Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#31

Post by unsungNovelty »

CoC should facilitate free speech and thought without the worry of repurcussions. But in reality it is now a tool to say "I don't like you/your thoughts, so here comes the hammer". I have seen some of the flimsiest excuses used to ban someone. But the same reason doesn't warrant ban on the people the admins like.

If you are actually right, then talk about in the open. Show restraint from name calling. Not everybody is out there with a hidden agenda. Lobste.rs is a great example of this. No shadow banning. Everything has a reason and accountability.

Shoutout to people like JT from the BSD Now podcast as well. I am a fan of his moderation on the Telegram channel. Atleast as far as I have witnessed, I have seen some of the controversial topics going on and on but not banned for difference of opinions. A lot of de-escalation and patience. It would've been so easy for him to just do some Hammering. But that's not how it goes most of the time.

We need more spaces like this.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#32

Post by roryirvine »

p_l wrote: post #15
Symbiote wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997, an essay about open source software development, and then later a book. He founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI). I wasn't aware of his political views, especially more recent statements he's made such as the linked tweet above/below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar

An important part to remember is that Cathedral refers to GCC and Bazaar to EGCS , which was a GCC fork that IIRC ESR was big part of and which ultimately replaced GCC

I don't think ESR had anything to do with egcs directly but, yeah, the egcs/gcc split along with the XEmacs / GNU Emacs fracas were likely inspiration for CatB.

He was always better known as a writer than as a developer - his most significant FOSS contributions were probably fetchmail prior to 2003, and the ill-fated CML2 kernel config system around 2001. I'm not aware of anything of note that he's produced since.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#35

Post by znpy »

hitekker wrote: post #14

I’ve enjoyed https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/blob/master/docs/... as a code of conduct. Simple, well-motivated, well-practiced (I think). Unlike more convoluted CoCs, it’s tightly scoped on work, not fun. Specific labor intended to produce contributions instead of enjoyable social experiences. I feel a lot more OSS should avoid fun. Fun doesn’t seem to scale, especially when it gets in the way of real work…

> I feel a lot more OSS should avoid fun.

This, so much. F/OSS os so much drama these days, and codes of conduct are the most effective tools to create more drama, usually.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#36

Post by znpy »

unsungNovelty wrote: post #31

CoC should facilitate free speech and thought without the worry of repurcussions. But in reality it is now a tool to say "I don't like you/your thoughts, so here comes the hammer". I have seen some of the flimsiest excuses used to ban someone. But the same reason doesn't warrant ban on the people the admins like. If you are actually right, then talk about in the open. Show restraint from name calling. Not everybody i…

Completely bogus argument. The core of the issue is that non-technical topics were brought into technical environments, creating heaps of drama, and then the concept of code of conduct was created to try and stir that drama.

It’s basically addressing the symptoms rather than curing the disease: if you want to do foss, you have to accept you might be collaborating with somebody whose ideas are completely antithetical to yours. Any other approach is not free, and is not open.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#37

Post by brazukadev »

unsungNovelty wrote: post #31

CoC should facilitate free speech and thought without the worry of repurcussions. But in reality it is now a tool to say "I don't like you/your thoughts, so here comes the hammer". I have seen some of the flimsiest excuses used to ban someone. But the same reason doesn't warrant ban on the people the admins like. If you are actually right, then talk about in the open. Show restraint from name calling. Not everybody i…

What free speech do you expect in a free software project? There is a big chance that discussion is totally off topic and anyone managing a community knows that, for you to not be allowed to destroy it, you should be booted.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#38

Post by unsungNovelty »

brazukadev wrote: post #37
unsungNovelty wrote: post #31

CoC should facilitate free speech and thought without the worry of repurcussions. But in reality it is now a tool to say "I don't like you/your thoughts, so here comes the hammer". I have seen some of the flimsiest excuses used to ban someone. But the same reason doesn't warrant ban on the people the admins like. If you are actually right, then talk about in the open. Show restraint from name calling. Not everybody i…

What free speech do you expect in a free software project? There is a big chance that discussion is totally off topic and anyone managing a community knows that, for you to not be allowed to destroy it, you should be booted.

Free speech as in right to opinion without worrying about being silenced. Dead simple. On merit. It's not off-topic all the time. Right now, moderation is unfair and used to silence people.

And it's not just OSS projects you know? There are OSS related communities like Linux / BSD and many many other projects/communities. CoC unfairness is all over there too.

Re: Eric S. Raymond to the OSS community on codes of conduct: Refuse to have one

#39

Post by unsungNovelty »

znpy wrote: post #36
unsungNovelty wrote: post #31

CoC should facilitate free speech and thought without the worry of repurcussions. But in reality it is now a tool to say "I don't like you/your thoughts, so here comes the hammer". I have seen some of the flimsiest excuses used to ban someone. But the same reason doesn't warrant ban on the people the admins like. If you are actually right, then talk about in the open. Show restraint from name calling. Not everybody i…

Completely bogus argument. The core of the issue is that non-technical topics were brought into technical environments, creating heaps of drama, and then the concept of code of conduct was created to try and stir that drama. It’s basically addressing the symptoms rather than curing the disease: if you want to do foss, you have to accept you might be collaborating with somebody whose ideas are completely antithetical…

> Completely bogus argument. The core of the issue is that non-technical topics were brought into technical environments, creating heaps of drama, and then the concept of code of conduct was created to try and stir that drama.

Yes. Looks like I didn't clarify my point in the main post. I don't think CoC is helping anyone. It is better to be without it.

I was talking about how CoC's was being applied at present and how it was first introduced. If you've been around since at least early 2000s with flamewars, then you know why CoC came about. It was not a pretty sight. A lot of communities were like 4chan. Unfiltered and with people getting banned when nobody is backing down from an argument. I wasn't rallying for CoC to be made better. But I understand where it came from at the same time.

Post reply on HN