The thing that really gets me as a small-time OSS maintainer is that none of us asked for this. The social and technical millieu where most of us started our projects is not the one we find ourselves in today, and the forces behind this are wildly asymmetric.
Security findings are one place where we as maintainers simply do not have the choice to not play ball, whether we like it or not. It seems likely that the only way that we meet the moment is to adopt these tools ourselves -- once again -- whether we like it or not. Reconciling this with the ground truth that 'OSS doesn't owe anyone a goddamn thing' is proving to be really hard for me.
This is already a busy topic, and this is as good of a chance as I'll have to get something off my chest, so here goes...
There's an obsession verging on dogma in much of the hacker world that rationality is the only path to correct action; that by virtue of being hackers we are all somehow divested of otherwise human frailties like emotion, love, and irrational behaviour. As one of the commenters on this thread so wonderfully said:
> No, you're not some amazing savant that has popped up out of the mass of mediocrity that is humanity.
We are, every single one of us, a fallible creature full of fault, vanity, and ego. To argue that I am under the 'influence of cognitive dissonance' because I am falling prey to one of life's most unstoppable impulses is perhaps the strongest example I've yet seen of the absurdity of rational behaviour as the highest truth.
There is a time to be rational and to appeal to such sensibilities, and as hackers we live in those times more than most people. Crafting, debugging, and similar work pleads for rationality; indeed it is a necessary ingredient for much of the work a hacker does. But its applicability has definite limits, and as with any tool it's critical to know where those limits lie.
The core act of deceit comes when, drunk on the power and clarity of thought that rationality brings, the hacker mind tries to apply this tool to matters of the heart or soul. To pretend that the behaviour of a parent towards their child has its basis in rational thought is to presume rationality is a more human trait than love, or than the desire to express one's will on the world.
When parents say things like 'I love my kid so much that it makes my heart hurt', they aren't being flowery; that's actually what it feels like. A feeling so grounded in the core of our existence as a species that it's inseparable from physical pain; to try and apply rationality to that is the height of naivety. Likewise, when people say things like 'you can't understand unless you've had a child yourself', they aren't being dismissive. Parenthood isn't just another mouth to feed or diapers to change. It is a rewiring of your mind and your soul so complete and severe that it can turn love into physical pain. It is perhaps the most human event that has ever occurred in my life, and I suspect most other parents would say the same.
I have weeped openly for days in both happiness and fear for my daughter's well being. I have walked away from a life that took me a decade to build in order to ensure her health, and I never once questioned the correctness of that decision. Many of my decisions as a parent have been made in the face of rationality, made on a balance of many factors of which the rational course of action was just one. Walking that razor edge between the rational way and the biological imperative is an essential skill of any parent. It is a path impossible to describe yet clear as day if you just know where to look.
The only objective truth is that there are no objective truths. I won't pretend to say that my perspective is any more or less correct than anyone else's, but I will say this: rationality is a double edged sword. It is a potent weapon against bugs, suits, and dogma, but it is also capable of separating you from that which makes you human. Like any tool, it's up to you to decide how to wield rationality. Please just know the consequences before you start swinging it.
I don't even pretend to understand what you're getting at with your second paragraph, and since this is HN and not reddit, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you mean no harm. That being said, I might caution you to choose your words wisely and delicately when it comes to commenting on other people's parenting methods. There are few minefields more fraught with peril than those surrounding parenting. Someone less accommodating than I may well take offense to statements like that, so tread lightly.
As a parent of a child who was born with a near-fatal congenital disorder (malignant sacrococcygeal teratoma), I can attest that the decision to try for #2 is a difficult one that we're still wrestling with.
On the one hand ours was a one-off event and subsequent kids should be fine. We've always wanted two, and it's been such a wonderful experience that we want more of. So there's that.
On the other hand, the months of treatment after diagnosis were the most emotionally draining experience we've ever gone through, and we don't know if we have it in us to go for number two. We're still in the early days (diagnosis + 9 months, all signs pointing to cured) so this may change, but active parenting causes healing and recovery to happen much slower.
My wife (and her brother) are also both adopted, so we're well aware of the dynamics involved there. We've said since before we started trying for kids that we weren't going to beat ourselves up if we'd had problems conceiving (we gave ourselves nine months of trying before we'd look at adoption. As it turns out it only took us one). One could probably argue that the truly optimal thing to do would have been to forego trying biologically at all and to jump right into adoption, but that didn't feel right either.
All of which is to say that I don't think it's egocentricity per se, but a natural desire to at least try and see your genes successfully expressed in the world. While that's not ideal from a rational perspective, I don't think you can go too far down that line of thinking without verging into eugenics.
You'll notice that later on my comment I said 'I'm not going to say you're objectively wrong on this'. I'm not begrudging the OP his/her opinion, I'm simply saying that without the mental reset that is parenthood, the OP simply does not have enough information to make any factual statement on the matter.
I'm not saying that the OP is wrong or unentitled, I'm simply saying that they're exhibiting a potent mix of naivety and arrogance that they may want to be more aware of. Or, as my sibling poster said in a better way: "Don't presume in your arrogance that you know quite a bit about something you have zero experience with."
Balls to this. As your sibling commenter says, you simply don't get to pass judgement on this if you haven't had a child of your own.
Sure, we're programmed to behave with an otherwise inexcusable amount of irrationality with our kids, but that's not by accident. If anything, it demonstrates the level of evolutionary importance in keeping our offspring healthy and ensuring their success: it's such an important directive in fact, that evolution has deemed it more important than the needs of the parents to 'play [their] games, go to [their] parties -- read book[s]...or code'.
I'm not going to tell you you're objectively wrong on this, but I will tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about. Life is a squishy, inconvenient, and occasionally beautiful endeavour. Realize that.
Security findings are one place where we as maintainers simply do not have the choice to not play ball, whether we like it or not. It seems likely that the only way that we meet the moment is to adopt these tools ourselves -- once again -- whether we like it or not. Reconciling this with the ground truth that 'OSS doesn't owe anyone a goddamn thing' is proving to be really hard for me.