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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

#401

Post by chx »

yencabulator wrote: post #399
chx wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, to quote myself: > Due to repeated Code Of Conduct violations two years ago I was banned from Drupal. This story is known and frankly, not worth a damn discussing it again. It’s only a background. Second, let me state this extremely clearly and forcefully: it was better for the community and at the end of the day, for myself, to ban me at the end of 2016. It is absolutely pointless and a fruitless waste of tim…

> This was a joke. That makes it worse. Some people's "jokes" are allowed, some are punished by censoring and expulsion. Selective enforcement is a central part of the criticism toward CoCs.

I am getting really exasperated, every time this topic comes up there are always some who presumes the worst of ... I do not know who but someone who just wants to use the CoC as a tool to censor and expell people. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't. It never did, it's not about that. It's about making everyone feel safe and welcome. I tried to explain and I feel you didn't read and just parrot the usual bro words. Did you read my blog posts?

Really, come now, I have grown up behind the Iron Curtain, do you think I don't know what censorship is?

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

#402

Post by zozbot234 »

chx wrote: post #401
yencabulator wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a joke. That makes it worse. Some people's "jokes" are allowed, some are punished by censoring and expulsion. Selective enforcement is a central part of the criticism toward CoCs.

I am getting really exasperated, every time this topic comes up there are always some who presumes the worst of ... I do not know who but someone who just wants to use the CoC as a tool to censor and expell people. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't. It never did, it's not about that. It's about making everyone feel safe and welcome. I tried to explain and I feel you didn't read and just parrot the usual bro words.…

It's not about what's being presumed, but what the effects are, out there in the real world. The CoC's that people are finding highly problematic in practice (such as the so-called "Contributor's Covenant", a misnomer if there ever was one) are not being advocated as generic statements that "everyone [should] feel safe and welcome"; they're supposed to act as bright-line rulesets that everyone, both contributors and maintainers, should ultimately be bound by and actively enforce. For such a ruleset to be so transparently vulnerable to abuse as a "tool to censor and expell people" is a critical weakness, no matter if that abuse was originally predicted or not; no matter if it was intended or not.

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. This is not rocket surgery; it's simply astounding to me that some people can simply fail to see these problems when they are so clearly apparent to everyone else.

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

#403

Post by VectorLock »

kragen wrote: post #392
fancyfredbot wrote: post #166

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.

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.

"Classy" in this case doesn't mean "class." Some people are turned off by vulgar language.

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

#404

Post by kragen »

VectorLock wrote: post #403
kragen wrote: 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.

"Classy" in this case doesn't mean "class." Some people are turned off by vulgar language.

You say, '"Classy" in this case doesn't mean "class." Some people are turned off by vulgar language.' Your two statements seem to contradict each other; the first one is incorrect, and the second one is correct. Perhaps you do not know what the word "vulgar" means; it means "of the common people", that is to say, the lower class.

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

#405

Post by thu2111 »

cmcaine wrote: post #62
aeturnum wrote: post #10

From the previous discussion, plorkyeran[1] found the email that they suspect got ESR banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... I'm not familiar with the culture or standards of the OSI but I don't think I'd wanna participate in a community where this kind of engagement is normal, so good for them I suppose? Edit: replaced plorkyeran's account link with their post. I also now notice othe…

Other quotes from the chain by ESR about Eric Schultz: > I am not fooled. You are mounting an ideological attack on our core principles of liberty and nondiscrimination. You will not succeed while I retain any ability to oppose this. and > Because that way he couldn't use our prestige to advance his goals. He couldn't use OSI to pretend to be pro-freedom while actually being against freedom. Both of these messages ar…

They don't assume bad faith, they are accurate depictions of what Schultz wanted to do. I mean, would he even disagree with that? The original proposal was for a license that'd allow anyone except US ICE to use the software, for example. That's ideological. It's pretty clearly different from the non-discrimination policies open source licenses normally have, that's why he had to propose the license to start with. And he wanted to use the OSI to endorse his new license as being open source, whilst it didn't meet the original criteria.

In some issues there's no way to helpfully resolve them. What sort of meet-in-the-middle do you propose here, exactly? Either open source licenses as determined by the OSI don't discriminate against particular users, or they can, and that's a values based decision. There's no real way to be 'helpful' about it: no is no.

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

#406

Post by thu2111 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #256
jshevek wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I glanced at the OSI page. I found someone who overtly stated opposition to core FLOSS principals: > "Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too." (OSD FAQ) It doesn't have to be like this. It's time to stop bad actors from using our work in unethical ways. It's time to give open source developers around the world the tools they need to exercise their ethical responsibilities as engineers and membe…

Yup, that's C. A. Ehmke. I'm not sure why she's so opposed to core FLOSS principles, even going as far as calling them evil and unethical; I feel like we're all circling back somehow to the bad old "Linux is cancer" attitudes from the 1990s.

She thinks she's a warrior fighting on the side of the angels, it's what gives her life meaning and structure. To be a warrior-for-good requires there to be evil people to fight. If there are evil people then they must be denied access to anything good. If open source is good, then evil people must be denied access to it, which can only be done via the licenses, which would make them not open source anymore, which open source projects will obviously reject. The only remaining solution is to try and manipulate people by manipulating the definition of open source.

The problem for people like Ehmke is there aren't really many evil people in society, and those who do exist tend to get handled by the justice system. So she just ends up picking fights with random people. She's bad news and anywhere she shows up is best recommended to evict her post-haste.

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

#407

Post by fancyfredbot »

kragen wrote: post #392
fancyfredbot wrote: post #166

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.

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".

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

#408

Post by thu2111 »

sascha_sl wrote: post #219
core-questions wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this is literally just a call for civility, recognizing that many people may not want to subject themselves to this kind of toxic atmosphere The problem here is that "toxic" is something that gets to be defined by those who would use it as a hammer against everyone else. What one person considers to simply be a spirited conversation may seem as a deafeningly aggressive argument to someone else; but such is life…

> Maybe, but there's only one group you're allowed to attack in every modern newspaper, and are not allowed to acknowledge positively in any political campaign. Oh, I'm not the only one to notice the rampant transphobia in UK media and the labour party, nice. See how easy I proved your premise wrong?

The Labour party is having a leadership election in which Rebecca Long Bailey is an outspoken proponent of trans rights and issues. The statement you're trying (and failing) to disprove said "are not allowed to acknowledge positively in any political campaign" but she's clearly both allowed to positively acknowledge trans rights in a political campaign and is actually doing so. Thus your attempted counter-example is wrong, and I think you knew that.

As for straight white men, I'm trying to remember the last time the leader of a political party or writer of a newspaper column went to bat for those people's rights. Can't actually recall one.

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

#409

Post by chx »

zozbot234 wrote: post #402
chx wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am getting really exasperated, every time this topic comes up there are always some who presumes the worst of ... I do not know who but someone who just wants to use the CoC as a tool to censor and expell people. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't. It never did, it's not about that. It's about making everyone feel safe and welcome. I tried to explain and I feel you didn't read and just parrot the usual bro words.…

It's not about what's being presumed, but what the effects are, out there in the real world . The CoC's that people are finding highly problematic in practice (such as the so-called "Contributor's Covenant", a misnomer if there ever was one) are not being advocated as generic statements that "everyone [should] feel safe and welcome"; they're supposed to act as bright-line rulesets that everyone , both contributors an…

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.

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

#410

Post by zozbot234 »

chx wrote: post #409
zozbot234 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about what's being presumed, but what the effects are, out there in the real world . The CoC's that people are finding highly problematic in practice (such as the so-called "Contributor's Covenant", a misnomer if there ever was one) are not being advocated as generic statements that "everyone [should] feel safe and welcome"; they're supposed to act as bright-line rulesets that everyone , both contributors an…

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 contributors to be less confrontational and keep professionalism and the goodness of the project as their shared, common goals.

Their hands are tied; they are now only allowed to act as enforcers of a legalistic "code" that focuses on punishing perceived discrimination against a laundry list of overtly-acknowledged ("protected") groups - even the perception of such outside project spaces! - but leaves literally everything else as a toxic free-for-all where the loudest and most obnoxious trolls win, and the maintainer's hard-won wisdom and judgment ultimately counts for nothing. And that's only the slightest of problems with the most common CoC's; other issues are far more serious.

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