I don't know why people keep sharing this. It's highly offensive and inflammatory. Plenty of open source projects consider themselves a community which welcome newcomers, take governance seriously, and ensure that even if suggestions or contributions are rejected, it's done in a thoughtful and considerate way. Acting like a jerk isn't a blueprint for how to be a good maintainer, it's how to be a jerk. And this "us experts vs. entitled users" mentality is cultural poison.

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ragall 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's highly offensive and inflammatory.

It is sane and factually correct.

> Plenty of open source projects consider themselves a community which welcome newcomers, take governance seriously

Rich is taking governance very seriously. Others aren't and give nobodies the right to vote. In any case, he's factually correct. Nothing in open source implies anything about any type of governance, as "Open source is a licensing and delivery mechanism, period".

> Acting like a jerk

Pot, meet kettle.

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strken an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It is sane but not rational, sometimes factually correct in places, highly offensive, and inflammatory. I don't use Clojure and reading it makes me never want to use Clojure.

Everybody is entitled to say (but not dictate) how something should work. Holding and expressing opinions is an innate human right, and the developed world only takes it away in extreme circumstances. Talking about open source governance is not an extreme circumstance.

We are not legally entitled to basic politeness, but politeness is enforced socially rather than morally, and failing to be polite means risking social consequences. If I used Clojure and I read the linked article, I would avoid hiring Cognitech, which is the exact problem Rich mentions.

	▲	ragall an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> It is sane but not rational, sometimes factually correct in places, highly offensive, and inflammatory. Calling this offensive and inflammatory can only come from someone who is extremely conflict-avoidant. For my Italian sensibilities, it's quite milquetoast.

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throwaway346434 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You might need to go back and read that one again, this is the faintest criticism of a lengthy screed in which the person you are replying to labels user-hostile behaviours as "acting like a jerk" and generally disapproves.

Your counter argument to this is to just be contrarian and imply they are a jerk... because, well, you don't agree with them. You didn't add substance to the discussion (facts, evidence, argument seeking middle ground), you just sought to set fire to someone because you were uncomfortable with the dim prospect you might be wrong/guilty of acting like this/be the subject of the criticism.

Do you see how this undermines your point of view/actually re-enforces the validity of the criticism?

	▲	ragall an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The only thing I get from your reply is that I'm sorry HN doesn't allow blocking users.

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k33n 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Calling someone a jerk for their views on how OSS should or shouldn’t function isn’t appropriate.

It’s actually completely out of line and smacks of the very entitlement described in the piece.

Don’t agree with his views? Go make your own project and run it however you want.

Cultural poison? The truly cultured understand that a monoculture would be the real poison. There’s room for all modes of operation in OSS. Without “jerks”, there’d be no Linux and there would be nothing else of high value either.

If you want to sit around and hold hands then find a project where they do that, or maybe just take up finger painting.