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“I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

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Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#41

Post by africanboy »

tutfbhuf wrote: post #15

As an individual is there anything we can do to support this case?

I think the most sensible thing to do is gather all the information before taking sides.

There are no names in this story, nobody can confirm or deny it and few of the claims are suspicious.

For example

Unfortunately, the German law foresees only monetary and no other type of compensation

That's not true, most of the sentences favourable to the plaintiff not only award the worker with a monetary compensation but usually order the reinstatement as well.

Of course a court in a country where the legal system is based on the civil law cannot force anybody to ask for forgiveness if the law does not dictate it.

You can't ask to a court of the civil law to emit a verdict that the law does not contemplate.

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#43

Post by Normal_gaussian »

londons_explore wrote: post #9

Operations like the FSF have a single goal - to promote Free Software. If they can also promote equality at the same time, then great. But the goal of promoting equality and free software are not equal - free software is the primary goal. If the organisation is acting illegally , then it's a matter for the police. But if the organisation is focussing on it's primary goal rather than a 2ndary goal you think is more im…

The major concern here is not the equality or freedom to share salary, but the conduct of Matthias Kirschne. The concern is that he conducted a campaign of intimidation, disinformation, and outright lies. Such behavioural traits are not limited in scope to inequality cases. These would be Matthias Kirschne's tactics for life revealed to the world.

This perception of appropriate conduct, revealed in this case, will significantly hamstring the FSFE in achieving its primary goal. This conduct introduces significant out of band risk to the proceedings of the FSFE. This conduct introduces significant risk to those associating with the FSFE.

We do need a link to the relevant court documents before dusting off the pitchforks.

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#44

Post by Cenk »

Tomte wrote: post #22
Cenk wrote: post #10

> A female colleague and me had dared to discuss wage transparency and gender pay gap in the office. […] Our boss Matthias was beyond furious. After that office meeting, he told my colleague “there will be consequences”. Under German law you are not only allowed to talk about your salary with your colleagues, it is expressly illegal for your employer to try and stop you from doing this. I’m surprised a German boss wo…

> it is expressly illegal for your employer to try and stop you from doing this Under which statute? I'm only aware that those clauses in work contracts that forbade talking about your salary were consistently struck down by courts, when they didn't include reasonable limits to the prohibition, because they would restrict you from discussing your salary with your spouse or tax accountant. Later courts ruled that even…

I double checked and you’re right, there’s no specific law but there are a couple court cases where attempts to stop employees from discussing salaries were struck down (for example: https://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Text=2%... )

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#45

Post by tetromino_ »

nicolas_t wrote: post #40

Without context and without knowing what was her job, I'm very surprised at how poorly written this is. It should be much better organized, the points she makes should be made clearer and it shouldn't read like the rough first draft of a rant. She should also include the excerpts of the judgement since they sided with her. If she was tasked with rewriting the text announcing Stallman's departure and she produced some…

Based on an educated guess and a bit of googling, I think she was a project manager. Also, English is obviously not her native language, and emotional turmoil (such as from an unhappy encounter with the legal system) sometimes interferes, in my personal experience, with second language skills.

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#48

Post by em-bee »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #33

I don't understand this 'wages gap' issue. Any organization is interested in extracting maximum value from hired labour, ideally paying the lowest possible wage that a person agrees to work for. There is no some special incentive to pay women less than men: the only reason it is possible is that because women agree to work for less. So, it's on them, not on 'sexist' 'misogynist' entrepreneurs. As a consequence, if a…

the problem is that if women consistently get paid less then it is hard for any single woman to stand up and ask for more. and if salaries are not being discussed then they won't even know.

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#49

Post by emptyparadise »

dejw wrote: post #35
ognarb wrote: post #4

> we both felt secure that the free software movement is progressive, and cares about being inclusive and equal opportunities oriented. Unfortunately it has been proved very often that this is not true. This is not the first case of racism and sexisme in FOSS and probably won't.

I always thought FOSS should be about software and bringing smart people together. It is starting to look like a political movement that isn't about software at all. This post is so self centered I can't take it seriously. ''' “why do you refer to dates in this format and not in that format”, while there is no office policy on following a particular date standard '''. Date format is super important...

Are you trying to say that the /Free Software Foundation/ is somehow not political? The GPL people?? Or is "political movement" defined here as "women and minorities asking for fair treatment?"

Re: “I took FSFE to court. This is my story”

#50

Post by nicolas_t »

tetromino_ wrote: post #45
nicolas_t wrote: post #40

Without context and without knowing what was her job, I'm very surprised at how poorly written this is. It should be much better organized, the points she makes should be made clearer and it shouldn't read like the rough first draft of a rant. She should also include the excerpts of the judgement since they sided with her. If she was tasked with rewriting the text announcing Stallman's departure and she produced some…

Based on an educated guess and a bit of googling, I think she was a project manager. Also, English is obviously not her native language, and emotional turmoil (such as from an unhappy encounter with the legal system) sometimes interferes, in my personal experience, with second language skills.

You did better than me, I tried googling quickly for Malina Galina but mostly got that post. Her English vocabulary is fine but she clearly doesn't know how to structure her discourse. It's also been quite a while since then, so she has had time to edit and clarify her thoughts. I'm not a native speaker either, most of the people I interact with are not native English speakers but most people I work with professionally tend to be better at structuring their thoughts logically.
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