do you want to have a voice in the project ? Earn it by contributing and being better of the ones you think are bad and or toxic. But wanting to have a say in the project "just because" is toxic too.
It’s not about “satisfying the minorities”. It’s about ensuring a basic base level of respect and behaviour for people from all backgrounds.
All true, but here is the point: what you are asking for is to have decent people and not assholes. And to be a decent person has nothing to do with the group you are part of. So as long as you have not the guarantee that someone from a minority cannot be an asshole (which you cannot) you still have the same problem, only with a different target.
So maybe we should start to look at the single person rather then from which group it come from.
It’s really not that hard! If you don’t feel minoritised in your daily life and therefore don’t see the importance, fine, but all of us are only one incident or cultural shift to end up being the target so if you aren’t motivated by the plight of people you are happy to “other” than do so because one day you might be the other.
Honestly, and without any second meaning, I think that there are way more complex reasons than the "we are a minority" on why some minorities are is the position you describe.
where the committee perform worse because the “forced” member
Ah, the common strawman. A committee where everyone thinks pretty much the same is somehow better than one where a few have a different opinion?
Sometime yes, sometime not.
It all depend on the context.
The direction of a project ? Then maybe the fact that the committee has at least roughly the same vision is a good thing, it keep the project focused and progressing, as long as there is a way to offer suggestions.
A political group ? Then it is better to have more points of view, as long as you can decide something in the end.
There is not a single best solution.
Such discussions took place decades ago when pretty much every manager was only male. And they often honestly thought they did the right thing. When there were more women forced to be managers the group as a whole got better insights into different opinions. Which helped to see that certain things could be done a different way.
That to me is history, plus rather logical.
On the other hand I can point to examples where when a woman, to stay within your example, were put in charge the result were disastrous, so what ?
Maybe if we start to think that being in some groups does not inherently make you a better candidate to something than we will start to solve the problem.
Having a few people with different opinions is further usually good for a committee.
As long as they know what they are talking about yes, else it is just stupid.
The point of all this discussion is that Jon Ringer objected to have an hard requirement for one person in the committee need to be from a minority, which honestly is not that stupid thing to say.
I guess it can be simple like that when you are the maintainer. It is definetly not as simple when there are many of them. Of course you can run it like that and many do, but the whole mentality is pretty limited.
Why limited ?. In the end I am pursuing my vision for the project.
Not really about what is the absolute correct answer. Our values are clearly different. More like what I believe works best in the long term.
I just acknowledge that at some point the vision of the author(s) and the vision of the community (or part of it) can differ and that at this point it is better for everyone to follow their vision.
Community building can be done without any coding, coding can be done without any community. However, to build a large project you need them both.
We agree on that.
In a large volunteer project like this, not everything can be worked on. You become selective. We are going to major on this thing, or specifically talk about that project to get community engagement and get the thing done. This drives the project, she helps it to stop chasing hairs. Someone has to decide what feature is going in this release to make it ready to be a release candidate.
That group of people, ultimately making and influencing those decisions, is the CoC.
Nope.
CoC mean "Code of Conduct". It dictates how the interperpersonal relations should be in the community, not the direction the project need to follow. Which means that if you make a request I should not answer with "fuck your request" but with some more appropriate "we have not the manpower/motivation/infrastructure/whatever reason to do it, but feel free to do it yourself and submit it for review" answer (that's of course is a simple example, bear with me in this case) if I am not interested in your request or there are some real limitations.
Let’s take a for-instance: Sign up boxes.
For years, Linux sign up allows you to record random data into your profile, office, phone number, etc. These are text, and can be anything. Now, what if there’s a rising need to add a minicom number(minix, used to be used by the deaf to send messages to an organisation, before email). As a hearing person, this is going to be a low priority for me, so I work on something else. I’ve got spare capacity, so if the project leaders are calling for help on this thing, I can go and help.
True, but if you think that it is the CoC that produce this result, you are way wrong.
What produce this result is that people are willing to work on a feature even if they don't need it and if there is enough request for that feature. If you are the only one person who ask for a feature you will get low priority even if you are deaf (just to keep up with your example).
What do you think you can do if I don't want to work on your feature ? Use the CoC to compel me to do the work ? Do you think you can threaten me with a ban from the project ? Try it and you lose one developer (and probably others).
This, ultimately, builds a better over-all product, but it’s not something I’d have noticed by myself, because I’m not part of the deaf community.
True, but it is simply the fact that the developers lowered the barrier to make a request on one side and on the other side someone made a good and motivated request.
The point is that this has nothing to do with the fact that a deaf person is in a leadership position.
In this case, the merit, the qualification, for being on the CoC is being a member of a section of the community. It brings valuable a viewpoint, and adds a voice at the table that can make a real difference. Most coders know that having a wish list of features at the start can make it infinitely easier to add them, than having to go back an rewrite to make them happen. Having a voice that might need that feature makes a difference
Again, what you are asking for is to have a way to communicate with the developers and possibly a clear way that indicate how a request is handled.
But having a way for the community to communicate with the developers and the leadership of the project is not the same as having a CoC that mandate that the leadership must include members from minorities.
But in the end we are debating about nothing, the project was forked so I suppose that we just need to wait to see how it will end.
What was the first ever distro you installed and used? For me, it was Mint as I seemed like the closest thing to Windows minus all the forced updates and chappy changes....
I have very simple needs for file hosting and syncing. The files are mostly small text files and documents. And I need to access them from linux, windows and android devices....
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I've been dailying the same Mint install since I gave up on Windows a few years ago. When I was choosing a distro, a lot of people were saying that I should start with Mint and "move on to something else" once I got comfortable with the OS....
Sounds like you like Codeberg, though. Just out of curiosity, what sold you on Codeberg?
Basically the fact that they are in Europe and for now they are free (even if I am planning to contribute some euros) and without all the "every site need to be a social network" facade (like Github).
All the features I need are present and I were not using the missing one anyway (like the CI). And I like to support an EU company ;-)
Additionally it is a couple of years that I am trying to move away from US companies for every service I use, the move from Gitlab to Codeberg is the last one and came natural.
If I create a OSS app with analytics to detect & log crashes with feature use, is it a bad practice? I think analytics is really helpful in finding:-...
I don’t care that much about those examples, what I really care about is them not following what I consider to be some important principles when it comes to open source projects.
Did you realize that nobody is stopping you from forking any opensource project you want and then to follow whatever rules you want, right ?
If anything, I would expect it to be less prone to security bugs than the conglomerations of shell scripts that used to be used for init systems.
Not sure. In the end the shell script were just an easy and consistent way to start/stop programs. If the programs were secure (read: checked the input and sanitize it, did the check for permissions and so on) there is not a big difference.
Also, systemd performs way better than the old init systems anyway.
In what regards ? Boot faster ? Fine, but on a server it does not mean anything, a server does not reboot that often; for a desktop it not that the 5 seconds you gain are a fundamental gain.
One problem I see is with the logs: it is true that the format is documented, but a text format is always readable while a binary format… (been here, done that 🤬 )
Are you sure it doesn’t mean anything? It means to a LOT of people.
Fine, still not understanding why something that I should run once in a while (on a server) or it is not that critical seems to be so important. Look, I had way bigger gain moving from a HDD to a SDD than switching to Systemd from the old init.
I refuse to belive that for a desktop user a 5 seconds longer boot time is that important. I could understand on a server where, if you work with it, you can have fines for downtime but even in this case it is a thing that could be handled in different ways.
I’ve never personally had any problems with binary logs.
I had it and I am sure that I could have solved the problem faster if I could have solved it faster if I did not needed to first understand how to access the logs on a damaged system.
You could always forward to a different logging daemon if that’s a concern.
This does not solve the problem, it only move it to somewhere else.
After a few conversations with people on Lemmy and other places it became clear to me that most aren’t aware of what it can do and how much more robust it is compared to the usual “jankiness” we’re used to....
creates a system that helps newbies come in and understand Linux, helps Linux grow.
Not sure about this.
A new user probably don’t care (and rightly so) about how a certain service is started or stopped, it just need to work, which was true even before systemd.
I don’t get why most comments here are so negative. It’s Linux, if GNOME no longer fits your needs, you can always switch to another desktop. There are lots to choose from!
Which don’t mean that we cannot criticize GNOME while discussing 😉
I can agree that there could be a problem with too many windows on a desktop but the solution they propose is the worst possible one.
For a user it make no sense that when you add a window to the desktop (say open a terminal) all the other window move to other places (or you switch to another workspace entirely)
Aside the fact that usually I (and people in general) remember where a window is, the big problem is that I positioned the applications as I need and I want them to stay there because I need them that way, even when I add another one. It is my problem where to put the new window, and I will probably put it where I need it.
Put it that way: it would be a good idea if in a IDE every time you open a new panel, all the already open panels change their arrangement ?
It is just another case of “we know better than the user what the user needs” from the GNOME developers (remember when they remove the advanced option of the printers because “users would be confused” ?)
No, but I think one should try something first and then criticise. Sometimes new stuff just has a learning curve because it is different to what you are used to, but after learning it, it turns out that you actually like it better.
Maybe, but then you should convince me that what I am going to try can be potentially better than what I already have. And the idea behind what GNOME are going to do is not that good. Then this is my idea, no problem if someone like it. btw, I am not a GNOME user anyway, so I could just say “who cares” 😀
Personally I actually hate having to manually re-arrange my windows. If a window manager managed to do this for me in an intuitive way, working on my PC would be more pleasant for me. That’s why I think that I might like GNOME’s new idea.
That’s fine. But to me the problem is that I normally put my windows how I need them (and I suppose I am not the only one) so a window manager that thinks it know better is a no start for me. Now, I accept if a window manager put a new window is a empty area, but the idea to move the other windows is just awful to me.
No, it is just another case of GNOME trying to improve the user experience on regular computers.
Problem is they are using the wrong users groups to make their decisions. They are saying that since older people and kids may be confused from the current behaviour then they must change it for everyone. I see two big problems here:
they are underestimating one of their users group (the kids) which are much more smarter with a PC then they seem to think
the other users group probably has not the problem since they already use just one app at the time
I would argue that there shouldn’t be two settings menus for printers. There should be one that is able to do all common tasks. So I agree with the decision to remove one of them, but I disagree with not offering essential settings (e. g. Sound Juicer lost the ability to specify compression ratio).
I would argue that I’d like that my OS allow me to use all the features of my hardware. I would have understood that they moved the least common used options to another dialog (to be open with a button or any other solutions, it does not matter) but I not accept that they just remove it “because users could be confused”. Fine, someone could be confused, but what about the users that are not confused and need to use the feature ?
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I never tried, but I think you can ignore the problem with GRUB, just keep it and set Windows as the default OS to boot with no wait (set the timeout to 0 or 1 second)
As for the rest, I don’t agree with you. The way the distros (with some exceptions) handle the installation of new software is pretty easy. Add some others ways like AppImage, Snap and the like and usually to run a new software you really just need some mouse clicks (and download time ;-) ).
And yes, the HDD are way slower than SSD. There is a reason why SSD are taking over HDD ;-)
I don’t think the drive is totally dead, it is somehow reactive to commands, but I would not trust to use it.
You should be able to pull of at least some of the data, but there is no guarantee.
I would copy all what I can and then try to run a low level format and mark the bad blocks, then run the S.M.A.R.T. test to see if something change, but I would do it just out of curiosity.
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As long as you are able to install it on your PC, I think that every distro can be used. Also a rolling relase distro like Archlinux (I use it on my laptop which has also win10 installed)
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Much ado about "nothing" - Xe Iaso (==Goodbye NixOS) ( xeiaso.net )
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/much-ado-about-nothing/44236...
Mozilla released a Firefox Nightly test build with vertical tabs - gHacks Tech News ( www.ghacks.net )
Your first distribution
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Recommendations for simple file hosting and sync
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Sendent for MS Teams: Integrating Nextcloud and Microsoft Teams - Nextcloud ( nextcloud.com )
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[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]
[Request] lightweight distro
For a old laptop with Intel atom processor and I think 2gb ram.
Should i switch from systemd to another init system, What are the advantages of using another init system?
I have seen so many times that systemd is insecure, bloated, etc. So i wonder ¿does it worth to switch to another init system?
Why Are Arch Linux Users So TOXIC? ( www.youtube.com )
I also want to see how many downvotes i am going to get
Systemd: Hidden Gems for a Better Linux ( tadeubento.com )
After a few conversations with people on Lemmy and other places it became clear to me that most aren’t aware of what it can do and how much more robust it is compared to the usual “jankiness” we’re used to....
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Solution...
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