Felipe Contreras
felipec.wordpress.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2011
Felipe Contreras, a Git contributor, writes opinionated posts on Git, GNOME, Linux compatibility and software maintenance.
What HN saysCommenters cite his Linux way article on not breaking userspace as a great post, and link his Git writing.
51HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
54stories submitted
550story points
11 months agolast shared
2011people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Linux way; never ever break user experience6 people · 15 points · first shared 2013 · 2 comments on HN
- 2The Git staging area, the term literally everyone agrees with4 people · 18 points · first shared 2021 · 5 comments on HN
- 3The problem with GNOME 33 people · 76 points · first shared 2013 · 68 comments on HN
- 4The stupidity and arrogance of GNOME developers3 people · 35 points · first shared 2024 · 6 comments on HN
- 5Git update: the odyssey for a sensible Git pull – Felipe Contreras3 people · 16 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Seamless Git interop with Hg and Bzr3 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 7Another user/developer banned from GNOME's bugzilla without any warning2 people · 88 points · first shared 2013 · 88 comments on HN
- 8Xz Backdoor and Autotools Insanity2 people · 34 points · first shared 2024 · 13 comments on HN
- 9Mercurial vs Git; it’s all in the branches2 people · 14 points · first shared 2012 · 39 comments on HN
- 10C skill issue; how the White House is wrong2 people · 13 points · first shared 2024 · 7 comments on HN
- 11Demystifying the init system2 people · 5 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 12What it takes to improve Git or: How I fixed zsh completion2 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 13One decade later, GNOME still sucks2 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 14Using Git with triangular workflows; tips, tricks, and more2 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 15The ruby community doesnt have a dhh problem2 people · first shared 2025
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jerf · 2019-03-08
Linus has a policy: Don't break userspace. See https://felipec.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/the-linux-way/
That's a great blog post; it's not just about the policy, but talks about some people who disagree, provides a lot of links, and is just generally better than anything I could hope to write here. I'll only observe that I'm not endorsing anything except that that's a pretty good post. I'm just pointing out the context, not arguing for or against "don't break userspace" personally.
tsilva · 2017-11-02
Another example is what happened when Linux moved to 3.0; some programs expected a 2.x version, or even 2.6.x, these programs were clearly buggy, as they should check that the version is greater than 2.x, however, the bugs were already there, and people didn’t want to recompile their binaries, and they might not even be able to do that. It would be stupid for Linux to report 2.6.x, when in fact it’s 3.x, but that’s exactly what they did. They added an option so the kernel would report a 2.6.x version, so the users would have the option to keep running these old buggy binaries. Link here.
From: https://felipec.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/the-linux-way/
girvo · 2014-06-06
Nope. In fact, Felipe Contreras has an excellent article he just posted about that exact topic: http://felipec.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/whats-missing-in-git-v2-0-0/
finaard · 2025-01-16
N9 was very close to launch when Elop came, so that went ahead, but the rest of the development got cancelled immediately to focus on Windows phone: N9 would've otherwise been the first in a series of devices to slowly take over from Symbian.
Until Elop canceled everything Symbian was still selling - declining sales, but still millions of units. So while the situation was bad slowly phasing out Symbian for taking all the money you could make with that, while hoping N9 software stack sticks sounded like a more sensible approach than "cancel everything, go for Windows". Elop did respond to criticism from Developers (including a mail I've sent him with colleagues), but had made up his mind.
This blog post is a byproduct of that discussion, and was referenced by Felipe in internal mailing lists back then:
https://felipec.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/meego-scales-because-linux-sc…
I have no idea how successfull it'd have been in the end - the UI was great, parts of the softwarestack were problematic (though we've been doing quite well with parts of that at Jolla later on). The planned hardware for the future models was less than ideal, though.
throwawaypath · 2025-12-08
>Read "As I Remember London", and put on your reading comprehension hat.
Ironic. Your linked article wouldn't exist if the author had put on their reading comprehension hat.
>If you need help, try this article:
If you need help, try this article:
https://felipec.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/the-ruby-community-doesnt-hav…
>DHH is clearly talking about people of color in London
"People of color" are not native to London. If you won't acknowledge that, you're either oblivious or racist (Anglophobic/anti-White). I hope it's the former.
srid · 2025-11-29
Sounds like you have a poitical clash with DHH. You are of course free to choose how you spend your money.
Other people are free to ignore politics or look at counteracting viewpoints: https://felipec.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/the-ruby-community-doesnt-hav…
Intralexical · 2024-05-01
GNOME as a project has consistently made itself clear on how it feels about the rest of the desktop Linux ecosystem existing, or working well with it:
2012 — https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-thre…
2021 — https://joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/
2023 — https://felipec.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/one-decade-later-gnome-still-…
2023 — https://medium.com/@fulalas/gnome-mess-is-not-an-accident-4e301032670c
Nobody should be surprised anymore when GNOME pulls some shady and technically questionable crap to try to make their "product" look better by actively breaking other people's work.
JoeyBananas · 2023-02-06
I would change the term "The index" to "The staging area."
https://felipec.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/git-staging-area-rename/
57FkMytWjyFu · 2022-08-21
Anything like this ever happen to you before?
https://felipec.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/no-gnome-doesnt-want-user-fee…
frabbit · 2017-11-17
The typical Github workflow is to treat the Github repo as a preferred upstream
Is it typical? What metrics do you have to support that?
Speaking for myself I have only ever used triangular workflows: fork upstream; set local remotes to own fork; push to own fork; issue pull request; profit
https://felipec.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/git-triangular-workflows/
derFunk · 2016-03-20
Some time ago (10 years) we implemented this as 'continuations' into our own game engine. E.g. see https://felipec.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/continuations-in-c-easy-async… and http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ContinuationImplementation
herge · 2014-02-15
This is older than git 1.9, but git supports mercurial repositories[1]. I used to have to use mercurial to deal with kiln (which couldn't convert our repo to git), but now I happily work with git and everything is 10 times faster.
[1]: https://felipec.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/git-remote-hg-bzr-2/
eslaught · 2012-01-07
The author seems to contradict himself in a comment[1]: My objective is to show why Git is superior. (Thanks to [2] for noticing.)
[1]: http://felipec.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/mercurial-vs-git-its-all-in-th…
[2]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3437677
jseutter · 2023-02-08
It's going back a few years now but the gnome 3 debacle is a reasonable example of not respecting users https://felipec.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/the-problem-with-gnome-3/ . I think in subsequent years the devs have been worn down and the community solved the missing features in other ways, but some people have long memories. gnome 3 is the primary reason Ubuntu got its own desktop system, it was that divisive.
The Steam Deck is uniquely positioned to allow people to do potentially hazardous things like install software from unknown sources, and that is because it's primarily a gaming device. People aren't doing banking and work stuff on it, so what is the damage if it gets rooted? Valve could have easily screwed it up by building a walled garden anyways, just to satisfy corporate greed in the name of "maximizing ROI". Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all have their walled gardens for gaming. The fact Valve hasn't (yet) is refreshing.
charlesdaniels · 2019-07-07
> If you're willing to fiddle around, there are a few good themes that don't waste so much space.
The point of this "first impressions" exercise was to explore the happy path.
> It's not just Gnome that does that. There's an entire generation of designers that's cargo-culting mobile designs at the moment. Breeze, KDE's default theme, is equally space-wasting.
I would agree with that sentiment, though I didn't want to get into that flame war today. I think a lot of other people have already written extensively on this subject and I don't feel I can contribute anything new. Here are some relevant articles...
Several of these are about CSDs, which I think are a big point of contention with respect to the design philosophy of GTK/Gnome 3.X. This list does not include much about the KDE/Qt side, which I'm less familiar with.
I would certainly like to expand the side of this list on the "Pro Gnome" side in the interest of a more fair and balanced debate.
Pro Gnome 3.x:
Client-Side Decorations Initiative - https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/CSD
Restyling apps at scale - https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-at-scale/
Introducing the CSD Initiative - https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/01/26/csd-initiative/
Against Gnome 3.x:
Why do we keep building rotten foundations? - https://davmac.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/why-do-we-keep-building-rotten…
GNOME (et al): Rotting In Threes -…