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submitted 2 weeks ago by Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Some of you need to watch this video, and hang your head in shame.

Dylan Taylor has been receiving constant harassment, including threats to his life and safety, for actions done collectively by SystemD. The article by Sam Bent was explictly mentioned as part of the harassment campaign, and rightfully so.

I don't think enough people realize that this is catastrophically bad. It'll discourage people from becoming open source developers, it'll discourage people from using Linux, and it'll discourage legislators from taking the Linux community seriously.

If you ever wished ill upon another human being for complying with a relatively inconsequential law, you are better off never touching a computer again. The Linux community has collectively gone so far beyond what is acceptable here.

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[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The majority of users do not care, and even if they did it's still not the user's place to demand the FOSS developers listen to them. That aside, this is an issue of personal attacks and harassment directed at an individual developer, the project is another matter.

Harassment of an individual developer, or anyone really, is grossly immoral, counterproductive, and reflects poorly on the Linux and Lemmy community.

[-] non_burglar@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I was with you, particularly with your anti-violence stance, until this comment.

The answer to disagreements in the Linux world has been to fork a project or make your own. This is different, neither devs nor users will have a say if these various laws are instituted.

The majority of users do not care, and even if they did it's still not the user's place to demand the FOSS developers listen to them.

Linux is not a megacorporation. It is an array of different interests that still manage to get lots of interesting stuff done, even with those differences.

This was not a cool thing to say.

[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

FOSS developers have the right to ignore people who are making demands that are unreasonable or not in line with their vision.

[-] non_burglar@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Oh, come on. Pretending that foss devs have no connection to users or the community is not a take based in reality. The Linux world is full of changes made or reversed by community sentiment, even for bigger players like Canonical.

The very core of Foss is allowing popular and useful projects to gain momentum by appealing to users. Sure, you can fork a project or start your own, but that independence of the devs is rooted in community support to go do what you want.

And I'll repeat myself: this is different, foss devs and users both will not have the option to just "go do their own thing" if these laws all become reality.

this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
197 points (100.0% liked)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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