I saw the Devuan gopher hack thing as a screenshot attached to a
mastodon toot yesterday (Apr 1st). First reaction:
"Wow, hacking linux distro sites. Nice way to promote gopher you
dickheads"
I know, joke's on me right?
This morning I log on to CS and have a quick look at IRC to see if I
missed anything. Turns out asbesto and KatolaZ are part of the Devuan
project and have been explaining their April Fool's prank.
April Fools Day hasn't been a thing for me since I was about 12, so I
really don't get the whole internet trying to make fools of people,
and to be honest I try and avoid any site I suspect might make a big
deal out of it. Now this may be because I'm a joyless middle-aged
bastard, or perhaps it's because the vast majority of the so-called
pranks are either painfully transparent or painfully unfunny.
This one falls under 'painfully unfunny' for me. At my day job, I'd be
one of the guys clearing my desk if we were hacked, so I'm struggling
to see the humour in it. As a linux distribution site, I had hoped
perhaps someone might have thought "maybe this isn't such a great
idea" at some point but I guess not. I imagine I'm not alone in
wanting my OSes to come from secure, verifiable sites and that distro
maintainers would make a joke of that just doesn't sit right with
me I'm afraid.
At work, I'd been keeping half an eye on Devuan since it was
announced, as it seemed interesting and might possibly have been a
candidate for use internally. Unfortunately, as a result of this prank
and some of the IRC comments, I've had to reconsider that
position. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making any sort of attack on
asbesto or KatolaZ - it's their project, they can do what they
like. But it's my impression that I cannot rely on Devuan for anything
that actually matters, and it's a toss-up whether or not I even put it
on a personal machine now. Sorry guys. For what it's worth, I'm with
you on the systemd thing.
