this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

Lead dev of grapheneos is extremely toxic in communication. I don't trust someone like that developing the software running on a phone.

EDIT: This comment seems to be particularly controversial, with many people praising GrapheneOS as a project, while ignoring the developers views and actions. Although my opinion of the main developer is negative, the project itself and its goals are great. To clear up some confusion, I want to add to my previous statement:

At first, this seems like the standard "separating art from the artist", however, GrapheneOS is a ton of code, not just art. When it comes to other forms of art, like literature or paintings, an artist maliciously hiding their personal beliefs in their otherwise "unbiased" work might degrade the quality of the final result, but does not have much significant impact outside of that. When it comes to code, programs, OSes, this changes. The artist (programmer) changing their art (code) based on their personal beliefs is not just a degradation in quality, but a security risk for anyone running the code and trusting the developer. Having seen the way the GOS dev speaks about its community and even people in support of him (see Louis Rossman's video), it becomes clear that the mentioned "risk" of malware is very much present. Like many others, I don't have the time to verify the source code of an entire Android rom myself, which means I would have to trust the GOS dev to not insert anything malicious, after the statements he's made. I'd have to trust him after he's grouped a majority of his community into "people who are after him and are swatting him". It's a very real possibility that someone with beliefs like that would add malicious code to his project, and I'm personally not willing to run that risk.

Please note that I am not encouraging people to "go harass the dev", that is an immoral action nobody should be doing. I am trying to inform people of the developers behavior online, past and current, so they can make a decision for themselves whether to run his software on their personal devices.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, a lot of lead devs in fantastic FOSS software have pretty limited patience. I've read plenty of that guy's discourse, and while I think he could be more diplomatic, I don't see any reason to suspect he's doing anything malicious with the project.

I'm personally totally fine using GrapheneOS. If you aren't, there are plenty of alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"Limited patience" is understandable, but the behavior of the GrapheneOS dev is completely different. I've personally interacted with them not too long ago, and nothing has changed since the public accusations from a year ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

That's fair. I personally don't interact with him, nor do I plan to (why would I?), so it really doesn't bother me. As long as the other devs can manage dealing with him and the quality of the code stays high, I'm happy. If the other devs leave the project, I'll look for forks.

[–] Kopy 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

~~He isn't on the project since last year.~~ androguru Edit: Sorry, meant "he isn't the project lead since last year". He is still part of the GitHub team and actively developing.

[–] airglow 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] FutileRecipe 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You can still be part of a project without being lead, to be part of the "we." Did he contribute and/or is he part of GrapheneOS, yes? So he's part of the "we."

Or does only the lead developer get the "we?" Wouldn't that make it more of an "I" instead?

[–] airglow 2 points 2 months ago

I was responding to a comment that claimed "he isn't on the project since last year". Based on his activity on social media, he is clearly still in the project.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

You should remember that he founded the original CopperheadOS project (from which he was violently ousted by his cofounder) and has been working on it and this for a decade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] Kopy 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It states that he is the "Founder of @GrapheneOS", not the current lead developer. So I don't get your point

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

His activity on GrapheneOS repositories, issues, etc. indicates he's still very active in development and in the community.

[–] asdfasdfasdf 5 points 2 months ago

IMO he can contribute all he wants. His PRs will still have to go through someone else (i.e. the new maintainer / lead dev). I don't care if he adds new code. That's much appreciated.

Toxicity is more of an issue if you're the maintainer since you have control over the project.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I know Daniel somewhat from some years back, and calling him extremely toxic is just wrong. He is and has always been rather bad at communication under stress and is clearly on the spectrum in some way. Technically a genius person, but perhaps doesn't have the right set of qualities to lead things, except from a strictly technical pov.

Very good decision from him to withdraw from social media. I hope he manages to contribute in the future.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

is clearly on the spectrum in some way

This is not an excuse to behave the way he does.

Very good decision from him to withdraw from social media

He hasn't, still on github, still on HN.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

So? Bad people can make good things. We should all stop using Linux because Torvalds is a dick?

[–] nutsack 9 points 2 months ago

as long as they do good work i don't give a shit what they think

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

might be toxic, but the os is brilliant