> It's worth noting that the phrase "It's fine. You'll get over it." is doing an enormous amount of emotional heavy lifting. It's not dismissive — it's pre-emptive closure. It anticipates your grief and resolves it in seven words.
Jeff Merkey is the person claiming the "xscreensaver" organisation on GitHub, despite it not being, and never has been, his project.
He has promised to drop that and move the repo to /hisname/xscreensaver, but only if JWZ flatters his ego first. Sounds like he knows he's squatting on someone else's good name, but thinks he's so clever and well versed in trademark law that he'd be deliberately antagonistic all the way to the end of a huge legal bill. Just to force him to do the right thing.
He knows what the right thing is and could do it at any time, but just look at his priors and tell me he'll do that:
When looking into screensavers on Wayland I stumbled across his articles and found them interesting enough to subscribe to his RSS feed, only to unsubscribe a day later after finding out he's an insufferable egomaniac (who treats his RSS feed as Twitter)
I am pretty sure the distro packagers all know where to get the real code from, and its packaged for everything that runs X so minimal risk.
Also assuming something on github is the official repo is dangerous anyway. There might be multiple repos with the same name, there might be a more actively developed fork and the official one might be unmaintained, etc.
Warning: it persists somehow, so you can't click on a link from HN, realise the problem, then copy+paste to correct it. Looks like you need to open an incognito window, use a different browser, or maybe otherwise clear your session.
Instead of providing a mirrored repository, they decided to intentionally not fixing the correctly identified problem while simultaneously still living 30 years in the past.
Setting up a git mirror that auto syncs takes less than 2mins of effort. And way less time than writing up this README that's just there to lecture people. If it's about disagreement with github, there's also better alternatives.
You can still setup the mirror and be done with it, and put the original repo links at the top in the README.
The upstream has no public repository, neither on GitHub nor anywhere else.
JWZ might not even use git in the first place, the source might be in a local SVN repo, or just a series of tarballs and patches, assuming it is version controlled at all.
I didn't criticize the motivations to ditch GitHub. I applaud that.
I criticized the intentional creation of a GitHub account just to write a README file wherein they say that there's no repository, instead of providing any useful information for people looking for a repository.
If there's no repository and you go to such great lengths just to clarify that there isn't any, then maybe you can just push your code to codeberg or gitlab or a selfhosted gogs instance if you don't trust them?
Nobody said that he MUST accept pull requests or MUST engage with any community at all. You can just disable all the features, I do that too since 4chan raided my repos in 2021 and GitHub didn't do shit about it.
But this way at least there's no risk for people installing malware infiltrated forks of xscreensaver on their machines. And that's what is the important part that wasn't actually solved/avoided/prevented with that README file.
Having spent (way too much) time on HN, I have come to realize that there are people in this industry -- in fact quite a few of them -- who cares nothing about being nice/cooperative/helpful/pragmatic and getting things done, but just want to show off their ego/opinion and make a statement.
Many names come to mind but I am too scared to post that list.
The page provides useful information. It tells you where you can download the XScreenSaver source code (from https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/), and how you can send patches (via email)
It doesn't need to provide anything else. Nobody is required to sign up to your preferred platform, or make their work available in a way you prefer to consume it. Get over yourself. If you want to contribute, contribute as requested. Or don't, the license allows you to host your own version, just be clear it's your version.
JWZ went to great lengths on github.com, solely because some other shitheel registered the "xscreensaver" organisation and went out of their way to make it seem like it's official, and github.com's google juice means it outranks the real site. Hence the need for the effort to solve that problem (reputation management and SEO after a copycat misrepresents themselves as you)
Putting a repo on Github, versus putting a notice on Github that there's no repo, does not change the risk of people installing malware. While someone else still has the top ranked page for your software, they remain the most likely place a moron in a hurry[0] will download from. You adding a repo doesn't help, you getting their repo removed, and salting it to prevent recreation, does help.
It's obvious that the author wants to make a statement, and has their own reason to not expose their work on GitHub. Setting up a mirror would probably contradict these reasons.
This fork is great: https://github.com/cowmix/xscreensaver
This is a work of art.
> It's worth noting that the phrase "It's fine. You'll get over it." is doing an enormous amount of emotional heavy lifting. It's not dismissive — it's pre-emptive closure. It anticipates your grief and resolves it in seven words.
AI still isn't great at counting, I suppose.
Couldn't decide if contradictions count as one word or two, and took the mean.
GitHub is not authoritative and never should be considered as authoritative. Anyone can publish your stuff on there as your name.
It’s a huge problem. Glad to see he’s at least put a placeholder on there.
The only thing missing is to mark it as Archived so that all of the GitHub features are turned off.
pros of having a Github repo:
* people can find your project easily
* stars are a pretty good indicator of authenticity
* you can browse, search code right away
* a place for people to contact you
cons:
* some maintenance
* people have a place to contact you
He has an email for people to contact him.
> stars are a pretty good indicator of authenticity
of which he now has 1000... on a non-project!
Jeff Merkey is the person claiming the "xscreensaver" organisation on GitHub, despite it not being, and never has been, his project.
He has promised to drop that and move the repo to /hisname/xscreensaver, but only if JWZ flatters his ego first. Sounds like he knows he's squatting on someone else's good name, but thinks he's so clever and well versed in trademark law that he'd be deliberately antagonistic all the way to the end of a huge legal bill. Just to force him to do the right thing.
He knows what the right thing is and could do it at any time, but just look at his priors and tell me he'll do that:
https://www.dmlp.org/threats/merkey-v-does
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitra...
https://github.com/xscreensaver/xscreensaver/issues/3
This was linked in the blog
I know that name ... https://lwn.net/Articles/140157/
Well, it's also impossible to link to the official one (here https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ )
without seeing eggballs in a cup due to JWZ's ego. So I say there's no winners with two big egos like these.
I find it funny. A bit weird, but harmless.
Both of the people involved in this dispute sound insufferable.
When looking into screensavers on Wayland I stumbled across his articles and found them interesting enough to subscribe to his RSS feed, only to unsubscribe a day later after finding out he's an insufferable egomaniac (who treats his RSS feed as Twitter)
This is totally on brand for JWZ.
Once again, jwz shows that he's way ahead of the average corporate ass kiss...
Github has gone to shit ever since it's purchase by M$
So what's the point of making a GitHub if you're not going to publish source code? Is this an inside joke?
To prevent impersonation and having people download potential malware from repositories posing as the official xscreensaver distribution channel.
I am pretty sure the distro packagers all know where to get the real code from, and its packaged for everything that runs X so minimal risk.
Also assuming something on github is the official repo is dangerous anyway. There might be multiple repos with the same name, there might be a more actively developed fork and the official one might be unmaintained, etc.
It's a dangerous thing which nevertheless happens every day.
So... this doesn't hurt, and can definitely help. It isn't perfect, but it cost JWZ very little to do.
Why are you arguing against it?
May be also be relevant to link to JWZ's post about it: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/10/gitsquatting/
You cannot hotlink to jwz; he will redirect you to a testicle in an eggcup based on referer header.
Warning: it persists somehow, so you can't click on a link from HN, realise the problem, then copy+paste to correct it. Looks like you need to open an incognito window, use a different browser, or maybe otherwise clear your session.
Just delete the cookies of jwz.org (to be specific, the cookie called HN)
Is it known why this is happening?
He doesn't like Hacker News.
I haven't seen a site that hurts my eyes this much for a very, very long time.
it looks like the site is offline :(
jwz also famously special cases traffic from hacker news. You may have better luck if you copy & paste the link to avoid sending referrer headers.
You need to open it incognito to avoid the Hacker News insult image!
to prevent a malware or something showing up as the top result on Google Search?
Instead of providing a mirrored repository, they decided to intentionally not fixing the correctly identified problem while simultaneously still living 30 years in the past.
Setting up a git mirror that auto syncs takes less than 2mins of effort. And way less time than writing up this README that's just there to lecture people. If it's about disagreement with github, there's also better alternatives.
You can still setup the mirror and be done with it, and put the original repo links at the top in the README.
The upstream has no public repository, neither on GitHub nor anywhere else.
JWZ might not even use git in the first place, the source might be in a local SVN repo, or just a series of tarballs and patches, assuming it is version controlled at all.
I didn't criticize the motivations to ditch GitHub. I applaud that.
I criticized the intentional creation of a GitHub account just to write a README file wherein they say that there's no repository, instead of providing any useful information for people looking for a repository.
If there's no repository and you go to such great lengths just to clarify that there isn't any, then maybe you can just push your code to codeberg or gitlab or a selfhosted gogs instance if you don't trust them?
Nobody said that he MUST accept pull requests or MUST engage with any community at all. You can just disable all the features, I do that too since 4chan raided my repos in 2021 and GitHub didn't do shit about it.
But this way at least there's no risk for people installing malware infiltrated forks of xscreensaver on their machines. And that's what is the important part that wasn't actually solved/avoided/prevented with that README file.
Having spent (way too much) time on HN, I have come to realize that there are people in this industry -- in fact quite a few of them -- who cares nothing about being nice/cooperative/helpful/pragmatic and getting things done, but just want to show off their ego/opinion and make a statement.
Many names come to mind but I am too scared to post that list.
The page provides useful information. It tells you where you can download the XScreenSaver source code (from https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/), and how you can send patches (via email)
It doesn't need to provide anything else. Nobody is required to sign up to your preferred platform, or make their work available in a way you prefer to consume it. Get over yourself. If you want to contribute, contribute as requested. Or don't, the license allows you to host your own version, just be clear it's your version.
JWZ went to great lengths on github.com, solely because some other shitheel registered the "xscreensaver" organisation and went out of their way to make it seem like it's official, and github.com's google juice means it outranks the real site. Hence the need for the effort to solve that problem (reputation management and SEO after a copycat misrepresents themselves as you)
Putting a repo on Github, versus putting a notice on Github that there's no repo, does not change the risk of people installing malware. While someone else still has the top ranked page for your software, they remain the most likely place a moron in a hurry[0] will download from. You adding a repo doesn't help, you getting their repo removed, and salting it to prevent recreation, does help.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry
It's obvious that the author wants to make a statement, and has their own reason to not expose their work on GitHub. Setting up a mirror would probably contradict these reasons.
> It's obvious that the author wants to make a statement
Microsoft destroyed his company via illegal means.
Microsoft own GitHub.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
If Facebook had bought github, they would have made automated squatting mirrors for all the packages like xscreensaver.
> You can still setup the mirror and be done with it, and put the original repo links at the top in the README
There is no original repo to link to. That's why the README says that there isn't one.
> Setting up a git mirror that auto syncs takes less than 2mins
Prove it.
> Prove it.
There's enough demo videos on how to use gogs, github or forgejo on YouTube.
I have faith in your ability to use the YouTube search.
Right now, I would love to live 30 years in the past.
me too…
Using a public source code hosting product is a choice.
Also centralising everything in one place is a seriously bad idea.
A link to a .tar.gz file published on someone's personal website serving as the only way to access source code also seems a centralized solution.
> Maybe someone should fork xscreensaver as xscreensaver-ng as a community project?
Feel free.
> they decided to intentionally not fixing the correctly identified problem
Which problem?
Or they could not. It’s their project they can do what they want you are not entitled to their labour.
Opening with the word "I" and continuing in that manner is the real reason there's no official xscreensaver repository