Joint Statement on the GNU Project • Hacker News Board

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#131

Post by jcoffland » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #66

simion314 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends though, I agree that it sucks to work daily with a jerk but as we see today people get outraged by pronouns, things you maybe said in the past, your private opinion on sexuality, your private opinion on politics. It would be a pathetic excuse to fire Linus because 25 years ago insulted some BSD guys in an email or some other developer in a different email, the internet was different then and there was no C…

Mostly because we have enough evidence now to know how those private opinions aggregate to real damage to the people they're arrayed against, systemically.

Let's judge people on what they have done not on what they might do.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#132

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #67

badrequest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll never call for my head because I wouldn't suggest that minor-aged victims of sexual assault could have been engaging consensually.

Neither did Stallman. What he said was that it likely appeared that she was engaging consensually. And he was certainly no fan of Epstein, whom he called a serial rapist. Lest you think this is a niggling distinction, Sage Sharp pronounced Linus guilty of inciting violence by making a humorous comment about his friend Greg Kroah-Hartman's height. (Something like: "Greg is a giant; watch out or he might squish you.")…

"They." You'll have to be clearer which conspiracy you're talking about; I don't have a binding for that pronoun.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#133

Post by t0astbread » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #29

I would suggest GNU people to not rush into decisions, the things are too heated at this moment, I am afraid we get a fracture of the project. I am also having a bad feeling that Linus Torwalds is next, that a list of 20 years old emails is already prepared and some people are ready to tweat something that maybe happened long in the past that made them uncomfortable. Maybe that public apology Linus did this year was…

Hasn't Linus already been critizised for his behavior last year-ish, then taken a break and changed the kernel dev culture (or something like that, I'm not up-to-date on kernel internals)?

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#134

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #90

badrequest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll never call for my head because I wouldn't suggest that minor-aged victims of sexual assault could have been engaging consensually.

But you will maybe have an unpopular opinion in private and is leaked to the public(like it happened with Mozilla CEO) or you used some bad words 20 years ago or made someone uncomfortable and they will remeber it tomorrow.

Private opinions of CEOs have repercussions. But in Eich's case, it went beyond "private opinion;" he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8.

Eich didn't get forced out for having a "bad private opinion;" he got forced out for supporting something materially that would cause material harm to Mozilla staff, then making clear his opinion on the topic was unchanged. Staff that had a lack of confidence in his continued leadership were entirely justified.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#135

Post by falcolas » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #116

falcolas wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I pull you aside, call you out for your actions, and give you the chance to change your ways. One strike and your out isn't even how we play baseball.

... from the sounds of it, I assume the pull-aside convo happened and failed. Maybe I'm too trusting. I have no evidence that kind of a convo happened. But the allegations are that RMS has been a missing stair for well over 20 years. I find it very hard to believe that someone who's been causing problems in a community for 20+ years has never had a friend pull them aside and ask them to change their behaviour.

If we're changing the analogy to specifically look at Stallman again, we need to make a few changes. Specifically, a quick note that now you're visiting his house for dinner. This changes things a bit. He may have the best open source dinner spread out there, but it's ultimately your choice to keep participating.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#136

Post by al_form2000 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #48

jordigh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of us who care. We can preserve software freedom with the same stubborn, uncompromising attitude without having to also alienate the very people we wish to help.

And when one of you will make someone uncomfortable(without even realizing it) will you resign?

That may never, ever happen. Don't you know that only old awkward male hippy sin^H^H^H (are reported to) make/say unacceptable things?

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#137

Post by oknenavin » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

dtornabene wrote: post #121

falcolas wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm dramatically misreading all the various articles, only a few women that were directly approached by Stallman for a romantic encounter felt discouraged. This did not impact a vast majority of the women who have, and do, contribute to GNU projects. Yeah, he fucked up in approaching those women and making them uncomfortable. However, a couple of data points do not a trend make.

I'm not sure how you're getting any kind of round statistics here. especially since its well known that most people who suffer harassment never report it, never say anything, for precisely the reasons being demonstrated on this thread today. And that was only one of the things wrong with that post, another being: people who choose to take a stand on harassment are somehow going to be mediocrities compared to stallman…

It's well known, let's burn the witch!

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#138

Post by al_form2000 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #62

starik36 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet somehow, Linux is arguably the most successful open source project in the world.

Perhaps, but we do not know how much better it could be today if potential contributors were not dissuaded by the politics and behavior of the existing participants. Popularity is only one gauge of success. There are other metrics, such as personal satisfaction, missing features, or other things that the project may have failed or scored less well on.

I love it when arguments are so deeply grounded in facts.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#139

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #88

jordigh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can be friendly without having to compromise freedom. We don't have to be friendly to those who would want to use our software to take freedom away from others. We should be friendly to everyone who wants to use our software freely, regardless of their skill level. My view is that GNU should be working towards making sure we can get our software into as many people as possible by giving it an attractive interface,…

> We don't have to be friendly to those who would want to use our software to take freedom away from others. We should be friendly to everyone who wants to use our software freely, regardless of their skill level. "We should be friendly, unless we don't like the people using our software"

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

In the specific case of free software, the paradox of tolerance plays out concretely, in that failure to enforce copyleft on software can lead to the creation of software derived from that work that is itself copyrighted in such a way that the deriver could sue an original source creator deriving work from their derivations.

I don't think anyone would consider copyleft enforcement "friendly," but the alternative is "free software has no ability to protect its core tenants," so some friendliness must be abridged.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#140

Post by rowanG077 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #125

rowanG077 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are not in any way the leaders of a group I belong to. I'm not part of GNU. So I'm not doing the same thing at all.

Sorry, I should have said "writing off" not "throwing away"

Me writing off a bunch of people that are mostly unrelated to me and a group of people expel their leader are vastly different things. There is(should be) an inherit trust from the leader to the group and the group to the leader. It's fine for the group to expel. What is not fine in my opinion is for the group to do this under external pressure.

This clearly show the group has no allegiance to the group itself. Only to winds of external pressures. It basically proved GNU is not really serious group. Just window dressing.