331–340 of 412 posts
RMS: Armed only with email archives, I generated a novel solution from inside my own head and tested it against feedback arriving back to my own head from a smattering of individuals.
What every happened to, "Gee, I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps I should ask an expert for help."
> In August, a discussion started among GNU package maintainers about the problem that GNU development often pushes women away I'm not trying to offend people or anything, but where is the evidence for this in GNU specifically?
I was there to witness the private mailing list that culminated in this, and there was a very clear example of that happening there. A certain GNU contributor, let's call her Sal, was voicing concerns with current practices. Someone else replied to her with "Sally," condescendingly talking down to her. To this she said, "I did not invite you to call me by a nickname. Call me Sal." A sub-discussion then erupted about…
One helpful approach is to initially grant the benefit of the doubt to the person that you think offended you. I ask myself, "Am I certain the other person meant to be condescending" (or some other offense)? Do they have a history of this? If I respond harshly, will I get a listening ear?
I think Stallman did well by recommending to be kind. We want our collaborations to be productive. If we are quick to take offense, we will destroy relationships and collaboration.
My point is NOT to excuse bad behavior but rather to make sure I am not jumping to conclusions and breaking good collaborative relationships...
Of course we address repeat offenses. Having been gracious initially, those discussions are more likely to be productive. I think Stallman's approach does that well.
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Yeah, like mirko said, being pressured by project leader to merge absolute crap (I was in charge of merging), "because it works and we don't want to suppress less skilled colleagues". "Try to explain nicely how to do it better" while that other guy a) doesn't want to learn and b) has feelings that are more important that making better software / learning. Edit: to clarify, that other guy couldn't understand the proje…
Hey, I don’t know your situation so this may be nonsense, but what you describe doesn’t sound so PC. The guy’s code worked? Doesn’t sound unreasonable that the project leader would want it merged. Put the technical debt on the backlog, get on with writing other code that works. The project leader presumably had a team to manage. Seems perfectly understandable that they would want all their team contributing, even if…
Linus: I'm taking time off and getting help from people who are (probably) trained to understand people's emotions. RMS: Armed only with email archives, I generated a novel solution from inside my own head and tested it against feedback arriving back to my own head from a smattering of individuals. What every happened to, "Gee, I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps I should ask an expert for help."
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Usually that's because when claims about discrimination against whites and men are made, there's no evidence that they are actively being discriminated against. Rather, the case is usually that they're not being favored as they were. Which, if you are in the previously favored class, may feel like discrimination, but in reality it's simply giving everyone else a chance as well.
This is an example of a bias in perception of discrimination. You dismiss the idea of discrimination of whites and men upfront. You probably believe whites and men are not discriminated against in any substantial way. You are even willing to paint discrimination of whites and men as a "loss of previous favors". Consider this example: Difference in pay between men and women is a small discomfort (single women can affo…
I'm saying I'm not seeing evidence of any.
"This is what I call bias in perception of discrimination."
You're exhibiting just as much bias as you're accusing others of having. You're picking and choosing what you're considering important to worry about, and dismissing other items.
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The current push for codes of conduct in software projects isn't about harassment per se. Realistically anyone can be harassed out of a community regardless of rules. The point of the rules is to change the norms such that behavior that would otherwise have been exclusionary or just off-putting is specifically called out and recognized as "wrong". "This code is fucking garbage and you should be ashamed" may or may no…
What if the code was indeed garbage, and it cost a lot of time (super precious asset) and brain power (a precious asset) to evaluate and reject? Such a reaction would be understandable even if hurtful. No wonder people leaning towards the Asperger/autistic spectrum of brutal honesty would state that; such is their nature. What would you propose for addressing it? Ghosting? Silent blacklisting? English-style "there is…
How does calling it garbage help anyway, except perhaps to give yourself an adrenaline kick?
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NVC is great and has improved my speaking and listening skills. However, I have to take issue with the name. Co-opting the word violence, is great marketing but dishonest.
I haven't read much about NVC, so I can't speak to how the term is used there. But if it's anything like Crucial Conversations, they define/analyze conversational violence in a lot of detail. I thought it was a really interesting read. CC defines conversational violence as things like labeling, misrepresentation, accusations, defensiveness, getting angry, etc. I'd assume that NVC probably has a similar definition. I…
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I think it's important to understand that while everyone has conscious and unconscious biases, it's not true that recognizing that fact is the same as assigning blame. The idea is to better know one's self, to try and understand one's own bias (to the best of one's ability, that is) in order to try and apply correctives when making decisions involving people who are different than we are. It's when we actively press…
This is fine as an ethics or description of good manners. The problem is that it is often turned into a politics. The logic of this kind of identitarian social critique, insofar as it becomes political, is decidedly illiberal. It is authoritarian. But all of this is nothing new! In fact it's about 30+ years old. It originates in the aftermath of the failed revolution of the 1960s--in other words, it appeared as a phe…
Everything is politics. Politics is part of everyone's life, and affects everyone's life. Some more than others, and some have the good fortune to not have to face that fact every day.
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There are no punitive 'teeth' in GNU licences. If you don't like the terms, don't use the thing under that license. Stallman is his own man and can boycott what he likes and explain why to others. "Punitive" "teeth" as found in proprietary EULAs and various unreasonable copyright laws looks like jailtime and financial ruin.
The same copyright law can be used to enforce the terms of the GPL. And if you don't like a code of conduct, you can equally just stop participating in a community. Unlike rejecting a license, you can even reject a code of conduct and continue to use the software produced by that community.
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-gu...
That's the basis of eg Kernel enforcement, the most-distributed project out there by far.
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Stallman’s guidelines fully support correcting biases. Making diversity a goal is identity politics, which is a very different thing than correcting biases.
> Making diversity a goal is identity politics I think you may be being too absolutist here? This would only be true if literally every demographic thought identically about every aspect of a project or product and brought the same point of view. Then everyone would be interchangeable beyond pure technical competence. However I don't think that's always true, and when it's not that means that diversity can have some…