Not directly on topic, but what's with all the companies making really unpopular changes this year. And a subset of them going out of their way to antagonize their users: Reddit, Twitter, Red Hat,...
Not directly on topic, but what's with all the companies making really unpopular changes this year. And a subset of them going out of their way to antagonize their users: Reddit, Twitter, Red Hat, Netflix, etc...
It's probably caused by the current economic downturn and their scramble to secure revenue streams vs. high interest rates. Maybe someone smarter than me knows more on this topic.
It's probably caused by the current economic downturn and their scramble to secure revenue streams vs. high interest rates.
Maybe someone smarter than me knows more on this topic.
StackOverflow wanted to limit moderation of content solely on the basis that it's AI generated. Moderators went on strike in response. StackOverflow immediately doubled down, and since have been...
The LLM fad is such a blight. Especially since LLMs are rarely successfully bonded with a knowledge model. Even then, the models are trained to respond convincingly, not accurately with a bias on...
The LLM fad is such a blight. Especially since LLMs are rarely successfully bonded with a knowledge model. Even then, the models are trained to respond convincingly, not accurately with a bias on saying nothing if the knowledge model is inconsistent or not strong enough.
Nope, we instead get a form of “Mansplaining As A Service” wherein LLMs answer convincingly, confidently even when they’re utterly wrong.
It’s the worst of AI worlds. And yet we see social media like StackOverflow (it’s for humans to consult other humans dammit) or Reddit (another human to human interaction site) trying to crudely graft LLMs (non-human) in.
How does my start up use LLMs? We ask it to explain CSVs/JSON charts while still displaying the charts and data to serve as a sanity check because then you’ve more chance to make it “Prove it’s work” so to speak. And even then we’re looking at it super critically.
Good on you for not falling for the hype. I might trust one that was trained to 'moderate' by filling in tags and metadata, but I don't trust it talking or being tasked to think for itself. Just...
Good on you for not falling for the hype. I might trust one that was trained to 'moderate' by filling in tags and metadata, but I don't trust it talking or being tasked to think for itself. Just doing the gruntwork of collating data would be more than enough help I think, if and when they get to the point where they can do that reliably.
In addition to what zoroa wrote: There was already a controversy a few years ago over Stack Overflow removing a moderator from their position. This triggered the development of Q&A alternatives...
In addition to what zoroa wrote:
There was already a controversy a few years ago over Stack Overflow removing a moderator from their position. This triggered the development of Q&A alternatives like Codidact and TopAnswers.xyz.
Besides that, the community has been asking for better moderation tooling for years but the company has improved almost nothing and the community feels like it's not being heard.
They really keep getting away with it, though. I saw Netflix's subscribers went up, Twitter still exists, and I'm sure Reddit will survive too, unfortunately. Until there is a genuine consequence,...
They really keep getting away with it, though. I saw Netflix's subscribers went up, Twitter still exists, and I'm sure Reddit will survive too, unfortunately. Until there is a genuine consequence, they have no reason to backtrack on their changes.
i would only say twitter exits because a billionaire wants an anti-woke platform, just like truth social is still up but not making money. We have to see how the reddit IPO goes.
i would only say twitter exits because a billionaire wants an anti-woke platform, just like truth social is still up but not making money. We have to see how the reddit IPO goes.
The number of users dramatically increased on Lemmy (don't know the numbers for tildes). People (including me) last removing their posts and comments. I'm sure the people who joined reddit with...
The number of users dramatically increased on Lemmy (don't know the numbers for tildes). People (including me) last removing their posts and comments.
I'm sure the people who joined reddit with the new UI and mobile app, don't know what the fuss is about and will likely stay. What makes me happy is the alternatives are starting to have a momentum to make others trickle down.
I think it's the capitalist side (Wall Street et al.) of the technology companies putting the pressure on them to bring revenues, that pressure is passed on to the users. Maybe behind those strong...
I think it's the capitalist side (Wall Street et al.) of the technology companies putting the pressure on them to bring revenues, that pressure is passed on to the users.
Maybe behind those strong war rooms, the VCs are losing their temper and patience, "Enough of playing with your cool gizmos and apps for all these years, show me the results now or I'm out".
Apparently, the recent increase in federal interest rate (dear money policy) has made borrowing costlier and strained the already bad cash flow situation.
Usually, the government should decrease interest rate during recession so that credit flow increases in the economy thereby stimulating demand and growth? Maybe US economic policy experts have a better idea here but these questions must be asked.
Red Hat's Mike McGrath (VP of Core Platforms Engineering) responds to the backlash stemming from the decision to close RHEL public source code access Highlights from the blog post:
Red Hat's Mike McGrath (VP of Core Platforms Engineering) responds to the backlash stemming from the decision to close RHEL public source code access
Highlights from the blog post:
We will always send our code upstream and abide by the open source licenses our products use, which includes the GPL.
I feel that much of the anger from our recent decision around the downstream sources comes from either those who do not want to pay for the time, effort and resources going into RHEL or those who want to repackage it for their own profit. This demand for RHEL code is disingenuous.
Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere. This is a real threat to open source, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity.
Or, in other words, "We built this company on open source but now the software freedoms that guarantees our users has become inconvenient. We will now call downstream users of RHEL parasites and...
Or, in other words, "We built this company on open source but now the software freedoms that guarantees our users has become inconvenient. We will now call downstream users of RHEL parasites and freeloaders and keep them from exercising their rights guaranteed by the licenses we use as best as we can. Please support us in our efforts or we will stop contributing to open source."
This quote is the essence, although I don't know if he caught the self-ownage here. So... they themselves are "those people" he is complaining about, literally. edit: me dumb, formatting hard....
This quote is the essence, although I don't know if he caught the self-ownage here.
I feel that much of the anger from our recent decision around the downstream sources comes from either those who do not want to pay for the time, effort and resources going into RHEL or those who want to repackage it for their own profit.
So... they themselves are"those people" he is complaining about, literally.
The only disingenuous thing is his statement. And the sad fact is that they will keep building and profiting on open source. "Embrace, extend, extinguish" at its finest...
The only disingenuous thing is his statement. And the sad fact is that they will keep building and profiting on open source. "Embrace, extend, extinguish" at its finest...
This was bound to happen since the very day IBM acquired RH. It was expected that RH will somehow change IBM's work culture but it seems the opposite has happened here!
This was bound to happen since the very day IBM acquired RH. It was expected that RH will somehow change IBM's work culture but it seems the opposite has happened here!
Such short term thinking from Red Hat here. Re-frame "rebuilding code without adding value" to "creating the tools for people to learn the product, creating a viable ecosystem" would be better. At...
without adding value
Such short term thinking from Red Hat here. Re-frame "rebuilding code without adding value" to "creating the tools for people to learn the product, creating a viable ecosystem" would be better.
At this point Red Hat has such a long history of fuckery I don't quite understand why people stick with it, instead of any of the gazillion other products available. But also, I don't know why Red Hat is on Linux with the GPL, and not BSD with the BSD licenses. Obviously it's too late for them to switch now, but still, the BSD licence feels like a better fit for them.
Oracle Linux is a simply repackaged RHEL that’s got Oracle’s logo on it and basically is meant to siphon away customers to Oracle support instead of Red Hat support. Even if Oracle Linux is more...
It is compiled from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) source code, replacing Red Hat branding with Oracle's. It is also used by Oracle Cloud and Oracle Engineered Systems such as Oracle Exadata and others.
Even if Oracle Linux is more akin to a thin, short Dockerfile recipe papered over the Red Hat base OS. Red Hat doesn’t like that and wants to foil Oracle. RockyLinux and friends are just downstream casualties who could be used by Oracle et al to bypass Red Hat, so Red Hat’s taking them out too.
I only started following this debate recently and am starting to get a general idea now. Every time there's a GPL conflict, we have a complicated problem to resolve. After a little digging, I came...
I only started following this debate recently and am starting to get a general idea now. Every time there's a GPL conflict, we have a complicated problem to resolve.
After a little digging, I came across a hackaday article discussing the issue in general terms. One interesting part seems to foreshadow what is happening as of now:
This isn’t the first time Red Hat has raised eyebrows with GPL compliance either. Back in 2011, Red Hat stopped publishing kernel patches in an easy-to-use format, and just dumped the patched kernel in a huge tarball. The nicely formatted patches were available to Red Hat customers, but with the restrictions that they weren’t to be shared in that format.
Furthermore, an interesting comment discusses the behavior dating back to pre-IBM days:
Read over the SFC’s examination of Redhat’s behavior. All of this started LONG before they were bought by IBM. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
Overall, the opinion stands out not for being legally bold, but a damning indictment of Redhat’s past behavior and character.
The SFC are right to say that Redhat has built RHEL and their business model to look as close to a proprietary product as humanly possible while keeping the question of GPL compliance “murky.”
I'm personally not sure how to interpret the blog post given the company's history which seems to indicate a behavior of being protective of an IP rather than incentivizing 'contributing upstream'. Their history is probably why the company's getting heavily criticized.
In my mind open source and selling products—or software as a service—do not mix well. While I'm not taking a side, what sounds "disingenuous" to me is McGrath's take on redistribution by diminishing the hard work of other developers; specially when the company has historically made their job harder by devaluing the centos repository.
Best resolution is Redhat will meet the bare minimum and worst case is a fork.
ps: It'd be interesting to see what the few content creators I follow have to say on the matter as they're very familiar with Linux ecosystem and this could affect their day-to-day workflow given that they're in this industry.
Oracle's response to this is spicy: Oracle also reaffirms their commitment to continue to freely publish their Linux binaries and source for as long as they ship Oracle Linux.
Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.
Oracle also reaffirms their commitment to continue to freely publish their Linux binaries and source for as long as they ship Oracle Linux.
Not directly on topic, but what's with all the companies making really unpopular changes this year. And a subset of them going out of their way to antagonize their users: Reddit, Twitter, Red Hat, Netflix, etc...
It's probably caused by the current economic downturn and their scramble to secure revenue streams vs. high interest rates.
Maybe someone smarter than me knows more on this topic.
Same thought here. I would explicitly list Stack Overflow, too.
ooo no, whats is going on with them?
StackOverflow wanted to limit moderation of content solely on the basis that it's AI generated. Moderators went on strike in response. StackOverflow immediately doubled down, and since have been running a ton of experiments with integrating large language models (read ChatGPT-adjacent experiences) into the website which are routinely met with apprehension from the community.
edit: forgot a word
The LLM fad is such a blight. Especially since LLMs are rarely successfully bonded with a knowledge model. Even then, the models are trained to respond convincingly, not accurately with a bias on saying nothing if the knowledge model is inconsistent or not strong enough.
Nope, we instead get a form of “Mansplaining As A Service” wherein LLMs answer convincingly, confidently even when they’re utterly wrong.
It’s the worst of AI worlds. And yet we see social media like StackOverflow (it’s for humans to consult other humans dammit) or Reddit (another human to human interaction site) trying to crudely graft LLMs (non-human) in.
How does my start up use LLMs? We ask it to explain CSVs/JSON charts while still displaying the charts and data to serve as a sanity check because then you’ve more chance to make it “Prove it’s work” so to speak. And even then we’re looking at it super critically.
"Mansplaining As A Service" is perhaps the best description I've heard of the current state of LLMs. Thank you!
Good on you for not falling for the hype. I might trust one that was trained to 'moderate' by filling in tags and metadata, but I don't trust it talking or being tasked to think for itself. Just doing the gruntwork of collating data would be more than enough help I think, if and when they get to the point where they can do that reliably.
In addition to what zoroa wrote:
There was already a controversy a few years ago over Stack Overflow removing a moderator from their position. This triggered the development of Q&A alternatives like Codidact and TopAnswers.xyz.
Besides that, the community has been asking for better moderation tooling for years but the company has improved almost nothing and the community feels like it's not being heard.
They really keep getting away with it, though. I saw Netflix's subscribers went up, Twitter still exists, and I'm sure Reddit will survive too, unfortunately. Until there is a genuine consequence, they have no reason to backtrack on their changes.
i would only say twitter exits because a billionaire wants an anti-woke platform, just like truth social is still up but not making money. We have to see how the reddit IPO goes.
The number of users dramatically increased on Lemmy (don't know the numbers for tildes). People (including me) last removing their posts and comments.
I'm sure the people who joined reddit with the new UI and mobile app, don't know what the fuss is about and will likely stay. What makes me happy is the alternatives are starting to have a momentum to make others trickle down.
Interest rates went up, so investors are less likely to invest in junk businesses that don't generate revenue, when they could just purchase bonds.
I think it's the capitalist side (Wall Street et al.) of the technology companies putting the pressure on them to bring revenues, that pressure is passed on to the users.
Maybe behind those strong war rooms, the VCs are losing their temper and patience, "Enough of playing with your cool gizmos and apps for all these years, show me the results now or I'm out".
Apparently, the recent increase in federal interest rate (dear money policy) has made borrowing costlier and strained the already bad cash flow situation.
Usually, the government should decrease interest rate during recession so that credit flow increases in the economy thereby stimulating demand and growth? Maybe US economic policy experts have a better idea here but these questions must be asked.
What has Netflix done lately?
they anti sharing policy after saying love is sharing a password years ago.
They're also one of the big holdouts in the writer's strike.
Red Hat's Mike McGrath (VP of Core Platforms Engineering) responds to the backlash stemming from the decision to close RHEL public source code access
Highlights from the blog post:
Or, in other words, "We built this company on open source but now the software freedoms that guarantees our users has become inconvenient. We will now call downstream users of RHEL parasites and freeloaders and keep them from exercising their rights guaranteed by the licenses we use as best as we can. Please support us in our efforts or we will stop contributing to open source."
This quote is the essence, although I don't know if he caught the self-ownage here.
So... they themselves are "those people" he is complaining about, literally.
edit: me dumb, formatting hard. english, too.
The only disingenuous thing is his statement. And the sad fact is that they will keep building and profiting on open source. "Embrace, extend, extinguish" at its finest...
This was bound to happen since the very day IBM acquired RH. It was expected that RH will somehow change IBM's work culture but it seems the opposite has happened here!
Such short term thinking from Red Hat here. Re-frame "rebuilding code without adding value" to "creating the tools for people to learn the product, creating a viable ecosystem" would be better.
At this point Red Hat has such a long history of fuckery I don't quite understand why people stick with it, instead of any of the gazillion other products available. But also, I don't know why Red Hat is on Linux with the GPL, and not BSD with the BSD licenses. Obviously it's too late for them to switch now, but still, the BSD licence feels like a better fit for them.
What is going on with Oracle Linux that applies to Red Hat in this case? Could you elaborate a bit on that bit?
Oracle Linux is a simply repackaged RHEL that’s got Oracle’s logo on it and basically is meant to siphon away customers to Oracle support instead of Red Hat support.
Even if Oracle Linux is more akin to a thin, short Dockerfile recipe papered over the Red Hat base OS. Red Hat doesn’t like that and wants to foil Oracle. RockyLinux and friends are just downstream casualties who could be used by Oracle et al to bypass Red Hat, so Red Hat’s taking them out too.
So… big corp versus big corp.
I only started following this debate recently and am starting to get a general idea now. Every time there's a GPL conflict, we have a complicated problem to resolve.
After a little digging, I came across a hackaday article discussing the issue in general terms. One interesting part seems to foreshadow what is happening as of now:
Furthermore, an interesting comment discusses the behavior dating back to pre-IBM days:
I'm personally not sure how to interpret the blog post given the company's history which seems to indicate a behavior of being protective of an IP rather than incentivizing 'contributing upstream'. Their history is probably why the company's getting heavily criticized.
In my mind open source and selling products—or software as a service—do not mix well. While I'm not taking a side, what sounds "disingenuous" to me is McGrath's take on redistribution by diminishing the hard work of other developers; specially when the company has historically made their job harder by devaluing the centos repository.
Best resolution is Redhat will meet the bare minimum and worst case is a fork.
ps: It'd be interesting to see what the few content creators I follow have to say on the matter as they're very familiar with Linux ecosystem and this could affect their day-to-day workflow given that they're in this industry.
Oracle's response to this is spicy:
Oracle also reaffirms their commitment to continue to freely publish their Linux binaries and source for as long as they ship Oracle Linux.