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?
It wasn’t really my fault – I was a product of my environment
Riiight.
The very next words are “but it was my responsibility”… what exactly is bad about that statement if you don’t intentionally cherry pick a bad quote?
You kinda left out the next line in which he says
But it was my responsibility
That’s the whole statement and tbh I agree. It’s never anyone’s fault for being a bad person, but it is 100% their responsibility to right their wrongs.
Who cares about the community? If it’s useful and works I will use it. It’s not like I’m paying for it. If the community is toxic people will not contribute to the project. If they don’t need contributors they can do whatever they like.
Because it’s important to call people out for their bullshit and not tacitly approve of it by keeping quiet?
IMHO calling people out for everything easily turns into vicious witch haunts and doesn’t really change anything. They weren’t nice to you? Don’t use their software. The whole world really doesn’t need to know about each alleged asshole. Not shouting at every person I disagree with is not approving of anything.
I generally agree that it’s not necessary to bring unrelated problems into a space.
But this post reads like “this software is good but the community is not welcoming, I don’t recommend getting into either”. I think that’s valid.
This is a good enough reason to fork a project and establish a new community with new norms.
Hyprland is itself a fork of wlroots, a project that the author of this post created, so this has happened before and they definitely have the skills to bootstrap a new project.
It’s not a fork of wlroots. wlroots is a library to assist developers in creating Wayland compositors.
Hyprland is itself a fork of wlroots, a project that the author of this post created
No, it is not. wlroots is plumbing containing parts a compositor commonly would need to implement, and many compositors - including hyprland - sit on top of that to avoid reinventing the wheel over and over again.
[A trans person] joined the Discord server and made a big deal out of their pronouns […] because they put their pronouns in their nickname and made a big deal out of them because people were referring to them as “he” [misgendering them], which, on the Internet, let’s be real, is the default.
Damn I didn’t know women didn’t exist on the internet! Also “making a big deal out of ones pronouns” is almost never the case, it’s always just a normal request for the respect of addressing someone properly.
Does drew not know about the existence of singular they? I use that unless i know their gender properly
These are not Drew’s words, he is quoting something said by the project dev. The context that the previous commenter ommitted is:
Following my email conversation with Vaxry, he appeared on a podcast to discuss toxicity in the Hyprland community. This quote from the interview clearly illustrates the attitude of the leadership:
[A trans person] joined the Discord server and made a big deal out of their pronouns […] because they put their pronouns in their nickname and made a big deal out of them because people were referring to them as “he” [misgendering them], which, on the Internet, let’s be real, is the default. And so, one of the moderators changed the pronouns in their nickname to “who/cares”. […] Let’s be real, this isn’t like, calling someone the N-word or something.
Unclear if you’re referring to the meme or if serious, so I’m gonna leave this here just in case: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/there-are-no-girls-on-the-internet
given I am a woman who is currently on the internet, I am aware there are women on the internet.
thanks for explaining that for me 😉
All this over some discord server drama. I cant blame the dev for wanting to code and not waste his time moderating.
It’s the developer’s responsibility to moderate the discord server properly.
It’s the moderation staff’s responsibility. Sorry for nitpicking, I understand in this case it’s likely the same people.
I just get triggered when I hear that an open source software developer should have any responsibilities at all (maybe apart from some extreme examples), and I wouldn’t like this idea to stick in anyone’s head.
The developer doesn’t owe us anything, but if they’re creating an online community like Discord there are inherent responsibilities that come with that. If they don’t want to moderate, then they shouldn’t create a Discord/Matrix/Whatever server.
Just like how even if the developer doesn’t owe us anything, that doesn’t mean it’s fine for them to push malware as an update to their previously fine code after they’ve established trust.
