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?
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.
If you use this software, You will likely come across the community, in at least a passive way. as this is a piece of software with extensive manual configuration. Most people will be reading blogs and forums to figure out their configuration.
Rare to see people with common sense these days.