> The README being stuffed with political dogwhistles is downright weird
For reasons I've never understood politics started invading open source about 10 years ago. What's weird is that these political ideas all seem to be highly aligned and this is the first major project that breaks that alignment.
Personally I'd prefer to see the politics, on both sides, disappear forever. It only pollutes the engineering and it fails to be convincing or meaningful in any other context.
> doesn't inspire confidence in longevity.
There are forces trying to kill X11 for their own internal reasons. I think as long as there is a project that is trying to maintain it, it will be successful, political warts and all.
I would guess that you started to be aware of politics about 10 years ago. You're off by at least 30 years or so...
For example, the removal of Jerry Pournelle's free account at MIT because he kept mentioning ARPANET in his column in Byte magazine. Then he accused MIT's sysadmins of being communists who wanted to destroy America's military...
That was 1985. The X project started the year before that.
I think politics will always be a big part of open source, as the nature of open source development is inherently at odds with corporatism and control.
It's particularly the reactionary stuff that concerns me when it comes to projects like this. When someone's motivation is tied to short-lived movements of social energy like that, I don't trust them to have a long term vision or investment in a project.
It's hard to imagine an energy that's apparently existed for 12 years and still going being described as "short-lived." Perhaps it's really just unfamiliar and that's why it seems so concerning?
I don’t recall anyone ranting about “DEI” 12 years ago. I do recall the same rants about 3 or 4 other terms that ultimately resolve to “people that aren’t me are allowed to do things”, though.
> I don’t recall anyone ranting about “DEI” 12 years ago.
Do you typically read the types of publications where that was likely to occur?
> I do recall the same rants about 3 or 4 other terms that ultimately resolve to “people that aren’t me are allowed to do things”, though.
Or perhaps you've just read second hand accounts of the phenomenon without actually confronting it directly? Which is what I presume given that you've come to such a self serving conclusion about it.
> the nature of open source development is inherently at odds with corporatism
No, you're thinking of “Free Software” — “Open Source” was explicitly pro-corporate from the moment the term was coined. OSI themselves will tell you that “open source” as we know it was a product of AOL's desire to get people to work for them for free: https://opensource.org/history
“The [February 3rd, 1998] conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label ‘free software.’”
Open source is inherently political. I think it's anti-capitalist and I remember how pro-capitalist people called it communist back in the 90s/00s. Saying open source isn't political is almost like saying Star Trek isn't political.
No it isn't. I have contributed to, and used, many open source projects without it ever being political. All I did was share work I created because it might help someone out, or use a tool I found useful.
Some people choose to make open source political and that's their right, but it isn't inherently political. That is a choice one makes.
For reasons I've never understood politics started invading open source about 10 years ago. What's weird is that these political ideas all seem to be highly aligned and this is the first major project that breaks that alignment.
Personally I'd prefer to see the politics, on both sides, disappear forever. It only pollutes the engineering and it fails to be convincing or meaningful in any other context.
> doesn't inspire confidence in longevity.
There are forces trying to kill X11 for their own internal reasons. I think as long as there is a project that is trying to maintain it, it will be successful, political warts and all.