Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board • Hacker News Board

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#41

Post by jzb » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 7:12 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #29

cosmin800 wrote: post #13

Gnome is kind of junk nowdays, right? Haven't used since slack 7.

Last time I tried was in Ubuntu 20.something and ... yes it was trash.

I'm going to posit that unless you've used GNOME, KDE, etc. on more than one distribution, it's potentially unfair to judge the DE based on that singular experience.

I've had very different experiences with various desktops depending on which distribution they are on. Ubuntu tends to customize GNOME more than Fedora, so it's possible that what you didn't like was more to do with Ubuntu than GNOME. (Not dissing Ubuntu here - I tested 24.04 recently and it was fine. I actually liked some of their customizations.)

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#42

Post by jzb » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 7:14 PM UTC

daghamm wrote: post #17

The minutes for this meeting is not public yet, but in general gnome foundation minutes are extremly vague on all subjects (e.g. "a change was proposed and the board approved it"). Code of conduct issues seem to bring out certain people out of the woodwork. hence to avoid conspiracy theories and witch hunts taking over I think the foundation should explain the situation as soon as possible.

Terse minutes are pretty common across the board (um, no pun intended there). Unless the meeting happens in a chat fora, it's usually a very brief summary. Doubly so when it's a personnel matter because the less said the better.

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#43

Post by em-bee » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 11:51 PM UTC

djfhag wrote: post #20

isantop wrote: post #18

CoC violations — particularly ones egregious enough to warrant removal from a project — often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. While I completely understand the frustration around the current lack of communication regarding this incident, it's fully appropriate given the situation at hand an…

They absolutely do not, certainly not "often". In many cases mediocre corporate developers who have taken over a project demand more deference in purely technical matters (which they do not understand) and remove opposition. They then close down all communication channels so the real victim (i.e., the person that was removed) cannot tell the truth. Then they engage in vague accusations that there was some other issue…

if the aggrieved party is fictional, then why should the person that was removed not be able to make a statement claiming that the accusations are false?

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#44

Post by IAmNotACellist » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 5:04 AM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #11

LeeCyriaca wrote: post #6

Am I missing something here? The minutes give no real details about anything It's all rather vague

Power wants to avoid accountability, and therefore it avoids transparency wherever possible. No surprise there, and no different from what happens in corporate boards where consensus is established by board members glancing meaningfully at each other, so the agreement doesn't enter the record. I've long observed the governing bodies of GNOME, Mozilla, and Wikimedia (whose composition doesn't reflect the composition o…

Of course, now they hide it under a veneer of concern and protecting hypothetical victims.

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#45

Post by isantop » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 6:34 AM UTC

djfhag wrote: post #20

isantop wrote: post #18

CoC violations — particularly ones egregious enough to warrant removal from a project — often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. While I completely understand the frustration around the current lack of communication regarding this incident, it's fully appropriate given the situation at hand an…

They absolutely do not, certainly not "often". In many cases mediocre corporate developers who have taken over a project demand more deference in purely technical matters (which they do not understand) and remove opposition. They then close down all communication channels so the real victim (i.e., the person that was removed) cannot tell the truth. Then they engage in vague accusations that there was some other issue…

Suggesting that the aggrieved party is fictional is, indeed, criminal libel.

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#46

Post by isantop » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 6:38 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #43

djfhag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely do not, certainly not "often". In many cases mediocre corporate developers who have taken over a project demand more deference in purely technical matters (which they do not understand) and remove opposition. They then close down all communication channels so the real victim (i.e., the person that was removed) cannot tell the truth. Then they engage in vague accusations that there was some other issue…

if the aggrieved party is fictional, then why should the person that was removed not be able to make a statement claiming that the accusations are false?

Exactly. The only thing which might prevent Sonny from explaining the situation is the pending resolutions, which means that no party can comment on the ongoing situation. Realistically we don't know what's going on, and because it's all ongoing it's not actually appropriate for us to know one way or the other. After it's been settled, any party can make a comment, but still none are obliged to (and I'd caution that drawing conclusions based on only one source is inherently biased and unreliable)

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#47

Post by isantop » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 6:42 AM UTC

rpdillon wrote: post #31

isantop wrote: post #18

CoC violations — particularly ones egregious enough to warrant removal from a project — often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. While I completely understand the frustration around the current lack of communication regarding this incident, it's fully appropriate given the situation at hand an…

I see what you're getting at, but this requires far too much trust in the administrators. Transparency is critical in proceedings like this. Also, the statement is worded in a way that suggests he was removed for a cause that is unknown, and independently had a CoC violation brought against him that is still being mediated. Therefore there can be no outcome there yet. Which makes me wonder when they removed him for c…

If you use GNOME, you have inherent trust in that administration as the governing body for the software on your computer. Outside of explicitly checking every line of code and then compiling yourself, there's no way to actually validate what you're truly running on your computer other than that trust.

If you don't use GNOME, why is this interesting to you anyway?

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#48

Post by isantop » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 6:45 AM UTC

znpy wrote: post #28

isantop wrote: post #18

CoC violations — particularly ones egregious enough to warrant removal from a project — often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. While I completely understand the frustration around the current lack of communication regarding this incident, it's fully appropriate given the situation at hand an…

> often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. And? On the other hand, allowing people to be removed "no-questions-asked" and accepting zero transparency is dictatorial. There's a reason why courts proceedings are usually public: there cannot be justice without transparency. Otherwise it's an easy…

Saying anyone was removed "no-questions-asked" is not correct. The board asked many questions over the course of its investigation into the matter. And they just today held an annual general meeting of the entire foundation at which pubic comment or questions were accepted.

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#49

Post by oliwarner » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:16 AM UTC

djfhag wrote: post #21

motohagiography wrote: post #9

Does free software have academic title IX courts? Even while there may be legit complaints against someone, I'm very suspicious of FOSS governance being abused as a network of star chambers of people with a tremendous amount of influence on the security and privacy of user machines. A metadata tag and registry of whether FOSS dependencies are governed by a non-profit and the organizations we have exposure to seems li…

Indeed, also one needs to investigate if the 503c organizations that claim to be in "the public interest" are really in "the private interest". Many software foundations serve their directors and the power of a select group of developers, do not fund actual development and largely serve as self-marketing and propaganda groups.

Your sweeping statement would have more impact if you offered some examples of foundations you think only serve themselves.

Re: Sonny Piers was removed from the GNOME Foundation board

#50

Post by benj111 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 9:50 AM UTC

isantop wrote: post #33

znpy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often involve topics of a highly sensitive nature regarding events which could potentially reveal the identity of the victim party, which is entirely not appropriate. And? On the other hand, allowing people to be removed "no-questions-asked" and accepting zero transparency is dictatorial. There's a reason why courts proceedings are usually public: there cannot be justice without transparency. Otherwise it's an easy…

The fundamental difference here is that this isn't a court of law deciding justice, it's a private organization deciding who is allowed to participate and under what grounds someone should be barred from the same. Transparency in this case extends to making it known that someone is banned from formal participation, who made this decision, and under what grounds the decision was made. We have that in this case; there…

That like saying that some software that a company throws over the wall every so often is free software. It may be in the literal sense but it misses the point.

Transparency isn't simply knowing that a thing happened. Transparency is knowing why it happened, what steps were taken.

Is this guy a rapist? Transparency means he won't get employed at a women's refuge? Did the foundation make a mistake? Transparency can hold them accountable and make sure the correct fix is made.

And at the risk of sounding like Richard Stallman. Since when did we start treating the gnome foundation as just a 'private organisation'? If anyone knows about the benefits of open collaboration and sharing, it should be them.