Hyprland is an open source Wayland compositor based on wlroots, a project I started back in 2017 to make it easier to build good Wayland compositors. It’s a project which is loved by its users for its emphasis on customization and “eye candy” – beautiful graphics and animations, each configuration tailored to the unique look and feel imagined by the user who creates it. It’s a very exciting project!
Unfortunately, the effect is spoilt by an incredibly toxic and hateful community. I cannot recommend Hyprland to anyone who is not prepared to steer well clear of its community spaces. Imagine a high school boys’ locker room come to life on Discord and GitHub and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like.
I empathise with Vaxry. I remember being young, smart, productive… and mean. I did some cool stuff, but I deeply regret the way I treated people. It wasn’t really my fault – I was a product of my environment – but it was my responsibility. Today, I’m proud to have built many welcoming communities, where people are rewarded for their involvement, rather than coming away from their experience hurt. What motivates us to build and give away free software if not bringing joy to ourselves and others? Can we be proud of a community which brings more suffering into the world?
As someone on HackerNews said:
I’ve never felt the need for any “community” for my window manager of choice
That’s great for you but that might not be true for someone you recommend it to, or decides to give it a try after you mention you use it. Someone might go looking for help or tips there.
File a bug, read FAQ, StackOverflow? If you are messing around with window managers on Linux, a certain level of competency is expected. However, I’m more concerned about the weirdos hanging around in a discord chat of said window manager, harassing strangers. Such a strange hobby.
Hmmm. If abuse happens, is the right idea to say that “I don’t need this community”?
I’m not sure how that HackerNews comment helps in the slightest. If my university has an obscure basket weaving community and people are getting abused in that community, should I just say “Eh we don’t actually need a basket weaving community”.
It’s also amusing to me that a commenter on a relatively obscure and niche website is complaining that that don’t need (or care about abuse that transpired on) a niche community from another website. And then this comment is echoed in yet another niche community.
“You shouldn’t use this window manager because their community is toxic”
“I’m not going to interact with the community”
Seems fair enough
For real. Not everything needs to be a fucking subculture. Next they’ll be saying, “The WinRAR community is toxic”. Like no, your discord server is poorly moderated. The problem starts and ends there.
I just wanted to point out that it’s ridiculous to form some kind religion¹ around a wayland compositor.
Also, I don’t want anybody to think I’m supporting what’s happening there. I just don’t really care about Hyprland’s community because I’m not part of it.
¹Hyprland’s discord server is named “Church of Hyprland”
Hmm, I feel like there’s some nuances around Hyprland (and it’s kind of window managers) that makes having a place for discussion valuable.
- Plugin development discussions
- Configuration recipes and troubleshooting (Configs for tiling wm’s often are like 500-line software projects)
- …and sometimes its just fun to chat with like-minded people who share a similar philosophy on the tools they use on their computers
I’m not a hyprland user, but I find it valuable to lurk around SwayWM communities on Discord and Reddit.
