Who controls glibc? - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/753646/a6ebb50040c5862c/ <comment><USER2> Lots of people seem to be rooting around like truffle hogs looking for the partisan politics embedded in this story, but you won't find any.

The conflict happening here is between maintainers, who don't want a dated left-leaning joke embedded in the glibc documentation, and Stallman, who does.

If there's "political correctness" involved, it's right-leaning. But, as a left-leaning pro-choice person: there's no "political correctness" here at all.

It's a story because Stallman has played the "I'm the boss, you can't outvote me" card, not because anyone's in a tizzy over the politics.

<comment><USER3> I'm much more concerned about him playing the "childbirth is far more traumatic than having an abortion" card in the discussion about the patch. Until this moment, I wasn't even aware that was a card. It's difficult to fathom the logic that would arrive at that statement making sense to someone typing it, particularly a person who will never experience the situations upon which he's speaking conclusively.

You're right, the conflict is elsewhere. However, something about Richard Stallman making that statement, which marginalizes the intense conflict women often feel over intentional abortion in their own lives, not to mention traumatic abortions brought on by rape or medical issues, really speaks to a yawning gap existing between him and empathy for other people. It seems to imply that he thinks women leveraging their right to choose are pleased or joyful that they can do so, and this distantly makes the joke worth keeping. He might be pro-choice, and keen to defend it, but the way he defends it models an entire cadre of people who look up to him. He's speaking from a position with multiple layers of privilege, on account of his stature, race, and gender, and basically saying "abortion, no biggie, right?" How does that help us recruit women in tech?

Did my nose find it, or do we care more about who maintains a C runtime?

Immediate future prediction: -4 on this comment, a disengaging reply from you, a barrage of comments below me lining up to defend Stallman (likely calling him Dr. Stallman) or tell me I'm misinterpreting a direct quote and/or its context, and I sign out again and return to dormancy and lament this community's symptomatic demonstration of this industry's faults: it's about who runs glibc! That matters! Ignore everything else, it's a tizzy! Just look at the top thread. Not an abortion joke, an abortion _law_ joke. That makes it all better.

Edit: Oh good, we are on to the _apt-get cow._

<comment><USER4> I guess I understand the downvotes here, but I really do think you've hit on at least _an_ issue. Maybe not _the_ issue, but it's a pretty big problem.

RMS's conduct here is just... pretty inappropriate. Jokes about abortion, rape, race, sexual orientation, etc, etc, are not something you should be touching as the maintainer of a public project, no matter what your opinions are or how strongly you hold them. The glibc maintainers (completely reasonably) decided that the man pages weren't a good place for potentially- charged jokes like this, and removed it. RMS overruled them in a pretty childlike and insensitive fashion, and that's not appropriate when you're the public face of anything.

I don't give a shit about the politics of glibc - but I do care that someone who is a role model and a public figure acts like this.

<comment><USER5> _I do care that someone who is a role model and a public figure acts like this._

Why? It's fine to be offended. It's his project. Just fork and move on, if necessary.

<comment><USER4> This ignores both the fact that RMS is much more than just the maintainer of glibc, and the fact that 'just forking' glibc doesn't stop the maintainer from having a significant amount of public influence.

The problem is not anything to do with glibc - it's the conduct of someone who, like it or not, is a role model for a lot of people in the community, and has taken on a very public role.

<comment><USER5> So?

Policing humor is a trope in dystopian novels for a reason.

If someone wants to make unsightly jokes, you're free to be offended. But implying that it's not acceptable to act that way is probably a bit far.

<comment><USER3> Counter to your glorious _Fahrenheit 451_ perception of either contemporary society or our future one, it's just as dystopian to permit humor to be used as suppression of a marginalized subset of people. It is perfectly acceptable to expect that people not _discriminate_ against others that are unlike them, in any way, lest that be a possibility. The key to humor that is actually funny is understanding that, particularly how the word I intentionally emphasized applies to comedy.

(Not saying that happened here, just reacting to your broadening to "policing humor." Humor is also, you know, funny. That _did_ happen here. Stallman should stick to his day gig.)

<comment><USER5> Isn't it a little hyperbolic to imply that an offhanded joke is suppressing a marginalized subset of people? Or that it was discriminatory?

Here's his full reply in context:

[https://lwn.net/Articles/753654/](https://lwn.net/Articles/753654/)

<comment><USER2> You guys both seem to really want there to be high-stakes politics implicated in this story, but there aren't, and pretending that there are looks pretty dumb. It is unlikely in the extreme that the maintainers who want to remove Stallman's dated, unfunny joke are pro-lifers. Presumably, they just think it's a cringey distraction, like this subthread.

The issue is whether Stallman gets veto rights on glibc commits. The maintainers say he doesn't. Since Stallman doesn't do much glibc work, and the maintainers do, presumably Stallman is going to lose this, unless they let him save face out of affection.

<comment><USER3> The disengaging prophecy is fulfilled! For my next trick, I shall make this subthread _disappear!_

(Focus, people. Stallman's commit bit. Stay on target and let's figure this thing _out._ Did we get closure on the apt-get cow, or are we tabling that?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what annoys me about this discussion is that both sides are not being very honest. Calling it an "abortion joke" is to me highly misleading. It's an "abortion law joke" & has nothing to do with the procedure of abortion! The people arguing against it seem to be implying its much more inappropriate than it is.

Anyway, no where in the article is the actual "joke" mentioned. So I'd like to include it here just so people can judge for themselves.

"Proposed Federal censorship regulations may prohibit us from giving you information about the possibility of calling this function. We would be required to say that this is not an acceptable way of terminating a program."

<comment><USER7> I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.

<comment><USER8> Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago.

Not everyone who disagrees with something is offended by the thing they disagree with. Shall I say that someone who prefers writing documentation in man pages instead of Markdown is offended by Markdown? Is Project Zero offended by buffer overflows?

<comment><USER9> Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong.

They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage.

This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on and want to enjoy a good laugh.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, Python docs need to stop using variable names like 'spam' & 'eggs', Monty Python's too jokey, no room for it in docs

<comment><USER11> I think that's a little different. Even with the fun variable names, the Python docs are pretty damn professional.

They haven't always been that way. The Python docs back around 2000 were not that great. A lot of work has been put in by people in the community to get them to the state they're in.

<comment><USER12> Python docs are very good and professional, but somewhat chaotic unless you have pretty good grasp on what belongs where.

Just last friday I tried to find authoritative definition of the leading underscore mangling behavior in the docs and was not able to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The discussion is a proxy for how executive decisions are made for glibc, and in particular by whom.

The merit of a stale joke from the 90s is meaningless, and posturing about its appropriateness is disingenuous. Open source principals have always been eccentric (Torvalds, Raymond(!), etc.), and the FOSS community tolerated it not only because of their technical contributions, but because the open source community itself is an expression of tolerance based on shared objectives.

Of course others would like to wield their influence in the generation of the DNA of the internet, and there is a tremendous amount to be gained by scandalizing, discrediting, and isolating its core maintainers.

Perhaps eventually RMS will come around and remove the joke himself, after finding it does not stand the test of time. But it would go a long way to resolving this if they could demonstrate they aren't just using the joke as a pretext for scandal to undermine the decision making structure of a project.

It's clearly not about the joke.

<comment><USER8> This seems to ascribe a high amount of ill will to glibc maintainers who have been faithful and productive GNU maintainers for many years, and I don't believe there's any other evidence that they wish to undermine RMS' authority.

However, if those maintainers find that their faithfulness is rewarded by being told that they don't actually maintain the project, they're just tending it while RMS is busy, it seems entirely reasonable to me that they would _become_ upset at RMS trying to undermine the decision-making structure of glibc. The principals here, the people making the technical contributions, are the glibc maintainers.

<comment><USER13> Except that perhaps RMS's approval and veto are no longer legitimate?

It's not ascribing ill will at all. They've stumbled on a canary or a "brown M&M," where regardless of how good they think they are, they've transgressed a boundary of the implicit agreement of who has final say.

They would have to be good and faithful to have contributions approved to glibc, so I would argue that's not the point. As the principals age, the question of succession and governance in key open source projects will become more explicit. Seems they walked into this one.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I think they stumbled into this, and having realized where they were, decided that having a proxy fight about RMS' authority in general is something they were needing to do at some point. I just don't think they set out to end up here because they were looking for the fight, and I read your comment as accusing the glibc maintainers of being non-core maintainers who were looking for a way to cause a scandal. If I misread it, I apologize.

<comment><USER13> I could have been more clear and less punchy. It's a sensitive topic and perhaps my pen leapt from its scabbard a bit. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am one of those people who subscribe to some of Stallman's crazier ideas, and one of those people who thinks trigger warnings are often misused[1].

That being said, I am really for professionalism in code and documentation. This might have been a fun joke for a pet project at one point in time, but I totally agree it should be removed.

I really feel like Stallman is lacking some serious maturity here as well. It nothing to even do with being offended about the joke, it's just a basic idea of professionalism around documentation.

It'd be different if the joke was in a comment, or even in a tutorial on how to use a library (if it wasn't an official tutorial or was intended to have a humorous tone).

To be clear, I don't even like the stupid "Apt has super cow powers" at the bottom of apt-get. If you want to make jokes, put them in your blog, or your YouTube screencast, or at most in the comments.

[1]: Trigger warnings came from the idea of post traumatic stress. But you don't know what can trigger memories of trauma. A rainbow could invoke a PTSD episode for someone who associates that with a loved one that was killed. I think a better approach is the old TV saying, "Viewer/Listener discretion is advised" if something might be offensive.

<comment><USER14> I don't see the difference between "viewer discretion is advised" and trigger warnings. "This show contains scenes of domestic violence, viewer discretion is advised" and "Trigger warning: domestic violence" are just different ways of saying the same thing. A lot of people are using "content warning" or "content advisory" these days anyway, partially to avoid the impression that it's strictly about PTSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Never been a big fan of the "Code of Conduct" wars that seem to be going on. On the surface, yeah, it seems great. Everyone be nice and get along. But for some odd reason, the enforcement always tends to favor one side.

Case in point, the pointless NodeJS TSC drama [1] from yesteryear. I don't like JS to begin with, but that makes me want to avoid the project like the plague.

The problem with letting thin skinned people decide what you can and can't say, is they have a very long (and often contradictory) list. Suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a kangaroo court facing charges of high treason, guilty until proven innocent. The sentence? Public crucifixion.

Stallman made the right call.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_v...](https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_violations_by_nodejs_board_member/)

<comment><USER16> Something more recent... CoC caused one of the top 5 LLVM developers to leave:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16980841](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16980841)

Unfortunately, this got censored heavily on HN.

Also, Rust-lang has CoC "cops": [https://www.rust-lang.org/en- US/team.html](https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/team.html) (scroll down to "moderation team").

> _Responsibility: helping uphold the code of conduct_

That's pretty crazy!

<comment><USER17> The whole point of a code of conduct is to promote good conduct and dissuade bad conduct. What's crazy about having moderators or having their moderation standards be the code of conduct?

<comment><USER16> Problem is selective enforcement. They have a member on their core team who has advocated violence in the past. It's just that it's violence against white people so it's "OK". They also have another person who is advocating violence against men. But again, their 'thought police' cops haven't done a thing.

<comment><USER18> I want to defend Rust project here. You should realize that Rust CoC is scoped to official Rust project space.

> They have a member on their core team who has advocated violence in the > past. It's just that it's violence against white people so it's "OK".

As far as I know, the member you are referring to never advocated violence in the official Rust project space. That's enough for Rust.

<comment><USER19> This directly contradicts other CoC enforcement cases:

[https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941](https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941)

>publicly calling trans people out for "not accepting reality" on Twitter.

>His Twitter profile mentions that he is a core contributor to opal.

>Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project?

>Will any transgender developers feel comfortable contributing?

There is no reason to believe these people are impartial.

<comment><USER20> That's a different CoC though.

<comment><USER19> Is it?

[https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942](https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942)

The author of the issue suggests the adoption of a certain Contributor Covenant. Here is the latest version of the text:

[https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of- con...](https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct.md)

And here is the Node.js CoC:

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nodejs/admin/master/CODE_O...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nodejs/admin/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)

Here is the diff:

[https://www.diffchecker.com/2Lj88IT6](https://www.diffchecker.com/2Lj88IT6)

The only substantial difference is located on the very first paragraph:

\- education, socio-economic status

\+ race

It is clearly the same CoC.

Nowhere in that text does it say that Twitter is some kind of private space where you can freely express unpopular opinions without consequences to your good standing as a contributor to software projects. The scope section actually says this:

>This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in _public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community_.

>Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, _posting via an official social media account_ , or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event.

As evidenced by the Opal issue I cited, the mere mention of a project on your Twitter profile causes people to assume it is an "official social media account" and therefore subject to the CoC.

>His Twitter profile mentions that he is a core contributor to opal.

>Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project?

So why were there no consequences following this report?

[https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/324](https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/324)

The Twitter in question clearly is associated with Node.js:

[https://twitter.com/ag_dubs](https://twitter.com/ag_dubs)

>@nodejs director. former @npmjs.

These facts were enough for me to form my opinion about CoCs and their enforcement.

<comment><USER20> Rust is not Node, so I'm not sure why you're looking at nodes CoC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To call it a joke is a bit of a stretch, more like a turn of phrase or wink to the reader.

As far as explicitly inserting one's politics into communal tools, this case is so mild it's hard to fathom any grounded person wasting time on it.

However, there is a case at the moment of the author of the BFG tool for git adding a paragraph of text about fighting trump at the end of his tool's output. He won't get rid of it until he's out of office.

Another case where Atlassian was putting in LGBT rainbow stuff into the output of a successful push.

Really obnoxious stuff. I don't mind devs having a personality but develop a sense of decorum.

As weak as the RMS line was, best keep any snifter of politics out of your tools. It's just lame at the end of the day.

<comment><USER22> Or, if you're going to be subtly political (as GNU often is), at least be current.

That joke was 20-something years old. It ran its course.

Also, as far as calling LGBT rainbows "political", I would have to disagree. You either view LBGT people as equal, or you can be a hateful person. There's no good reason to pander to the latter, but plenty of reasons to stand up in unity with the former.

There are some concepts that need to be aggressively viewed as truths rather than opinions. The civil rights movement was won by people standing up and putting their own enrichment aside to say "You are wrong and we stand up in unity with the people you view as subhuman". No reason to shame anyone from doing that again today.

<comment><USER23> I was raised in a country with very hateful views against LGBT. While I, personally, developed a tolerance against LGBT, a lot of people around me did not and those people often work as developers. Showing them any sign of LGBT propaganda is a great offence to them. I'm not lawyer, but I suspect that LGBT propaganda might even be against a law.

I guess, the same could be said about abortion jokes. Some people might take them too personal.

<comment><USER24> Fuck 'em. I'm not going to bend over backwards to coddle people who hate me for daring to exist. As for laws, I think the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best: "I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While RMS has undoubtedly contributed much to the FOSS community, he seems to undermine some of his core points with trivial matters.

For example, his piece "Reasons not to use Facebook"[0] contains some great points, but I find them undermined by the unnecessary usage of the word "useds"

Similarly, this seems like an extremely trival case to "exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely" as he puts it.

[0]: [https://stallman.org/facebook.html](https://stallman.org/facebook.html)

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure I follow. What's wrong with his term?

Either people get what he's writing, and the term is irrelevant, or they don't get what he's writing, in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a single word they couldn't focus on anything he's writing at all.

So you just don't like the term. This is fine! But you've failed to make any point.

<comment><USER27> > _in which case I doubt that it would be because they were so distracted by a > single word they couldn 't focus on anything he's writing at all_

Well, you'd be wrong then. It's like people writing "Micro$oft". No I can't focus on anything you're writing after you use terms like that because I'm picturing an immature child. And why would I listen to an immature child's arguments?

Put it this way, it's like giving a talk with your fly open. Your fly being open is technically irrelevant to the entire talk you're giving, but that's still going to distract people from the content. (Or, in the case of Richard Stallman, eating stuff from your foot. No I'm not making this up; google it, I won't link it here.)

I hugely respect what Stallman has done, in the past, for free software in general but I have a hard time believing that he is a net positive _today_. Between "free software champions" being associated with someone who's extremely antisocial, and his refusal of pragmatism, it's hard not to be grossed out. I know that the "Stallman attitude" has been a serious roadblock to getting people to adopt free software in general: I've very often seen people get turned off from talking about open source, for fear of dealing with someone who insists on prefixing GNU/ to everything, and scoffs at any license that isn't GPLv2.

<comment><USER28> In other words the character of a person affects the weight of their arguments. That's pretty fundamental to society but not acknowledged a lot in the tech world, especially when eccentricities are involved. We like to pretend that life is a meritocracy where we're all judged solely on our contributions but that's emphatically _not_ how life works. We can't change the human nature and the nature of social signaling no matter how hard we close our eyes and wish.

<comment><USER27> Yeah precisely.

drb91's feigned confusion at how people are _not_ ignoring an arrogant approach at argumentation may simply be an attempt at focusing on the "meat" of the argument rather than the wrapping. Noble, but ultimately incorrect. The argument isn't made to only one person, it's meant to be spread to the general population, and almost nothing from Stallman can really be shared with the general population because his ideas are wrapped really, really badly.

I just want to make it clear: acknowledging the reality of this doesn't mean you endorse it.

One of the most magical things on the internet is the meritocratic aspect of it. It just doesn't translate to real life. I know a lot of my guildmates from the very early WoW days would have been baffled to learn their raids were led by a 14 year old child. I also know I've seen similar experiences reflected on this forum (people recounting being treated as equal peers by others, despite their very young age, different genders, different religions etc). All this is possible because those differences don't come up in a limited context where you, for example, don't see each other face to face. I love that, and I wish it were like that everywhere. But it's not, and if you want your message to be heard, you can't eat your footstuff in public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regardless of whether he has the right to veto the consensus vote to remove the joke, by ignoring the general attitude that it's not in good taste, he's alienating everyone. That's not a good position to put himself in, and I wonder if he'll soon find himself the head of a dead project while a forked one lives in in his spirit but without his name.

<comment><USER30> This[0] is relevant. He's possibly alienating only a group of vocal people. It isn't clear form the article that it's the consensus more than it is the consensus of people in an email thread.

After clicking around the mailing list, it looks more like what [0] suggests than it being a clear majority of contributors to glibc.

That said, alienating anyone could be problematic.

[0] [https://lwn.net/Articles/753720/](https://lwn.net/Articles/753720/)

<comment><USER31> That group being the maintainers?

<comment><USER30> I'll admit I'm not big into the who's who behind glibc, but I saw 4 or so people speak against it. Are those 4 the only main maintainers of glibc? Do you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Today we discover why EGCS required a way to appeal Stallman decisions as a condition of reunification

</comment><comment><USER33> Email thread: [https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html](https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2018-05/msg00001.html)

That gets a bit whacky when RMS asserts control over glibc as the GNU project maintainer and asks them to add it back:

[https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2018-05/msg00149.html](https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2018-05/msg00149.html)

<comment><USER34> The email thread is far more interesting/informative. I would argue it would be a better link for the main headline.

<comment><USER35> I disagree. Neither one of those links actually show the 'joke' that was removed.

<comment><USER34> It's described in the thread a few posts in I believe, but I also don't think the text of the joke is the point. The LWN article linked elsewhere in this thread probably better highlights the real issue: That RMS has made an authoritarian demand that his joke remain in the manual despite most everyone who maintains glibc opposing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> RMS needs to be removed from his dictator position in GNU. This is just one of many times that he has hurt a GNU project. He has held many projects back because he is so behind the times and stubborn, not to mention holding the FSF back. This behavior isn't limited to mailing lists, either. He breaks LibrePlanet conference rules every year to interject and rant during talks he disagrees with. I appreciate him for founding the free software movement and writing so much great software in the early days, but it's no longer the RMS show.

<comment><USER37> Basically, he started a political project that produces software furthering his political views. You like the software, but dislike the politics, so you want to take the software and get rid of politics.

The more I read the views like that, the more I understand GNU's insistence on GPL and copyright sign-offs for contributions. For instance, GPL's _whole point_ is to prevent you from taking the software and removing the politics.

<comment><USER38> > Basically, he started a political project that produces software furthering > his political views.

A political _software_ project that produces software furthering his political views _about software_.

> You like the software, but dislike the politics

I like the software & the software politics. rms's opinion on other political matters is irrelevant to the FSF or GNU. I find some of his non-software political views spot-on, and others completely abhorrent. I have no problem supporting the FSF if it limits itself to its remit; I cannot support it if it exceeds it and ventures into other territory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> >Stallman, however, replied that "a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space'". He suggested the possibility of adding a trigger warning about functions that create child processes, since childbirth is "far more traumatic than having an abortion"

"It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it."

-Michael Scott

<comment><USER40> RMS is pro voluntary pedophilia:

[https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may- aug.html#05%20Jun...](https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may- aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29)

If you don't know what libertarian means you're going to have a bad time trying to apply liberal labels to people who were around the internet before tumblr.

<comment><USER39> Wonder why the above is being downvoted... verbatim from Stallman's website:

>I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.

I guess context is needed here. Does he mean... like.. 16 year olds? Younger? Having sexual encounters with someone from their school that happens to be 18, or older adults?

<comment><USER40> >Wonder why the above is being downvoted

I have fans that follow me around the internet and downvote everything I say. In this account I'm smart enough to not reveal any true personal information so I can't get doxxed again.

But to answer your question: he means anyone with the ability to speak. It is pretty shocking to the current generation of techies what was considered mainstream in the 70s [0], wherein every important French left wing intellectual of the period signed in support.

>Such a long time in remand to investigate a simple `vice' affair, where the children have not been victims of the slightest violence, but have to the contrary testified before the examining magistrates that they consented — although the law at present denies them their right to consent — such a long time in remand we do consider scandalous in itself. Today they risk to be sentenced to a long prison term either for having had sexual relations with minors, boys as well as girls, or for having encouraged and taken photographs of their sexual plays. We believe that there is an incongruity between the designation as a `crime' which serves to legitimize such a severity, and the facts themselves; even more so between the antiquated law and the reality of every day life in a society which tends to know about the sexuality of children and adolescents

[0] [https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/00aug29b1_from_1977.ht...](https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/00aug29b1_from_1977.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Though I can't stand Ulrich Drepper, what he said in the glibc 2.2.4 release notes is true:

"The morale of this is that people will hopefully realize what a control freak and raging manic Stallman is. Don't trust him. As soon as something isn't in line with his view he'll stab you in the back. _NEVER_ voluntarily put a project you work on under the GNU umbrella since this means in Stallman's opinion that he has the right to make decisions for the project."

[https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- announce/2001/msg00000.html](https://sourceware.org/ml/libc- announce/2001/msg00000.html)

<comment><USER42>
      This part has a morale, too, and it is almost the same: don't trust
      this person.  Read the licenses carefully and rip out parts which give
      Stallman any possibility to influence your future.  Phrases like

         [...] GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
         Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your
         option) any later version.

      just invites him to screw you when it pleases him.  Rip out the "any
      later version" part and make your own decisions when to use a
      different license since otherwise he can potentially do you or your
      work harm.

I never noticed this before. Whether it was intentionally conspiratorial or not, it's certainly an important legal and organizational consideration.

<comment><USER43> It was what enabled the compatibility with the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike license that the Wikimedia Foundation used.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License#Compatibility_with_Creative_Commons_licensing_terms)

It could seemingly be used for malice, eg, if there's a hostile takeover of the FSF and the new owners change the license.

However, the copyright contribution agreement that people make with the FSF essentially contractually promises that the contributions will only be used for free software, making that scenario impossible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I > have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you > thought that you are entirely autonomous.

'I'm sorry, did you think you were free?'

Really, the only response to this is to fork the project and start flibc: Free libc.

</comment><comment><USER45> Kind of late to the party: IMHO Stallman should not be the main decision point for GNU, as it stands. He should be in charge of an NGO which tries to raise awareness about Free Software, but he should not be involved in the day-to-day management of software projects, and definitely not ones with such huge visibility as GCC, Emacs, bash, etc.

Why not? GCC vs EGCS, Emacs vs XEmacs, etc. He has had a ton of huge contributions to the software world, but ask yourself this question: in today's networked world, where internet is widespread and cheap, where it is easy to organize software projects online and Open Source is quite well established, do you think that Richard Stallman would have the same visibility as he has now, as a sort of historical figure?

Also, before you answer, remember the FSF/GNU/Stallman were not the only authors of Open Source back in the day so even without him we'd have Open Source Software (MIT, Berkeley, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER46> What an unexpected schism!

> "As the head of the GNU Project, I am in charge of what we publish in GNU > manuals. I decide the criteria to decide by, too"

Interesting. Sounds decidedly authoritarian to cite (sole?) control of the content and criteria.

> "I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, > I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you > thought that you are entirely autonomous."

That sounds puzzling. "It turns out my rank actually supersedes yours and always has, I've just never exercised it until now."

In general I've always thought that Stallman is to be admired. He's made a fantastic contribution to society. I don't really have a position on the issue at the heart of this manpage content debate, but on the meta-issue of what his role is/should be, his position seems like an odd one.

Ultimately, the copyright holders for the source code (and to some extent the manuals) have the real power regarding "who controls glibc?". I suspect that no one will care strongly enough about this particular issue in order to drive a real fork.

<comment><USER47> I know of one distro that uses muslc [0] vs. glibc and they have a wrapper that allows most build tools to work (mostly) as expected. Are there any other options?

[0] - [https://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html](https://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html)

<comment><USER48> Last time I checked, musl didn't support random important things. Consider dlclose: unsupported due to an unfounded (IMHO) assertion that it's not possible to implement such a thing safely. Nevertheless, people _have_ been unloading shared libraries for decades, so musl asserting that it's impossible makes me question musl's other technical decisions.

<comment><USER49> There's a lot of not-safe-but-works-99.9%-of-the-time patterns out there that have been used for decades.

<comment><USER48> Unloading shared libraries _is_ safe. If you insist that it's not, even though it actually works in a real, robust, _not_ probabilistic way, all you're going to do is make me question your technical judgement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm reminded of the old comment at the bottom of the man page for 'su', where rms argues for why the implementation is deliberately less secure:

"Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keep- ing it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first."

</comment><comment><USER51> Calling it an "abortion joke" is a politicized headline.

It's a political/protest joke, maybe.

Either way, the glibc documentation is not the ideal place for it.

<comment><USER52> It's a political joke. About abortion.

Seems fitting enough.

<comment><USER53> It's a political joke. About free speech. About abortion.

<comment><USER54> It kind of stretches the definition of free speech. Your speech would only be limited if you're taking US government funding. Is glibc taking US government funding?

You could similarly say that 501c3 tax code is a limit of free speech because if you take tax deducted money, you cannot make political speech.

<comment><USER53> The abortion gag seems a bit different to me, because it could limit what a doctor could say to a patient, even if for medical reasons the patient actually needs an abortion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> When did HN get so political? In the last couple of months I've noticed an increasing amount of argumentative political discussion. Both sides seem so convinced of their moral superiority, it was somewhat amusing at first but now I'm tired of it.

I thought this was one of the last places I could come to get away from it but not anymore.

<comment><USER56> Everything is politicized now. /r/soccer used to be my favorite place, but since the whole Russia & Qatar appointment - even that place is not safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Interesting to see that a person like Stallman forces a stupid joke into a project.

I'm only 31 and write only stupid / unnecessary things into my code base for fun/home projects. I would love to add more easter eggs and little things into professional code but its unnprofessional.

Especially for someone so eager about GNU and principles.

</comment><comment><USER34> It is sometimes a bit stunning to me that people look up to someone who is constantly willing to place his own opinion (and in this case, his own sense of humor) above everyone else. Perhaps RMS is the original real world House M.D., but I don't really think so.

IMHO, if he places his own joke over the views of all of the developers doing the actual work on glibc, those developers should leave/fork. If RMS was, indeed, right, then GNU's version will win.

</comment><comment> concrete-faucet If RMS thinks that dumb jokes in documentation are worth having, I say we wholeheartedly embrace it. For example:

* GNU/Hurd - almost as traumatic as childbirth.

or

* childbirth - if it takes as long as it takes to write GNU/Hurd, may God have mercy on your soul.

or

* RMS - I know how to program computers (maybe), so obviously I am an expert on female reproductive issues.

<comment><USER58> My wife and I were at a garden party in the early 90s where RMS was at also. We were talking about various things and somehow the fact that my wife was pregnant with our first child came up. RMS started talking about how maybe people shouldn't just be allowed to have children. In particular, he brought up that some towns require people to have dog licenses before they can own a dog. He pondered that the government maybe should require reproduction licenses before allowing people to have children.

Granted some people can make terrible parents, but I don't think allowing the government a voice in deciding whom can be parents is a better solution.

My son (now 26) is a EFF member and free software advocate.

<comment><USER59> I remember him complaining when the maintainer of some GNU project (emacs maybe?) was stepping aside to focus on starting a family. Stallman was writing about how being the maintainer of emacs is more important than having children, so this guy was making the wrong move.

If that's his belief, that's fine – I personally don't plan on having children, so I suppose _I could_ empathize with his view – but he came across as a total ass. It seemed inconceivable to him that other people have different priorities in life than he does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I don't really get this "joke" but man do I hate the trend of removing any personality from code. Programming used to be FUN and a way to express yourself. Easter eggs exemplified this. Now its cold and business only.

<comment><USER61> This isn't an easter egg, nor a comment in the code. It's dab smack in the manual. Could distract or confuse someone just trying to look up a function. I say we keep the fun expression stuff in places where it won't get in the user's way of doing their job.

<comment><USER60> Manuals used to be fun too - except for IBM's, those were never fun.

<comment><USER61> Jokes may be fun to write. But when you're scouring a manual for a needed function, and you're confronted with a smarmy joke, it probably won't be as fun (especially if you're reading the manual to troubleshoot something.)

<comment><USER60> It broke up the relative monotony of otherwise dry technical information. It has a similar effect when placed in code. In addition many companies used it as a form branding - "Hey we're not stuffy old IBM! We're Cool!".

Back then manuals were also far more important, you couldn't operate the machine at all without one. Yet the jokes never managed to stop people from getting the information they needed.

I think the real difference when it comes to manuals is most modern ones are not comprehensive. I could see being upset if there was a joke but no information on my actual problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> LWN covers the topic: "Who controls glibc?"[0] (accessible to non-subscribers in two weeks).

[0]: [https://lwn.net/Articles/753646/](https://lwn.net/Articles/753646/)

<comment><USER63> subscriber link via lobste.rs: [https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/753646/c869537af7d612a6/](https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/753646/c869537af7d612a6/)

<comment><USER62> Obligatory if you find LWN valuable (check out their backcatalog of weekly issues), consider subscribing! (I do.)

<comment><USER63> Annoyingly since they moved to the continuous publishing model I'm disincentivized to subscribe, as I haven't the discipline to defer reading until Thursdays, and so I can't continue enjoying LWN like I had for the previous decade -- half an hour or more of uninterrupted high quality reading guaranteed once a week

If I don't renew my subscription on the other hand, I get a week-old weekly edition just like I want. My subscription lapsed for a few months recently, and honestly the experience was better. It's infuriating!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> To me the most interesting aspect of the story is not that RMS has a God card. The interesting aspect is that RMS decided that blocking the change was so important that using the card was warranted. As RMS stated himself, he is using this power so rarely that developers don't know that it exist.

Why was preserving an old joke important enough to do this?

<comment><USER65> My understanding is that RMS doesn't see it as just a joke but a form of protest through a joke relevant to the name of the function in question and that asking him to remove it is seen similarly to asking a protester to only protest in designated protest areas during designated protest hours where they cannot bother anyone. If you see it like that and not just as a harmless old joke, it makes more sense why RMS is riled up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Stallman has his problems. He is like Cassandra, talking, talking, talking for decades about dangers, they come true and still noone listens. Already in 2002 and 2010 he has expressed suicidal thoughts [https://www.wired.com/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1/](https://www.wired.com/2010/04/ff_hackers/all/1/)

I am saying to help understand him not to say he is right here.

<comment><USER67> Cassandra who?

<comment><USER68> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_\(metaphor\))

RMS is typically correct, even if at the time the industry thinks he is being melodramatic. Everything he said has come true. You either listen to his rants and consider the ramifications, or you watch as all your digital rights are eroded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Conversation about the "old joke" that was removed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017037](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017037)

<comment><USER69> Which was quite sensibly flagged. This is better written but equally silly.

<comment><USER21> The whole thing is silly. A storm in a teacup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> GNU info pages have had a few jokes sprinkled around for long enough that I assume it has something to do with the environment at the MIT AI lab (e.g., [https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/strfry.ht...](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/strfry.html) , [https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Error- Cod...](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Error- Codes.html#index-EIEIO) ). So I'm not surprised to see RMS push back on the change. I am surprised that he isn't effective at it.

glibc seems to be something that causes non-technical disputes every few years. I'm sure that's because it's central to almost everything but the kernel.

</comment><comment><USER71> Rms was in the clear wrong. This is a professional setting,that joke wasn't professional.

If you wouldn't say it at a work meeting then it's probably not a good idea to say the same in a commit or a serious thread of a foss project.

Although I don't like the joke,it's not so much the content of the joke but rather where the joke was spoken that seemed inappropriate.

I am not offended. much like a coworker coming to work topless in shorts won't offend me;I'd just think that attire is best for outdoors or the beach instead of an office.

<comment><USER43> I have tried, but failed, to understand what "wasn't professional" means. As far as I can tell, it is a synonym for "doesn't upset the status quo."

Clearly there are work meetings where this sort of joke/commentary would be voiced. For example, the writers' room at the various satirical news shows. There are, after all, professional comedians, including those which work blue.

I've heard people say that children in the workplace isn't professional. Then I think about professional teachers and pediatricians who have children at a workplace. As a child I sometimes went with my father to his job. I don't think he was considered unprofessional for that.

I've heard people say that drinking alcohol on the job isn't professional, and that one should follow a dress code. Then I see people on the job at a conference, drinking, and at one Python conference dressed up in unicorn costume.

It's therefore very context dependent, which is why I don't think "professional" is a useful way to think about the topic.

FWIW, I had a co-worker who was topless in shorts at the office. We were coming back from lunch in a downpour one summer. He wasn't prepared for it, his shirt was sopping wet, and keeping it on was a problem in the A/C'ed room. Having his shirt off wasn't a problem, and he wasn't considered unprofessional for doing so.

That's because it didn't upset the status quo.

<comment><USER71> You have to consider who your coworkers are. It's all about being considerate of the other people that work alongside you.

In a small group everyone might know each other well enough to make that sort of a joke. But when your coworkers could be literally anyone, from a guy in his undies coding as a hobby to someone at a fortune 100 working in a cubicle farm sporting a tuxedo.

It seems like the goal is to not offend anyone because that exactly is the goal -- anyone can work on it. There is no way to get to know every participant of a large foss project on a personal level so much so that you understand what jokes they find acceptable or not. So, simply don't make comment irrelevant to the work at hand.

Some foss groups specifically dedicate mailing lists and chat rooms for the purpose of socializing where similar jokes and possibly offensive content might be tolerated. When it comes to commits,dev lists,posts or threads it isn't professional to insert irrelevant commentary (at least for a public foss project,one can always have their own company culture and rules for intra- company or private projects)

<comment><USER43> Thank you for the follow up. I have a better sense of what you mean now.

Part of me still thinks "professional" means "don't upset the status quo", but I will continue to think about it.

You mentioned "irrelevant commentary". That made me think of what US employment law refers to as "bona fide occupational qualifications" where employers are allowed to discriminate based on gender, race, religion, etc. It is not workplace harassment to see pornography in the workplace if one works as a video editor in a pornography studio. Pornography at the workplace, therefore, is not an unambiguous sign of unprofessional activity.

Now, some software is designed such that the humor will offend some people. The first one that came to mind is Leisure Suit Larry, which is a mild example.

Can something like Leisure Suit Larry be developed as a public FOSS project, in a professional sense? Absolutely.

But in that case I think there is a bona fide requirement that participants understand that certain jokes are acceptable.

My view is that since 'professional' seems so contextual, it seems better to explain the specific context (as you did - thanks again!) than to say something isn't professional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> It's a comment that doesn't actually lend any knowledge on the issue. Striking it makes the documentation clearer to the end user.

Seems like it's time to fork the repo.

</comment><comment><USER73> At the same time I think the change was overzealousness and that still it's a fair debate to have and why not remove it if they eventually reach consensus (as per their own official definition of consensus [linked somewhere in those e-mails])? It's only to show glibc still have governance problems after the Ulrich Drepper era, it has nothing to do with abort() and its possible meanings in a manual.

</comment><comment><USER74> What's tragic and shocking is that RMS actually believes the joke is now more important than before when asking that the joke not be removed.

"The point of this joke is even more important now than it was when I first wrote it. Please do not remove it."

What's next? GnuJoke?

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm not offended by the joke at all. I'm pro choice. But I think it's unprofessional to have these kinds of jokes in an important piece of software. This sort of thing just hurts the free software movement's credibility (though not by much).

</comment><comment><USER75> This is the kind of attitude that lead to forking gcc, the formation of the steering committee etc: [https://gcc.gnu.org/news/announcement.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/news/announcement.html)

</comment><comment><USER76> Hilarious that they would censor the lines that refer to censorship and miss that entirely.

</comment><comment><USER77> Bitcoin fights over 1MB versus 8MB for 4+ years and glibc fights over a cosmetic joke in the manual page. I often wonder how many man years of labor are wasted with this kind of bike-shedding nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER78> "a GNU manual, like a course in history, is not meant to be a 'safe space"

That blows my mind. Really? Why? A technical instruction manual should definitely be a safe place.

<comment><USER37> Wait, what? A safe space is meant to be a safe space. A technical manual is meant to be whatever the hell the authors want it to be. Some choices may make it worse or better at communicating the technical knowledge, true, but those are choices the authors make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> The craziest thing to me about this, from reading the comments, is people are on wildly different sides of this, yet no side thinks this is a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER80> Looks like a new generation just got introduced to RMS.

</comment><comment><USER81> "I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing."

Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990)

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/book/book-Z-H-3.html)

</comment><comment><USER82> Well it is free so people have freedom to edit and have a repository of free software without jokes. But nobody has right to demand what goes to someone else's repository.

If glibc maintainers choose to make their own repository which Stallman has has no right demand anything they are free to do so. And then it becomes distributors freedom to choose who's repository they prefer.

</comment><comment><USER83> I would be polliticaly on the oposite side from RMS on this one. But I also respect a good joke, and I wuldnt try to remove it, especialy of just because it might hurt some feelings.

About the leadersheep I am suprised why this came out only now. I wuld think that they have things sorted out after all this time. I think that RMS is still central figure in FSF

</comment><comment><USER84> I like the fact this joke is 100% US-centric and this alone never came forward as a reasonable argument for its removal. Glibc is used worldwide, people outside the US (they exist!) would have no clue what this joke is about: civilized countries do not have this terrible gag rule.

<comment><USER2> The US doesn't have this gag rule either; I think pretty much everyone is scratching their heads about what it is RMS is on about here.

<comment><USER59> It is, in fact, a US policy[0]. Proponents call it the "Mexico City policy," and opponents usually refer to it as the "Global Gag Rule." It tends to be rescinded whenever a Democrat is elected President, then reinstated whenever a Republican is elected.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This reminds me of a Facebook story and why they don't want browsers to have "view source". Apparently they get complains now and then after someone has accidentally got into view source. Something about appending and removing childs.

</comment><comment><USER86> Mechanically speaking, does RMS have the ability to enforce his will on this issue? Say the maintainers unanimously just refuse to revert the patch; can he "fire" them?

</comment><comment><USER87> Maybe I just don't have the sophistication to "get" it, but what the heck is this all about. At first glance this just seems like something childish. Someone educate me.

<comment><USER88> It's juicy gossip about RMS with sprinklings of information about how the glibc org works and how that fits into the bigger open source picture.

Some people are into gossip and accept it, other people are into gossip and deny it. I've met very few people who don't love gossip, especially high- quality gossip like this. (Note: I'm sure there are many exceptions, but as a generalization, this one's about as good as they get)

<comment><USER87> Thank you. The FOSS world seems like a fraternity to which I clearly don't belong. But to the folks that write FOSS — thank you. I admire the fortitude it must take to put up with this petty nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> RMS has been arguing for technical freedom for decades. Ironically, all the technical freedom in the world won't save us from political correctness.

</comment><comment><USER90> Bores and prudes will remake everything in their image.

</comment><comment><USER91> I could get behind keeping the joke in there, if it were actually funny. I object to it on grounds of joke-craftsmanship and economy. It wastes space being insufficiently funny. And by the way, it's not unfunny because it's about abortion; abortion, death, Nazis, murder, child molestation and other taboo topics are precisely the things we should laugh at. (If possible. Obviously don't do it around someone recently traumatized. But laughter is how humans cope and heal, so if you can laugh you know you've got whatever-it-is licked.)

As for Stallman's supposed authority: Anyone who believes in acquiescing to the wishes of a central authority obviously hasn't been listening to Richard Stallman.

</comment><comment><USER92> Can someone explain what the joke is (I am from France and this seems to be a legal discussion in the US ?)

<comment><USER93> It's a reference to the Mexico City Policy[1]

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> I am with RMS on this one. It is not an abortion joke, it is a censorship joke. He doesn't take a stance on abortion (a sensitive matter) but on whether they (FSF or a foreign NGO for example) are allowed to talk about abortion.

<comment><USER89> Indeed. The irony of censoring a censorship joke is probably lost on the censors.

<comment><USER95> This isn't censorship...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I don't get it

<comment><USER97> If additional context is needed: this was in the documentation for the `abort()` function

<comment><USER98> I think this is it [0]? Has it been changed since this discussion, or was it not removed? I honestly don't get the joke.

[0] [https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Aborting-...](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Aborting- a-Program.html)

<comment><USER97> It was reverted earlier after RMS saw the commit, and added himself to the email chain. RMS said that as the leader of the GNU Project, he gets the final say, and said to the maintainers that they are under him.

One of the maintainers then reverted the commit.

To explain the 'joke': In the box at the bottom of that page, it's basically RMS saying that if the government outlaws abortion, they'll have to not give any information on the `abort()` function, and instead say it's not an "acceptable way of terminating a program" (or rather, "acceptable way of terminating a pregnancy")

<comment><USER99> > To explain the 'joke': In the box at the bottom of that page, it's basically > RMS saying that if the government outlaws abortion, they'll have to not give > any information on the `abort()` function, and instead say it's not an > "acceptable way of terminating a program" (or rather, "acceptable way of > terminating a pregnancy")

No, it's not about government outlawing abortion, _per se_ , it's about government regulating communication _about_ abortion, particularly the global gag rule (Mexico City policy.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> This discussion has been a complete waste of time since its inception. Everyone with an opinion needs to go stand in the corner and think of better ways to spend their time.

</comment><comment><USER101> well, in cases like this, i wish drepper was still around. this would have been closed with malice as it should have been.

</comment><comment><USER102> Classic RMS. Love that guy.

</comment><comment><USER103> So even those with socialist political views can't have their jokes anymore? This is getting interesting. Look, I'm pro-life and anti-abortion but let the man keep his joke. It's not that big of deal.

</comment><comment><USER104> I agree with RMS on this one too. Another reason not to set foot on US soil for I cannot trust the US law at all.

<comment><USER105> This particular policy is only in effect outside the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> i think somebody is bored with maintaining this huge runtime library (its an important, but not the most exciting type of project) and needs a little bit of diversion...

</comment><comment><USER107> it's a cringey joke but the PC police trying to convince RMS to remove it is equally cringey. with this trend soon we won't allow ourselves to say anything because words lead to feelings and we can't have that, for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER108> Stallman is completely right. A patch that removes jokes is not making any technical contribution, it is just trying to deface a political instance taken the authors of the code. This is the opposite of contributing.

</comment><comment><USER90> > _1\. It 's fair to say that the joke is unprofessional, and doesn't have a > place in documentation._

Every time I read something such as this, I want to get out of software and into farming or something...

</comment><comment><USER109> Given his penchant for offensive, inappropriate humor, and how little tolerance the modern FOSS community has for such in the prevailing political atmosphere, this is _not_ a hill RMS wants to die on. Save the rank pulls for something _really_ important, Richard.

<comment><USER8> It is a little interesting to me that the joke in question is making fun of a US-right-wing political position, so the fact that it's clear to everyone that this atmosphere disagrees with the joke would seem to remove some credence from the "FOSS is turning into a liberal echo chamber" argument that's been getting popular. There _is_ a political shift / push happening, but "liberal echo chamber" isn't it.

<comment><USER22> I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the consensus is that the joke is disagreeable, but that it is not an appropriate joke for the documentation.

I am a staunchly pro-choice, but this joke is out-of-date and out-of-place. I would personally vote for it to go.

I really don't want to see the political divide fragment the GNU/Linux community because people are determined to inject their opinions into code.

If you run a small repo and the development community agrees with political interjections in the software, then go for it. If the community doesn't like it, they can fork it.

But maybe, if the both the developers and the users of a major piece of software found on hundreds of millions of machines think your political joke should go, that's just not a hill worth dying on...

<comment><USER53> "but this joke is out-of-date"

It isn't out of date, it's entirely relevant today.

<comment><USER110> So is "US government supports governments committing atrocities on a daily basis. E.g. Saudi and Israel".

That doesn't mean that this political statement belongs in the manpage for "kill".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Fork if you don't like it.

That's the whole point of free software.

Edit: I find it disturbing that so many people want to erase hacker culture from the internet. Consensus is a Bay Area idea, one that came quite late to the world of computers, and one that many of us disagree with.

<comment><USER52> That's the really odd thing in this situation. The maintainers all seem to want to remove it, and the project governance says the maintainers are supposed to decide based on the quorum.

RMS just over ruled that. Because it was his joke and he felt like it.

Which seems like it goes against the whole "community" thing.

<comment><USER40> If you read the waiver you have to sign before contributing anything to the fsf you surrender all your copyrights to them. This is so they can keep moving software into newer GPL versions.

The maintainers are just mechanics working on someone else's car and have as much say in choosing the interior decor.

The beauty of the system is that if they get sick of that state of affairs they get an identical copy of the car for free and can then do whatever they want to it.

<comment><USER111> >This is so they can keep moving software into newer GPL versions.

That is already an optional part of the GPL itself afaik.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HastySite – A self-contained static site generator - <AUTHOR> https://hastysite.h3rald.com <comment><AUTHOR> Additional resources:

\- An article explaining why HastySite was built and the main technological choices: [https://www.h3rald.com/articles/hastysite/](https://www.h3rald.com/articles/hastysite/)

\- The contents of the HastySite site as a user guide, in a single, printable HTML file: [https://www.h3rald.com/hastysite/HastySite_UserGuide.htm](https://www.h3rald.com/hastysite/HastySite_UserGuide.htm)</comment>


Men willing to sacrifice 3 hypothetical men for every woman of reproductive valu - <AUTHOR> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-014-0003-3/fulltext.html <comment><USER2> "Microsoft willing to improve Bing at nearly any cost to Google".</comment>


An elastic conductor makes possible cheap, conformable displays - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22632/

<comment><USER2> One step closer to my slap-bracelet cell phone ([http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Slap_20Bracelet_20Cell_20Phon...](http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Slap_20Bracelet_20Cell_20Phone)) :)</comment>


Benjamin Franklin's Daily Schedule - <AUTHOR> http://www.swiss-miss.com/2011/03/benjamin-franklins-daily-schedule.html

<comment><USER2> You may be interested in reading the many comments from when this was submitted earlier:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=765113>

</comment><comment><USER3> Franklin's autobiography (where this comes from) is a fantastic quick read with lots of thought provoking ideas relavant to the HN crowd. Definitely recommended!

<comment><USER4> For anyone whose interested, its available as a free kindle download.

<comment><USER5> And in PDF:

[http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/franklin/BenFranklin6x...](http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/franklin/BenFranklin6x9.pdf)

<comment><USER6> It's on page 74 (in the PDF).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, but Mr. Franklin goes on to explain that he was able to stick to this schedule for about a week... Funny guy. His autobiography is worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what time Barack Obama, Nicola Sarcozy, Vladimir Putin and other presidents/prime ministers go to bed at. And how much sleep they get.

Thinking about it, a study on how and why "sleeping" has changed over the years would be really interesting.

<comment><USER9> Putin: calls himself an early riser, goes to bed at 10-11-12. (source <http://www.gazeta.ru/2001/03/06/intervjuprez.shtml>)

Medvedev: wakes up at 8, goes to bed at 2 or later. (<http://www.kp.ru/daily/24089/320586/>)

Obama: shows up at the office shortly before 9. ( [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html))

G. W. Bush: early riser, goes to bed at 10 (<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1474572>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Similarities to Google calendar daily view are striking.

</comment><comment><USER11> Was Franklin the first agile hacker? The questions are very similar to the ones you do in the daily stand up.

<http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/scrum/daily-scrum>

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmm. Looks very similar to my own typical work day. Except I get up at 6 instead of five which means I have one hour less a day to spend per day. However, I would no be able to function properly after a while without that one extra hour of sleep.

<comment><USER13> You should give it a try. You might surprise yourself. I recently started getting up at 4 just to see what would happen. I've got a ton more time and occasionally need to take a nap around 5-7pm, but other wise have been fine just getting 4 hrs a night.

<comment><USER12> Hmm. I doubt that would work for me. Less than 8 hours sleep and I'll be s total wreck in no time. I also read somewhere (don't have references) that 7-8 hours sleep is optimal. Naps give me a headache. Can't sleep on a bus/train/airplane either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No commute to and fro work!?

<comment><USER15> I thought this was funny/sad too. I spend approx 2.5 hours a day commuting. Clearly, I have found something in my schedule that needs to be cut.

<comment><USER14> I spend about two hours commuting myself. For me, the worst part is the fatigue that hits you afterward and the affects of it that linger for many more hours that keep you from doing more productive things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No exercise, unless it was somehow included in "Work." Of course, the three hours before work in the morning would leave time for half an hour of exercise.

<comment><USER17> Ben Franklin was actually fairly athletic. One of his many occupations was being a printer, which required carrying around heavy equipment. He was known to carry 2 trays where many Printers only managed 1.

He was also a very avid swimmer (unusual as at the time, many people couldn't swim at all) and promoted physical fitness and moderation.

(I come from Philadelphia: a town where BF is a revered local hero, to the point we have an "official" BF impersonator.)

<comment><USER18> I'm from Philly, too. Early in the book, where he talks about his impetus for all the early inventions, there's a section discussing how he rigged a kite to pull him downstream while swimming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like how sometimes the most mundane details are sometimes the most interesting.

</comment><comment><USER20> Very cool

</comment><comment><USER21> Related and highly recommended are:

* Daily routines - _How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days._ <http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/>

* How we work - _We're interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done._ <http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2004/12/how_we_work.html>

<comment><USER22> Thanks a lot for these. I was looking for things just like this the other day - something like usesthis.com, but for other fields. And the fact that dailyroutines starts of with Simone de Beauvoir, one of my favourite authors, gives me great confidence in the site.</comment></comment>


[Ask] How come some post/link are garnering zero interest? - <AUTHOR> Is there a deep flaw in the logic in which HN is presenting the submission? Or did the HN population completely uninterested in websecurity?<p>A colleague of my pointed to this article from the dropbox's techblog about CSRF [1]. But a search through HN returned no discussion about it despite have been posted 3 times in the last couple of month. Interestingly enough another post from another website [2] on the same topic, got the exact same attention.<p>[1] https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2017/03/preventing-cross-site-attacks-using-same-site-cookies/ [2] https://www.netsparker.com/blog/web-security/same-site-cookie-attribute-prevent-cross-site-request-forgery/ <comment><USER3> It is, and always has been, sporadic and random. The post gets submitted, it stays on the "Newest" page until it gets pushed off. If the title looks interesting people might click through, if the article is interesting people might upvote it.

Something might get posted 5 or 10 times before it suddenly gets attention and makes it to the Front Page, other things never get attention, despite the submitter thinking it's _obviously_ of interest.

It has always been thus.

It used to be that repeat submissions were simply forbidden. Now it's more nuanced, and they are allowed if (a) it's been a while, and (b) the initial submission got no discussion. I'm not sure it's made things better. Certainly some items that might have been missed are now getting attention - <USER2> - but there are now more and more repeats of things that I personally think are of marginal - or even zero - interest.

<fx: shrug>

You've been here long enough that I'd expect you know the algorithms. Can you suggest an improvement? Can you even be more precise about exactly what you think the problem is?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have read the few analyze regarding the correlation between post attention and date and time of posting. But it feels that in the last year a new cohort of users have been posting article straying away from specialized site/blog and posted more about mainstrain news site. It looks almost like the quality has move down a notch compared to the previous couple of years. _This could be due to fatigue on my part_

I don't see an easy fix to make up for this and I fear a system of tagging/reputation as this seems to have a tendency to add to the injury more than resolving anything. But maybe some restriction on source for submission might help in preventing the drowning of hacker/techy news related submission by general news report about some newish technology. It might be interesting to discuss a new article about technology from the new york time (submission #14076413), even though the generalism of the article is quite far remote from the hacker mentality, but seeing 6 article in the first 3 pages from the BBC (which skime through the technology) is a bit much (example are submission #14087475, #14085966 and #14075757 for the first couple of pages).

I guess the only suggestion I would have is the ability to choose which source a user should be able to filter out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As ColinWright said, it is fairly random. A problem is that content from news sites, or things that multiple sites report on, is often submitted by multiple users, which drowns out individual submissions. (Many people can't even be bothered to check if there has been a discussion before, so a rule change regarding the posting frequency would only be effective if it started to be strongly enforced)

(Also, usual reminder: early votes count a lot, so if you want to influence what's sucessful, look at and vote on /new more often)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope you are not advising me to create an army of bot to game the system when I find a news that I like. :p</comment></comment>


Exceptionally Gifted Children: Long-term effects of grade-skipping - <AUTHOR> https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10489 <comment><USER2> I was accelerated two years along with a peer of mine in high school. It did not work out well for us at all. Neither of us got good grades, and we were both moved back one year to retake our final exams again. The second time around, we got what is considered an 'average' grade, or just barely above what is usually considered a 'pass'.

Some of the many issues I encountered was that the school (perhaps reasonably) felt that I couldn't possibly skip out on physical exersize classes, or sex education, or any of the various things I would be missing. So they scheduled me into these classes with my own age-group, and then tried to fit the rest of my schedule in around that...

This resulted in me being placed in whatever classes I could fit in. Many times, in those classes that are set and arranged in order of ability, I was only able to be scheduled into some of the lowest sets. Some of my classes, such as chemistry, I could only attend less than half of the lessons because of catastrophic scheduling issues. In others, I was ignored by the teachers, and struggled to fit in with any peer groups.

In terms of social skills, I wasn't exactly bullied physically, just had almost nobody at all interested in talking to me aside from the person I was accelerated with - people were well-meaning and nice enough, but it's not exactly 'cool' to hang around with somebody two years younger than you around that critical time of vying for status, so I never really got into any longer conversations or made friends.

By the time I left, I pretty much considered myself somebody who was socially isolated with extremely poor social skills, and 'weird' in some kind of fundemental way. A lot like some of the other children that had learning difficulties were. It wasn't until I got to university and had a fresh start that I realised I was actually relatively socially capable in all kinds of situations, and it was mostly the school setting that had contributed to that view of myself.

I'm not entirely against this kind of thing, but done wrong, it can definately have a massively harmful effect on a child's education. While I have recovered somewhat in my professional career, by my academic results, this 'experiment' was an appaling failure. My peer at the time hasn't been so lucky as far as I can tell, and they did not manage to get into any universities at all. If this kind of thing is to be done, it needs to be done with care and constant attention on behalf of the school's staff.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps the people in charge of things at your high school were purposely setting things up for failure for some reason?

It does kind of sound like it. :(

<comment> d-sc In my experience with being ahead, I had to move school districts a couple times to avoid administrative resistance. It goes ok, then you get the teacher that doesn't want you to be ahead of her son and then proceeds to teach you stuff that she already taught you a couple years before.

My parents also had plenty of free time and money which helps with the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d-sc I skipped a grade in elementary school and had done calculus before high school. By the time I got to college, I decided I didn't care for any of that and spent my extra mental energy on forming positive relationships with the people around me and couldn't be happier. Graduated without honors with an ok gpa but have an excellent professional network and friends and family around me that care.

<comment><USER4> Wonderful. As I approach the end of my college years, I rue the fact that I didn't put myself 'out there' early enough. What kind of people you have around you might be the most important thing for young adults today.

</comment></comment><comment> BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 I only wish this study was available to my school and, especially my mother and stepfather who declined my acceleration opportunities in the 50s (without telling me until I was working). I ended up dropping out of undergraduate work, decades of psychotherapy and a failed marriage.

In secondary school I had read through the textbooks by October and had to sustain classroom boredom the remainder of the year. Had no work habits (not needed in high school), which left me totally at sea in university where just about all my classmates had accelerated.

</comment><comment><USER5> Want to be anonymous for this, but I skipped 7 years and while it was a lot of suffering while it was happening, alternate universe me is somewhat less likely to have ended up with a bunch of friends and somewhat more likely to have ended up a violent outlaw. So there's that.

<comment><USER6> Seven? Not ... year 7?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My daughter skipped a year and it was really good for her. Also: extra year in your youth - what's not to like?</comment>


Why I'm Not Using Ghost - <AUTHOR> http://krrishd.github.io/blog/post/why-im-not-using-ghost

<comment><AUTHOR> Any other viewpoints?</comment>


The Space Force Will Become the Sixth Branch of the U.S. Military - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30184766/space-force-official/ <comment><USER2> Bout time. Gonna kill me some bugs.</comment>


Gerald Sussman - An Electrical Engineering View of a Mechanical Watch (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view-of-a-mechanical-watch-9035/

<comment><USER2> "they will remember your name for 500 years".... "I can't remember who made the first one"

<comment><USER3> yeah, I caught that irony too. College professors, lol. I do admire the guy for the large amount of effort he put into the presentation though. I mean he disassembled and re-assembled parts of a watch in front of the class, not to mention the slides and models. Pretty sweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <forlorn>Is this material available in deaf-accessible format?</forlorn>

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a way to view this without Flash?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't found a way, but you could try downloading it with youtube-dl or get-flash-videos

<comment><USER6> magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F24FD9465DEC5DCD2DF283A6940BF35523E2FF35&dn=Gerald_Sussman_- _An_Electrical_Engineering_View_of_a_Mechanical_Watch_-_2003-05-08.flv&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80%2Fannounce

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> great video, thanks for posting!</comment>


Show HN: Review code while watching it being rewritten - <AUTHOR> http://git-rewrite.review/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Load" is for loading any github url you put in the box.

"Random" is for loading commits of a random github repo for start replaying it

Use "BookMark" to use it on any github repo/commit page

One can control its speed from the slider on top right.

Source: [https://github.com/artpar/diff- animate](https://github.com/artpar/diff-animate)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is really awesome but I don't know how it determines which file should be first, or didn't work that well on my repository.

Really hope that this could developed more on! :)</comment>


Loader.io - Simple Cloud-based Load Testing - <AUTHOR> http://loader.io/

<comment><USER2> This seems.. problematic. They don't do anything to verify you own the site in question. What happens when someone aims this at facebook.com?

<comment><USER3> When you try to run a test, they do in fact make you put a file on your site to prove it's yours.

<comment><USER2> Ah. I didn't get that far. I expected some instructions before hitting go.

I still see potential problems, though, with things like third party hosting that may not be so happy about you doing this even though they don't explicitly disallow it in their TOS. I can make a github pages site have the specified url, for example.</comment></comment></comment>


Customer acquisition: 1 big customer vs. many smaller companies - <AUTHOR>

As a SaaS company would you focus on getting 1 big customer (longer sales cycle) or many smaller ones? Our company OpenCanvas.co helps businesses in travel to create and publish travel routes & itineraries on iPhone & Android (white label apps). I think this question applies to all sorts of SaaS companies. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> The answer I believe is different for every industry. For customer opportunity - you need to ask: Who likes to be cutting edge? Who are influencing companies? What are deal sizes? Where is the customer need already being felt and/or expressed? The path I would suggest (for B2B sales),is to get a few smaller companies (who may be cutting edge, and that the BigCo looks to as industry leaders) and solve their problem and make them extremely happy. Work out the bugs, refine the case studies, refine the messaging & value props, and then use those to approach BigCo's.</comment>


Hypervelocity stars - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150907-the-fastest-stars-in-the-universe <comment><USER2> I worked in this area briefly and I verify that this is actually a high quality article on the topic. The last one I read was a publicity ploy for a rushed job.

</comment><comment><USER3> At that point, _slowing down_ to the trajectory of a normal solar system might be the biggest problem for a space ship launched from there.

<comment><USER4> How would the g-forces of being on a planet, or even being the planet itself, in orbit of such a star, work?

<comment><USER5> Your reference frame[1] would negate most effect until you get really close to the speed of light. Like we don't notice that we're orbiting the sun at 66,135 mph [2] or that we're also moving through the galaxy at almost 500,000 mph [3]

      - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_of_reference
      - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+fast+does+the+earth+orbit+the+sun
      - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+fast+is+the+sun+moving

<comment><USER6> Don't you still not experience any effects even if the whole system was travelling at relativistic speeds (relative to the galaxy).

<comment><USER3> You would experience time and length dilation of everything outside the star system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fun colloquium on hypervelocity stars: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI0ePSHz5b4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI0ePSHz5b4)

</comment><comment><USER8> Would the universe appear redshifted to an observer on a planet orbiting one of these stars?

<comment><USER9> Blue in one direction, red in the other.</comment></comment>


Surface of Mars - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/surface-of-mars?articleId=USRTS67HM <comment><USER2> These are truly beautiful. I know we say this every time there's a post like this but it's worth repeating: I can't get over the fact that these are high definition images of the surface of a planet that's just a dot in our night sky. We see weather, different material, natural formations... infinitely fascinating.</comment>


How Eye Tracking Will TOTALLY Change the Way You Game - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@TobiiEyeX/how-eye-tracking-will-totally-change-the-way-you-game-193126bbbba4 <comment><AUTHOR> "Any motor action you take, anything you touch, anything you move, your eyes will be there before your hand." - @russpitts

</comment><comment><USER2> I will be dead before I allow an always on camera to be watching me at my computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> its less of an issue than a webcam to me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Readings on building a language? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,<p>I am playing around with trying to build a custom simple language. I am wondering what are some recommended readings people would suggest for things like lexer, abstract syntax, tree's etc ? <comment><USER2> I like this book:

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/essentials-programming- languag...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/essentials-programming-languages)</comment>


The Man Who Crashed the World (AIG) - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/17017708/vf-article

<comment><USER2> Eh, why not. Pages took so long to load, so let's see if my host holds up to their unlimited bandwidth promise.

<http://www.703designs.com/sites/default/files/article.pdf>

 _Awaits threatening email._

If you read this comment after today, expect the link to be dead.

<comment><USER3> It would be nice to have something like antiscribd.com.

<comment><USER2> Yea, Scribd was aggravating enough in this case for me to return from a half- year hiatus...I imagine the demand is strong for such a thing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> nice article (this is more or less a summary for myself to remember the highlights):

-AIG FP was created in 1987 when Howard Sosin, former Drexel Burnham, created a model on how to value and trade interest-rate swaps

-The company to make money insuring these transactions could not be a bank (which would be bound by law to hoard unreasonable amounts of collateral), but needed AAA status: thus... an insurance company

-AIG stops sub-prime mortgage insurance business in 2005 after realizing that 95% of their mortgage-related portfolio is sub-prime

-Other firms instead jump into the lucrative market after 2004/2005... Wall Street underwrites 1.6 trillion $ in sub-prime and 1.2 trillion in Alt-A mortgages from 2004-2007

-AIG is bound by contract to provide collateral in case they lose AAA rating; as such legacy business (built up until 2005) traps them into bleeding collateral in the 2008 crash on their sub-prime credit default swap business

-In result AIG runs out of capital reserves to provide collateral

-By comparison, no money is lost on their corporate credit default swap business</comment>


How to Reach Female Solo Travelers, the Biggest Market in the US - <AUTHOR> https://ux.nearsoft.com/blog/travel/how-to-reach-female-solo-travelers-the-biggest-market-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> so how does one do this without creating a dangerous situation for solo female travellers?

just providing a tool to reveal a most probable place for solo female destination looks like the beginning of an evil process. i suppose if there was some number describing crimes against solo travellers, vs group travellers compared for gender, that might give some hypothetical correlate to increased vunerability to crime for the aforementioned groups.

lets reword the title and see what it looks like.

how to reach solo schoolkids walking home alone... how to reach solo latchkey kids at home alone...

i hope these two ring some alarm, IMO just as the submission title should.</comment>


The Neighborhood Is Black, but Those Buying Homes Are White - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/27/upshot/diversity-housing-maps-raleigh-gentrification.html <comment><USER2> Reading articles like these makes me think Whites are criticized whenever they buy houses. If you go outside it's white flight, if you buy houses inside the city it is gentrification.</comment>


Company offers "De-Location Package" for remote workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/29/tech-start-up-work-from-hawaii-get-paid-to-move.html <comment><USER2> I love that we can experiment more with work and each company/employee can choose what works best for them.</comment>


Engine Yard Cuts 15% Of Workforce - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/07/engine-yard-cuts-15-of-workforce/ <comment><USER2> Yes this was mostly support staff. The main reason for this is that we have become much more efficient and automated so we did not need as many support staff anymore to support our systems.

<comment><USER3> Well, this certainly flies in the face of the sensationalist tone of the linked article.

TechCrunch Layoff Tracker? Seriously?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "confirm that 12 out of 82 people have been let go"

They had 82 people??? Wow. That seems a lot for a relatively young startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> I could be wrong but I imagine support staff accounts for a large portion of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Often, I wonder if this kind of public news hurts them (or any company) overall.

Would you be less tempted to use Engine Yard for hosting knowing that they just laid off some folks? Even slightly?

And if so, would it be worth keeping these folks around just so you aren't making "negative press" for yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it all depends on wording. EY's official blog statement talked about helping the employees find new jobs, which is impressive. To me, it would also be beneficial for them to include a statement like Ezra's above, to ease customer or potential customer concerns: They laid of support staff because they have further automated their environment - that is reassuring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Recently moved a client off engine yard that was paying ~$2600/month they are now having substantial savings for more capacity with EC2/AWS.

<comment><USER7> We're paying around $1100/month and looking to migrate off EngineYard as well - can you point me in the right direction and/or provide any tips for a migration to AWS?

<comment><USER6> Tips:

* Automate Server Configuration with Puppet

* Store your database on an EBS

* Backup often to S3

* Use cloudfront to host your most common static files (CSS, JPG, JS)

* If you don't have too much email volume, use google apps for your domain.

* Use DNSMadeEasy.com for your DNS and also failover to your backup.

* Anything that you didn't automated, document it so that its easier to automate later.

* Have a backup plan if EC2 goes down.

If you want some help with this, you could always email me dan {at} abtain {dot} com.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HTML5 Canvas Document Layout / Text Editor - <AUTHOR> http://coverink.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This runs the best on Safari - it seems to have the best Canvas performance.</comment>


Ask HN: What service do you wish existed - <AUTHOR>

What service do you wish existed for which you'll be ready to pay atleast $5 per month. <comment><USER2> Someone to come and sift through all the crap I have laying around my house and ask me what can be thrown out / donated while I'm doing other work and handle the subsequent disposal.</comment>


Covid Trends - <AUTHOR> https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/ <comment><USER2> Needs to have a mode normalized by population, IMO. Currently the graphs are misleading if one would like to see how bad things are in a given country.</comment>