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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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 m…

OK, please show me a politician in a major political party seriously advocating on behalf of the group you know I am referring to in the last two decades. Even the Idiot in Chief won't put a name to it. > Critically engage with content on mainstream news and the lenses through which they cast minorities through. I'm not in favour of this. But when the group I didn't mention becomes a minority, I wonder whether anyone…

[deleted]

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

#272
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Groups that don't have a code of conduct (which in my experience increases rather than reduces the amount of jerkdom) get pressurised to add one. Conferences that don't have one attract twitter harassment campaigns. It's not really a free choice.

It is absolutely a free choice, social pressure isn't the law.

"The law" is ultimately just a particular form of social pressure, there's nothing magic about it. If someone is forced into bankruptcy because a twitter campaign got them fired, that's practically the same consequence as being forced into bankruptcy because a court imposed a large fine.

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

#273
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…

It's just a power grab and has gone on forever in many forms. Redefine language and classify certain language as non-compliant under the guise of whatever it is that works to your advantage. Then use this to create systemic policy to dictate towards your goals and ultimately control whatever resource it is you were trying to colonize or acquire. Language is power and can greatly influence and define what masses of pe…

You make it sound like a deliberate strategy. But even if it was playing out that way (I refuse to be the judge about that, fortunately I'd never be). I'd take it as a given that this "takeover" is a pure chance outcome, even if repeated, kind of like how Columbus never intended to discover America. Organizations like the FSF or any open source project are just not plausible targets for an elaborate takeover scheme, people with that kind of ambnition would surely look elsewhere.

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

#274
Many people seem to believe that name calling in the form of "toxic loonytoon" was key to this decision.

Toxic people exist. We must be able to discuss our opinion that someone is toxic.

"Loonytoon" is indeed a gratuitous insult, but a very mild one. Silly, even.

It doesn't make sense to me that OSI would react so strongly and dramatically to such a mild insult. I suspect there is another element to this which no one is discussing.

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

#275
post #205

I am conflicted. I generally despise SJWs and identity politics, but this couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Data point. Read http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/sextips/ . Data point. It took ESR less than 15 minutes from meeting my ex in late 1999 to make an undesired pass at her. (He knew she was married to me, and was turned down.) Data point. I was at a PerlMongers meeting in 2003. And happened to remark tha…

> but this couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I think maybe you meant "couldn't have happened to a more deserving person"? The way you phrased it implies you think ESR is actually quite a nice person who didn't deserve what he got, while the remainder of your post clearly shows that's not what you mean.

That is what I meant, and that is what the idiom usually means.

See https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/couldn%27t+have+happene... for verification.

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

#276

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.

Like rain, on your wedding day, ...

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 m…

OK, please show me a politician in a major political party seriously advocating on behalf of the group you know I am referring to in the last two decades. Even the Idiot in Chief won't put a name to it. > Critically engage with content on mainstream news and the lenses through which they cast minorities through. I'm not in favour of this. But when the group I didn't mention becomes a minority, I wonder whether anyone…

> I'm not in favour of this. But when the group I didn't mention becomes a minority, I wonder whether anyone will have the same considerations for them as they've had for everyone else.

Oh, a literal nazi sympathizer, perfect. What a good-faith conversation this has been

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His statements seem more like the words of a man who feels strongly and passionately about his cause. It's a little suprising that the OSI keeps such high standards for decorum if that was the message that got him banned. It deserves a warning, maybe, but banning him? Cancel culture indeed.

If you said that at work how well would it go you think...

I don't know where you work but at most--if not all--of my jobs this sort of internal discussion can be somewhat common when things get heated. We hurl epithets about outsiders when we get frustrated, and sometimes speak strongly not unlike what ESR said.

Would that kind of language/dialog be tolerated if it was directed at other people present or on the team? Or towards stakeholders? Of course not.

Of course, our discussions don't get immortalized on a public mailing list for every interested busybody to critique, and that does change the dynamic a bit...

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

#279
post #217

You know, this really sucks for me personally. Not the ban, but the sorts of things Eric appears to stand for. I read The Cathedral and the Bazaar when I was 13, and it was probably my gateway into advocating for open source. Somewhere around that age, I ended up speaking on a panel, among other OSS advocates, that successfully sold one of the local school divisions on OSS (we also helped them integrate it, on-site :…

> Then I see Eric write this You are taking what he wrote out of context and interpreting it to mean something very different than what he intended. Eric is not arguing that insults are preferable to dispassionate feedback. (As I noted in another comment upthread, I have worked with him on a small part of one of his coding projects, and in that context he is all dispassionate feedback and no insults whatever. So in a…

I'm gonna quote this part:

> and he sees the same game being played that has been played by the Left for centuries to gain control of institutions and then completely subvert them from their original purpose

"""Out of context""" that looks REAL similar to a certain other group that seems to be making a name for themselves in this thread. Glad to know he's a conspiracy theorist and so are his current followers.

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

#280

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…

I was wondering what the ESD was. It appears to be this:

https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/

I worry that "open source" is already a slippery and ambiguous term.

It makes RMS's work to clearly define free software (not open source) both hard and important .

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