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Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

drupalconfessions.org

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Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#101

Post by nebabyte »

jacquesm wrote: post #9

> We know that you have no desire for more press coverage, Dries. The last thing you want is to prolong the media parade that has drawn so much attention to the problems with Drupal governance. That must be why they chose to do this in public rather than in a private letter. As much as I agree with the contents of the letter I reject the way in which it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail. If you don't do 'x'…

> I reject the way in which it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail

Agreed. This line in particular got me -

> We unreservedly promise that if you do — but only if you do — we will have your back

Not exactly subtle. I'm surprised so many people put their name to this letter as alleged - I'm guessing they instead 'collected signatures' for a 'petition' then penned/published this - but I seriously doubt that so many would stop interacting with Drupal over this sort of thing. More likely they'd grin-and-bear it and still use the tool for their work, but not participate in the 'community drama'.

Software is ultimately about software, not interpersonal ethics. You can trumpet all you like with these pieces, but at the end of the day the people even reading are a tiny subset of the people using it, and even if they all leave and start advising against it, that software is still a solution in the solution space, viable to many customers who don't know or care about interpersonal dramas within its community.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#102

Post by YCode »

redsummer wrote: post #54
rsyring wrote: post #15

Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious" standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will suffer. (Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)

"Diversity in everything except thought" is the mantra. The problem with this is that to solve problems you need diversity in thought: https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-the...

I've wondered this for a long time but never felt comfortable asking... Has ethnic/racial diversity in the workplace actually been shown to increase productivity or innovation, or is that dogma used to justify the practice?

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#103

Post by driverdan »

humanrebar wrote: post #47
pavlov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.

> The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red stat…

The donor list was not leaked, it's public information.

> In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs?

Yes. When you're the leader and figure head of an org your views and opinions are seen as representing that org. If you're anti-gay marriage it's seen as if you may treat gay employees negatively. That's bad for hiring and bad for public opinion.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#104

Post by tomlock »

vertex-four wrote: post #56
amiga-workbench wrote: post #4

I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are kinky (and, separately, a large chunk of the kink community agrees broadly with modern feminist views). Nobody I've spoken to within my subset of the social justice community wants somebody to be removed from the Drupal community based on how they go about their personal relationships and sexuality.

+1 for this. I know plenty of feminists that hang out with Goreans. Seems like an imagined opposition more than a real one.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#105

Post by cat199 »

HappyTypist wrote: post #46
StavrosK wrote: post #35

Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting adults in private?

>> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."

Yes, and?

While I'm not into this kind of stuff, this is 'acted out' in a recreational activity..

As one simple example, this could be his way of coping with the 'reality' that women are evolutionarily 'superior to men' or similar..

If the actual behavior hasn't impacted the community in a way that the community doesn't like directly, the 'problem' is the person making it their business to muckrake and air other people's dirty laundry..

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#106

Post by humanrebar »

coldpie wrote: post #96
noxToken wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs? In short, yes. There are plenty of rational people out there who don't care what someone does in their private life as long as it doesn't have a readily apparent effect on business. It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hol…

> It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hold. In Eich's case, it wasn't a private matter. He used his money and influence to attempt to enforce his religious views on people who do not subscribe to his religion. When you are involving the government in public enforcement of your personal views, they a…

The donor list was not public. Some people believe private political behavior should stay private, just like voting.

Saying "this is too important for privacy to apply" affects more issues than just politics advocacy.

In this situation, people apparently are applying the template: "When you X, it's no longer personal anymore".

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#107

Post by kazagistar »

dullgiulio wrote: post #43
Flow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started to mentally replace the words "inclusion and diversity" with "conformity" on certain places on the net.

The key is "tolerance" and "inclusion". Those are, of course, superior to intolerance and exclusion. To have tolerance, you cannot tolerate intolerance. It is maybe illogical, but necessary.

No one says to be tolerant of everything. Don't be tolerant of intolerant public actions. But also don't be intolerant of private thoughts and actions.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#108

Post by camperman »

orcdork wrote: post #66
iplaw wrote: post #29

This is very true. A large portion of these so-labeled SJWs preach inclusion* and diversity^. It's all about total and blind conformity to and their constructed alternative reality, based on unquestionable and irrefutable faux-offense. * inclusion limited to like-minded individuals who share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body i…

share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit Look at this strawman I'm clutching. Made it myself, out of straw.

It's called rhetoric.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#109

Post by menacingly »

andoon wrote: post #30
julie1 wrote: post #11

It convinces me Code Of Conduct are basically sticks that will not harm you when you are on the right side of them. Do communities needs sticks to be driven one sided way like cows? At this point it feels like they kind of defy their reason to be and are pretty misused.

My experience says that codes of conduct are written with the express desire of keeping all open source communities left-leaning. I've talked to many people about the matter and some of them say that open source is supposed to be left-leaning, and that those are its principles. That ignores that right-leaning users should also be able to benefit from open source values (privacy, for example) and contribute code, and…

There definitely is an "oh, we're doing this now" moment when any project or group reaches a size where a code of conduct is published.

It's like wearing a cowboy hat to a meeting. It's not that there's anything wrong with the symbol itself, but it perhaps represents some tedious baggage

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#110

Post by lucideer »

A lot of people are taking either stance: that a person's beliefs squarely should or should not affect their involvement in the project.

However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect their beliefs may have on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" might execute poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

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