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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by bruce511 on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @01:44AM (#44808126)
This is of course a terrible reply to receive, I'm sorry you got that.

But I also find the psychology behind this sort of reply interesting, because there's lots of factors that lead to this sort of extreme.

Firstly, we don't know the age of the replier, but my guess would be someone also young, or at least immature. Telling people to kill themselves is not something adults typically do in any context.)

So it suggests another junior, desperate to prove their own standing, and needing to compete against others rather than collaborate. I've seen this kind of response in one adult (abusive to other forum members) but he clearly had quite severe mental health issues (and the user was banned.) In youngsters it is usually extinguished with firm moderator guidance.

With adult responders, frustration and tedium play a role. Personally I'm more generous with replies in the morning than the evening. At times I almost "fake" patience (when I'm getting impatient) with people who are simply not thinking, and who aren't listening.

Overall it is very imbalanced. The asker is asking 1 question. The replier may answer tens or hundreds in a day. So it's hard to answer each one as if it's original, as if it matters, as if you've not heard it a million times before (especially if it's right there in the FAQ.)

Part of answering well, and the quality of any forum, is in participants answering well, even if the question is trivial.

We all were newbies once. Asking stupid questions is how we grew from there. Answering stupid questions is how we pay it forward.

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by aaronbrethorst on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @01:57AM (#44808201)
Meanwhile, here's Linus at the age of 42: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-ki...
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by Aachen on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @04:00AM (#44809088)
TLDR seems to be like "whatever moron made this is mentally disabled". Not quite the KYS that is popular with the youth (in a game played by mostly teenage boys, we kept needing to moderate and escalate ban durations for a lot of players) but not particularly great to put it mildly indeed
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by stn_za on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @05:20AM (#44809715)
Sigh, simpler times
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by jart on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @07:09AM (#44810466)
The world's most successful open source developer didn't converge on that communication style for no reason. I don't think I've seen a single person bring up the classism inherent in dictating gentlemanly manners. Part of what made open source unique is that people from all classes could participate, and working class people are not tuned to pick up on subtle communication the way the upper classes have been. Linus likes to communicate in a way that leaves no ambiguity about he feels, to people of any class background, or any level of English language proficiency. The tradeoff is it offends the sensibilities of highly domesticated elites.
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by yladiz on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @11:46AM (#44813576)
This is a weird take. It’s not classist to filter your communication to not call people morons even if you think they are, it shows you have respect for them. You don’t need to be “elite” to find some of the things he said offensive.
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by jart on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @04:41PM (#44817558)
Open source doesn't have any kind of filter for participation, like a stringent hiring process, or requirement of academic achievement, which makes them entitled to respect. A lot of people show up who are unqualified, schizo, etc. It's demoralizing if a project treats those people and puts them on the same level as your best guys. Keep in mind, open source has no titles, no job levels, and no salary. So respect is the only thing people can hope to earn by participating, therefore it's totally ridiculous to give that out for free, because then people have nothing to gain and nothing to look forward to earning. These days the solution to this conundrum is to just ban everyone who isn't employed by a big tech company and shut down the comments section. However open source grew up in the 90's / 2000's culture that highly valued free speech and open participation. If you have to take the omegas in, like Linux did, then they have to play the omega role. This is better in some ways, because omegas are still part of the group, and still cared for, and many of them improve and grow past that role.
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by tw061023 on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @08:24PM (#44819370)
Except he's not even a successful developer, just a figurehead.

Linux is, just like most of successful open source projects, a resource pool. Without corporate code donations and support it would be just another hobby OS, and his personal contribution to success of Linux is negligible.

Linus just got lucky with timing and license, and that is pretty much the extent of his personal contribution.

Which begs the question, why exactly the community has tolerated him for so long?

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by jart on Thursday August 07, 2025 @12:33AM (#44820597)
Yeah except he pulled it off twice with git, which happened after he crawled into a hole for a few weeks. He’s proof of greatness if I’ve ever seen it. Not an anonymous worm like you.
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by tomhow on Thursday August 07, 2025 @05:50AM (#44822545)
The comment you're replying to was definitely a bad one, but we need you to resist the urge to respond with a personal attack. Your comment would be fine without the last sentence.

We appreciate your many positive contributions to HN, and we just ask you keep in mind that HN can only be a good place to participate if enough people make the effort to keep it that way.

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by jart on Thursday August 07, 2025 @11:05PM (#44832976)
Sure thing Tom! Appreciate your work too!
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by tomhow on Friday August 08, 2025 @12:51AM (#44833544)
Many thanks!
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by eloisant on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @05:19AM (#44809706)
You're talking about adults with severe mental health issues - I wouldn't be surprised if those are over-represented in open source contributors.
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by padjo on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @09:28AM (#44811723)
> Telling people to kill themselves is not something adults typically do in any context.

It’s pretty typical of the alpha-nerd type who derives a ton of their self worth from superiority in some arcane area.

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by tryauuum on Wednesday August 06, 2025 @12:48PM (#44814487)
I've recently told a person to kill themselves. Because I was very frustrated with the trend their product is going. For example, they rolled out a wysiwyg editor with the "lose all the text input" feature.

I'm writing such harsh words when I expect 0 improvement from the company but I hope at least to make the customer support person reconsider their life choices and quit the evil company

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by bruce511 on Thursday August 07, 2025 @02:10AM (#44821167)
As a data point, would you care to reveal your age?
Re:Ask HN: Have you ever regretted open-sourcing something? by tryauuum on Friday August 08, 2025 @11:47AM (#44838409)
31-36