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Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
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Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#42From the previous discussion, plorkyeran[1] found the email that they suspect got ESR banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... I'm not familiar with the culture or standards of the OSI but I don't think I'd wanna participate in a community where this kind of engagement is normal, so good for them I suppose? Edit: replaced plorkyeran's account link with their post. I also now notice othe…
What parts of that email are so objectionable?
Uh, I suppose the name calling, strawman-ing of arguments and insinuations of subterfuge.
> toxic loonytoon
> The actual goal of the movement behind the ESD
> banishing contributors for wrongthink
> The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking
Like I said I don't know the OSI culture (or this context) but nothing about this message strikes me as someone who's acting in good faith. There's lots of nonsense out there, but engaging in good faith is about taking what people say in collaborative environments as given in good faith.
I'm open to being wrong and this tone being appropriate. I don't mean ESR has to be nice to people he doesn't like outside of the official policy discussion. But if people are trying to do work this doesn't seem like an appropriate way to engage.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read ESRs blog. He has gone insane after 9/11. He thinks homosexuals are pedophile. I have the cathedral and the Bazaar at home, and I live that book, but he isn't part of the healthy open source community anymore.
> He thinks homosexuals are pedophile. Do you have a primary source for that? This sounds like a cancel-culture rumor intended to attach negative ideas to a person in order to discredit them.
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Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read ESRs blog. He has gone insane after 9/11. He thinks homosexuals are pedophile. I have the cathedral and the Bazaar at home, and I live that book, but he isn't part of the healthy open source community anymore.
only nutters were attracted to this work in the 80s and 90s. My point stands. We're kicking out the people that thought differently enough to make the world we now live in. Honestly I refuse to blame someone for believing propaganda when it was so strongly pressed upon them. Remember, gay content only recently became acceptable to advertisers and corporate america. Anyone with the old anti-gay viewpoints will be purg…
It's not about him no being an ally I'm the 70. It's about him conflating homosexuality with pedophilia _today_.
I'm thankful for his work, but today people like him are driving away people from open source.
And this is not a Linus Torvalds sometimes uses rude language kind of thing. It's about a person spewing hatred and toxic lies.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read ESRs blog. He has gone insane after 9/11. He thinks homosexuals are pedophile. I have the cathedral and the Bazaar at home, and I live that book, but he isn't part of the healthy open source community anymore.
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” I'd say this might be case-in-point. Banning ESR will, of course, only reinforce and further his fury and disdain for what he seems to believe is political correctness gone awry.
The OSI was consistent with the banning, though. He broke the rules, he got banned.
Even if it drives him further into his current beliefs, it keeps him from throwing personal attacks on public mailing lists, which is what the OSI wants.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#46> They have already had an alarming degree of success at this through the institution of "Codes of Conduct" on many projects. This has led to the expulsion of productive contributors for un-PCness; it's not just a problem in theory.
Talk to me.
Seriously, you can not talk about this topic without talking to me because you are talking about me anyways. (And no, ESR never reached out to me.)
I have been, by any measure, the most prolific code contributor to the Drupal project for many years, 2005-2012 at least, maybe a year or two more even.
I have been banned from the Drupal project for Code Of Conduct violations in 2016.
It shattered me. They have been right to do so.
Relevant blog posts:
https://medium.com/@chx/women-of-drupal-ive-failed-you-and-i... (I just updated this with an archive.org link to a post that is now absent from its original place.)
https://medium.com/@chx/a-note-from-an-open-source-lead-deve... this specifically deals with meritocracy and this post is the most important: you need to understand it's not about some abstract PC-ness it's about driving people away. Do read https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2018/a-case-study-in... about how to formulate a message without this sort of language.
And now I am back with a much diminished role https://medium.com/@chx/here-we-go-again-not-quite-a9d52ad93... and life is good again.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#47I’m torn on this. On one hand, esr has a point. There is a credible argument that cancel culture has gone too far, and that expressing disagreement itself is now becoming dangerous as those with whom you disagree will take the opportunity to play victim and attempt to defame you simply for disagreeing. Identity politics along these lines have lately become unproductive and distracting. I generally don’t participate i…
> Real jerks in f/oss are also a real problem. f/oss groups should ABSOLUTELY eject bullies: not for wrongthink, but for bullying. We must be kind.
So, is it illegitimate, then, to have a FOSS project with an intentional/cultivated "culture of abuse", where the idea is that nobody is kind to anybody and that's how everybody likes it? Sort of a... "BSDM but we build something along the way" thing? (For example, picture "Twitch Plays Pokemon" but, rather than a game, the peanut gallery is "playing" an IDE.)
I mean, it's not like every FOSS project needs to be treated as a serious attempt at being productive above all else, right? Fundamentally, for a lot of people, FOSS is a hobby of theirs, and if some people want to do whips-and-chains FOSS as a hobby, I don't see why anyone needs to butt in between them doing so.
Which gets to a deeper point: does FOSS imply open membership? It doesn't obviously in the case where it's a one-author library; but beyond that, things seem sort of fuzzy right now. You'd think it could be made clear which projects are "for joining", and which projects are more in the vein of "you can certainly fork it, but our own version will stay exactly what we, the static set of existing maintainers, want, and nothing else." Where in the latter case, the culture of the project doesn't really matter to anyone but the existing static set of maintainers, because it's not like anyone else is going to be exposed to it but them.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
What parts of that email are so objectionable?
The "toxic loonytoon" part, referencing a prominent candidate to the OSI board? I mean, surely we can all have our own opinions about any candidate, but the optics aren't that good.
Yes, he has his own opinion. What is wrong with that?
IMO: His opinion has a lot of weight here. He founded the project. Without his philosphy in the start you wouldn't be where it is today.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#49Anyone unaffiliated with a large commercial organization is being systematically rooted out and destroyed in the free software community. I'm honestly ashamed to be a part of this community right now. ESR has done SO MUCH for us, but doesn't align with a position some wishy washy corporate PR departments have OK'd, so he's OUT. There is no "be nice" rule in life, and doubly so for corporate America. This is disgracef…
Read ESRs blog. He has gone insane after 9/11. He thinks homosexuals are pedophile. I have the cathedral and the Bazaar at home, and I live that book, but he isn't part of the healthy open source community anymore.
His personal blog isn't relevant.
Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
What parts of that email are so objectionable?
insane political rant part probably. >> * The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking by subverting th freedom-centered principles of OSI. It is very unlikely to be the last such attempt. > Make no mistake; we are under attack. If we do not recognize the nature of the attack and reject it, we risk watching the best features of the open-source sub…
"ratfucking"? Classy.
I don't agree with him but I feel a bit sorry for him. He's passionate about this and he believes what he's saying. Perhaps nothing could make him see things differently, but banning him definitely won't.