I’m just wondering, because I have seen some negative comments on here about him, but they don’t usually provide specifics.
I respect the effort he’s put into right to repair, and agree (in general) with most of the points he makes about it.
But I also think he’s an asshole and we need a better voice for the RtR movement. I’ve seen him get into fights and strawman people on reddit as corporate shills just for calling his attitude abrasive.
“Source available” grifter.
He’s doing some really good stuff for right to repair; he get’s a bit overly dramatic sometimes but you can tell that he’s just very passionate about those things.
I think he’s the best type of influencer; rather than money or fame he strives for an end to the constant enshittification by exposing bad actors and not giving a shit about it.
He fights the good fight but I don’t like his videos very much because he’s very whiny and annoying.
Lol, him screaming quietly pisses me off.
I think I agree with most comments here.
He’s usually right and I agree with him, I just find him a little hard to watch. His videos are a bit long winded.
I 100% support him. I think his heart and mind are in the right place.
His board repair videos were outstanding. I don’t especially enjoy his rants. He’s usually right, but I don’t really care to listen to how mad he is about it. I can get mad on my own.
good, but man his videos on the SteamDeck are really over negative for no reason. For someone who really supports Linux he doesn’t seem to much appreciate the thing getting Linux to mainstream popularity
We are allowed to guide the growth of things and show where they need work.
Didn’t you people have report cards?
wow not a single mention of how he has a Kiwi Farms account in the comments here, surprising
I long wondered how he manages to identify as a libertarian despite what he spends all his time talking about, now it’s starting to make more sense lol
Soo, what? Does he actively participate in harassment?
This comment shows your stripes…
In short, like anyone else:
He’s absolutely right, and utterly annoying
Seems intelligent and I’ve enjoyed some of his videos. I don’t know much about him other than he’s a bit… intense? and he’s sparked controversy with some people. I looove the FUTO keyboard app he’s associated with. It’s the best TTS keyboard I’ve found, and I refuse to use the Google/Samsung/etc equivalents
The TTS uses whisper and absolutely dominates. But it is garbage still as a swipe interface. It direly needs to catch up on that front before I can recommend it full-time to friends. I spend SO much time retyping things it gets wrong.
If you’re looking for a reasonable FOSS swipe keyboard, try AnySoftKeyboard. While still a step below the non FOSS keyboards I’ve used before like Swiftkey, it gets the job done reasonably well
Also the Grayjay app.
I tend to like him and the things he has to say. I like that he helps consumers be more conscious of the things they buy, and cautions against companies with bad practices (such as those that are closed sourced, or lock basic features behind paywalls, etc).
He strikes me as a little socially awkward himself, and maybe that manifests as his rage at some of these companies and situations; he could stand to take a breath every now and then. I really enjoyed his breakdown of the Honey scam and LTT.
He’s autistic, that’s why he’s socially awkward. It was mentioned in one of his videos a few years ago.
Clearly I missed that video. Thanks for letting me know! That makes his views and attitudes make a little more sense.
(I also didn’t mean socially awkward as an insult or anything, I certainly have no room to talk)
I’m socially awkward, but that’s probably just paranoia and PTSD from my time in the military.
He seems like a great consumer advocate and repair activist to me.
this tbh, I can understand how some might think Louis Rossmann is annoying, but for the most part what I notice is that he is a vocal advocate and we are lucky to have him, I’m a fan even if he’s annoying.
He does go a little over the top sometimes so his videos could be considered to be a bit overdramatic with a little sprinkle of rage bait.
However, I have rarely have disagreed with his views on consumer protection. Actually… I have never disagreed with his views on consumer protection.
Him getting viewers pissed off is not what I would consider healthy, but the rage might get some people to stop showing their bellies to large companies. Regardless, his videos do walk a fine line for me personally. He should be getting income from his videos, which is fine. If he ever cracks and starts getting people pissed off expressly for the purpose of income, I’ll drop his videos really quick.
I don’t think there is such a thing as over-the-top with this issue. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. And we’re already miles past that point.
He’s mostly correct about lots of things, but not about everything (for example, he hated on everything GrapheneOS just because its lead dev is a bit socially awkward). Plus he’s overly dramatic and verbose which can be annoying. Sometimes you must be to get abstract or complicated points across better, but I still feel he’s too aggressive in that regard. I also like what he’s trying to achieve with FUTO in general. Overall, he’s a great and valuable activist who has almost all of his eggs in the right baskets.
He said he wasn’t going to use GrapheneOS anymore because Daniel Micay threatened to blackmail him because Rossman had made a comment on a video describing his behavior online.
Blackmail?
I know this is a Louis Rossman thread but calling Daniel Micay “a bit socially awkward” is minimizing the issue to an extreme. Louis Rossman made his comments after he watched Techlore’s in-depth video documenting Daniel’s behavior, but keep in mind that even that hour-long video is just scratching the surface. To this day, Daniel continues to act the same way if not worse, and has a giant list of “enemies” that he says are attacking, harassing, bullying, and gangstalking the “grapheneOS project” (aka him). This might be partially caused by him bashing other open source projects and making new enemies any chance he gets. I’m not sure when the “all open source projects get together to personally target Daniel Micay” meetings occur, but maybe the only common thread is Daniel himself. There are tons and tons of receipts out there on the web if you search for “Daniel Micay list of enemies”, especially on a site that I don’t feel comfortable promoting but which does a very good job of keeping track of this stuff - especially because Daniel always deletes everything incriminating afterwards. If you’re going to catch him in the act you need to take screenshots and make archive.org snapshots.
Daniel’s behavior is a very important issue to be aware of if you’re considering using grapheneOS, and personally it crosses the line of what I feel comfortable with in regards to running his operating system on the most personal device I have. Louis Rossman was even more justified in his decision to do the same, since Daniel is (to this day) specifically targeting him.
I don’t view it as badly. He’s probably overly defensive and paranoid and interprets some forms of criticism as attacks. But I do not see this as an argument against his competence or contributions to the project, or against using GrapheneOS altogether, at all. In fact, I even kind of like having someone paranoid as the head of a security-focused OS. Seems like a useful synergy to me. Also, AFAIK the GrapheneOS project now also has others posting about the project, not just him alone. I think this was also a result of his “miscommunication” in the past. Furthermore, the project is too important (there are almost zero high-security and high-privacy mobile OSes!) to escalate this into a problem. And furthermore again, there might also be parties involved who are ACTUALLY interested in attacking GrapheneOS and weakening its popularity, for their own gains. And so when your successful and also high-quality project is under regular attacks from various angles, you might get more paranoid and misinterpret some valid criticism as a result. Combine that with Rossman’s over-dramatic nature and high reach, and someone paranoid like Daniel might take it the wrong way. And then communication spirals out of control into various escalations. At least that’s how I interpret it.
He’s probably overly defensive and paranoid and interprets some forms of criticism as attacks.
I think this was also a result of his “miscommunication” in the past
there might also be parties involved who are ACTUALLY interested in attacking GrapheneOS and weakening its popularity, for their own gains.
when your successful and also high-quality project is under regular attacks from various angles
Rossman’s over-dramatic nature and high reach
then communication spirals out of control into various escalations
You should actually look at any of the copious amounts of evidence that involve this conversation instead of just imagining what it might look like. There’s really not much else to talk about until you do. Daniel has given us zero evidence to support his side, while in contrast there’s a mountain of evidence against him.
its lead dev is a bit socially awkward
Heh. You’re being gentle, and that’s good. But that’s maybe understating it a bit.
I’ve seen the GrapheneOS official Mastodon account being an antisocial uncollegial mess.
It’s okay to acknowledge that we wish some of our open source contributors were better community members.
Out of interest (because I know nothing whatsoever about GrapheneOS), how does its lead compare to Linus Torvald?
I don’t follow either closely enough to make a rank list or anything.
In the same ballpark as some moments that Torvalds has apologized for. Milder than Torvald’s worst, but also unrepentant, as far as I’ve seen.
He’s fine. His videos come off as a bit whiny. The stance of pirating content as being justified instead of just abstaining from an unsatisfactory service seems entitled to me but I get it. I think he’s mostly right in his analysis of things, I don’t make it through every video that he posts though
Great consumer rights activist and I have agreed with 90% of the takes I’ve heard from him, but his videos are mind numbingly long and boring.
I was just saying the other day it feels like he gets through all that needs to be said in the first half of the video and then spends the rest ranting/reiterating himself. But I think he has good talking points
First half is generous imho. From the one I just watched it felt like 3/4 was spent rehashing the same thing over and over.
