PSA: following the example from various other projects within GNOME (such as Loupe and libadwaita), GNOME Calendar now explicitly forbids AI-generated contributions, with the same policy: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/merge_requests/725

We honor the exquisite art of organic homegrown code made with care and a willingness to learn the craft, and want to protect the time of people who help review merge requests.

#MaintainerLife #FreeSoftware #FLOSS #OpenSource #GNOMECalendar #NoAI #aislop #genAI #LLM #GNOME #libadwaita

low quality, low effort dogmatism

#MaintainerLife

As someone trying to keep fellow FLOSS maintainers from burning out, I believe I speak for many Free & Open-Source software folks out there when I say that this scene from John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982) reflects the current vibe towards non-trivial inbound merge requests from people we don't already know…

#MaintainerLife #FLOSS #FOSS #FreeSoftware #OpenSource #GenAI #LLM #AI #Copilot #Claude #ChatGPT #AIslop #DeadInternet #capitalism #enshittification #TheThing

An example of a 10-years-old feature request in GNOME Calendar that has been superseded by the combination of 5 other UX improvements, to the point where I am comfortable putting the original ticket to rest until a new technological development comes up: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/46#note_2686910

Same with this 2.5-years-old feature request of mine (which has now been superseded by two of those UX enhancements): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1072#note_2686968

#GNOMECalendar #MaintainerLife #GNOME #UX #QA #productivity

Doubling down on my resolve that people should only be allowed to file a number of issues against software proportional to the number of merge requests they submit, also proportional to the number of merge requests they review.

Can people please just stop flinging shite at me from all angles at all times of the day.

#MaintainerLife

In a client's bookshelf, I have found a book for my fellow #GNOME developers 😶‍🌫️

#MaintainerLife #FreeSoftware #OpenSource

If you find yourself writing “$x feels wrong” or “I don’t like $x” in a code review, please stop. Just like the phrase “just do $y” is a trigger phrase, I think these are trigger phrases. Instead, try and work out (and explain) _why_ $x feels wrong or why you don’t like it. That can lead to a better understanding of the underlying problem.

It’ll lead to a clearer review, and means the code author doesn’t have to try and reply to your emotions.

#IdleCodeReviewThoughts #MaintainerLife

Some people are a bit *too* excited about the upcoming jQuery 4.0 release.

#jquery #maintainers #FLOSS #maintainerlife #OpenSourceMaintainer

To celebrate the new year, I, too, have decided to partake in the traditional GNOME bugfixing technique of… deleting code to make things work  (it turns out that some parts of calendaring standards specifications are pretty weird, and most other apps couldn't even render the alarm types we created)

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/merge_requests/680

#GNOMECalendar #GNOME #MaintainerLife #iCalendar

FLOSS #MaintainerLife public service advisory:
If you're filing a potential bug upstream in #GNOME, particularly on rapidly-improving apps like GNOME Calendar, please test the latest version, unmodified by third-parties. #Flatpak helps.

Don't come at me with a 4-years-old version cowboy-patched against our will by #Linux distros like Mint; I will send you downstream, like this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-calendar/-/issues/1526#note_2640160

#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #QA #bugreporting #LinuxMint #Debian #Ubuntu #LTS #GNOMECalendar