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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

#411
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should base our judgments about the issues under discussion by the plausibility of the claims being made, the evidence supporting them, the likely consequences of different possible courses of action, and our values, rather than whether the proponents of one or another point of view hail from the upper class or the lower class.

Webster's says the definition of classy is "having or reflecting high standards of personal behavior".

The word didn't exist in Webster's time, so it's unclear which dictionary you're referring to, but in any case the definition is so incomplete as to be wrong.

Etymonline says, "pertaining to or characteristic of a (high) class," from 1891. https://www.etymonline.com/word/classy GCIDE says, "having elegance or taste or refinement in manners or dress," and "exhibiting refinement and high character. Opposite of low-class." WordNet says, "Elegant and fashionable." What brings all these definitions together is that something is good in the particular way that the upper class values.

It's true that many people who admire the manners of the upper class consider their behavior standards to be "high standards", and they certainly are demanding standards. But "classy" is not used to describe conformance to any demanding standards of personal behavior, such as a soldier's enthusiastic yelling and physical fitness, Clarence Darrow's unyielding advocacy of the welfare of the world's poorest, Feynman's profound mathematical learning and epistemic humility, or the brutal, unvarnished honesty demanded by Dutch society. As you know if you are a native speaker of English, none of these are considered "classy", however demanding they may be, because they do not belong to the [English and North American] upper class, which demands very high standards of etiquette, euphemism, diplomacy, fashion, and stoicism. Those virtues are "classy"; the other virtues I described above are not only not "classy" but in many cases positively opposed to "classiness".

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

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - I didn't know that. I actually find his message less offensive now. I stand by my assessment it's not classy language though.

Why does one’s intuition bring up classiness of all values at play....

Well, this is precisely a class conflict: the lower-class values of liberty, competence, autonomy, and honesty on Raymond's side, and the upper-class values of purity, etiquette, exclusion of the wrong sort of people†, and getting along well with the right sort of people, on Ehmke's side — although you might say that her etiquette is "more honored in the breach than in the observance", in our modern mangling of the phrase.

The question is really which set of values will determine the future course of the Open Source Initiative: the values of foulmouthed mullet-wearing truck drivers or the values of refined ladies and gentlemen who couldn't possibly, oh, how simply dreadful.

† Personae non Gratae, you might say.

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

#413
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, personally, it would be easier to accept a good faith answer if they explained what "sharp tone" led to the expulsion. I mean, I can completely understand if threats were made, or if disparaging comments against protected categories (i.e. sexist, racist, etc comments). Or hate speech, or content that is clearly against policy (i.e. links to pornography). Personal attacks, doxing, stalking, extended periods of…

ESR was not banned for having the wrong opinion – many others expressed similar opinions both before and after his messages. But ESR, over the course of a few days where he returned to the mailing list, was increasingly unable to express those opinions in a professional manner. While the moderators never stated their rationale, an unfortunate combination of off-list and on-list replies leaked one of ESR's blocked ema…

So, you’re saying “toxic loonytoon” is what got him banned?

And the same adversary behind it as behind so many other similar bannings and near-bannings over the last few years. Does this person actually contribute anything _besides_ tone policing to the many communities they tone police?

It's beginning to feel like his characterization may well be defensible on the grounds of truthfulness.

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

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is a bad thing regardless who does it. If the supposed good guys were actually as good as they thought they were, they would simply aim to do whatever jobs need doing with as much integrity as they posess. They wouldn't be grabbing power, for any reason. There is no "enlightened" reason to grab power. If you don't like how someone else runs something, it's not your only option to try to take it over from t…

It's weird for open source because the ousted party can usually take the tree and fork. A prominent example of this is OpenBSD, which started with Theo being ousted from NetBSD. In many ways that fork is now more influential than the original. My initial reaction was to compare your sentiment to nation states and consider it in its extreme to be a justification for despotic behavior, though your comment tries to rule…

But then, if the prospective oustee is a long-standing member of the already-existing community — and it's hard to argue that the co-founder is anything but that — then shouldn't it be the Johnny-come-lately constable of the tone police that should be the one to fork the tree and start their own community around that?

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

#415
post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webster's says the definition of classy is "having or reflecting high standards of personal behavior".

The word didn't exist in Webster's time, so it's unclear which dictionary you're referring to, but in any case the definition is so incomplete as to be wrong. Etymonline says, "pertaining to or characteristic of a (high) class," from 1891. https://www.etymonline.com/word/classy GCIDE says, "having elegance or taste or refinement in manners or dress," and "exhibiting refinement and high character. Opposite of low-clas…

I think all social classes today would consider the term ratfucking obscene, and believe that using obscenities is inconsistent with a high standard of behaviour?

It's interesting to look at the older roots of the word and see links to social class there but I'm not using the term in that sense. The definition I referred to is a modern one from Mirriam Webster.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/classy

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

#416
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did. you. read. my. blog. post. https://medium.com/@chx/a-note-from-an-open-source-lead-deve... > Having NO "bright-line" CoC whatsoever is preferable by far to having one which makes a project utterly unmanageable in the face of bad actors. The only bad actors here are people spouting nonsense like this. It doesn't happen. Show me the open source project that because unmanageable because they enforced their CoC.

> Did. you. read. my. blog. post. Exactly. You state that reporting a bug/potential feature, or issuing a pull request, are inherently "confrontational" processes, but this is far from the truth in well-managed projects. And to the extent that it has become so, it's precisely because of procedural roadblocks like CoC's. CoC's make it so project maintainers can no longer use effective moral suasion to require of all c…

> Exactly. You state that reporting a bug/potential feature, or issuing a pull request, are inherently "confrontational" processes

Well, don't stop there, the exact quote is

> all these bug trackers, issue queues, mailing lists are inherently confrontational spaces. Someone consideres contributing, OK? They write a patch, and what happens? They need to compete at least for the attention of others .

> in well-managed projects.

Show me the well managed projects which are not short on reviewers.

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explaining rationally will still get spun by the party as 'bad faith'. I still remember the Ruby thread where the same person started trying to force Matz to either adopt the COC, or otherwise have him step down (presumably so that the right people could get installed to do so.) These people are HUGE fans of triangulation, their supporters will tear you a new one on twitter if you don't toe the line.

I’m guessing you’re referring to https://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004 I came across it a while ago and bookmarked it to read later (but never found the time). I didn’t realise they were trying to get Matz to resign. I’m neither a Ruby developer – nor on Twitter so wouldn’t be too up-to-date on these issues. What does “triangulation” mean in this context?

They were trying in a very roundabout way, but it follows the pattern.

Triangulation refers to when your primary aggressor has their associates perform social pressures (sometimes without them applying much themselves.)

For lack of a better example, consider the aspect of Shunning in some religions/cults; If the leader thinks someone is out of line, word quickly spreads, and the entire group will focus their behavior on making the target feel unwelcome.

Source: dealt with more culty shit than I ever wanted to, which is why these movements creep me out so much.

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

#418
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did. you. read. my. blog. post. Exactly. You state that reporting a bug/potential feature, or issuing a pull request, are inherently "confrontational" processes, but this is far from the truth in well-managed projects. And to the extent that it has become so, it's precisely because of procedural roadblocks like CoC's. CoC's make it so project maintainers can no longer use effective moral suasion to require of all c…

> Exactly. You state that reporting a bug/potential feature, or issuing a pull request, are inherently "confrontational" processes Well, don't stop there, the exact quote is > all these bug trackers, issue queues, mailing lists are inherently confrontational spaces. Someone consideres contributing, OK? They write a patch, and what happens? They need to compete at least for the attention of others . > in well-managed…

You think projects like Linux are short on maintainers and reviewers? They even have multiple maintainers for the same pieces of code, each keeping their own, preferred version of the kernel "tree". And this is an inherently-scalable process, that only needs new, prospective sub-maintainers to demonstrate good judgment in "signing off" incoming patches. Many eyes making all bugs shallow, to user a rather well-known (and relevant!) turn of phrase.

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

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AIUI, the point of codes of conduct (when used in good faith) are basically like FAQs or What Wikipedia Is Not[1] in that they're social bludgeons to avoid having the same fucking discussion with stubborn idiots, where they do this[2] to cause tedious repetitive arguments of how the project should be run. A code of conduct, AIUI, has two main effects: 1. You have written, formalised proof you can link to that e.g. yo…

> codes of conduct (when used in good faith)

All true. In other news guns don't kill people, people kill people. The gun can be used in either way.

CoC's are like guns in that they can be lethal when deployed. That sounds great to many people: we final have a sure fire way of expelling arsehole's from our group.

Unfortunately the CoC's come with an inbuilt defect: they all boil down to "be intolerant of intolerance". That creates wonderful opportunity for attackers, because if they can goad someone in the project to being intolerant towards them they can get the project to shoot itself with it's on weapon.

The amazing thing I've never seen a instance where a CoC has been used in anger by a project where hasn't also been used in this way against long standing members of the project. Even worse, the long standing members use it against each other! Introducing a CoC seems to have the same destabilising effect as introducing a new weapon: people rush to use it in what looks to be a pre-emptive strike as soon as some dispute comes around. Maybe that's in an attempt to take out others before they use it against them.

It's so predicable it's extraordinary. There must be something deep within the human psyche priming us to seek out weaknesses like this in "enemy groups", along with the inbuilt knowledge of how to it.

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

#420
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly. You state that reporting a bug/potential feature, or issuing a pull request, are inherently "confrontational" processes Well, don't stop there, the exact quote is > all these bug trackers, issue queues, mailing lists are inherently confrontational spaces. Someone consideres contributing, OK? They write a patch, and what happens? They need to compete at least for the attention of others . > in well-managed…

You think projects like Linux are short on maintainers and reviewers? They even have multiple maintainers for the same pieces of code, each keeping their own, preferred version of the kernel "tree". And this is an inherently-scalable process, that only needs new, prospective sub-maintainers to demonstrate good judgment in "signing off" incoming patches. Many eyes making all bugs shallow, to user a rather well-known (…

> And this is an inherently-scalable process

If this thread didn't already include https://lwn.net/ml/linux-fsdevel/20200217001153.GE10776@drea... titled "FS Maintainers Don't Scale" ... from someone much, much more qualified to judge that topic than either of us unless of course you are also a kernel maintainer because the author of that email sure is.

Of course this is nothing new. For example, https://opensource.com/business/16/10/linux-kernel-review also at https://lwn.net/Articles/703005/

http://sei.pku.edu.cn/~zhmh/linux.pdf is a scientific paper stating, among other things, "In summary, adding more maintainers to a file yields only a power of 1/2 increase in productivity, thus, four parallel maintainers are needed to double the overall output. This suggests limits to the scalability that can be achieved by adding multiple maintainers to the same files."

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