I've had this thought in my mind for a long while now, but some recent events have finally made me decide to write a blogpost about this.

In short: The Linux desktop and the community around it focus way more on bringing each other down than actually progressing the software further.

If not for the fact that Windows is becoming such a horrible mess more and more, Linux would still be a piece of software that nobody uses on the desktop except for 0.5% of the population that are free software advocates and purists. Really. Let me explain.

Before we proceed further, I'd like to mention that please, do not go and harass anyone from the people mentioned here. I do not believe they are bad people and doing it on purpose, but their behavior should be highlighted as an example of how we, as a community, should not behave.

All posts, videos, or excerpts mentioned are available publicly, so please don't spread misinformation about some mythical "doxing" here, thank you.

The beginning

The Linux Desktop has had a problem with infighting for a very long time now due to the nature of the project. There is no central company keeping everyone in line like Microsoft or Google, but instead, there are smaller groups (sometimes individuals) working on their parts of the system. This has its ups and downs, but one of the major downs is that it's susceptible to wars. People from one project who disagree with someone from another project on a level unrelated to the actual software can easily go on a crusade and try to harm the other without any major repercussions. Even worse, due to human nature, which favors bad news for obvious historical reasons, people are drawn to drama and it generates more interest.

The reason why Windows can continue on without such problems is that the average programmer is not allowed to start preaching their values (be that, conservatism, liberalism, equality, free speech, whatnot) and start not working with people whom they disagree with, without being scolded by HR and possibly fired. It's not that every big company is "inclusive rainbows and sunshine and everybody loves each other", but it's the fact that people at those companies can behave like true adults and work with someone with differing viewpoints without calling them a "fucking nazi" or a "damn leftist" all the time. If they can't, they get fired.

Many claim that FOSS is a political movement - and it kind of is, but it still doesn't mean FOSS should be about every political debate in the world. The goal of FOSS is to make software free and available. That's it. It doesn't have an opinion on retirement plans in Egypt, or the minimum wage in North Dakota. Shoving every political debate into FOSS as if it's "necessary" is idiotic and only leads to more strife because people are forced to take a stance. Shoving topics like "Gay Marriage", "Hiring practices" or other currently-trending political debates into FOSS projects and forcing people to take a side is only destructive.

On criticism, controversy and strife

All of these will happen inevitably in any community, but the important part is threefold:

• Listen to the other side, realize you may be wrong about something, or that people's opinions change
• Accept your viewpoint isn't the only God-given good and others' viewpoints may differ, and that it's good
• Keep discussions on-topic

An important part of actually advancing a product forward is to cooperate.

"As to diseases make a habit of two things - to help, or at least, to do no harm." - Hippocrates

The same applies to any FOSS project we have - if you don't want to help, at least do no harm.

Sure, you may put up an argument "what if someone writes a program specifically designed to kill all the jews?", but let's be real, nobody is doing that.

Destructive criticism as of late

There have been two cases of destructive criticism as of late that I wanted to highlight.

Nick's video about controversial projects

Whenever you have a large following, and especially if you are a news outlet, it's important to actually get stuff right, or at least put effort into doing so.

Source: youtube

Recently, Nick from The Linux Experiment put up a video about controversial projects in the Linux space.

The video - in my opinion - was extremely lacking in any effort to actually get stuff right, even though Nick stated that he tried to be "as objective as possible", the video is anything but.

For starters - many projects were criticized without any explanations even being attempted to be obtained. Although I do understand reaching out for comment to Mozilla would be difficult, at least for a few projects mentioned, like probonopd's AppImage, Manjaro, and my Hyprland, it was trivial to send an email and at least try to get a comment from the other side.

Appimages were heavily criticized for using FUSE2, with no explanation as to why attempted. (who knows, maybe probono has a good reason? OBS also ships weird versions of some dependencies, so what?)

I was criticized for apparently "endorsing eugenics" and "calling for hate-related violence", for which as far as I can see the only source is "I made it up". Even Drew didn't accuse me of that. Furthermore, Nick only sourced from what it seems like one blogpost from Drew DeVault (so, only one side, known for being inflammatory) with no attempts at contact with me or Drew. (I assume the latter as there was no mention of reaching out for comment)

As someone with 350k subscribers, it's really important to get facts right, or at least try to, especially when talking about controversies. Nick's bias is clearly shining through here (not only with the video, but also with which comments get hearts and replies) and adding to that how he did not reach out for any comment, took one blogpost and thats it, I would not trust any content of his unless it's a "My thoughts about a Tuxedo laptop" type video anymore.

The developers themselves

Although many developers are really, really great people, and I do believe all of them operate in good faith, some do engage in destructive action towards other projects. And it's most disappointing when the same people who advocate really heavily for being "nice" and "inclusive" are the ones that spit out destructive and unwelcoming criticisms towards other projects.

A recent example is Joshua Ashton, a known developer who in their twitter profile describes themselves very well:

Their work is surely important and appreciated, but their word choice to describe projects they don't like aren't:

Joshua is getting very mad at a particular bug in Hyprland, that fwiw, only exists in gamescope. Calling Hyprland "fucking ass" and "an incompetent piece of shit" is not constructive and only leads to increasing strife.

If you believe Hyprland is such an "incompetent piece of shit" with zero redeeming qualities, yet you are aware of its popularity, then you are delusional. If Hyprland had nothing to offer, it wouldn't be so widely used and enjoyed. Treating the project as some spawn of satan just because I've said something in the past that you didn't like is acting like an inquisition that's here to cleanse FOSS of all evil, with that huge asterisk of "*evil = whatever I don't agree with".

As an example, I have a similar situation with Wezterm. Wezterm is a neat terminal emulator, that has a bunch of users, but has very poor wayland support. It notoriously crashes and violates protocols and has caused me a bunch of bug reports. Let's see how I reacted...

See, it's very possible to criticize something and point out a problem without calling software "pieces of shit".

I do believe the author of Wezterm (Wez) is not doing this on purpose, and AFAIK, he is taking steps to improve the situation, which is great!

Suggestions for handling other software's fault:

• "Hey, it's a problem with that software, see the linked bug report on their bug tracker"
• "That program is doing X, which in case of Y is not allowed, and thus it breaks"
• "I don't know why it breaks, but I doubt it's a problem on our side"

Constructive criticism

Is it possible to be constructively critical? Of course. Two great examples are Brodie Robertson and Matt from The Linux Cast.

Both had a fair few issues with Hyprland of their own, but neither would call Hyprland a "piece of shit", but rather focus on clearly relaying the issue, suggesting solutions, and being understanding.

Both have produced many videos where they point out flaws that they see in software. Do they call them "pieces of shit"? No. Do they spin up needless drama about controversies? No. Do they try to do their research and see both sides of the argument? Yes.

I work on Hyprland probably more than an average paid developer spends in their job. I don't have saturdays and sundays off, I work 7 days a week on this project. Many hours a day. I get paid 10x less than an average employed developer. Dismissing that because you found a bug or disagree with me on some political grounds is purely being an asshole and showing zero signs of empathy towards other people's work. You are being on the same level as people who go to malls and bother minimum wage workers for their own fun and Tiktok views. Look at me! I am known and you're a nobody, I don't care about your hard work.

Key takeaways

The most important, I'd say key part to understand from this blogpost is that if we genuinely want Linux to grow, instead of fighting each other over what we believe in, we should instead help each other (or at least, do no harm) in advancing our software forward. Even if you don't use something, or you don't find it useful, or you dislike it because it's buggy, I can assure you there are thousands, if not millions of people who think otherwise. Being destructive towards the people who put the work in out of their own good will is not only disrespectful towards the developers, but also the masses of people who use their software on a daily basis.

If I call some developer's work "garbage piece of shit" where I could've said "you did XYZ wrong, cheers", I will only waste the developer's time, decrease their motivation, and ultimately hurt the users. The same users who may be using my software as well.

I am not surprised that despite the obvious lack of developers on the Linux desktop, many new don't want to join in, purely because of the toxic attitude. We're too focused on finding what's wrong with others instead of focusing what's wrong with the software and providing solutions. I have had a fair share of doubts whether I should have even started developing FOSS software for Linux because of all the toxic infighting.

Is anyone perfect? No, obviously not. Does that mean we shouldn't strive to be better? Also no.

Until next time, folks.