Hyprland is an open source Wayland compositor based on wlroots, a project I started back in 2017 to make it easier to build good Wayland compositors. It’s a project which is loved by its users for its emphasis on customization and “eye candy” – beautiful graphics and animations, each configuration tailored to the unique look and feel imagined by the user who creates it. It’s a very exciting project!
Unfortunately, the effect is spoilt by an incredibly toxic and hateful community. I cannot recommend Hyprland to anyone who is not prepared to steer well clear of its community spaces. Imagine a high school boys’ locker room come to life on Discord and GitHub and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like.
I empathise with Vaxry. I remember being young, smart, productive… and mean. I did some cool stuff, but I deeply regret the way I treated people. It wasn’t really my fault – I was a product of my environment – but it was my responsibility. Today, I’m proud to have built many welcoming communities, where people are rewarded for their involvement, rather than coming away from their experience hurt. What motivates us to build and give away free software if not bringing joy to ourselves and others? Can we be proud of a community which brings more suffering into the world?
Who cares about the community? If it’s useful and works I will use it. It’s not like I’m paying for it. If the community is toxic people will not contribute to the project. If they don’t need contributors they can do whatever they like.
Because it’s important to call people out for their bullshit and not tacitly approve of it by keeping quiet?
IMHO calling people out for everything easily turns into vicious witch haunts and doesn’t really change anything. They weren’t nice to you? Don’t use their software. The whole world really doesn’t need to know about each alleged asshole. Not shouting at every person I disagree with is not approving of anything.
I generally agree that it’s not necessary to bring unrelated problems into a space.
But this post reads like “this software is good but the community is not welcoming, I don’t recommend getting into either”. I think that’s valid.
I don’t think it’s valid. Using some software does not actually mean I support or agree with its creators. It’s FOSS, the devs invest their time and give it out for free. By using this software I don’t make it easier for them to spread their word. There’s a lot of cases where I would say it’s valid like. let’s say Elon Musk is giving me a free Tesla. He lost money on it but me driving around in his car is still a form of promotion so I’m helping him sell his cars, make money and promote his opinions so I would not take it. But here using this software is totally personal matter. By installing it I don’t promote it or provide founds to the authors. If they are assholes every person offended by them is free to decide no to use it. Posting all over the internet that they were not nice to you is just petty. All it does is create silly shitstorms and angry posts.
You’re still giving them a platform by installing their code though?
If you use software coming from someone you inherently disagree with, especially a desktop environment/compositor, you depend on that person for your computer’s day-to-day functionality. Isn’t one of the key points of the FOSS community that we disagree with large controlling companies like Google and Microsoft? That, even when they make FOSS contributions, it should be taken with a huge grain of salt?
Imo, this is the exact same thing. Even if it’s good software, not wanting to rely on code from someone you don’t agree with or trust (even if those concerns are unrelated to the given codebase) is completely reasonable and valid
‘Giving them platform’? What is that supposed to mean? It’s not like they gaining anything from my CPU cycles. No one knows what software I’m running on my computer.
I’m not depending on any software as long as there are alternatives. And no, the point is not to disagree with large companies. Big corporations make contributions to Linux kernel all the time. As long as it’s truly FOSS and they don’t control it it’s not an issue. If the company controls it it’s not really FOSS (like Chrome or Android).
Also, not using their code is not the same as telling everyone else they should not use it. You can use whatever you like. Complaining online that some community was not nice to you is IMHO silly.
Depending on something isn’t necessarily tied to how many alternatives there are.
For example: I use a heavily configured qtile setup on my desktop. I’m depending on that setup working every time I turn my computer on. Sure, I could switch to i3 or sway or Hyprland, but that would take a considerable amount of time and effort. In this case, I’m depending on qtile working for me, so I can get work done instead of messing with a bunch of config files. The only time this wouldn’t happen is when one solution can be a completely (or almost completely) drop-in replacement for the other, e.g. how sway claims to be with i3.
This is especially true with tiling window managers, where people spend many hours configuring setups to behave how they want. Moving to a different alternative isn’t exactly simple.
To your point about FOSS: chrome and android may not be FOSS, but as much as I dislike it AOSP and Chromium definitely are, even if Google controls the repos for both. Your definition is a slippery slope because by that definition software like Ubuntu, Manjaro, etc. also aren’t FOSS because the repos are controlled by a single company.
To your last point: telling someone else they shouldn’t use a piece of code for the same reason you don’t is also perfectly valid. It’s not like it’s an order, they don’t have to follow it. People can choose to agree or disagree with you if they want. Ultimately, the decision to install software in Linux lies with the user, and the most any online opinion can do is give a persuading or dissuading argument. Just like I could say, “don’t use this software, it’s built on some old deprecated library that will probably break in a month”, I could also say “don’t use this software, the main dev is a bad person because xyz…” and it would still be up to the user to make a decision. If you don’t mind disagreeing with the author of software you use, that’s fine, but not everyone is like that, and that’s also fine.
If you use this software, You will likely come across the community, in at least a passive way. as this is a piece of software with extensive manual configuration. Most people will be reading blogs and forums to figure out their configuration.
Rare to see people with common sense these days.