Top all-time · #3554
Chris McDonough
Personal blog · chrismcdonough.substack.comprogrammingpolitics
Chris McDonough writes Chris' Blog, a personal blog at chrismcdonough.substack.com about programming and politics. Since 2024, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “The Shameful Defenestration of Tim”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link these Substack posts as overviews of Python and open-source community disputes, chiefly the Tim Peters suspension and the NixOS conflict. Commenters cite them as sources for the events.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Things too long to tweet.
Most-linked posts?
- The Shameful Defenestration of Tim14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2024-08-10
- The NixOS Conflict in Under 5 Minutes3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-07-07
- Generic Open Source Project Can't Also Be a Successful Civil Rights Project2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-08-13
- Report on NixOS Governance Discussions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-05-12
- Ban Transparency from Tim Peters2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-04
What Hacker News says?
They are also used to exclude control speech and exclude certain people https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Migrating the main Zig repository from GitHub to Codeberg”Submitted The Shameful Defenestration of Tim as a story · 81 points
HN discussionHe was banned for 3 months for opposing a change to the PSF bylaws that would allow the board to remove members with a simple majority vote. https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/09/core_python_developer... https://tim-one.github.io/psf/ban https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Serving 200M requests per day with a CGI-bin”Submitted The NixOS Conflict in Under 5 Minutes as a story · 31 points
HN discussionFor the people thinking about learning Python: Since 2020 the entire Python ecosystem is a tightly organized, hierarchical structure that only serves the old boys country club to keep their overpaid positions in the industry. Many of these are mediocre, they just rule, let external people do real and hard work and then take the credit. Any dissent is squashed, the official authorities have no qualms about lying and…
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Thinking in Python”Submitted The NixOS Conflict in Under 5 Minutes as a story · 9 points
HN discussionNixOS drama is the most recent instance: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-nixos-conflict-in-...
Comment linking /p/the-nixos-conflict-in-under-5-minutes
on “A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines”Submitted Report on NixOS Governance Discussions as a story · 5 points
HN discussionA 5 minute overview, https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-nixos-conflict-in-... Another overview (easy to understand, but some non-central information is inaccurate), https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5819317/nixos-commits-a-purg... Concrete events & evidences, https://github.com/nrdxp/rfc-evidence/blob/master/rfc_eviden...
Comment linking /p/the-nixos-conflict-in-under-5-minutes
on “A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines”Submitted Generic Open Source Project Can't Also Be a Successful Civil Rights Project as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttps://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines”Submitted Why a Generic Open-Source Project Cant Also Be a Successful Civil Rights Project as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'm an outsider who only knows Guido van Rossum by way of interviews his writing. Assuming your quote is what the original text said (I don't disbelieve you-- but nobody can see it to confirm) why would this have violated community standards? Is there some rule about not mentioning "un-persons" or something? It's very confusing. Edit: Answering my own question. There appears to be a kerfuffle afoot. Apparently the S…
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “A post by Guido van Rossum removed for violating Python community guidelines”Submitted The shameful defenestration of Tim [Peters] as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOn the contrary! https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Python Software Foundation gets a donor surge after rejecting federal grant”Submitted Ban Transparency from Tim Peters as a story · 1 points
HN discussionJust over a month ago there was a flashpoint in community tensions, as some expressed their concerns over the project's governance. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107370 As a quick summary, they were concerned about sponsorship from military tech, about community moderation not doing enough to keep trolls out, and annoyed by Eelco Dolstra. In response to this, some discussions about project governance were h…
Comment linking /p/report-on-nixos-governance-discussions
on “My BDFL guiding principles”I had never heard of the Tim Peters incident, but I just googled it. (It's not on his Wikipedia page.) I found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/1ep4dbt/the_shamefu... Which points to this: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr... This characterizes it as completely unfair, and the /r/python community seems to agree. Is there a rebuttal from the other side?
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation”Tim is very short on the topic of actual accusations but someone else does a good job discussing them one by one: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr... And this one struck me: > > "Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait" > In the context of the bylayws change discussions, Tim detailed his relationship with a prickly core developer who was maniacal about a par…
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry”Another writeup: The Shameful Defenestration of Tim https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry”This may be the best summary: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Tim Peters has returned on the Python Discourse forum”This is an interesting story but this article looks really poorly written/biased. It didn't until the QA at the end clarify that this was a 3 month suspension. It instead started with "bans" in the title, walks back to "suspended" in the first line, and then didn't clarify that point until effectively the appendix to "3 month suspension". Little tricks like this make me lose faith in the objectivity of an article. T…
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Python Bans Prominent Dev for Enjoying the Wrong Old SNL Sketch”Good to see that LWN is writing about it, since they wrote about the ban in the first place. > In the past, suspensions of Python core developers have effectively been permanent because the recipients of the punishment chose not to return. A very good point. Although I don't think Peters is the sort to make that choice (even if he's stood up for others who have). >One of those other threads was started on November 2…
Comment linking /p/ban-transparency-from-tim-peters
on “Tim Peters returns to the Python community”https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr... discusses how deceptive the descriptions of the violations are.
Comment linking /p/the-shameful-defenestration-of-tim
on “Three month suspension for a Core Developer”
