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RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

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Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#91

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

wichert wrote: post #7

There is some awful stuff in that thread, like this gem [1]: After microsoft puchased Github, they encouraged "Codes of Conduct". So now 40k "opensource projects" hace CoC's. Obviously men won't be contributing to said projects, other than the people allready in them. [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-system-discuss/2019-1...

Take a look, for example, at the "contributor covenant", which github endorses [1]. It lists as its first example of unacceptable behavior:

> The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or advances of any kind

This is a perfect example of rules that are simply too broad. Say I write a comment `//normalize file path because fuck windows`. I said fuck; does this count as "sexualized language"? Do I need to be banned over this?

Also, a more "fun fact" example (from the same document):

> Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people

Did anybody consider that this is excluding psychopaths from the community based on a psychological condition? They are, by definition, unable to feel empathy. So much for inclusivity, I guess.

[1] https://opensource.guide/code-of-conduct/

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#92

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

boffinism wrote: post #23
sergiotapia wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously it's hyperbole - but a lot of people are definitely put off by coc, myself included. It's a wretched, insidious text sneaked in by very bad actors into mainstream open source repositories.

Could you possibly elaborate? To me CoCs seem like they'd be at best a good thing and at worst harmless. What do you think is wretched and insidious about them?

While some codes of conduct boil down to "just be nice", sometimes they end up encoding very specific beliefs of the people writing them.

For example, the code of conduct on dev.to [1] states that:

-------------

We pledge to prioritize marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’

Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as 'leave me alone,' 'go away,' or 'I’m not discussing this with you.'

Someone’s refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts

Criticisms of racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions

-------------

Note the "we will not act on complaints regarding [...] reverse racism". As someone who 100% disagrees with the idea that "reverse racism" is a thing (although I find the word dumb; it's just plain racism, nothing "reverse" about it) I have to ask myself: Does this mean the rules differ based on skin colour? Is something acceptable when said by a black user to a white user, but racism if it's the other way around?

It's things like these that, I believe, end up turning a "code of conduct" into a de facto political manifesto designed to keep out not only unwanted behavior, but also unwanted world-views. It's those codes of conduct that create direct harm.

[1] https://dev.to/code-of-conduct

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#93

Post by devnonymous »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #24
robinwassen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason is that GitHub lowers the barrier of entry to distribution of OSS. This makes more people distribute OSS, and most devs do probably not care as much about OSS licensing as RMS would like and therefore do "mistakes". RMS has a high horse stance, I think that easier access to OSS is better even though it might come with some side effects.

It's way easier for him to have a high horse about doing FOSS "correctly" when he was in an academic environment with different pressures for most of his career. There'd be a different tune sung if he were an average Joe with business requirements to fulfill.

You do realize that he is not an average Joe with business requirements to fulfill because he decided to mount that high horse, right ?

This argument of 'Oh, he'd be singing a different tune if he had to deal with today's reality' is so naive.

The fact that he doesn't (/doesn't have to) deal with everyday reality is his whole point -- he has claimed that it is unrealistic to use software that confirms to his set of values, so he denied to participate in that reality.

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#94

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

jachee wrote: post #43
dbdjfjrjvebd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. You can't force me to contribute to your project and if it has such a coc I just won't.

Sounds like your contributions won't be missed, and that the CoC is working as intended.

I'm confused now. Are you saying A) that OP doesn't have any know-how to contribute to the project, and you deduce that from their political views, or B) that, no matter how much OP may contribute on a technical level, it's meaningless if their political views don't align with yours?

In either case, I suggest you stop using the internet. It mostly runs on (GNU/)Linux servers, which were strongly influenced by RMS who you probably disagree with, so none of that can be any good for you.

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#95

Post by vertex-four »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #89
vertex-four wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before codes of conduct, it was reasonably common for misogynistic men to get away with poor behaviour towards women in their communities “because they write good code”. I’ve suffered this directly, so have others I’m close to.

> Before codes of conduct, it was reasonably common for misogynistic men to get away with poor behaviour towards women in their communities “because they write good code”. And now they're just as misogynistic, but we don't get to enjoy their code. They're also hidden from view so it's less likely that someone is going to tell them to cut the crap and maybe re-evaluate their world-view. They've essentially been shoved…

I honestly am not amazingly fussed about what we do with them overall as long as I don’t personally have to deal with them when trying to publish some code!

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#96

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

I'm sorry, but I don't see it.

> GitHub's encouragement of sloppy licensing, no licensing, or licensing under only a single version of the GPL, has done terrible harm to our community.

There's many projects out there that are meant to be open source, but the author never put a license on it, so it's, legally speaking, "all rights reserve" and you aren'y even allowed to use the software yourself. Github doesn't really encourage this; in fact, it even offers initializing a new repo with a license, but it still happens that project owners just don't

> GitHub was so bad for free software, all along, that I could imagine Microsoft's making it less bad

First of all, this is obviously just his opinion; I can't really attack or defend it like "good" or "bad" are some sort of mathematical constants. The fact is: github does serve as a platform for non-free software (heck, every single one of my projects is either MIT or public domain, which means it can be put into a closed-source project), so if your ultimate goal is for all software to be "free" in the FSF sense, then yes, github has caused much harm.

> We should judge by what actually happens, not by prejudice.

This statement is so obviously correct, there's just no way you could interpret it in any unreasonable way.

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#98

Post by new_realist »

pearjuice wrote: post #76
rimliu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure it would work just fine.

I think you underestimate the impact of GNU on your daily life. Sure, someone else might have made the same things, but in this timeline RMS did and by removing him, most of the software you are currently using falls apart.

Not true at all. I intentionally use BSD licensed software. Open Source predates GNU and would exist just fine without it.

Re: RMS: GitHub has done terrible harm to our community

#99

Post by teddyh »

kstenerud wrote: post #47

This is just RMS being consistent. He's never liked non-GNU licenses, and considers anything that allows the use of open source code in closed source projects to be the spawn of the devil. He'll continue saying this until his dying breath. That said, GNU and the GPL have been very helpful, sometimes instrumental, in fostering and protecting open source code and developers, so I'll put up with his ivory tower vision f…

> considers anything that allows the use of open source code in closed source projects to be the spawn of the devil. He'll continue saying this until his dying breath.

I claim that RMS has never said anything like that, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

He’s consistently said that it’s better if software was copylefted (like GPL) than if it was simply free software (like BSD), but he has consistently reserved the, like you say, “spawn of the devil”-type categorization for proprietary software and worse, like malware, etc.

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