Fuck Hyprland, its developers, and its asshole community. Context: https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.html
The bread and butter for anyone wanting a TLDR:
The FDO team is right that Hyprland’s community reflects poorly on the Linux desktop community as a whole. Vaxry [the Hyprland Dev] has created a foothold for hate, transphobia, homophobia, bullying, and harassment in the Linux desktop community. We are right to take action to correct this problem.
And on that note, I condemn in the harshest terms the response from communities like /r/linux on the subject. The vile harassment and hate directed at the FDO officer in question is obscene and completely unjustifiable. I don’t care what window manager or desktop environment you use – this kind of behavior is completely uncalled for. I expect better.
Oh wow. That community is just hateful
And now in the r/linux thread about these news people are defending Vaxry, misrepresenting what the ban was about, and hating FDO.
Indicatively, this blatantly wrong comment chain is upvoted:
Is this the project where some red Hat dev started dropping legal threats from their corporate account over offline activities by third parties in unrelated communities years past?
Sort of. You got some details wrong but essentially, yes.
But this is downvoted and has replies telling them they're wrong:
Congratulations to the hyprland project, but I definitely will not be using or contributing to the project as long as it's an exclusionary and intolerant space.
I whole-heartedly agree with this one and I am genuinely not surprised about the behaviour of Vaxry.
To give some context around this, ThatOneCalculator (aka Kainoa, the person behind Firefish) and I maintained the AUR package for hyprland-git back in 2022. When I initially made the AUR package file, it wasn't great (and there were a lot of points to improve these packages) but it worked mostly. Of course there were edge cases where building broke, especially this was my first bigger AUR package to maintain. With it being a -git package in the AUR, breakage is to be expected.
Fast forward about a month, a month and a half. Hyprland rolled out some big changes which caused some build errors. But because my personal life got in the way, Kainoa got sick (IIRC) and I had troubles getting the build scripts working again, so it took a few days to get this resolved.
Vaxry came complaining to comment section of the AUR package "when are you gonna get of your lazy ass and fix this shit" (or something similar to that meaning, I can't find the original comment anymore). After that, I promptly disowned the package and let Vaxry handle it himself.
Because fuck that shit, as package maintainer, I refused to be treated like this. If you think it takes too long, sure, fine, ask if I need help, offer support, anything. But just don't be an asshole towards people, that offer your software to a wider audience.
Vaxry (head honcho of hyprland) responds here to Drew's referenced shoutout. Sharing for completeness sake. https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2023-hyprlandsCommunity
And his response to the FreeDesktop stuff. https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-fdo-and-redhat
Well I was going to try Hyprland this weekend, but I think instead I will very much not do that.
I hope someone forks it from a good commit just before they replaced wlroots. I don’t know the specifics of compositor code at all, but I bet It’s going to cost them quite a bit of velocity to maintain their replacement.
My opinion: let's separate the software and the people making it. If it's great tool and FOSS why not use it? You use software, not people.
EDIT: I know that FOSS heavily relies on community but also that's the point. I don't see how toxic comminity can progress further while more open minded and kind fork will be a better choice of the same software base.
What if you need to file a bug? What if you have a question on the config that's not easily answered by the docs? If you never, ever find bugs and never, ever have questions, then sure, separate the two. There are genuinely people like that, but they're not common. If you're one of them, then I'm genuinely glad for you.
My opinion is this: You use software. You don't use people, but you sure as hell rely on them.
Since this change is entirely a result of the bad behavior of the maintainer and would not have happened otherwise, this a perfect example of why we fundamentally cannot separate the work from the people who make it.
Even if you do not agree with the social backlash this person is getting, that backlash has real effects on the work.
I, for one, no longer trust that hyprland will remain a well-maintained piece of software given that the maintainer would rather increase their maintenance burden and diverge from using common tools instead of cooperating with the community.
Please note that many users of FOSS are also developers or contributors. Who wants to report a bug or send a patch if the community is worse?
"Let's remove the social element of our social movement"
Great so what's left at that point, the free value FOSS provides to corporations?
If it’s great tool and FOSS why not use it? You use software, not people.
I didn't write about its user base, I wrote about its community – the cesspool that engages among each other. That said, the moment someone opens a bug report, there's a real chance that person gets harassed.
The thing about Foss is that it's typically community oriented. You are not only able to contribute and participate, but you're invited to do so.
And if you're an asshole and your community is toxic then who cares if your code is good? There are other projects I'd rather participate in. Cuz you're not that good.
Damn, had no idea about this.
Any recommendations for a Hyprland refugee? Thinking of trying out niri...
I'd recommend river to anyone looking for an alternative wayland dynamic tiling wm.
This was a Discord dumpster fire that was thankfully put out months ago.
Hyprland is incredible and hopefully there won’t be any more trouble like this
This was a Discord dumpster fire that was thankfully put out months ago.
Because Vaxry didn't like the public backlash, not because he had any moral problems with the conduct. In fact, he doesn't mind genocide:
I think he was trying to have a philosophical point here but took the headass approach to it.
20 years ish old, living in Poland, and perma online does things to a man. Weird though to have a take like that when Polish people in particular were significant victims in Auschwitz
Aw, man. I think Vaxry's got entrapped here.
He is saying that if nothing can sway you from an opinion, then it is a belief, including being 100% opposed to genocide.
(Please note: I don't side with genocide!!! But I understand his point. Read on.)
I think he's the positions armchair arguing type, not necessarily the evil type.
I can totally see him say "If a group of people's solely reason to exist is to exterminate the rest of the human race, if that's all they think about, if all they do is to accomplish that - induce terror, kill babies, spew propaganda, castrate humans of all races; then it's safe to say that that group of people should not exist and it should be exterminated."
That's an extremely wild scenario, of course! But I think that's what this guy is saying. We may find genocide in general heinous, but he won't say that all genocides are bad because of thought examples like the above one.
Then the other party takes that personally, and extrapolates that Vaxry is in favor of exterminating all trans people - something he didn't say or mean.
My two cents.
I also frequent the discord server often for help with configuring, I have not seen/experienced any of this hatred talked about so much. The worst I've seen is bluntness in delivering a solution or just being ignored because I someone didn't RTFM.
Hyprland is a wonderful piece of technology and I hope it continues to persist.
This was a Discord dumpster fire that was thankfully put out months ago.
Right, but the original mail from FDO basically said "we know about these examples of bad behavior, we want to notify you that they are definitely unacceptable and we expect to never see something like it again". And Vaxry had a meltdown over that. Among other things, he doesn't get why he should be held accountable for behaviors outside FDO. He has also rejected and commented negatively on the idea of any code of conduct at all for his project. Vaxry is making it as clear as possible that he will make zero commitment to oppose toxicity in his community and people took his word for it. The idea that he was punished solely for a couple of comments that happened years ago and are definitely "fixed" is Vaxry's own misleading interpretation.
Damn. I only discovered this project a few weeks ago and just started building a config.
Time to yay -Rcs hyprland.
Imagine letting yourself get emotional about ghe "asshole community" of a "tiling compositor".
Anything can get to you if that can.
In other words, Vaxry is so unwilling to compromise or learn from others that he would rather isolate his project from the broader FOSS community. That says a lot about him and the people who support him, especially since this conflict with freedesktop.org started over Vaxry condoning hateful trolling of trans people within the Hyprland community.
This is a problem for me as a Hyprland user because if I share some rice I made or make suggestions for other users, I'm leading people into a community that may be actively hateful towards them. It utterly extinguishes any enthusiasm I have for the project. I like the software but I'd rather be part of a project and a community that I can feel good and excited about. Maybe time to find a new tiling Wayland compositor.
if I share some rice I made
FYI: rice is derived from a racist pejorative term. A lot of people in the desktop theming community have stopped using it.
I feel that like idiot, "ricing" is far enough removed from its roots that its fine. Thats just my opinion though
As someone who found out it's origin by casually using it in reference to my asian buddy's PC, I'm here to let you know it's not.
My partner is Korean, and I asked her if she thought this was racist. She said "it is (technically), but who is getting offended by that?"
I never used the term in the first place, but if I did, I wouldn't stop saying it because I know about its past.
I'm fully convinced that anyone who is sincerely offended by that term is looking for something to be offended by.
I don't waste my time thinking about how "smooth brain" is offensive to people who literally have a smooth brain.
I don't waste my time dictating to the English; their colloquial term for a "cigarette" is inappropriate nowadays.
And I don't waste my time replying to comments on Lemmy regarding semantics.
Oh, wait...
It's so ironic how many downvotes this is getting in the context of this thread.
Wrong. This was originally technically motivated as hyprland had been limited by wlroots in the past and often had different update cycles from sway causing packaging issues.
Vaxry never condoned hateful trolling of trans people. In fact, he publicly acknowledged, and apologized for the lack of moderation that lead to the incident, said he would do better, DID better, and THEN after everything had blown over FDO tried to ego butt into his server even more.
I'll quote Vaxry from his blog:
"Obviously, the fact that I am banned from contributing to Freedesktop - and by extension wlroots, is another big factor, and probably the one that finally tipped the scales, because I am no longer allowed to participate in discussion or contribute code to wlroots."
https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-wlrootsRewrite
"I definitely am not a fan of how seemingly weak people online, especially teenagers, have become. Words are just words. Someone calling another person a "retard" shouldn't really be a big deal."
"I said:
if I run a discord server around cultivating tomatoes, I should not exclude people based on their political beliefs, unless they use my discord server to spread those views. which means even if they are literally adolf hitler, I shouldn't care, as long as they don't post about gassing people on my server
that is inclusivity
Which I definitely stand by."
is another big factor, and probably the one that finally tipped the scales
means that it is not the sole motivating factor.
which means even if they are literally adolf hitler, I shouldn’t care, as long as they don’t post about gassing people on my server
Literally means that if they go around spewing crap, they get dealt with. This is not condoning hateful trolling at all. He is on the free speech side of things, but that doesn't mean he condones it at all. If you start posting bad crap, you get dealt with. Minor slights, are as the name implies, minor. Those are allowed but within strict limitations, if you start going full blown idiot, you get dealt with.
Does this have something to do with the author being banned from freedesktop?
Yes
People keep saying this happened only because vaxry got banned from the FDO, completely forgetting the fact that hyprland has used their own modified fork of wlroots for ages now. They've wanted to get away from wlroots even before this whole fiasco, it really just tipped the needle for them to finally pull the trigger.
Mind you also, the ban in no way prevents hyprland from using wlroots still. The only thing the ban did was prevent vaxry from contributing to wlroots upstream, which is damn unfortunate if you ask me.
For everyone shitting about Vaxry, I recommend reading both sides of the equation, not only FDO/Drew's.
Reading his side of it only made me dislike him him more...
Ngl this will blow over in like 2 weeks, FOSS drama has the lifespan of a moth
Well done to Vaxry and co for achieving such a feat! I still think it's completely pointless but at least it will mean that it can now be more easily packaged for other distros, as it avoids the issue with using tagged wlroots.
Very nice, this comes with a lot of advantages for Hyprland, and I wholeheartedly congratulate Vaxry on separating from the rubbish that is FDO's management.
But why?
Because Vaxry (the lead dev) got banned from contributing to wlroots or any other FDO projects.
As for why he was banned, this is the only thing I've read about the whole thing: https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.html
Basically, he violated the FDO Code of Conduct when being told that a particular thing he said/enabled in a Discord community would not be acceptable if it was seen in spaces covered by said CoC.
This appears to be his response.
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