Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#151

Post by luckylion » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #55

justinmk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What parts of that email are so objectionable?

Below email is the quoted statement: ts originator is a toxic loonytoon who believes "show me the code" > meritocracy is at best outmoded and in general a sinister supremacist > plot by straight white cisgender males." I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. And moreover, where a stream of obscenities in an emai…

> I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals.

Individuals, who, let's not forget that, are the reason the projects exist in the first place, and who may feel more attachment to the projects than others. That they react more strongly to the impression that some other group is trying to take over their project, often years or decades of their life, and destroy it (by their standards) is understandable, I think.

And also, let's not forget that those seeking control via CoC are often equally abusive, they just strategically limit their abusiveness to Twitter & co and keep it off of official mailing lists to be able to say "I always stayed professional (here, while I was backstabbing everywhere else)".

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#152

Post by larrywright » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #93

downerending wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a reference to one of the people pushing very hard on spreading CoCs everywhere. Can't recall the name. (Corin?) Reading some of that person's tweets, though, left me with a very bad impression. Anyway, search and form your own opinion.

Any idea who that may be?

I’m not going to post it here, but if you email me I will share it. My email is my HN username at gmail.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#153

Post by ringzero » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

core-questions wrote: post #116

sascha_sl wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not exactly sure where you draw the difference. Minority opinions are sometimes helpful in creating products that work for everyone (my favorite example here being a hand dryer that did not recognize black skin). It can be useful to amplify such voices. If you want to call that "SJWism", fine. But this is literally just a call for civility, recognizing that many people may not want to subject themselves to this k…

> But this is literally just a call for civility, recognizing that many people may not want to subject themselves to this kind of toxic atmosphere The problem here is that "toxic" is something that gets to be defined by those who would use it as a hammer against everyone else. What one person considers to simply be a spirited conversation may seem as a deafeningly aggressive argument to someone else; but such is life…

> Maybe, but there's only one group you're allowed to attack in every modern newspaper, and are not allowed to acknowledge positively in any political campaign.

You should seriously re-examine that argument, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. Critically engage with content on mainstream news and the lenses through which they cast minorities through.

I can give you a more blunt and concrete example: most media spends a disproportionate amount of time shitting on trans people, casting them in every undesirable light you can think of.

Yeppp downvotes without comments. It’s reddit 2.0 up in here

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#154

Post by pipework » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

Or we could stop using the things made by people we cancel instead of getting rid of the people. Cancel culture is about not seeing faces anymore, not getting better or improving anything.

It's ridiculous to stand atop the work of the people you bury and call yourself holy for it.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#155

Post by voldacar » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

> It's less bad that people sometimes got their feelings hurt than it is to institutionalize a means by which dissenting opinions are crushed under the rubric of “not nice”.

This is eloquently put. The "fetishization of niceness" he talks about is such a strange trend to watch. It started in universities but it's like it wants to eat all of society and social interactions

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#156

Post by zionic » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #45

canada_dry wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

>He broke the rules, he got banned.

Truth is treason in an empire of lies.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#157

Post by kazinator » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #140

kazinator wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sort of language is normal in the parliament houses of the developed world, upon which our constitutional democracies are based. If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.

I don't agree - I think you come across a lot more persuasive when you attack the ideas rather than the person and you do it with less colorful language. Otherwise I think you only 'persuade' people that already agree with you and others that might have otherwise changed their minds are alienated. That said, I generally like the idea of not banning people and I have a high tolerance for this kind of communication not…

> ideas rather than the person

The CoC people will not like that any better.

Suppose you write a mailing list post which absolutely names no names, but only presents expressions of specific ideas, and then calls those ideas "toxic" and "loony", with justifications and all. That will still be equally offensive. It will be still be interpreted as an attack on the identifiable person or group behind those ideas, even though they have not been named.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#158

Post by paweladamczuk » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

It makes me sad that people are so sensitive that reading a message like the one ESR wrote drives them away from participating in projects and communities that otherwise would interest them. At least this seems to be the narrative of the "PC supporters" here.

The world is full of assholes. I think it's better to get used to it than to shelter yourself, try to make every space safe or withdraw from interacting with other people.

I know I'm biased though. I am pretty thick-skinned so it's hard to see it from the other perspective.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#159

Post by Qwertious » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

monksy wrote: post #112

sounds wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please post specific claims about @chx?

My message was based on his posts about the situation.

It sounds like that comment was implying the burden of proof is on you to justify that chx was "stabbed in the back" when from the sounds of it, even chx disagrees with that characterisation.

Re: Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond

#160

Post by ForHackernews » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #98

geofft wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also don't know what the movement would look like today if it weren't dominated by their personalities (and their personality conflicts) in its formative days. It's pretty clear that a lot of people were interested in the ideals behind their movements and contributed in massive ways to the success of the movements - it's not clear that either of them were needed to get the movement off the ground (see also, Great…

What it would look like: an army of docile microserfs beavering away for free to make FOSS work better for Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle, IBM, ... and the odd government who wants a crypto backdoor or two.

This is a weird rejoinder to make in a thread about ESR, who was one of the loudest voices arguing for corporate-friendly language ("open-source" not "free software") and licenses (permissive, not copyleft).