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Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

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Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#21

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

zozbot234 wrote: post #17
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s sort of what the phrase has started to mean because of how it’s used by many American police officers. It has more reasonable historic meanings.

The "historic" meaning directly references a military regiment standing their ground against the enemy (see "thin red line"). This particular quote has always evinced a highly adversarial attitude.

So? The problem with the police using it for its historic meaning is that they are ostensibly not a military force but they act like one; using the phrase makes it almost explicit. Why is it bad if these open source maintainers use it, presuming they meant this “hold the battle line” meaning?

Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#22

Post by dragonwriter »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #21
zozbot234 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "historic" meaning directly references a military regiment standing their ground against the enemy (see "thin red line"). This particular quote has always evinced a highly adversarial attitude.

So? The problem with the police using it for its historic meaning is that they are ostensibly not a military force but they act like one; using the phrase makes it almost explicit. Why is it bad if these open source maintainers use it, presuming they meant this “hold the battle line” meaning?

It probably wouldn't be bad (or at least as bad) if they used the original which isn't tied to the politics of policing. The “thin red line” inspired the “thin blue line”, but they are distinct sayings with different denotation and connotation.

Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#23

Post by 4bpp »

evujumenuk wrote: post #19
4bpp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement's recent place in the public consciousness is largely because it was used as a pro-police slogan against the BLM/"police abolition" movement in the US. The Rust community, being overwhelmingly progressive, is already sensitive about supposed dogwhistles, as well as words that cause them negative associations, in computing (in the vein of "master"->"main" renamings); having that slogan used as a metaphor…

Hah, maybe Ted Ts'o is a savvier political operator than I took him for. Invoking a seemingly innocuous (to the mainstream) phrase with heavy undercurrents (to a minority) just to trigger their ire and making them seem unreasonable to any outsider is a great strategy if you have as yet been unsuccessful refuting the central arguments for Rust in the kernel on technical grounds.

...except I figure that at least in the US (where most of the people who can exert pressure on Linux development are located), the phrase's use in this capacity is actually fairly widely known. (It even takes up a significant part of the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line)

It seems more likely to me that he used it out of a lack of political savvy than out of an excess of it, and that the pressure will now mount and he will be forced to make an apology or resign outright. It's unlikely that activists would take ignorance as an excuse, since they tend to consider ignorance of social justice conflicts to be a moral failing in itself.

Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#24

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

dragonwriter wrote: post #22
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? The problem with the police using it for its historic meaning is that they are ostensibly not a military force but they act like one; using the phrase makes it almost explicit. Why is it bad if these open source maintainers use it, presuming they meant this “hold the battle line” meaning?

It probably wouldn't be bad (or at least as bad ) if they used the original which isn't tied to the politics of policing. The “thin red line” inspired the “thin blue line”, but they are distinct sayings with different denotation and connotation.

> tied to the politics of policing

Another commenter makes good points contrary to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43058238

Not that it is incorrect to say that the phrase is tied to policing, just that it is similarly not-incorrect to say it is not tied to policing. It is context-dependent. It’s not so obvious that this particular use of that phrase is at all related to police work.

Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#26

Post by timeon »

lolinder wrote: post #15
James_K wrote: post #11

Outside of his silly comments about marginalised people, it does genuinely seem a little strange that maintainers of the project view themselves as some sort of punisher-style police force.

The context that's missing for a lot of the left leaning people hearing this is that much of the population of the US still sees police officers as heroes worthy of emulation. The thin blue line between order and chaos is a powerful image for a lot of people, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being a punisher style police force.

Interesting perspective. Where I live we appreciate police but we do not see them as line that holds society from chaos. Is US this fragile?

Re: Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment

#28

Post by lolinder »

timeon wrote: post #26
lolinder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context that's missing for a lot of the left leaning people hearing this is that much of the population of the US still sees police officers as heroes worthy of emulation. The thin blue line between order and chaos is a powerful image for a lot of people, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being a punisher style police force.

Interesting perspective. Where I live we appreciate police but we do not see them as line that holds society from chaos. Is US this fragile?

Not really, but there's a long history of media that puts police on a pedestal in a fight against darkness.

The more cynical would call it propaganda, but I think there's more to it than that: it dates back to old westerns and draws from a rich history of hero literature. The police became a subject of that pre-existing tradition.

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