Bullying in Open Source Software Is a Massive Security Vulnerability : technology

[–] Zo0@feddit.de 51 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I recently found out one my favourite FOSS projects was abandoned due to bullying. It was a small project and very fresh so it obviously came with some bugs and issues which is a given. The maintainer gave up only few months after because of all the negativity.

[–] tabular@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Which projects?

[–] Zo0@feddit.de 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The latest one was LSPatch. Did so much for me. Last message from the maintainer was something along the lines of 'Seems like people are not happy with the project so I'm dropping it'.

[–] piracysails@lemm.ee 20 points 10 months ago

I don't even know what that is and I want to thank them for the project...

[+] tal@lemmy.today 46 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] WamGams@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago

I love Lemmy, but the harassment and sock puppet accounts is a huge fucking issue. It seems like some of the main instances are just tankies who won't allow anybody else to have an enjoyable time

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 6 points 10 months ago

Social engineering is one of the most underestimated attack vectors. It doesn’t matter how cryptographically secure your system is if you can just ask for access.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Perhaps this speaks to a larger issue— how much bullying exists in the FOSS community, and what can the community - at large - do to address it, or even begin to bring awareness to it?

This argument that it’s a security vulnerability isn’t a terrible one (it’s certainly very logical and quite irrefutable), but I think there are others to be made for addressing this issue.

[–] jimmy90@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

yeah, i think any project needs effective leadership. without it disagreements can fester into conflict and bullying becomes a bad way of resolving or beating those you are in conflict with

[+] lurch@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago

[deleted]

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Are there any moderation tools or groups offering moderation support for projects?

[+] just_another_person@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Looking at your comment history, I can't tell if you're a troll or just a moron.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're not mutually exclusive.

[–] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

True!

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Get bent

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

You fucking fix it.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Meredith Whitaker, the president of Signal, said “I keep brooding on the way the xz backdoor was enabled in significant part via weaponizing the FOSS [free and open source software culture of shitty behavior and abuse.”

“What is striking is that the uncool, mean standards of FOSS conduct that many of us have decried for years, and that many defended as authentic, tough, etc., ended up not just being exclusionary loser behavior, but a significant attack surface.”

Emphasis mine.

A software economy based around sharing and openness is not compatible with whatever the fuck you want it to be. If you want decent, secure software, provided for free, then be a decent human.

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