Linux Elitism...Again

14 Apr 2024 | ~4 minute read

Once again the Linux elitist and reply guys rear their ugly head to show that this particular penguin shaped leopard cannot change its spots. 😔

So Ruben Schade wrote a post over on Mastodon which resulted in the Linux trolls coming out in force for him. Here's the post's text:

I personally think this is a fair post, and right on the money. I really wouldn't have expected Ruben to receive any flack for something so...benign?

So I perused the replies, thinking to myself "can they really be as bad a Ruben is making out here?"

They were.

I decided while perusing the replies, I'd take some screenshots of them, so I can quote some of them within this posts. Very quickly I had like 20 screenshots saved to my phone. Then I came across this reply from @pamela, one of the admins on Ruben's instance:

Local Admin Note: We've removed a lot of toxic replies here, and have blocked and silenced a surprising number of accounts. Frankly, this has been an embarrassing response to a post encouraging empathy. Use your judgement before adding additional replies to it.

So the ones I saw weren't even the worst. Pamela & co. had already removed what appeared to be far worse replies than what I was seeing.

The fallout

Ruben wrote a blog post about this whole experience that contained some responses to the dross that he received in the Mastodon replies.

For posterity, here's some of the more "interesting" replies I read:

there is no sound reason for anyone to give up their freedom and support the prolonging of the moral disgrace that is proprietary software. And it's #GNU/Linux people.

Of course you're allowed to complain. But part of putting your opinion out into the word, is that other people might also have opinions, and they may tell you them. Oh no!

Imagine making a post "Boy, I sure do hate umbrellas", and then a reply mentions a really nice coat and you get totally butt hurt.

you mean Windows people like those who browse the www full of linux
servers?

We can complain anything we want when 'your' corporation takes over the space of fair companies, just for the sake of dollahs.

And that's what a VM is for!

Nope, they are by no means allowed to complain about the sh!t they threw themselves into.
As I am not allowed to complain about all the sh!t my NixOS setup with pure Wayland w/o Xwayland runs me into.

Ask for solutions to the problems and issues, sure. But Do Not Complain!

It's gnu-linux.

I think no, if you're running Windows you aren't allowed to complain.

It's either your choice to run spyware serving you ads, or it's your choice to use it for work.

If you have a job that forces you to install it on your personal device, then I feel sorry for you. Capitalism literally chained people to their working tools and worked them to death while letting them shit themselves. So no, I don't think Windows is there on the list of items that's OK to complain about.

wrong

you regret posting this? Good.

1. Look what's the name of your Mastodon server

2. I understand that some people are still living in serfdom, but I cannot stop repeating that it is much better to be free. (And whenever I am fixing my mum's Windows, she is 86, I just cannot believe what some people pay their money for)

I never do. I just say "it's your right to eat shit" instead. I'm forced to eat it sometimes too by the way (at work), not a big deal. The only thing I can't understand here is why are you so pissed off?

Sigh

For me, it's very sad to see the open source community be such dicks about this whole thing. Ruben simply posted an opinion. One that was actually, in my opinion, very level-headed. It's pathetic.

I've written about this kind of elitism before, and I've witnessed it in various communities more times than I care to remember.

I'm actually glad I no longer consider myself to be part of this insidious community. The sad thing is, the vast majority of people in it are really cool. It's a small number of wankers that give the entire community a bad name (isn't that always the case).

Personally, I don't think I'll be returning to Linux on the desktop any time soon. Not wholly because of the bad apples in the community of course (that would be ridiculous), but because I find Linux a waste of time to use.

To Ruben; don't worry mate. These things tend to blow over quickly. I've been on the receiving end of this kind of thing myself and it's utterly shit, so I know how you feel. Take a break and come back stronger for it.

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