Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. 30, NB, ND, poly, generally queer. Flirting okay, though I might not actually recognize it :P
I have strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. You probably know the ideology I'm talking about here, but I'm deliberately not naming it :)
Those strong views extend to technology and software, and I think that almost everything about how the technology industry currently works, is wrong. Both on a technical and a social/political level. If you feel the same, we should probably talk!
If I don't respond to your messages, I'm probably just out of spoons, and it's nothing personal. Feel free to boost anything that I post myself! I'm more cautious with boosting other people's posts to avoid dogpiling, but that's probably a bad Twitter habit.
I'm involved in a lot of public activism-y things, and you might know me from something I've done in the past. While it's nice to see people appreciate that, please don't treat me like a famous person! Fame kinda sucks, even if it's sometimes necessary for activist purposes. I'd much rather get to know people on a personal level.
If you care about the future of #NixOS, its governance, and its policies, right about now would be a good moment to get involved.
Some of the issues currently on the table: - NixCon sponsorship by an arms dealer (Anduril) - Moderation issues in the community, safety threats to marginalized folks - What acceptable forms of participation are for the formal RFCs
A lot of things feel like they are coming to a head right about now, with the community growing rapidly, and I suspect that the decisions made are going to have long-term effects.
So if you've been waiting for a moment to get involved, that moment is probably now.
If you care about the future of #NixOS, its governance, and its policies, right about now would be a good moment to get involved.
Some of the issues currently on the table: - NixCon sponsorship by an arms dealer (Anduril) - Moderation issues in the community, safety threats to marginalized folks - What acceptable forms of participation are for the formal RFCs
@joepie91 What is even wrong in being sponsored by an arms dealer? If there was a button, pressing which made some arm dealer have less money and NixOS projects have more money, why exactly shouldn't one mash it until it wears out?
@joepie91@social.pixie.town forgive me for what is maybe a google-able question, but… do you have any advice on how to get involved? In particular, I’m deeply unhappy with the Anduril thing (I’m definitely worried about the other two; I just have no context for them at the moment).
I think nixOS is a fantastic OS and fantastic tool for so many things and I would like to see positive growth. I have some personal investment in it, too, but am not sure how to go about helping on these issues. Thank you!
I still feel that Twitter's fiery death and the subsequent migration of folks to fedi has, on the whole, done more harm than good to the fediverse.
The problem isn't even the amount of people, or their background - the problem is the *timing*. A large mass of people who didn't really *want* fedi, but who were searching for a 'new Twitter' and this was the only option available to them, for one reason or another.
They never had the time to lurk around and explore the community before getting involved in it; or the time to understand the dynamics here at their own speed. Because the Other Place was on fire and they had to move their social venue ASAP.
This caused a lot of disregard for the existing community dynamics, and that combined plus the volume caused tensions with existing users.
In this context, the reasons that people give for moving to Bluesky (https://mas.to/@kissane/110793942888550843) don't remotely surprise me. Many people are *still* looking for a 'new Twitter', and Bluesky is much closer to that.
I think that's important to keep in mind when evaluating those reasons: they should not necessarily be seen as 'problems with fedi', so much as 'reasons why fedi is not suitable as a drop-in Twitter alternative'.
That doesn't automatically make people *wrong* for having those problems with fedi, either. But the answer may very possibly be "fedi is not Twitter, and this community just isn't a good fit for you." It doesn't *need* to be for everybody.
(I would also be remiss not to mention the corrosive role of the press and Gargron in this; both severely misrepresented what fedi is. For different reasons, but it has caused a lot of people to feel like they didn't get what they were promised.)
I still feel that Twitter's fiery death and the subsequent migration of folks to fedi has, on the whole, done more harm than good to the fediverse.
The problem isn't even the amount of people, or their background - the problem is the *timing*. A large mass of people who didn't really *want* fedi, but who were searching for a 'new Twitter' and this was the only option available to them, for one reason or another.
Kinda related to my previous post about Matrix but it's unfortunately a much more widespread problem:
When people complain about the documentation quality, don't respond by telling them to fix it! This is a useless response.
Complaining about the docs means they probably don't understand them, and so they also cannot document it.
If you want a serious and successful documentation overhaul, you *as a developer* need to be involved in the process.
At the very least, you need to make yourself consistently available with quick response times to whoever is doing the documentation work.
You are likely the only one(s) who actually understand the undocumented details, and so it needs to be possible for people doing documentation work to retrieve that information from you as-needed.
Kinda related to my previous post about Matrix but it's unfortunately a much more widespread problem:
When people complain about the documentation quality, don't respond by telling them to fix it! This is a useless response.
Complaining about the docs means they probably don't understand them, and so they also cannot document it.
So one of the major differences between corporate software development and community software development is the difference in transparency.
In corporate projects, the default is secrecy; you don't tell stuff to outsiders unless you have a reason to. In community projects, the default is openness; you always do everything out in the open unless you have a reason *not* to.
And I think that the a lot of the problems people have with Element and - by extension - Matrix are to do with precisely that: Element's projects are run as corporate projects, not as community projects.
I don't mean that there's no spec process, or that it's proprietary, or that there's no work out in the open - I mean that it is not out in the open *by default*. As Element grows, it is becoming increasingly common to hear the word "internal".
"Internal" is the death knell of a community project. Internal projects, internal discussion, internal review, internal priorities. Internal means secrecy; not visible to the community, not taking its input, not *accountable* to that community.
Some things, like actively exploitable vulnerabilities, *need* to be kept internal - but most everything else shouldn't be. Spec changes shouldn't be under internal discussion. Refactoring shouldn't be an internal process.
Or to put it differently: at the very least, the full state of the project must be visible to the whole community at any given time - *without* actively having to ask The Right Person about it. Maybe in some cases read-only, but it must be visible without delay or barrier.
And if you're trying to run a community project as a corporation, yes, that means needing to disclose the internal workings of your corporation. Yes, also the 'company secrets'. Yes, also the internal bureaucratic processes.
And yes, also take feedback on them from the community. If you want to do it right, it needs to be a symbiotic relationship, even if that means not doing the 'standard thing' from a corporate perspective.
Element has failed to do this, and the result is that people are feeling more and more alienated from the process; a process which they increasingly have no visibility into, and zero control over.
It's nominally still a community project, but in practice there's always some unspecified and invisible "internal" roadblock standing in the way of contributions, with no timeline of any sort, and a distinct sense of neglect.
Element needs to do better. The Matrix foundation, which Element is still the major contributor to in practice, needs to *demand* better. I think Matrix has real potential, but I would prefer if it didn't require a community fork to get there.
So one of the major differences between corporate software development and community software development is the difference in transparency.
In corporate projects, the default is secrecy; you don't tell stuff to outsiders unless you have a reason to. In community projects, the default is openness; you always do everything out in the open unless you have a reason *not* to.
@joepie91 I don't recommend anyone to use Element after the initial setup, honestly. Use Element to set up your account and use it as an "account dashboard" but never use it as a client. Cinny is way better, for example.
Ah yes, let's "wait and see where Threads goes". Certainly a hopeful sign that *checks notes* fucking Vaynerchuk, notable manosphere asshole, is idly chatting away with Zuck
@joepie91 This is the problem with the MIT license, you have to have attribution, it is so annoying, but those are the rules. It looks like Kbin needs better licensing management.
This is one of the reasons why the GPL exists. This is also the reason why I try my damnded, to the greatest extent possible, ONLY use software built from GPL licensed code.
I think I'm just going to stop ever talking about JS or answering anyone's questions about it on here, because the only thing I ever seem to get in return is some JS bashing for good measure.
It's clear that people haven't internalized "think about how your words affect other people" for the less obvious topics yet. I'm exhausted and very much done with this.
Like, it's abundantly clear that I'm just not welcome to talk about it here.
@joepie91@social.pixie.town forgive me for what is maybe a google-able question, but… do you have any advice on how to get involved? In particular, I’m deeply unhappy with the Anduril thing (I’m definitely worried about the other two; I just have no context for them at the moment).
I think nixOS is a fantastic OS and fantastic tool for so many things and I would like to see positive growth. I have some personal investment in it, too, but am not sure how to go about helping on these issues. Thank you!
Some places where conversation about the Anduril sponsorship is currently ongoing:
- https://discourse.nixos.org/t/should-organizations-relating-to-the-defense-sector-being-able-to-sponsor-nixos/41252 (discussing whether the sponsorship is desirable)
- https://matrix.to/#/#nixcon-sponsor-discussion:nixos.org (Matrix room with currently a discussion how to respond to it as a community - please read back some history before getting involved to avoid reruns!)