I don't know if this style of... discussion is something the Cluely team made popular recently, or if it took off sooner, but I really hope it doesn't catch on further.
> We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone
And down in Enforcement (emphasis mine):
> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at [INSERT CONTACT METHOD]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
What’s the point of this dance when you can’t bother to fill out the contact.
Honestly, how many projects with "Code of Conducts" actually use or follow them? Maybe if you're a big CNCF project or something like that, but the average GitHub project just adds one because GitHub told them to. If they were actually more about enforcing community standards and not about social signaling they'd probably just be called "contributing rules" or something boring and nondescript like how Internet rules always have been.
In other words, the point of this dance is to check a box. I mean literally, GitHub will check a box in Insights -> Community Standards when you add one.
Did anyone read that linked thread in full? There's no "style of discussion" there, there's a lot of people engaging in a very normal, constructive discussion, which is being interupted by a single disruptive commenter (Zaid).
Nothing there seems to reflect poorly on the project as far as I can tell?
"A single disruptive commenter (Zaid)"
And he is one of the top contributors. That doesn't quite fit the narrative that it was just some weirdo interfering.
According to github insights, he contributed 66 lines of code. I mean, it could be really valuable 66 lines, especially if he fixed bugs. Somehow I doubt it.
However, I'd get rid of this 'contributor' asap if I was a maintainer.
If it was a more legit trademark claim that would be one thing, a lot of OSS people think you can just name your project after something popular so you can coast off the reputation of the more popular product.
But since this is a BS claim, I think the following approach is totally appropriate:
- Have one person post the antagonistic garbage the OP deserves
- Have another person play the “rear guard” and follow up with the actual legal reasons they won’t comply.
Why? OSS projects aren't somehow exempt from trademark law, and at the very least can have its repo taken down. The trademark in this case might not be airtight, but that's a separate issue.
I have little respect for people petty enough to involve legalese against people doing something for free, just for the love of the game.
I would let them do a takedown, just so they expend billable lawyer hours, only for me to do a search+replace and reupload under a different name out of spite.
In various jurisdictions, a trademark that doesn't get defended makes it much more likely that you'll lose your trademark all together when trying to stop actual infringement. If the infringers can point at others and say "look, they let others infringe on their trademark for years and only now they're going after us" that can have an impact on the viability of your case.
That said, China regularly blocks or attacks Github users, so I don't think any open source project needs to be too wary unless they're trying to do business in China.
>In various jurisdictions, a trademark that doesn't get defended makes it much more likely that you'll lose your trademark all together when trying to stop actual infringement. If the infringers can point at others and say "look, they let others infringe on their trademark for years and only now they're going after us" that can have an impact on the viability of your case.
Oh, I didn't know that. At least now it makes some sense. Thanks.
The law is the only reason why a corporation can't take your open source project and rerelease it without any attribution. Laws for thee and not for me is juvenile.
Then frankly your being a child. The point isn't to shut down the project... It's asking them to change name due to trademark, and asking civilly without lawyers is nicer than most do up front.
Nah you still come off as childish when you reply like that no matter the validity of the claim. If the claim is nonsense then ignore or call it out as nonsense and move on ... but when you act like that you sour your image and if it is a legit claim you've now just made things worse.
It is the late teens/young twenties online communication style. Generally pretty aggressive, but easy to ignore because they are usually not really saying anything of substance. They are "ragebaiting" you.
When I see people commenting "shut your bitch ass up" (now deleted), "triggered", "keep dreaming my guy", it is distinctly generational (young gen z) to me. It is a style of communication.
Torvalds may have "invented" OSS toxicity, but, as far as I can tell, he was not popping in saying SYBAU like he was commenting on a tiktok brainrot compilation.
Who knows, maybe he is just the childish persona of the maintainer. It is rare to use more than one in a specific project but a lot of people maintain more than one persona online.
Let me introduce you to OpenCart, an open source eCommerce platform in use on hundreds of thousands of websites handling customer payments, recently struck a multi-million dollar deal with PayPal, and whose founder and practically sole developer responds to bug reports and CVEs with careful, well-thought-out replies like "JUST FUCK OFF!":
Hard to tell who’s who, but the Zaid person who claims to be a maintainer is apparently not a maintainer. He contributed some small changes and started claiming to be a maintainer.
Gotta love seeing a code of conduct:
> We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone
And down in Enforcement (emphasis mine):
> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at [INSERT CONTACT METHOD]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
What’s the point of this dance when you can’t bother to fill out the contact.