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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

#181

Post by bcheung »

nrclark wrote: post #59

I've read a bunch of ESR's writing, and I disagree with him on an awful lot of political and social issues. Chances are we wouldn't get along very well. Tone-policing, cancel culture, and identity politics are a real problem though, and it seems like they're getting out of hand. This is happening everywhere though - it's not unique to the open source world at all. I don't know what the right solution is. ESR and RMS…

I don't know about others, but personally, I find the overly politically correct "safe spaces" much less welcoming and counter to the spirit of the internet.

It feels like you constantly need to tip-toe around with every word to avoid the risk of offending someone. I'm much more bothered by people trying to police the world than someone who is rude or that disagrees with me.

In a properly functioning society, people need to be able to deal with beliefs they don't agree with and a certain amount of offensiveness. Sheltering people only makes them less able to function in society.

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

#182

Post by catalogia »

chx wrote: post #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…

> I have been banned from the Drupal project for Code Of Conduct violations in 2016.

Out of curiosity, how long did they ban you for and will they give you any 'parole hearings' for good behavior? Or is this a lifetime ban without possibility of parole? In most countries somebody convicted of murder might hope to one day be declared rehabilitated, but it's not clear to me what role rehabilitation plays in CoC enforcement.

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

#183

Post by jshevek »

zionic wrote: post #131
josteink wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that email a perfect summary of the current situation. A bit rough tone, sure, but I think that shows that he’s actually passionate about these things. That’s good, not bad.

Passionate speech is not allowed in the borg-cube of a culture we're growing.

One could argue that it is possible to speak passionately while following the CoC, and that only certain kinds of passionate speech are forbidden.

What I find interesting are the ways that CoCs are sometimes selectively weaponized.

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

#184

Post by woofyman »

planetzero wrote: post #127

How ironic: A person railing against cancel culture gets cancelled by cancel culture. Simply disagreeing with politically charged topics gets you a boot from many open source projects. Many people that claim to want tolerance, actually want nothing less than exuberance for their own causes and have no problem painting people they disagree with as non-human, so they can harass, get them fired from their jobs or positi…

> How ironic: A person railing against cancel culture gets cancelled by cancel culture.

That’s not ironic. It would be ironic if a supporter of cancel culture got canceled.

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

#185

Post by catalogia »

zozbot234 wrote: post #175
catalogia wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Code of conducts" inherently drive power away from the contributors to some sort of moderator enforcing the CoC. Could we have both? e.g. CoC moderators elected by contributors from the ranks of contributors?

Debian does that (indirectly, as in the DPL is elected and the buck stops with them), and people still complain and disagree about CoC-related decisions.

I doubt there has ever been any serious democratic process in which some participants didn't complain. That seems to be the nature of the beast; if you want to suppress complainers you leave democracy behind and enter into the realm of authoritarianism.

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

#186

Post by maemilius »

catalogia wrote: post #137
TheOperator wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any reason you can't have an open source project which enforces a strong code of conduct, creates a "safe space" for members sensitive to various things, which doesn't tolerate rudeness, jerks, bullies, etc. Or one with a "show me the code, stick and stones" ethos. I also don't think that has to be every open source project. Put another way Tumblr and 4chan can exist on the same internet and we can compla…

> "Code of conducts" inherently drive power away from the contributors to some sort of moderator enforcing the CoC. Could we have both? e.g. CoC moderators elected by contributors from the ranks of contributors?

You're still centralizing a power. It would probably be better to have some rule that's based on quorum and consensus than specifically elected people. E.g. at least some percentage (say 60%) of active contributors must weigh in and some percentage of those (perhaps a simple majority) must agree that a violation took place.

Granted, that's still open to abuse if the quorum requirements are small enough (how small would depend on the quantity of abusers), but I feel it's more in spirit than centralizing the power into a sub-group.

I will further grant that it's likely that, in any group, only a subset will care enough about these things to police them, so the point may be moot.

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

#187

Post by fl0wenol »

silverreads wrote: post #5

Anyone 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…

You've got it backwards.

Because OSS is successful, unless you're in college, the majority of people contributing are those who are being paid to or are independent consultants, as that's possible now.

It's no longer a hobbyist interest, solely the domain of prolific idealists.

ESR has been a victim of his own success. Back when OSS was the upstart ideal, an iconoclast could herd the (small) number of cats and motivate people. The fight against Goliath made it easier to overlook/distract from one's foibles.

This is no longer the case. His fore-bearers are thankful for what he's done, but he's no longer critical. He's not a guy holding a torch in the dark anymore, for which you are grateful to stand near, whatever your personal feelings towards them.

I also suspect that because his influence has diminished as the movement has become normalized, this loss of power might be perceived "de-platforming" by more imagined forces (in his own words, feminism, SJWs, socialists, etc.), when it reality it is just him coming to terms with his no longer being a giant on whose shoulders it is necessary to stand.

That can kinda make a guy feel small, especially for someone who seems to lack humility (based on his own writings)

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

#188

Post by joshuamorton »

larrywright wrote: post #150
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.

I know exactly who you are talking about. I’ve had some heated exchanges with them on Twitter. What started out as me just trying to understand the viewpoint of someone who is different than me, quickly turned into them turning their followers into an angry mob that flooded me with personal attacks. This one incident turned me off of not only that person but the entire cancel culture movement.

> This one incident turned me off of not only that person but the entire cancel culture movement.

Are you perchance saying that you "cancelled" the cancel culture movement based on a single interaction you didn't enjoy?

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

#189

Post by mjevans »

aeturnum wrote: post #10

From 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…

The part under discussion appears to be a quoted earlier message; HOWEVER I would much prefer a link to a message plausibly at least to be from the same server as ESR's other messages.

I would like a link to the source, rather than someone saying a given source happened to send X.

I could not in a quick 5 min of searching through Eric S. Raymond posts on that thread, see the actual source that is quoted.

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

#190

Post by kazinator »

ForHackernews wrote: post #160
kazinator wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Ah, but a license, no matter how permissive, does not ipso facto cause the admission of questionable changes into the upstream of a project that everybody trusts.

It just means you can do whatever you want with your copy, within the scope of whatever realm you control.

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