I’m just wondering, because I have seen some negative comments on here about him, but they don’t usually provide specifics.
In short, like anyone else:
He’s absolutely right, and utterly annoying
Seems intelligent and I’ve enjoyed some of his videos. I don’t know much about him other than he’s a bit… intense? and he’s sparked controversy with some people. I looove the FUTO keyboard app he’s associated with. It’s the best TTS keyboard I’ve found, and I refuse to use the Google/Samsung/etc equivalents
He seems like a great consumer advocate and repair activist to me.
He does go a little over the top sometimes so his videos could be considered to be a bit overdramatic with a little sprinkle of rage bait.
However, I have rarely have disagreed with his views on consumer protection. Actually… I have never disagreed with his views on consumer protection.
Him getting viewers pissed off is not what I would consider healthy, but the rage might get some people to stop showing their bellies to large companies. Regardless, his videos do walk a fine line for me personally. He should be getting income from his videos, which is fine. If he ever cracks and starts getting people pissed off expressly for the purpose of income, I’ll drop his videos really quick.
He’s mostly correct about lots of things, but not about everything (for example, he hated on everything GrapheneOS just because its lead dev is a bit socially awkward). Plus he’s overly dramatic and verbose which can be annoying. Sometimes you must be to get abstract or complicated points across better, but I still feel he’s too aggressive in that regard. I also like what he’s trying to achieve with FUTO in general. Overall, he’s a great and valuable activist who has almost all of his eggs in the right baskets.
its lead dev is a bit socially awkward
Heh. You’re being gentle, and that’s good. But that’s maybe understating it a bit.
I’ve seen the GrapheneOS official Mastodon account being an antisocial uncollegial mess.
It’s okay to acknowledge that we wish some of our open source contributors were better community members.
Out of interest (because I know nothing whatsoever about GrapheneOS), how does its lead compare to Linus Torvald?
I know this is a Louis Rossman thread but calling Daniel Micay “a bit socially awkward” is minimizing the issue to an extreme. Louis Rossman made his comments after he watched Techlore’s in-depth video documenting Daniel’s behavior, but keep in mind that even that hour-long video is just scratching the surface. To this day, Daniel continues to act the same way if not worse, and has a giant list of “enemies” that he says are attacking, harassing, bullying, and gangstalking the “grapheneOS project” (aka him). This might be partially caused by him bashing other open source projects and making new enemies any chance he gets. I’m not sure when the “all open source projects get together to personally target Daniel Micay” meetings occur, but maybe the only common thread is Daniel himself. There are tons and tons of receipts out there on the web if you search for “Daniel Micay list of enemies”, especially on a site that I don’t feel comfortable promoting but which does a very good job of keeping track of this stuff - especially because Daniel always deletes everything incriminating afterwards. If you’re going to catch him in the act you need to take screenshots and make archive.org snapshots.
Daniel’s behavior is a very important issue to be aware of if you’re considering using grapheneOS, and personally it crosses the line of what I feel comfortable with in regards to running his operating system on the most personal device I have. Louis Rossman was even more justified in his decision to do the same, since Daniel is (to this day) specifically targeting him.
I don’t view it as badly. He’s probably overly defensive and paranoid and interprets some forms of criticism as attacks. But I do not see this as an argument against his competence or contributions to the project, or against using GrapheneOS altogether, at all. In fact, I even kind of like having someone paranoid as the head of a security-focused OS. Seems like a useful synergy to me. Also, AFAIK the GrapheneOS project now also has others posting about the project, not just him alone. I think this was also a result of his “miscommunication” in the past. Furthermore, the project is too important (there are almost zero high-security and high-privacy mobile OSes!) to escalate this into a problem. And furthermore again, there might also be parties involved who are ACTUALLY interested in attacking GrapheneOS and weakening its popularity, for their own gains. And so when your successful and also high-quality project is under regular attacks from various angles, you might get more paranoid and misinterpret some valid criticism as a result. Combine that with Rossman’s over-dramatic nature and high reach, and someone paranoid like Daniel might take it the wrong way. And then communication spirals out of control into various escalations. At least that’s how I interpret it.
He’s probably overly defensive and paranoid and interprets some forms of criticism as attacks.
I think this was also a result of his “miscommunication” in the past
there might also be parties involved who are ACTUALLY interested in attacking GrapheneOS and weakening its popularity, for their own gains.
when your successful and also high-quality project is under regular attacks from various angles
Rossman’s over-dramatic nature and high reach
then communication spirals out of control into various escalations
You should actually look at any of the copious amounts of evidence that involve this conversation instead of just imagining what it might look like. There’s really not much else to talk about until you do. Daniel has given us zero evidence to support his side, while in contrast there’s a mountain of evidence against him.
I tend to like him and the things he has to say. I like that he helps consumers be more conscious of the things they buy, and cautions against companies with bad practices (such as those that are closed sourced, or lock basic features behind paywalls, etc).
He strikes me as a little socially awkward himself, and maybe that manifests as his rage at some of these companies and situations; he could stand to take a breath every now and then. I really enjoyed his breakdown of the Honey scam and LTT.
He’s autistic, that’s why he’s socially awkward. It was mentioned in one of his videos a few years ago.
Clearly I missed that video. Thanks for letting me know! That makes his views and attitudes make a little more sense.
(I also didn’t mean socially awkward as an insult or anything, I certainly have no room to talk)
