Elitism

As you may have figured, many members of FOSS are… Strange in more than one different ways. While this is a chapter about toxic elitism in FOSS, other weird behaviours include:

“I’m the elite! I call the shots around here!”, is one of the many phrases uttered out of these dirty elitists’ mouths.

Manifestations

Elitism is not a governance system, we ended our chapter bunch on governance when we talked about BDFLs! No, elitism manifests in different governance systems, mostly meritocracy, oligarchy and in a strange way: Dictatorships.

Inequality

The higher classes in these systems (devotees/donogarchs/BDFLs) see themselves as superior or “Knowing best” for the project (or maybe even the community as a whole, though these governance systems don’t tend to attract as much “community” as democracies). Which leads to great divide between newcomer/non-donogarch/ordinary and the “elitists”, and as such, the non-elitist may feel demotivated and may slow down contributing or maybe even completely stop contributing to the project as they’re not awarded what they deserve as the elitists “Know best” and the non-elitist is not regarded – neither as a human being or a contributor – in the decision-making process.

Persistence

As we’ve discussed, the FOSS-corruption cycle is an infinite cycle of bad FOSS-governance with X system being replaced with oligarchy being replaced with Y system with then gets replaced with oligarchy being replaced with Z system, yet elitism remains strong. With the exception of democracy: Elitism persists trough every system, trough cold tundras and tropical deserts, it stays, and it stays for long. Since elitism isn’t a governance system, it can’t abide by the FOSS-corruption cycle.

Change

The elitists know best, and as such: They reject change. They hate change, especially if the ones pushing for it are the non-elitists! Proposal upon proposal goes like such (sadly enough):

(E: Elitist, N: Non-elitist)

N: *Opens pull request adding new features*
E: Rejected!
N: Why?
E: Because I said so, and I know best!
E: This is a meritocracy, and I’m a frequent contributor!
E: And as such, I am superior to you.
N: That sounds like bullshit.
E: Y-you’re bullshit!

You know… I’m starting to notice a correlation between FOSS and the USA Republican party… Strangely tribal, strangely elitist and strangely discriminatory! Well, uhh… Let’s lighten up the mood with a satirical piece!

The guide to FOSS-corruption

This is a definitive guide on how to make a terrible and corrupt (which is a good thing, war is peace) FOSS-project, and also: How do you really make a hierarchy (WHICH IS A GOOD THING) in a FOSS-project? Well, this definitive guide provides all of the necessary information to finally be an elitist – and feel happy for once.

Making your project

The first thing you need to know is that… Well, you need to have a project. This can be done in many different ways: The Github Way and The AI-Hipster-Hyper-Accelerationalist-Neo-Anarcho-Capitalist-Cultural-Marxist Way, what will you choose? Of course, we only word the second option that way to make it seem “unappealing” and “weird”, but the actual definition – which I normally like to hide to uphold the status quo – is the following:

Gitlab and Anti-Monopolism

Which sounds way to appealing, and to uphold the status quo: We of course need to sabotage everything that is different in any way, so that we can uphold the Microsoft monopoly on open-source. And as a FOSS-conservative: We’re going to choose the status quo: The Github Way. But what is the Github way? Well, make a PAID (support Microsoft and also: freedom is slavery) organization for your shitty little idea and hope that it catches on. From now on, there’s two ways this could turn out:

  1. 99.99999999%: You fail
  2. 00.00000001%: You succeed

If you achieve the 00.0000001% way, continue reading.

Initiate elitism

Now, start making comments towards new contributors, like: I know BEST. I am BETTER. and start making it so that only seasoned contributors – no matter the code-quality – can participate in the community. Also, don’t – UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES – question the frequent contributors’ pull requests but put non-frequent contributors’ pull requests under criticism upon criticism (the hope is of course that the person gives up, also: ignorance is bliss), saying “The coding style doesn’t match up with our coding style, please fix it”. Or maybe even making a bot to respond to all pull requests on your Github repo saying: “We actually use a MAILING LIST you FUCKING BUFFOON, go back to STUPID-LAND!”, just like Linux:

“Hi @{name}!

Thanks for your contribution to the Linux kernel!

Linux kernel development happens on mailing lists, rather than on GitHub - this GitHub repository is a read-only mirror that isn’t used for accepting contributions. So that your change can become part of Linux, please email it to us as a patch.

Sending patches isn’t quite as simple as sending a pull request, but fortunately it is a well documented process.

Here’s what to do:

Yeah – I forgot – use a mailing list even though Github (yes, even Github) is a superior system. This makes it even more difficult to contribute making sure that only real programmers can contribute, not the average web developer – but the average SUPER GOOD DEVELOPER!!!

Corruption

Now, it’s time to hand over your project to a big corporation, like Microsoft – which shouldn’t be hard if your project is large. Simply, set up a donation option and let the money flow in!

Next chapter: Waiting