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Linux – The beginning of the end?

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Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#51

Post by CryptoRetired »

shrikant wrote: post #39
rbanffy wrote: post #9

I really, genuinely, don't understand why such a bland code of conduct would be a turn off to anyone. I may not be easy to be around, but I try not to be abrasive while, at the same time, making clear why I think something is the way I think. If you think someone is wrong very often, I believe saying why the person is wrong on every occasion will provide them with actionable information much better than calling them…

Yeah, I wonder if the people posting about not contributing any more to Linux will also stop their open source contributions to projects associated with all the organisations on this page: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/adopters

Yep. There’s a half dozen there I used to contribute to... and one I didn’t realize had adopted it.

If I ever need to add a feature to one of them I’ll have to fork it.

But I think that it needs a “no CoC” license.

That list, by the way, is a list of projects run by people who bowed to pressure and didn’t really think it thru or believed the lies pushed by those pushing the CoC.

I know this first hand for the projects I was involved in. It vaguely sounded good, the maintainers were leftists too and everybody opposes harassment, right?

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#52

Post by KozmoNau7 »

fefe23 wrote: post #47
rbanffy wrote: post #9

I really, genuinely, don't understand why such a bland code of conduct would be a turn off to anyone. I may not be easy to be around, but I try not to be abrasive while, at the same time, making clear why I think something is the way I think. If you think someone is wrong very often, I believe saying why the person is wrong on every occasion will provide them with actionable information much better than calling them…

In the Illuminatus books there is a story that may help illuminate this. Some dude posts signs in a store that say "DO NOT SPIT ON THE FLOOR. --MGT". The staff assumes it's from management, so they leave the signs up. The customers feel insulted that management would think they would spit on the floor, so they stop buying there. The store goes bust. The apparent blandness of the CoC may exactly be the problem.

That example shows a clear problem in the employee/management relationship. Putting up signs like that without adequately informing the employees is really bad passive aggressive management. Likewise, the employees simply accepting such a change being made is a clear indicator that they're either afraid to ask questions of the management for fear of reprisals, or that they've simply stopped caring about what management does, because they've lost faith in the leadership.

Either way, it's a clear case of mismanagement and miscommunication.

Nothing to do with a software project CoC.

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#53

Post by chimprich »

CryptoRetired wrote: post #15

I am a gay man[0] who has contributed to a number of open source projects significantly. However I stopped when they implemented “Code of Conducts” that deny basic rights such as innocent until proven guilty and the right to face your accuser. (The popular one keeps accusers anonymous, thus the victim has no chance to defend themselves.) The truth is a maintainer can eject someone without a CoC. The purpose of CoC, a…

> I get to see abuse from [...] SJWs who hate me for being male and apparently think preferring men is discrimination against women!

Please forgive me the scepticism, but this sounds like a standard far-right caricature of liberal beliefs rather than anything that actually happened. People don't actually think like this. If I have to assume good faith here, then another possibility is that you were being trolled.

(Edit: bearing in mind your antipathy towards anonymous complainants, would you be willing to submit a link to the Twitter thread in question?)

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#54

Post by CryptoRetired »

M_Bakhtiari wrote: post #46
CryptoRetired wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t understand, maybe Consider the objections, instead of ( unintentionally) writing as if the people who object are presumed abusive or bigoted. That wasn’t your intention because you meant to just say you have no problem accepting criticism. But that’s the implication. And the idea of guilty until proven innocent, but you can’t defend yourself because you will never hear the accusation and your attacker ca…

Actually I was surprised by the Drupal guy since a lot of the people behind these CoCs seem to be various blue-haired kinksters themselves. I don't think either that or Linus' excessive swearing belongs in a software project, but CoC makers clearly aren't interested in maintaining a civil society, they're just interested in maintaining their particular brand of ideology.

For clarification the dripal guy didn’t bring any bdsm into the project, they dig into his personal life and found it. They beat the poor guy up so bad he’s now apologizing in hopes of mitigating the damage. But they really don’t care. He didn’t harass anyone.

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ATsch wrote: post #35

I find the doom-and-gloom over the CoC change absolutely silly. Plenty of projects have a CoC and none of them have just died a fiery death because there were rules against treating people badly. As other people pointed out, there's a big difference between putting everything into 15 layers of business speak and just not insulting people. Linus is, to me, obviously advocating the latter.

[deleted]

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#56

Post by rndgermandude »

Certhas wrote: post #10
lanevorockz wrote: post #2

I am a Linux developer and contributor for a few decades and the code of conduct simply killed any interest in contributing to it. It won't take long until backdoors are introduced on Linux. Activists that joined the community for money will have full control and the ability of banning any criticism. We really need Linus back.

Because behaving like a decent human being is that hard, isn't it? If a code of conduct hurts your feelings that much maybe you're just not cut out for collaborative work. I really wonder where the great fear that CoCs will be abused to shut down disagreement comes from. I am not a fan of policing language, but there just aren't many real examples of such abuse out there. Here is the actual list of examples from the…

> Because behaving like a decent human being is that hard, isn't it? If a code of conduct hurts your feelings that much maybe you're just not cut out for collaborative work.

This is a personal attack, very thinly veiled. If Hacker News had the same code of conduct, your account would have to be banned at worst.

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#57

Post by xeeeeeeeeeeenu »

alkonaut wrote: post #43
aikah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is one of the most inclusive projects there is There is absolutely no proof a CoC drives "inclusiveness", whatever it means, however there are multiple examples where codes of conducts were used to exclude contributors because they said something someone did not like in a setting completely unrelated to the project community. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/drupal-larry-garfield-gor.htm... CoC are political tools to…

> said something someone did not like in a setting completely unrelated to the project community. This is always a difficult line to draw. If you find out someone is a nazi (and thus would like to see you dead or preferably never born) it's hard to just look past that fact and colllaborate constructively just because the behavior was "unrelated to the project". The simple rule would be- would you be fired on the spot…

>This is always a difficult line to draw.

It's not difficult at all. What contributors are doing privately has nothing to do with the project.

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#59

Post by throw2016 »

There needs to be more frank discussions about corporate and vested interests and how to protect the independence of the kernel which Linus has managed well till now.

Automatic assumptions that what is good for Redhat or Google is good for everyone do not hold. These companies have real power, thousands of employees, media and industry support, funding, and lots of people reluctant to go against them or keen to curry favour so they can overwhelm any decision or discussion with resources. This must be recognized.

Linus is obviously not easy to replace but there should be some kind of succession planning and also thinking in detail about how to retain the independence of the development process from powerful interests.

This latter is something that not enough attention has been paid to in open source. Security fud is often used to raise complexity and indirectly encourage corporate interests and monopoly. The control of standards is also used to push complexity and raise barriers.

In the long term its only the ability of smaller groups to develop software that can ensure users are not held hostage by vested interests. The Linux kernel is hugely important to open source and it needs to be managed well to encourage and motivate the next generation of contributors.

Re: Linux – The beginning of the end?

#60

Post by tajen »

CryptoRetired wrote: post #15

I am a gay man[0] who has contributed to a number of open source projects significantly. However I stopped when they implemented “Code of Conducts” that deny basic rights such as innocent until proven guilty and the right to face your accuser. (The popular one keeps accusers anonymous, thus the victim has no chance to defend themselves.) The truth is a maintainer can eject someone without a CoC. The purpose of CoC, a…

I’m a gay man too and I flee conferences, OSS and companies that emphasize code of conducts. It’s highly linked to the intention of increasing female ratio and decreasing meritocracy, and it generally means the organization has fallen prey to a politically motivated agenda and becomes less focussed on business. I guess only successful ones with high margins do that. When you find business-centered no-bullshit people who undertake attempts, risks and ambitious projects, violent criticism is part of the deal, but extreme competence too.

The fact that Linus himself goes for a retreat to reevaluate himself, despite staying under the nanodjikstra unit, is deeply worrying for the future of open-source. If they’ve succeeded to break him down, they’ll take ownership of the rest.

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