Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Avamander 2502 days ago
> Oh, and Lennart Poettering is also a jerk. Not an "I'm brash" kind of jerk (like Linus can be), but an "I'm an insecure person; don't critique my code" kind of way. Also, he thinks he's smarter than every one.

I think it's largely due to how the community has treated him. It's frankly disgusting.
2 comments
big_chungus 2502 days ago
He's been that way for a long time; before he ever touched systemd. Same situation around avahi, and later around pulseaudio. I agree some people have behaved unkindly as well, but that doesn't excuse what he does. He also has a nasty habit of forcing his work into places where it is not wanted (especially now that he works for red hat).
link
ncmncm 2502 days ago
I have to admit that avahi has caused me more trouble -- 100% CPU spin loops -- than any other piece of system software, over many years. It does nothing I want done, does it badly, and is inexplicably hard to get rid of.

PulseAudio mostly works, now, but I will be happy to see its low-latency successor displace it.

Systemd's only great sin is using up 100MB in each VM to do what should takevno more than 4M. As memory gets bigger, I run more VMs, so systemd usage grows apace. Maybe I should be running containers instead, but Qubes doesn't work that way.

link
yencabulator 2498 days ago
> PulseAudio mostly works

I regularly kill PulseAudio to get bluetooth headset pairing to complete.

link
Avamander 2502 days ago
> but that doesn't excuse what he does

It doesn't excuse the community's behaviour either to be fair.

> He also has a nasty habit of forcing his work into places where it is not wanted (especially now that he works for red hat).

I seriously doubt he has such power.

link
liability 2502 days ago
He should take a lead from Drew DeVault. Drew frequently says things people (including myself) disagree with and is working on software a lot of people (including myself) are very skeptical of. Yet if you try to interact with him (as I have), he's a totally reasonable and pleasant dude.
link
Avamander 2502 days ago
Not everyone has a thick enough skin to deal with situations the best way. The community should take lead as well.
link
liability 2502 days ago
The "community" in this case is in fact not a community at all, merely a loose set of people who's only common characteristic is having an opinion on systemd. A reasonable user of SystemD, like myself, has no power to coerce a complete stranger who sees fit to email Lennart a death threat.

The "community" cannot stop this. Either Lennart should work on how he handles such criticism/abuse, or Red Hat/IBM should hire a communications professional to insulate him from the outside world. Or he can keep the course and suffer the inevitable...

It's not right that he receives death threats, but the response to that unfortunate state of affairs needs to be realistic.

link
Avamander 2502 days ago
I'm not talking strictly about death threats, calling him random slurs already is too much and has happened on HN, this "loose set of people" should not, and it'd already probably change his opinion about different communities. Lennart should absolutely sometimes choose his words, like Linus, but I don't think we should be excusing insults with saying "it's unenforceable" when most places haven't really tried to remain civil due to personal beliefs.
link
liability 2502 days ago
What do you expect "the community" to do, downvote anybody who speaks harshly about him? That won't stop it, and even if it did it still wouldn't stop 4channers with anime avatars on github from trolling him constantly. There is no community solution to Lennart getting his feelings hurt. That's not an excuse, it's a cold truth.
link
Avamander 2502 days ago
> downvote anybody who speaks harshly about him?

Who said "harshly", downvote anyone who insults randomly, yes.

> That won't stop it, and even if it did it still wouldn't stop 4channers with anime avatars on github from trolling him constantly.

So if 4chan doesn't stay civil then we shouldn't try to remain civil?

> There is no community solution to Lennart getting his feelings hurt.

But the community can be half of the solution, noone said it has to be a 100% one.

link