The open source community is nasty and that's just the docs

The open source community is nasty in many ways, according to a survey of over 6,000 contributors to open source projects. The 2017 Open Source Survey was hosted on GitHub, which “collected responses from 5,500 randomly sampled respondents sourced from over 3,800 open source repositories” and then added “over 500 responses …

[TRT]

Have to agree.

Got serious abuse which descended into personal attacks on the main discussion board and very nasty PM's when I suggested improving the documentation on a MySQL function. Apparently documenting what the date range for Q1-4 is and that you can't specify your own start of year date is not necessary as it's obvious.

[Oh Homer]

Meanwhile...

Behind closed doors, in the dark underworld of proprietary software, exactly the same thing happens.

Except, being hidden from public scrutiny, nobody ever sees it.

So which is better: abuse that is subject to public accountability, or abuse that goes unchecked forever?

[Invidious Aardvark]

Re: Meanwhile...

Neither, they're both absolutely unacceptable. If that's the best defence you can come up with then you're not painting a very pretty picture of either OSS or proprietary software.

I'd also query whether this does happen and is never published in this murky underworld you're talking about. I'm not sure what would prevent me from going public with emails and PMs if a company tried this on me? I'm also pretty sure any company that ignored personal abuse of their employees by other employees would be open to legal action.

So please, do tell me more about this hidden abuse in this dark underworld that you know about.

[TRT]

Re: Meanwhile...

All I can tell you is that when I suggested the documentation for the Quarter function should explicitly state that January, February and March dates returned a value of 1 etc, that only the month value was examined, and that there were no other arguments for setting the various methods of calculating a "quarter" as defined in the accounting best practice handbooks (the fiscal quarter is not clearly defined on a global level, it's set by a company's accounting practices and in the US at least has to be notified to the state in order to get an EIN - this is required for 10-Q filing, for example, it's not always 3 months long, and it doesn't always start on the 1st of a month) there were at least a dozen backwards and forward messages in public telling my why I was an ignorant fool and citing dozens of links to web pages where there was a 'clear definition', and four personal, private messages telling me amongst other things, that I didn't deserve to have a job, that I should give up coding and take up a less demanding occupation like garbage collection, and that my mother must have been married to one of her own relatives.

Now, somehow I think that if that kind of abusive message came from, say, a Microsoft engineer's account, then I'd be rightly justified in taking it to their manager, and THAT person would then be looking at the prospect of finding new employment. Whereas Johnny Greasebucket sat at home in a pizza stained Britney Spears t-shirt can let loose with all the bile and vitriol that they've been saving up as a result of living their own, sad, little lives because if they ever directed their anger at the true source of their enforced misery they'd choke themselves....

Sorry. Bitter, moi?

So, in short, I expect the same level of nastiness, nitpicking and personal abuse exists across the board, but in some sectors it gets kept on a leash out of self-interest.

[Oh Homer]

Re: "they're both absolutely unacceptable"

You misunderstand. I'm not defending abuse, I'm merely noting that it's a fact, whether we like it or not, then considering what sort of environment is more conducive to dealing with it: the secretive world of proprietary software, or the alternative where everything is laid bare for all the world to see.

Asking a forum regular on El Reg how he could possibly know about what happens at software companies is a bit obtuse, isn't it, given that probably 99% of the readership works in tech?

I assume you're part of the 1% that doesn't, given that apparently you've never heard of an NDA, or the prevailing tendency to tolerate abuse in the name of promotion prospects, or the apathetic resignation to the fact that things are the same no matter which company you work for these days (not just in tech), amongst many other factors that suppress formal complaints.

But yes, every now and then some cubicle monkey breaks out of his cage and screeches in public, destroying any prospect he has of ever working again in the process. But hey, at least he got his day in court, and his lawyer struck pay dirt, right?

See also: David v. Goliath. Not a court case, exactly, but more an allegory to the modern corporacratic world of business, and how the humble slave's employee's fantasy of being David is just that, a fantasy.

[Invidious Aardvark]

Re: "they're both absolutely unacceptable"

@Oh Homer

You'd be assuming incorrectly, but nice try at going "Well what would you know, you don't even work in the industry...".

I have heard of NDAs, I've even signed them from time to time; they've not prevented me reporting any abuse. NDAs generally relate to products, projects, etc. that partners and clients would like to maintain some secrecy/control over. They don't, in my experience, relate to things like "we get to abuse you but you don't get to report it". If you're talking about confidentiality clauses in settlements then the relevance of my working background is questionable at best, since such clauses are not industry specific.

I have not tolerated abuse nor resigned myself to being abused. When I have spotted abuse, I have reported it. Thankfully it's been a pretty rare occurence for me; perhaps I've just been lucky with the places I've worked.

As for "Asking a forum regular on El Reg how he could possibly know about what happens at software companies is a bit obtuse, isn't it, given that probably 99% of the readership works in tech?"

I'm not asking how you know, I'm asking for proof of what you're saying WRT open source being magically better than proprietary software for handling abuse. From what I can see, it's basically "because OSS!" Given that I too work in software and have not seen much of this dark, murky underworld you talk of over the past 15 years or so I'm slightly dubious.

Given our experiences apparently differ, I don't think that asking for some sort of *proof* of your assertions is that much to ask for. Or do I just accept that, as a forum regular, whatever you say is true simply because you said it? (I should point out too that I've been reading el reg since around 2001 so I'm hardly a stranger either.)

[RobHib]

@Oh Homer - Re: Meanwhile...

"So which is better: abuse that is subject to public accountability, or abuse that goes unchecked forever?"

Probably the former but it's a moot point because all too often ordinary users do not get the software that they actually want from either camp—from the users' perspective, software is almost always a compromised kludge which doesn't really work the way they want to. For them, the real issue is minimising the 'kludge' factor—thus users use whatever best fits even though they're not happy.

Long ago, I concluded the principle reason that users are unhappy with the software they use is that the majority of client-side software developers principally write for themselves rather than for users and it's so whether or not they are writing open or proprietary software (but the effect is much more pronounced with open software). (There's excellent long-established evidence for this which intrinsically arises from current software engineering methodology that I won't discuss here as we'll get sidetracked into debates that are not winnable by either side.)

Whenever I've put this proposition previously developers usually retort the only solution is for me to write my own software. True enough, but it is usually not feasible for one person to say develop tailor-made versions of Windows, MS Office, LibreOffice, Photoshop or Gimp—all of which have significant operational peculiarities that the developers have refused to alter but which many users would change in a flash if they had the means to do so.

From my experience, developers of open software are usually much more reluctant than commercial developers to cater for user's needs (probably because there's no pecuniary reward involved).

Let me give you some examples without being too ground down in specifics, I'll begin with OpenOffice/LibreOffice. You'd think that the developers of this product would go overboard to propagate it as widely as possible but their actions have never indicated that this is so.

Given that the majority of users around the world use MS Office, you'd think that OO/LibO developers would take very special care to make it as easy as is possible for MS Office users to switch over but this is certainly not the case, nor has it ever been so. I'll only give one example here but there are dozens more I could raise. Over its many years of development, OO/LibO developers have never even bothered to replicate the common MSO shortcuts into OO/LibO despite a clear demand for such compatibility. Why ever not? You'd think that even if they had an utter aversion to using any idea tainted by Microsoft that it wouldn't actually stop them from providing the MS shortcuts as an option/switch for the convenience of MSO users (nevertheless, it's a fact).

Similarly with Linux: you'd think one of the very highest priorities for Linux developers would be to make Linux as completely user friendly for Windows users as was humanly possible. For instance, to integrate Wine completely and seamlessly into Linux to ensure its compatibility with Win-32/64 APIs was almost total. However, this has been far from the case, in fact many Linux developers are actually quite hostile to such proposals (seemingly mainly from an ideological standpoint).

The consequence of developer hostility towards the actual needs of users is particularly obvious in the Linux case. The two prime examples are (a) The City of Munich potentially turning its back on Linux despite the City's considerable efforts to embrace free software, and (b) Google's development of Android—look at how that more 'human' form of Linux overtook the world when its traditional developers were completely bypassed.

On the evidence, it's just not possible to arrive at any other conclusion than the fact that most developers of (especially) open software develop primarily for themselves and that they consider it a major imposition to be forced to do otherwise. I have no obvious solution for this, for after all they're the ones pulling the strings, as they're providing their time for free.

As I see it, probably the only long term solution will be to change the programming paradigm, especially those aspects of it that relate to the way users actually interact with software. Perhaps we need new more flexible development tools that would automatically allow for users to say change certain software features—especially those that pertain to human interaction, GUI features, etc.—whether or not the programmer programs in such flexibility.

[JLV]

>Behind closed doors, in the dark underworld of proprietary software

links, please.

I know, I know, it's customary for each of the parties on the open/proprietary divide to make bold claims for their software quality and its ability to cure cancer and save the world. Still, you have to remember that in the proprietary world, most of this would be happening in a company, with an HR department on the lookout for being sued if they can be proved to have tolerated a toxic workplace. Sure, lots of people still are very nasty to each other in all the standard corporate backstabbing ways that have existed since time immemorial. But there is a also a direct downside to being found out and reprimanded.

That's a bit like claiming that email communication between parties that know each other is likely to be as discourteous as commentards are sometimes towards each other, safe behind the walls of anonymity.

I really like open source, but you are doing nothing for its popularity by making bizarre claims.

As far as the article goes, it's an interesting datapoint, but no more. Am I supposed to prefer MS SQL over Postgres because no devs were mean to each other in its making??? It'd be nice if some projects practiced better etiquette, but that's about it. I wouldn't read it as open source devs are especially nasty, just that the internet as a communication medium has a hard time getting rid of trolls.

And it does speak to open source openness that this data was compile-able in the first place.

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: >Behind closed doors, in the dark underworld of proprietary software

Well, I can only talk from direct experience, but while I worked at Apple, the bug database (RADAR) was viewable by any employee with an account. People who knew I worked in Apple, and had filed bugs against MacOS components sometimes asked me to "informally" see how -- or if -- the issues they reported were being followed up.

While doing so, I never saw an offensive or disparaging comment on any of these. Timewasters (both internal or external) were simply commented as a neutral "can't reproduce, behaves as documented; recommend close" and that was that. At worst it was "yes, this is a problem; yes, we know; no, we're not going to fix it any time soon"..

Maybe Apple was "different", but I really don't think so: I know people who worked at Microsoft and have similar experience. The difference is probably that when you're representing your employer in public you think twice before acting the dick, because your employer might take offence at what you're saying in their name... and decide that you'd be better off with a different employer.

Perhaps FOSS doesn't have that high penalty to pay for being a shit.

[Oh Homer]

Re: "links, please"

Consider the irony of demanding evidence of something that's kept secret by design.

However, it seems you're in luck, as this is sadly a common problem:

• IT profession blighted by bullying
• Startup workers see sexual harassment on 'breathtaking' scale in Silicon Valley
• Amazon abuse of white-collar workers
• Bullying in information technology

Etc.

[fidodogbreath]

Re: Have to agree.

Got serious abuse which descended into personal attacks on the main discussion board and very nasty PM's when I suggested improving the documentation on a MySQL function.

You were in the wrong chat room. That one was abuse. Arguments are in chat room 12A, next door.

[Flocke Kroes]

Have they surveyed other groups?

The many of the negative attributes quoted for the open source community apply to just about every other community too. Claiming the open source community is nasty is an empty statement. Claiming it is nastier than other communities - with research to back it up - would be interesting.

[Uberseehandel]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Open Source community "nasty"?

I can think of a few other Tech related groups that are positively scary by comparison. It would be superfluous to identify any in particular, but most of us know a few.

The nature of IT attracts sociopaths, always has.

[streaky]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

The nature of IT attracts sociopaths, always has.

No it fucking doesn't.

Most IT is a meritocracy and open source software is especially so - sociopaths fail, badly, in meritocracies because you have to put in the work. Indeed if you ever read any of Hare you'd know this is exactly how you can spot them in the work place - they're serial work avoiders. They want all the pleasure and none of the effort. In the periphery of open source sure it's plausible could attract them - when you have non-software org management and that sort of thing but most open source is devoid of extraneous project management so it's hard for these people to hide themselves. Plus ultimately there's zero gain for them; and it's all about the gain.

[werdsmith]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Sociopaths are attracted to positions of authority, not tedious coding jobs.

Open source community is overpopulated with the supercilious and sanctimonious and I used to try and point out that advancement of the movement could improve if they didn't polarise and piss people off, but I just got a load of abuse.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Arnt we , by and large , that same community?

I dont think I've ever seen nastiness on 'el Reg.

[werdsmith]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Arnt we , by and large , that same community?

The business is a whole lot more than just open source devs.

[John Smith 19]

"I dont think I've ever seen nastiness on 'el Reg."

I think you'll have trouble dislodging your tongue from being so firmly embedded in your cheek.

[Mark 110]

Re: "I dont think I've ever seen nastiness on 'el Reg."

I do seem to get many more down votes when I comment on Linux stories than others. Noones ever been actually 'nasty' though.

[Uberseehandel]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Who said sociopaths don't work? Usually they are obsessive about it.

You are making up facts and are way too defensive. Probably sociopathic.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

@Streaky ... Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Son, software development isn't a meritocracy. Its a dictatorship or a push from the top down.

When you attempt to push from the bottom up, your projects tend to lose vision and you end up with a duck billed platypus. (Ever see a duck billed platypus take home chicks from the bar? Its not a pretty sight.)

This will probably get down voted by commentards who lack the years of experience. In the Open Source world, those projects where you have a strong leadership team, you tend to have a better project. And when the leadership team fades and isn't replaced, you can see the code quality fall apart.

This has nothing to do with sociopaths.

Too many people think that they know what the whole Open Source movement is about. Stallman gave us Gnu. Apache? that's a whole different view on the reality of open source. Two very different philosophies. Don't pretend you know what drives people to contribute or why they don't.

[Pompous Git]

Re: @Streaky ... Have they surveyed other groups?

"Ever see a duck billed platypus take home chicks from the bar? Its not a pretty sight."

Er... no. Looks out window to the dam less than 50 metres away, then over shoulder towards the nearest bar 5 km or so away. And wonders why the fuck they'd bring the chicks home from there when the wood ducks will be hatching chicks next to the dam in a few weeks. It's a strange, strange world we live in...

[jake]

Re: @Streaky ... Have they surveyed other groups?

The platypus doesn't hit on chicks! Everybody knows they much prefer beaver.

I really otter control myself when I'm feeling punny ...

[fidodogbreath]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

The nature of IT attracts sociopaths, always has.

No it fucking doesn't.

Is someone updating the witnessed / experienced numbers?

[John Smith 19]

"The nature of IT attracts sociopaths, always has."

I think the you're looking for to describe their behavior is "Autistic spectrum," although they also lack much (any?) ability to understand how their behavior distresses others.

I always found the sociopaths in Sales & Marketing.

[Updraft102]

Re: "The nature of IT attracts sociopaths, always has."

Actually, the behavior you're trying to describe is "asshole," or whichever term you want to use. I know a lot of spectrum people, and while they are direct and blunt, they've got nothing on "normal" people for pure malice and nastiness. Can you holster your stereotypes, please?

[david 12]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

It is nastier than other communities. Agree that claiming the open source community is nasty is like saying that the sun rises in the East, but back in the day there was an obvious diffence between the MS newsgroups and the OS newsgroups.

It wouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that the BSD newsgroups were denigratory and abusive: like Linus, they had that reputation and were aware of it. But it did come as a surprise to see that members of the Python mailing list thought that it was friendly, helpful and supportive!

I'm not talking about swearing: I've never haunted mailing lists where swearing was common. And I'm not talking about moderation: although spam was removed, non of the groups had moderators removing postings just for being unhelpful or wrong.

The MS newsgroups I read and contributed to had regular, expert, volunteer contributers who politely and correctly answered basic repetitive questions without insulting anyone, and who didn't make dispariging comments even when they didn't understand the question or the subject matter..

[Christian Berger]

Well for Linus that's self defence

He did have a case when somebody wrote some code and offered it to Linux. Linux politely rejected it, but he was misunderstood as if that code could be in the kernel if it was only polished, so the person worked on it for some months and offered it again... where it was of course rejected again. The coder then took his life. That's why it can be problematic to be to polite to people.

We have to understand that there are areas we cannot afford inclusion. It's like making sure only qualified people are in an operation room during a surgery. Infrastucture projects must be maintained by qualified people, not by people who believe that, just because they came up with all the bad ideas of the 1990s again, you could work in operating system development.

Free Software has the problem of a huge influx of bad coders. People who, like in the 1990s, build hugely complex architectures without ever getting to the point where they offer any use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

What's amazing is that apparently half of all respondents had *never* witnessed a negative interaction between two people in an open source project...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

Too many snowflakes.

Sorry, but when you write code for a living and you have others depending on your code, it has to be right the first time.

The philosophy of the egoless programmer isn't that the programmer doesn't have an ego, but that he separate his ego and when he attacks code, he's not making it personal.

What some people see as rude is someone who's being honest and blunt up front or they've jumped in to the middle of a conversation where they don't understand the tone of the participants.

Nor does everyone have the same level of experience or skills to comprehend the conversation or why if they attempt to contribute, it gets shot down.

The other thing people don't realize is that the contributor, who for the most part isn't getting paid to contribute faces potential risk if they accidentally expose their employer's intellectual property and can be sued, fired, or both.

Remember kids, in every community there's always a grumpy old man who's telling you to get of his lawn.

[CommanderJameson]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

"Sorry, but when you write code for a living and you have others depending on your code, it has to be right the first time"

This is 100% weapons-grade ocean-going full-fat bollocks.

People write code. People are not perfect. Hence the existence of the testing process.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

Since negativity is subjective, maybe the result is similar to the statistic where half of all mathematics students score below average in tests.

[Orv]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

That's why it can be problematic to be to polite to people.

It sounds like the failure was in not communicating clearly, which it's possible to do while still being polite. Part of the problem is coders rarely want to spare the mental bandwidth to communicate clearly with people, because they much prefer communicating with machines.

I'm a sysadmin, and I'm continually astounded at how just being a decent human being seems to vastly exceed people's expectations for my trade. The most common feedback I've gotten is, "you're way nicer than the last guy." Back in the days when few people really used computers much, the IT community developed this concept of themselves as the high priests that must not be questioned by the unwashed masses, and it's really a bad look these days.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

"Free Software has the problem of a huge influx of bad coders"

you get what you pay for, sometimes.

But the attitudes of many of the developers often reflect "academic arrogance" and "new, shiny uber alles".

Recently I griped about evince changing the UI so that, on a FreeBSD box, it displayed everything with an interface that LOOKS LIKE WIN-10-NIC, never mind that I wouldn't touch Win-10-nic with a 10 foot pole. I despise the 2D FLUGLY FLATSO and THAT is apparently now HARD CODED into Evince. So thanks, gnome project, for diving even deeper into the CESSPOOL of 2D FLATSO FLUGLY and arrogantly ASSUMING that the rest of us actually WANT that. [it could also be Micro-shaft's influence on the gnome project, embrace, extend, extinguish].

I mentioned it in an IRC channel for gnome devs. Even being nice, they're more like "use something else" "go elsewhere" etc. [probably because I mentioned MATE]. No concept at all of customer service. It's more like "take it OUR way or we shove it down your throat". Like Micro-shaft does.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well for Linus that's self defence

@ Christian Berger: "where it was of course rejected again. The coder then took his life"

The coder 'felt' suicidal, he never suicided ..

[Pompous Git]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

"The MS newsgroups I read and contributed to had regular, expert, volunteer contributers who politely and correctly answered basic repetitive questions without insulting anyone, and who didn't make dispariging comments even when they didn't understand the question or the subject matter.."

Dunno about developer NGs, but Andrew Baker's WinNT-List back in the 90s was exemplary for its helpfulness. Linux help as distinct from name-calling was very hard to come by. I got banned from Corel Linux List for asking "unwanted questions"! Never did get Corel Linux to run on any of my hardware. What a waste of money that was...

[BillG]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

The MS newsgroups I read and contributed to had regular, expert, volunteer contributers who politely and correctly answered basic repetitive questions without insulting anyone,

Must agree here. Back when I was in a small startup ~15 years ago, there was a debate as to whether or not to go with a Microsoft product or mySQL. Mostly the debate came down to which has the best support. So we did a test.

On both an MS newsgroup and an OS newsgroup, I asked the same newbie flawed question: "Is the Microsoft Access database compatible with mySQL"?

The MS newsgroup gave me polite answers that no, Access is not a database, it is an interface to the Jet database. I got a nice descriptions of jet, then my question was answered. Many answers were very detailed, and invited me to ask more questions.

You can probably guess the answer I got from the OS newsgroup, which came down to "You idiot, Access isn't a db, it's jet, you're a moron" and etc. The most surprising response was more than one person wrote "You do not desrve to use open sourc". More than one person just linked to the main page for the online documentation for mySQL. Many answers contained correctly spelled words.

Yes, we went with MSSQL.

[John Smith 19]

"More than one person.. linked to the main page for the online documentation for mySQL."

Which (I'm guessing) has an FAQ page for people that answers those sort of questions?

Probably because so many people had asked them before and people who knew the answers got really tired repeating themselves?

[Teiwaz]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

The many of the negative attributes quoted for the open source community apply to just about every other community too.

Probably very true. Certainly wherever somebody feels threatened by a strangers advice, criticism or feels their worldview is being called into question.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

A survey of Twitter users would certainly make an interesting control group.

[Pompous Git]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

"A survey of Twitter users would certainly make an interesting control group."

Mustering them all in the same place at the same time might be better... See icon -->

[jake]

Re: Have they surveyed other groups?

Same place at the same time ... May I suggest pouring them all into the Maunsell Sea Forts? And leaving them there? We might have to build a couple more, but that's a use for my tax dollars that I can get behind ...

[jake]

Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

Film at 11!

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

Also

really nasty stuff like sexual advances

This is why the West dies off.

[Hollerithevo]

Re: Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

The West is dying off because sexual advances in a forum about open source is considered nasty? Really?

[Orv]

Re: Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

This is why the West dies off.

There's a time and a place for procreation, and it's not the office. Just sayin'.

[Kane]

Re: Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

"Humans aren't all sweetness & light!

Film at 11!"

Agreed. Open Source Community =/= Fluffy Bunnies and Kittens

[frank ly]

How rude?

As for rudeness, it's difficult to assess 'tone' in text communication, especially with a stranger. I've been told that my writtten communication is 'curt' but that's because I want to be efficient and clear.

[Vic]

Re: How rude?

I've been told that my writtten communication is 'curt'

I've been told my responses on fora are "rude and unhelpful", because I gave people the man pages to read rather than just giving them the keypresses to use.

Vic.

[TRT]

Re: I've been told that my writtten communication is 'curt'

Pfff!

[Anonymous Coward]

"may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

I'm not a native English speaker, but my experience is exactly the opposite: I found documentation written by people without a good knowledge of English often hard to read, and misleading.

And when my English was poorer than today, I complained about my lack of knowledge, not about the text. Moreover, you learn reading good English, not some pidgin.

[jake]

Re: "may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

To say nothing of the fact that American English, love it or hate it, is the lingua franca of the FOSS world, and indeed TehIntraWebTubes itself.

Don't blame me, it wasn't a choice, it just evolved that way.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

"I'm not a native English speaker"

Wow Based on your writing here I'd never have given it a second thought, just assumed you were.

[Orv]

Re: "may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

Good technical writing in any language is a skill, and one that deserves more respect than it gets. Open source tends to downplay it on the grounds that you can just read the source code.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: "may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

"Good technical writing in any language is a skill, ..."

Furthermore, good technical writing remains good technical writing even after bad translation. What makes it good is that you know what you need to say, you've identified the concepts that the reader needs to understand to let you say it, and you've pitched it at a relatively low reading age. If you've done all that in your native language, you can probably let Google Translate turn it into English and still produce a better document than some of the horrors that I've read.

"Open source tends to downplay it on the grounds that you can just read the source code."

I'm not sure that's the reason. The ability to document and the ability to write the code are separate skills. Sometimes (perhaps since clarity of thought is a prerequisite of both) they are found in the same person, but not always. FOSS's problem might be more a case of not attracting writers in the way that it attracts programmers.

[Old Handle]

Re: "may therefore not find documentation written by native English speakers easy."

I think it's mostly that writing docs is boring. If you're the type of person to get involved in an open source project, you're probably either enthusiastic about the product itself or enjoy the problem-solving aspect of coding.

So which would you rather do, work on that exciting new feature or write a detailed explanation of the existing product?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised.

I used to contribute to JBoss and wrote the first guidance on how to use JAAS.

A couple of weeks later one of the other contributors, Scott somebodyorother, stole the whole of my guidance and included in his guide, where it made up more than 50% of the content and without giving me any credit.

He repeatedly denied stealing it from me, until I pointed out that 'his' example code was not only identical to mine but contained the same errors as mine (and so weren't simply 'obvious' as he'd originally claimed).

At that point I concluded the JBOSS community was a toxic group of thieves and walked away.

It appears now that the problem is much, much wider.

[jake]

Re: I'm not surprised.

Thank you for your testimonial.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: I'm not surprised.

That is not nice and means the Scott guy is a bit of a c*nt, but is it justified to generalize to "the JBOSS community"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm not surprised.

Re JBoss: I miss the epic Mike Spille/Cameron 'Peace' Purdy/Marc Fleury technical and ideological battles on theserverside.com. That got a bit heated from time to time. Wonder what happened to that lot? (But not enough to bing for them.)

[Robert Carnegie]

Re: I'm not surprised.

I assume everything else that happened in "the JBOSS community", including apparently everyone else sitting back and letting Scott steal credit without comment (it's possible perhaps that third parties discreetly e-mailed Scott to say "Dude, no", but since that didn't work, a time comes for "public" criticism.

Even if "My First Guide to JBOSS" was a ragged bundle of ill-informed fallacies, rewriting ought to be undertaken with credit given and ideally with consent as well.

...Unless that "My Guide" itself was, or appeared to be, largely swiped from someone else's material. Including, and I might have gone about it this way, a work that's an anthology of everyone's forum posts. And if two people go about producing a document that way, they will present the same material, including the same errors.

But why am I not taking the story at face value? I have no reason to distrust. But there is often more than one side.

Incidentally: I just signed up to https://dba.stackexchange.com/ mainly to ask certain questions - one of which, I first searched for previous applicable posts, twice; found something that said "Read this 'white paper' document" - so I did - and then next one - and decided I now don't need to ask about that. Although it might have saved my time to do that - but used up other people's.

So, good documentation is good. (However, I sent a couple of document revisions to Microsoft... no, wait, I didn't, it wouldn't send it. I'll try later in a different web browser.)

[Gordon Pryra]

personally experienced a negative interaction with another user in open source

This is entirely because "interaction with another user in open source" is almost 100% on a forum style medium.

The exact same results would be found with any online group, except you could maybe increase the h8 on a technical forum because techies generally don't get into these subjects because of their social skills.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: personally experienced a negative interaction with another user in open source

As a moderator on numerous forums on CompuServe for a quarter century, no. And, yes, most all but one of them were of a technical nature. Frankly, not that many messages ever needed moving out of view except for the participants. It was also damned rare that we'd lock someone out. Perhaps once per month on a bad month.

[Snow Wombat]

Here we go again..

This is just another push by the Rainbow haired "Diversity" crowd to take over Open Source communities, and make them into Tumblr.

The Tumblr community, not the website.

The survey is vague designed to divide. "Rudeness" is an idiotic metric for example, as it's completely subjective.

Github is slowly being strangled by the same "Diversity" crowd, who only believe in diversity of hair colour, not actual diversity of thought or ideas.

Sooner Github dies, the better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here we go again..

Courtesy makes the world go around, Snow Wombat. As for your Github demand - I call "Troll".

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Here we go again..

> Courtesy makes the world go around,

I do agree.

However, when you have to deal with constant ass-hattery by some person for years, then patience and politeness wears out. Just think about that very special colleague in some company who you certainly had to deal with at some time of your life.

Some people have the gift to stay diplomatic, no matter what. From what I see, this is not the majority, at least not in any kind of community I ever dealt with.

[MiguelC]

Re: Here we go again..

For that special colleague, go for extra-courteous.

That's the thing that’ll make them the more upset possible: you not being infuriated means they have failed their goal...

[dajt]

Re: Here we go again..

I agree about courtesy, but I am also sick of SJWs sticking their noses and demands everywhere. These people mostly seem to come from the clown-quarter of universities, either faculty or student, or work in otherwise unproductive areas.

They can discuss with the world-at-large how they'd like things to change, but shouldn't complain when the world-at-large says it wants to think about their demands rather than immediately jumping to implement them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here we go again..

@Snow Wombat

I too detected an SJW agenda in the headline. And you can be sure they shared the survey link in their SJW circles to amp up their whining voices.

> Github is slowly being strangled by the same "Diversity" crowd, who only believe in diversity of hair colour, not actual diversity of thought or ideas.

Absolutely. It's one thing to be civil toward "different" people, quite another to make "complete tolerance" the prime directive. Just look at Mozilla now.

Call me old fashioned but I believe people should be polite at work (and in open-source projects) AND KEEP THEIR PRIVATE LIVES TO THEMSELVES. Particularly in open-source where you're just a username. Race, gender, hair color, etc, should be irrelevant.

> Sooner Github dies, the better.

It's stupid to rely on one big company anyhow; think Google. The beauty of Git is, it's decentralized and dead simple to host on a VPS. And remember, we have a notorious asshole to thank for that.

[Orv]

Re: Here we go again..

Call me old fashioned but I believe people should be polite at work (and in open-source projects) AND KEEP THEIR PRIVATE LIVES TO THEMSELVES. Particularly in open-source where you're just a username. Race, gender, hair color, etc, should be irrelevant.

Okay, sure. Women could all adopt male-sounding usernames and not connect them to their other work, thus "keeping their private lives to themselves." This does, in a sense, work -- women who submit code under male pseudonyms get it accepted more often, because apparently to project maintainers gender is relevant. BUT that makes it awfully hard to use what you've written to further your career, which is why a lot of people contribute to open source these days. Job applications for coders now frequently ask for your GitHub URL. This is one of many ways that the boy's club inadvertently perpetuates itself, by stomping on the careers of "outsiders."

[bombastic bob]

Re: Here we go again..

"women who submit code under male pseudonyms get it accepted more often, because apparently to project maintainers gender is relevant"

I call B.S. on that. just because you say it does not make it true.

[Old Handle]

Re: Here we go again..

Orv may be referring to a previous article here, but if so that's a misstatement of the what the study actually showed. They found that that contributions from accounts which were easily identifiable as belonging to a woman were accepted less often. Interestingly, they also found that that contributions from accounts which were easily identifiable as belonging to a man were accepted less often (though this was smaller effect). So perhaps "keep your private life private" really is the best advice.

In any case it did not get into the issue of women using male pseudonyms, as such. Perhaps Orv is basing that claim on something else though, I don't know.

[Orv]

Re: Here we go again..

You've clearly not spent much time on Tumblr. It gets nasty there. Only the lack of a proper threaded comment system keeps that from being obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't stand the heat

then don't come out of the kitchen, dear. "Twenty five per cent of women respondents" how many was this exactly and why is this of special note? were they suprised that a large number of git hub members who had never left their bedrooms made fumbling advances upon them?

People do indeed say all kinds of things online that they would not say in person.

Given that creating for passion rather than money makes for a higher emotional ground state then expect git hub members to be just as bitchy and offensive as other artists.

[Gordon Pryra]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

"People do indeed say all kinds of things online that they would not say in person."

Exactly.

The combinations of the following make any forum a cesspit

1) Anonymity

2) Pressing "post" before reading out loud what has been typed

3) Emotional link with the subject matter

4) General lack of social skills

5) lack of inhibitions that are present in a face to face interaction

6) Badly worded and written posts which reduces people understanding of points raised. This coupled with the use of English as the primary language but with non-English speaking people as the protagonists

Its normal to see two people fighting each other on a forum but sadly, they are both arguing for the same thing.

I am sure the "Hello Kitty" forums has the same levels of vitriol and bile as any Open Source forum

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

Allow me to add (about the people receiving swearing/hostility)

- cannot be arsed to fucking read anything, ever

- cannot be arsed to spend a single fucking second of thinking, ever

- cannot string one fucking sentence together, ever

- cannot be arsed to stay fucking on-topic, ever

- fucking resistant to any kind of advice

Some people expect to be treated kindly with behavior that wouldn't for a single second be accepted on a personal level. Shockingly, this doesn't happen. Fuck them, with a rake.

Icon totally is me, honestly.

[no-one in particular]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

> - cannot be arsed to fucking read anything, ever

Absolutely, this.

But do we give some credit for honesty to the person who recently started a forum post with: "Not going to spend (waste?) my time reading the other messages here, but..."

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

> ... credit for honesty ...

Yes, any time.

Sometimes something like "Really under water right now, so bear with me, ..." can also do wonders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

I would imagine the open source community forums have a long long way to go before they hit the animosity levels of , say , uTube or Imdb (as was) , or any online game forum , or anywhere moronic teenage boys hang out.

I have noticed varying types of aggression thinly disguised as conversation or advice or a correction like "Learn to do research" , to out and out obscene name calling . Some forums could problably have their storage requirements by auto deleting the words "retard" and "noob"

[IsJustabloke]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

@Gordon Pryra

While I don't generally disagree with what you've written, my personal experience is that people who are dickheads online tend also to be dickheads in real life.

This experience was garnered while running the online community for a club, 75%l of the contributors were personally known to me.

For example, the old saw about all BMW/Mercedes/Audi drivers (delete /insert as you like) are all dicks, I suspect you'll find that said drivers will be dicks regardless of the model of their car.

[Gordon Pryra]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

"is that people who are dickheads online tend also to be dickheads in real life"

oh God yeah!!

BUT

Dickheads in real life tend not to get a soapbox they can stand on and shout their views.

For example, In real life I am a total dick head, but no-one would listen to my idiotic views on storage quotas, yet on a forum, I can shout and post loud enough and often enough that some sheep will believe I "might" know what I am talking about or even worse, take me seriously.

[IsJustabloke]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

"In real life I am a total dick head"

I've heard that about you... ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC Re: If you can't stand the heat

>just as bitchy and offensive as other artists.

There's a trope right there. It is perfectly possible to be an 'artist' and be professional in conduct (irrespective of pay status).

[Hollerithevo]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

I took this to mean that there's a lot of nastiness in Git and many women get a second scoop of it. But by the time a woman is professionally able to participate in such forums, she has had a lifetime of this sort of stuff, and most of us learn to let it roll off of us. However, once or twice I've seen vicious comebacks that really took my breath away. As you say, there are some guys in their mom's basements who truly, deeply and passionately hate women. I guess Asian and Chinese men get their share race hatred. White-guy to white-guy I have seen mostly extreme rudeness and gay 'slurs'.

[dajt]

Re: If you can't stand the heat

As much as I hate SJWs and code-of-conduct demands in open source, I would be disappointed if some senior/respected member of the particular community where something like that happens didn't rebuke the jerk making the comments.

That's just being a normal person, you shouldn't have to make a law about it.

[Kevin Johnston]

It's the Internet

As has been said so many times by so many people (and most of them better with words than I am) the anonymity of the Internet means you can say things you would not say to someone's face. But this is both a negative and a positive in that some people need to be told their work/opinion is not acceptable and that needs you to be a very confident person to say it to someone's face. As mentioned above, the main problem with text-based conversations is that you cannot determine tone and it is very easy to be hurt by a rejection no matter how well it is worded and then filter the comment through that hurt and see it as offensive.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: It's the Internet

There is another side of "It's the Internet": it's ONLY the Internet.

The 120 kilo bloke on steroids right in front of you, offering some variant of "bash you face in" is much more frightening than any bloody electronic message, at least in my experience.

[Not also known as SC]

Re: It's the Internet

The internet is full of too many self declared experts who really do not like any criticism. One of the reasons I like the comments on the Reg is that they rarely descend into personal insults, and often contain really interesting insights into the material being discussed. El Reg is a rare exception to any group of internet users.

I once made the error of posting on a cycling forum to point out that you shouldn't use WD-40 on a bicycle chain because it is a solvent, not a lubricant. Never again. The amount of personal abuse directed my way was unbelievable. Ken Rockwell has summed it up really well here - http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm - The two relevant levels I think are one and zero.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's the Internet

"I once made the error of posting on a cycling forum to point out that you shouldn't use WD-40 on a bicycle chain because it is a solvent, not a lubricant. Never again. The amount of personal abuse directed my way was unbelievable. "

Possibly because you were factually only partly correct.

WD-40 is a mixture which contains both volatile solvents and lubricants. For a bicycle chain which tends to get dirty and rusty and has a very low loading, it's OK in the absence of anything better. I wouldn't use it on a motorcycle chain except to clean it before lubricating, again if I had nothing better.

But then you cite Ken Rockwell who has a ....rather high opinion of himself.

So perhaps you might have been seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's the Internet

Perhaps, shockingly enough, someone should have gone to the WD-40 website to see what they think about uses of it, since they make it, and know what is actually in it? Rather than just "oh, I think it *might be a solvent* ".

https://wd40.com/cool-stuff/myths-legends-fun-facts

Myth: WD-40® Multi-Use Product should not be used on bike chains.

Fact: While WD-40® Multi-Use Product it is not a grease, it is formulated with strong lubricating oils and other ingredients, and is a terrific product to use for bike maintenance. It does not attract dirt or moisture to metal surfaces – just be sure to wipe off any excess WD-40® Multi-Use Product before riding.

Perhaps the "solvent" part is used to keep the stuff "in solution" and to help provide extra volume to get it out of the can after a bit of the old shakey-shakey and then evaporate somewhat like hairspray? Or gloss paint? Just a thought .....

Also 2 other thoughts:-

Why would anyone use "a solvent" to unstick reluctant metal mechanisms, its main use.

Why would "a (light weight) solvent" be useful for driving off moisture - it will evaporate, and then ...

[PNGuinn]

Re: It's the Internet

The problems with WD40 are that:

1. It's getting *&*&$£))" expensive for a gas powered small can of thin oil diluted by the 'merkin equivalent of white spirit.

2. It's just that, a a diluted thin oil, not a multipurpose cure - all, which is what it's sold as. For example it is NOT a penetrating oil to help free rusted up fastenings, but it will penetrate up to a point.

For what it is, a dewatering agent which evaporates to leave a mineral oil film it's ok - handy to have a tin around in the workshop / toolbox / motor in case of need.

For any serious use you need a specialist product. (Unfortunately, many specialist products are no better - just more expensive.)

Re penetrating oil - the idea is to have a very thin low surface tension carrier which penetrates between the stuck threads by wetting and capillary action, and carries with it a very small quantity of lubricant. White spirit will do up to a point - it's a bit better than thick oil, that's all.

Try comparing Laco Rustbuster with WD40 for example. The Laco is so much better. Peoples on the interwebbs suggest a mixture of acetone and auto transmission fluid. Acetone has a very low surface tension, and auto transmission fluid presumably has good extreme pressure lubrication properties, so it kinda makes sense. Being an ignorant Limey, whose vehicles still have pudding stirrers and clutches rather than this new fangled two pedal setup, I'll have to get round to getting some auto fluid to try it sometime. And compare it to GL4 or GL5 manual fluid.

The 'Merkins have another tool they call a red hot wrench - heat from a blowtorch to expand the fixing and crack the rusted joint. Very effective, especially if combined with a lubricant when hot (or the end of a candle).

American methods >>

[Not also known as SC]

Re: It's the Internet

@AC who replied to me

I'm up-voting your post as well, because once again you have replied to me like I'm a human and my views matter although you disagree. This is why I generally like the level of commentard on the Register.

It was hit and miss though about up-voting or down-voting you, because surely the one thing we've all learnt from reading the Register is never to trust the vendor's website for information. That's like going to Google to find out if internet advertising is a good thing! It's in WD-40's manufacturer's interest to get people to use WD-40 so by its very nature will be biased. I personally like to refer to the late-great Sheldon Brown's web site https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chains.html

"Lubricants Not to Use!

While it's hard to say which lubricants are best for chains, some lubricants are real no-nos:

Automotive motor oil contains detergent, to wash away combustion products, and is made to be renewed constantly under pressure from the motor's oil pump. I [John Allen] rode once with someone who had used it the day before, and her chain was already squeaking.

"Household" oil, such as 3 in 1, is a vegetable oil and is acidic. It tends to gum up. (It's really bad news inside internal hub gears, too...)

WD-40 and other thin sprays are intended more as solvents than lubricants. They evaporate quickly."

Anyway chain maintenance is almost as dangerous a ground to get into as camera lenses...

[bombastic bob]

Re: It's the Internet

"WD-40 is a mixture which contains both volatile solvents and lubricants. "

'WD' means "water displacer" or something similar. If your frozen up mechanical thing is all wet, the WD-40 should loosen it up and/or get all of the water off of it. Then you clean off the WD-40 and use real lubricants.

In the Navy they use WD-40 to assist with "de-watering" electrical/electronic gear that has been flooded. Or, at least they USED to.

[Not also known as SC]

Re: It's the Internet

It's all in the context.

Your reply, although disagreeing with my comment, has been made in a polite manner so an up-vote. This is what you don't see on forums populated by 'experts'. Instead Given a choice of using a rusty chain or one lubed with WD-40 I would of course use the WD-40 lubed chain, but given the choice of WD-40 or a lube designed especially for bicycle chains I would go for the role specific lube.

Point about Ken Rockwell taken - I'm not a fan of his as such and I disagree with much that he says. However his seven levels does ring true for a lot of internet forums. Having seen reviews of camera lenses where they photograph square graph paper and complain about distortion which can only be seen at massive magnifications. If you're a professional where this is critical the point may be valid, but for a review aimed at hobbiests it s a little extreme.

[Orv]

Re: It's the Internet

Many online communities have internal conflicts that smolder, and can be inadvertently ignited by people who are unaware. I used to be on a VW Bus mailing list that repeatedly had long and impassioned flame wars about what kind of oil you should put in your engine.

I've always used straight 30-weight engine oil on my chains, personally. WD-40 evaporated too fast for my taste, and 30-weight quieted them down more. But it's a bicycle chain, you can put anything on it (including nothing) and it'll probably last longer than most people keep a bicycle. ;)

[John Smith 19]

Re: It's the Internet

"The 120 kilo bloke on steroids right in front of you, offering some variant of "bash you face in" is much more frightening than any bloody electronic message, a

Indeed.

Everything else.

Sticks and stones. Sticks and stones.

[Nick Kew]

Surveys and Agendas

I've seen a fair bit of conflict - some of it gratuitously unpleasant - in my decades in open source. But it's a drop in the ocean compared to some other communities, both on-line and real-world.

Surveys can be a particular hotbed. That's not just because the respondents are a sample who self-select precisely because they have axes to grind and see a survey as somewhere to vent[1], but also because surveys have Agendas (such as "diversity"), and those tend to be divisive.

[1] fx: waves at fellow-commentards.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Surveys and Agendas

> ... real-world.

On a few occasions I had to deal with, erm, "vocal" animal rights people. Think PETA and from there go several miles in the general direction of raging insanity.

Having several people screaming in your face at about 130 dB until their faces are a dark shade of red is, well, royally fucking unpleasant.

Internet worries, pffft.

[PNGuinn]

Re Please Eat Tasty Animals

So, deal with 'em online.

Turn off the sound, turn up the contrast.

Enjoy.

[ForthIsNotDead]

You youngsters should all try Usenet...

...it's fucking terrible. Mean trolling bastards everywhere.

[stephanh]

Re: You youngsters should all try Usenet...

In the good ol' days you'd ask anything on comp.lang.lisp and get flamed to death by Erik Naggum. Perhaps not the sole cause of the decline of Lisp but it sure must have helped.

Nowadays they try to be helpful to newbies over there. Sellouts.

[ForthIsNotDead]

Re: You youngsters should all try Usenet...

Yes, I remember him. I also remember all the "oh what a great guy" posts after his (admittedly tragic and too soon) death.

A twat is a twat, though; dead or alive.

[John Smith 19]

"you'd ask anything on comp.lang.lisp and get flamed to death by Erik Naggum. "

But on the flip side on the sci.space. Henry Spencer was a model for polite and informed comments on the groups subjects. One which I've tried to follow (obviously with varying degrees of success :-( ) ever since.

There are reasonable and unreasonable people everywhere.

[Sssss]

Re: You youngsters should all try Usenet...

Lol! When I started using Usenet in the 90's, it was still filled with helpful gentlemen, or other polite types, and some trolls or ill-mannered. But it declined. Now it's more full of cynical jaded like people willing to jump on anything. So deranged they seem to have inadvertently slipped into trolling like behaviour. There are still are nice people around, but the percentage of niceness and helpfulness has declined. Forums in the web also were attracting less intelligent ignorant people. Simply, the web opened the flood gates to the masses, so the percentage of polite educated types decreased, and mob behaviours altered norms.

Moderators on web boards can be a particular problem. There should be laws enforcing unbiased even handed balanced conduct in dealing with forum posts and people. People trying to game the system over others seem to get away with it, especially if freindly with local the moderator, leading to much disruption and people getting band wrongly and ending up in my inbox talking about it. There should be fines and even jail for moderators for some of the things that happen. If only there had been class actions on these things, the moderation quality in the industry could have vastly improved.

[Simone]

Measure attitudes AND success?

I looked at the summary, not the raw data, but it does seem to focus on the attitudes. A lot of the attitude results is easily explained, but it does not include the success of the projects, e.g. in terms of project life / code size or number of contributors / contributions.

From the summary:

"Documentation helps orient newcomers... create inclusive communities / Incomplete or outdated documentation... observed by 93% of respondents"

So the conclusion is "newcomers are unwelcome", based on the lack of documentation?

"open source work (is) important to getting (a) job / Users care about stability... and security"

People want to get the 'badge' for their CV, but their contribution is not good enough to meet the requirements of stability and security?

"50% have witnessed... a negative interaction & 21% of people... stopped contributing"

What type of negative reaction? Poor documentation means a newcomer does not understand the project? Poor contributions are rejected, and the contributor cannot take the rejection? Do people stop contributing because they cannot understand the project or realise they are not good enough?

Perhaps people should read "The Cathedral and the Bazar"; a bit old, but it gives a bit of a guide on behaviours. When you contribute, that bit is no longer yours, and others are free to change it if they wish. If you want to extend functionality, be prepared to see that functionality through to the end.

Although Linus gets some bad press, he does maintain some level of direction and quality. I have seen quite a few projects that are not properly designed, or have contributions included that do not work, or where documentation and testing are missing. I admit these were small projects, which I looked at and decided not to get involved in.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Actually one reason why I usually avoid open source.

Indeed! Dealing with Oracle, Adobe, Microsoft et al. is so much better!

[hplasm]

Re: Actually one reason why I usually avoid open source.

" I don't have to wade into a kindergarten every time I need to get support for it."

With closed source, you have to pay to get into the kindergarten...

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Actually one reason why I usually avoid open source.

> With closed source, you have to pay to get into the kindergarten...

And every kid is Bozo the clown. Without pants.

[PNGuinn]

With closed source, you have to pay to get into the kindergarten...

And then find that you're really a criminal chained up in the corner of some kind of smelly damp disfunctional ...

[PNGuinn]

Re: Actually one reason why I usually avoid open source.

Hmmm ...

Personally I'll take several olympic swimming pools of abuse from open source fora (personally I haven't enough to fill a small thimble ...) rather than a mugfull of Slurp's "respect"

[Bucky 2]

"Polite" is a relative term

There is a protocol to interacting with an expert, or expert community.

First, do your own homework. Asking for definitions of fundamental concepts without first attempting to discover this information on your own is unspeakably rude.

Second, express your question or contribution clearly and completely. It isn't the project's responsibility to enter into a game of 20 Questions with you. Assuming otherwise is outrageously self-absorbed.

Third, reserve spoken "conversation starters" for spoken conversation. No matter how informal a forum feels, it's a written medium. Dropping "Can I ask a question?" is useless, and frustrating. Yes, yes, I acknowledge your existence -- but please, if you need that kind of constant reassurance, save it for therapy.

Finally, pretend that you're communicating with an actual friggin' HUMAN BEING. Pretend that the only thing that human being could possibly know about you are the words you write. Pretend that the human being may not have the luxury of putting his life on hold while he tries to winnow out what you're trying to say or do.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: "Polite" is a relative term

Yes, a hundred times. Still, some [bleep] down-voted your post. -------->

[John Smith 19]

Perhaps we should practice some statistical comprehension? 3% affected -->97% not affected

"14% witnessed" --> 86% have never witnessed an incident.

Which suggests that in fact the very great majority of FOSS interactions are quite well behaved.

"Documentation" is an interesting metric. It's a perennial complaint that no one likes to do it because its not "real" development work but who better to tell you what a function can (and cannot) do than the person who wrote it? Therefor a project with good up to date docs suggests the devs have a more mature attitude to the efforts than the my-code-is-brilliant-it-does-not-need-documenting-I-wrote-it-in-24-hours-on-Jolt types.

But maybe I'm just prejudiced because I've had to wade through the code these (self professed) genius types written.

[PNGuinn]

Documentation.

No one likes to do it.

Doing it properly is difficult.

On a fast moving project keeping it up to date is doubly difficult.

The best people to write the docs are the coders - they are the experts on the subject.

The worst possible people to write the docs are the coders. They make too many assumptions about what they see as obvious, and don't know how to explain things properly, especially to newbies.

Whose fault is it? Mine probably. And countless others.

I grab a piece of software. Install it. Try it. Read enough of the docs to get it to do what I want. Get the job done. Don't have time to fully study the docs to work what else this bit of kit can do, nor write myself my own improved docs at my level or fill in the gaps in the existing info. So I haven't got anything complete or useful enough to send back to the devs.

When I've managed to carve myself out a bit of time in my retirement there's a few bits of software I'd like to learn to use properly. And maybe improve the docs, at least from my point of view. If that helps me maybe it would help others. And perhaps the project(s) would find it useful.

Time. The great enemy.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Perhaps we should practice some statistical comprehension? 3% affected -->97% not affected

"14% witnessed" --> 86% have never witnessed an incident.

That's actually an astonishing result. If we assume that most of the respondents have witnessed hundreds of exchanges, but only 14% can actually recall even 1 that went bad, that would suggest that the level of rudeness on the interwebs is vanishingly small. We're talking "1 part in 10,000" levels of small, at the most and almost certainly much lower.

In fact, I just don't believe the levels of rudeness and anti-social behaviour being reported in this survey.

[Will Godfrey]

Strange

I reside in a very tiny corner of the FOSS world, but still don't recognise any of this here.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Strange

This is the "news" version of it. Any resemblance to actual actuality is purely coincidental.

Cf. "sweary rant" articles about Torvalds, each and everyone immediately deflated by reading the original post from Linus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds: If people feel offended and that's their problem

29:20 "My work has also changed, I don't do programming anymore. I have had to make things like GIT and tried to make process changes so that we scale better as a community. These days most of what I do is communication. What I do is, I read email, I pull peoples changes or I tell people that no this is too ugly to live, please go away and never approach me again. So that's kind of what I do and that has changed over time and that has kept the whole thing interesting for me ..

35:40 Sometimes I'm a bit upset that people take what I say a bit too seriously and then five minutes later I said screw that I don't care. I like that people take me seriously but that at the same time I refuse to then let that mean that I don't say what I mean. I mean I always wanted to be very honest in my statements. I use strong language on the Internet. To the point where some people feel offended and that's their problem. I actually think that especially in a community like Open Source other developers need to know how I feel about things. I'm impolite because I'm impolite, I mean I'm not making excuses for that. But I also actually believe that when you work with a lot of people, it's better to be really open about your feelings, so that you don't have people who by mistake, misread you. I've had that happen.

I've literally had developers who were working on things that I didn't really like, but I didn't shut down early enough. They worked on it for a long time, they felt that it was ready, they submitted it to me and I said no, this is horrible. Because at that point I had to make a decision and at least in one of those cases, I had some other friends basically email me later and saying the guy is suicidal.

And that's not my fault, but at the same time, if I'm open earlier on and say this is going down a direction I don't like, I think that's actually healthier for everybody involved. Instead of me stringing people along and trying to be polite. Partly it's my personality, I am blunt and I am from Finland and I tell people what I feel like. But partly it's actually a conscious choice to say no, I'm not going to tone it down just because somebody might be hurt" ...

[dajt]

Time wasters

My wife's sewing group has NO MEN in it! So is it (a) the sewing community is sexist and uninclusive or (b) not many men are interested in sewing?

I went to join the school P&C group and it was all WOMEN! Who looked at me a fit funny! I felt uncomfortable and out-of-place! Did I (a) decry them as uninclusive and sexist or (b) decide to let them get on with it.

FFS what is wrong with these snowflakes? Have they never met real people before or tried to participate in any group activity?

When I see an open source project has a code of conduct or some such I just think "well, there are some time-wasters who won't contribute anything useful."

[diodesign]

Re: Time wasters

"I felt uncomfortable and out-of-place!"

No further questions, your honor.

C.

[jake]

Re: Time wasters

There was an effort to teach more men to cook at Foothill Jr. College in Los Altos about three decades ago. The feminists went berserk. Their theme was "men already have all the opportunities!" It was funny, in a sad kind of way.

[Public Citizen]

Re: Time wasters

So did anybody have the Chutzpah to ask the hysterical feminists how many of them were volunteering to cook for the single men who lived alone so that they didn't need to face the choice of learning how to cook or eating in a restaurant [where the person doing the cooking was most likely another male]?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Time wasters

They might respond, "Single living alone? Probably either in the military or in jail, either way they don't have to cook."

[Chairman of the Bored]

Not sure it has anything to do with IT

Perhaps the study merely reflects the inevitable behaviors of people in large groups. Face it, a poor sociopath ends up as a criminal. A really clever one ends up as a leader. I think we delude ourselves if we think the nature of the IT tasks somehow changes our basic psychology

The only thing that amazes me is that we dont have more workplace mass killings. When I worked for a certain org that has a five-sided HQ it never ceased to amaze me how much derision, abuse, and crap we would heap on people who we have already trained to kill without much hesitation. Guess their mental stability is far higher than society seems to give them credit for...

So if a guy wants to rant and rave, fine. I will grow a thick skin and find constructive ways for him to vent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not sure it has anything to do with IT

And then he'll find destructive ways to get around your constructive ways to vent. After all, it isn't really venting UNLESS it's destructive.

[Sssss]

That interpersonal stuff percentages are surprisingly low. I would have thought nearly all would have seen it in their lifetimes, and what the articlesl suggests as nasty, most of it may not be so nasty. However, as far as how good open source is and documentation, I'm not surprised.