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