The Register's original story [1] makes clear that the problem was not Microsoft's mail clients:
> “It is a fairly specific workflow that is a challenge for some newer developers to engage with. As an example, my partner submitted a patch to OpenBSD a few weeks ago, and he had to set up an entirely new mail client which didn’t mangle his email message to HTML-ise or do other things to it, so he could even make that one patch. That’s a barrier to entry that’s pretty high for somebody who may want to be a first-time contributor.”
> We assumed that Outlook was to blame. Could Microsoft fix that instead? “The question always is fix it to whose standards, because we are focused much more on business and enterprise models of clients and customers. For them we fixed it to a more HTML-based model so it really depends on who your audience is and who your target is.”
> It turned out, though, that this time Outlook was not guilty. “I think it was actually Gmail that was a barrier. And he also couldn’t do it from Apple Mail. It is just that the modern mail client has intentionally moved towards HTML,” she said.
The gist of this is that a new OpenBSD contributor couldn't figure out how to open a text email with their current email client. It was set to use HTML messages only. So this developer had to install an entirely new client just to handle messages. Therefore, open source communications must change to use a new system of some sort, presumably like GitHub.
The rest of the thread is rightfully criticizing the claim for its absurdity.
> The rest of the thread is rightfully criticizing the claim for its absurdity.
When one reply to the thread says people who need HTML emails have nothing useful to say in their mails [1], and another reply says that mentioning the last name of Bill Gates will get your mail dropped by spam filters [2], I'm not sure which side(s) the absurdity is on.
The rest of the thread is going off on absurd tangents about CSS frameworks and setting up email servers.
Old fart gatekeeping at its finest. I have a bunch of patches in Linux, I run my own email server, and I know how to send proper plain text emails... but that kind of attitude makes me want to stay away from the OpenBSD community, if I ever have a reason to interact with it.
At least the LKML Torvalds shit-slinging tirades (which shouldn't happen, but still) are usually about code, not about meta stuff like this. This is just sad.
This reminds me of a sysadmin in one of my previous company tried to edit a Solaris config file in Word. He told me he couldn’t make it to work after he ftp it to the server. I looked at file and saw those CR characters and found out he used Word to edit it.
Since it was not previously mentioned, Sarah Novotny (while at Google) was on the original bootstrap committee that organized the Kubernetes ecosystem. This is by no means "Microsoft attacking Linux" or promoting GitHub; this is a personal critique from someone that has helped to create a more approachable, better organized, large scale project for the Linux Foundation already.
I agree. I wanted to make a minor change to the Linux kernel. Nothing more complicated than fixing a typo.
Getting everything configured correctly was a pain. Finding out who to email for an unexpected hurdle. It took a bunch of emails back and forth until I got the format right.
I did it, but it put me off contributing again.
Would I have become a top-notch kernel developer if the process was easier? No. But I'd certainly have done some of the boring busy-work to fix minor issues.
I appreciate the workflow is set in its ways. And it probably (intentionally?) prevents a lot of casual abuse of the process. But surely there's a better way to let new people contribute?
> It turned out, though, that this time Outlook was not guilty. “I think it was actually Gmail that was a barrier. And he also couldn’t do it from Apple Mail. It is just that the modern mail client has intentionally moved towards HTML,” she said.
It would be nice to use something akin to Github... I don't care if it's SVN/Trac, Gitlab, or whatever -- mailing lists + patches have their limitations and there are better ways to organize OS development. It certainly isn't a 'war' though.
There's a certain irony I found that some of the emails in the thread get mojibaked due to the mailing list server apparently not knowing how to indicate the charset properly.
This isn't exactly new, in terms of Microsoft email tools being a pain to use for submitting patches without HTML munging. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's been a problem for over a decade. The only new part here is them making suggestions.
That said, from my experiences hosting email lists, that might indirectly be the higher bar to entry. So many providers' anti-spam policies basically treat discussion lists as spam, especially if you are so bold as to have multiple subscribers who use that one list. Gods forbid one of the users manages to delete their address or let it go stale without unsubscribing first and the list software lets a single email get bounced.
That's a barrier to entry that's pretty high for somebody who may want to be a first-time contributor.
I think that's actually a good thing. The person has to be interested enough to setup and learn about plain text email. Its not discrimination based on race, religion or gender identity but discrimination based on interest.
Even simple barriers to entry have positive effects. I found that the quality of bug reports on Gitlab is much higher than on Github because everyone has a Github account and will happily spam a project with a lazy bug report (me included).
The verge article paints a different picture, which I kind of agreed with (as someone who has grown as a developer in last 5-10 years). But then again, I haven't contributed to Linux so it might be a bad thing. FWIW, the problem with email clients seem to be with Google and Apple. My Outlook mail client handles the text email very well!
Would it help if mail clients can be configured with a list of e-mail addresses or domains that are known to prefer plain text, and then automatically warn the user and suggest to switch to plain text? Arguably such mail clients can come with a preconfigured, default list of well-known addresses or domains.
That way the user doesn't have to go out of their way to find the plain-text/html switch.
Another improvement is that mail clients implement a MarkDown or reStructuredText editing mode that will automatically generate a multipart message with both plain text and html parts. Is there any mail client like that out there?
Absolutely. Can you imagine the amount of completely useless and untested patches they would have to wade through if it was as simple as forking `torvalds/linux` on github and submitting a pull request? Maintainers would quickly learn to ignore patches from emails they don't recognize, and ultimately it would make it much harder for someone to break in.
Sending the email to the correct list means directing it to the relevant subsystem maintainers. It's much more than just a patch submission method, it's a core part of their review process.
How is this a "war" on plain text email? It is a true statement and it doesn't really sound like a huge corporate initiative, just a personal comment from one of the executives.
At least in the past, on Outlook, that used to still munge attached patches to Windows line-ends instead of DOS, which was still a problem.
That's Microsoft's fault, but if you are at some smaller shop trying to submit a patch, it can be a royal pain in the neck, especially if the admin is a Microsoft fan and only wants to run Exchange protocol.
[+] [-] hyperrail|5 years ago|reply
> “It is a fairly specific workflow that is a challenge for some newer developers to engage with. As an example, my partner submitted a patch to OpenBSD a few weeks ago, and he had to set up an entirely new mail client which didn’t mangle his email message to HTML-ise or do other things to it, so he could even make that one patch. That’s a barrier to entry that’s pretty high for somebody who may want to be a first-time contributor.”
> We assumed that Outlook was to blame. Could Microsoft fix that instead? “The question always is fix it to whose standards, because we are focused much more on business and enterprise models of clients and customers. For them we fixed it to a more HTML-based model so it really depends on who your audience is and who your target is.”
> It turned out, though, that this time Outlook was not guilty. “I think it was actually Gmail that was a barrier. And he also couldn’t do it from Apple Mail. It is just that the modern mail client has intentionally moved towards HTML,” she said.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/25/linux_kernel_email/
[+] [-] Minor49er|5 years ago|reply
The rest of the thread is rightfully criticizing the claim for its absurdity.
[+] [-] hyperrail|5 years ago|reply
When one reply to the thread says people who need HTML emails have nothing useful to say in their mails [1], and another reply says that mentioning the last name of Bill Gates will get your mail dropped by spam filters [2], I'm not sure which side(s) the absurdity is on.
[1] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=159847322304969&w=2
[2] https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=159847734505942&w=2
[+] [-] marcan_42|5 years ago|reply
Old fart gatekeeping at its finest. I have a bunch of patches in Linux, I run my own email server, and I know how to send proper plain text emails... but that kind of attitude makes me want to stay away from the OpenBSD community, if I ever have a reason to interact with it.
At least the LKML Torvalds shit-slinging tirades (which shouldn't happen, but still) are usually about code, not about meta stuff like this. This is just sad.
[+] [-] mrbonner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] smabie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jzelinskie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|5 years ago|reply
Getting everything configured correctly was a pain. Finding out who to email for an unexpected hurdle. It took a bunch of emails back and forth until I got the format right.
I did it, but it put me off contributing again.
Would I have become a top-notch kernel developer if the process was easier? No. But I'd certainly have done some of the boring busy-work to fix minor issues.
I appreciate the workflow is set in its ways. And it probably (intentionally?) prevents a lot of casual abuse of the process. But surely there's a better way to let new people contribute?
[+] [-] nickysielicki|5 years ago|reply
2. call ./scripts/get_maintainer.pl -f on the file you changed
3. call git send-email -1 --cover-letter --annotate and tell it where to send the patch.
4. done
This is significantly easier than clicking a bunch of buttons on a slow Github or Gitlab instance.
[+] [-] jonchang|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yodon|5 years ago|reply
> It turned out, though, that this time Outlook was not guilty. “I think it was actually Gmail that was a barrier. And he also couldn’t do it from Apple Mail. It is just that the modern mail client has intentionally moved towards HTML,” she said.
[+] [-] lxe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcranmer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgoulter|5 years ago|reply
I'm curious if any sourcehut users here could explain more about sourcehut's code review tools. Do they make email-based code reviews easier?
[+] [-] syntheticnature|5 years ago|reply
That said, from my experiences hosting email lists, that might indirectly be the higher bar to entry. So many providers' anti-spam policies basically treat discussion lists as spam, especially if you are so bold as to have multiple subscribers who use that one list. Gods forbid one of the users manages to delete their address or let it go stale without unsubscribing first and the list software lets a single email get bounced.
[+] [-] papaf|5 years ago|reply
I think that's actually a good thing. The person has to be interested enough to setup and learn about plain text email. Its not discrimination based on race, religion or gender identity but discrimination based on interest.
Even simple barriers to entry have positive effects. I found that the quality of bug reports on Gitlab is much higher than on Github because everyone has a Github account and will happily spam a project with a lazy bug report (me included).
[+] [-] mfcl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drchiu|5 years ago|reply
Plain text emails are a pretty low bar in terms of technical challenges if one could submit Linux kernel patches.
[+] [-] geofft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bakli|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mastrsushi|5 years ago|reply
You can have your pretty javascript applets, but please don't mess with the greybeards.
Linux needs as many people as possible. Don't scare any of those people away.
[+] [-] k_sze|5 years ago|reply
That way the user doesn't have to go out of their way to find the plain-text/html switch.
Another improvement is that mail clients implement a MarkDown or reStructuredText editing mode that will automatically generate a multipart message with both plain text and html parts. Is there any mail client like that out there?
[+] [-] jpollock|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickysielicki|5 years ago|reply
Sending the email to the correct list means directing it to the relevant subsystem maintainers. It's much more than just a patch submission method, it's a core part of their review process.
[+] [-] smt88|5 years ago|reply
You mean a ceremonial hurdle that has absolutely no bearing on that person's worthiness to work on a particular project?
Yes, it does sound like a fizzbuzz.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minedwiz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syntheticnature|5 years ago|reply
That's Microsoft's fault, but if you are at some smaller shop trying to submit a patch, it can be a royal pain in the neck, especially if the admin is a Microsoft fan and only wants to run Exchange protocol.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cV6WB|5 years ago|reply