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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”

#51

Post by tutfbhuf »

africanboy wrote: post #34
paganel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not the first case of racism and sexisme in FOSS and probably won't. The fish rots from the head down, and apart from Stallman (which is mentioned in the article) I for myself would personally add Torvalds to that same conversation (even though with a little less overt sexism, but definitely with more bullying). But because Torvalds's project has had an incredible ROI, i.e. it has made lots of people lots o…

It has been proven very often that the good intension of people like Stallman that devoted their life to the cause have been hijacked by people that used FOSS to find employment in big corporations and infiltrated committees and standard bodies to keep pushing their employers' agenda. No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people…

> No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people simply make mistakes, what counts is how the organisation react and the proportion

True, but if cases like this happens, then there should be an investigation.

> I could make names, but I don't want a shadow ban from HN, suffice to say that some of these people work at Google .

You are using a newly created (6 days old) account anyways.

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

#52

Post by africanboy »

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.

The id that the court assigned to the case would help a lot.

She also complains that she's been mistreated for being a foreign woman, but based on my experience (I've lived in Berlin as non German) and her English (mine is not better) there is a strong propability that something got lost in translation and they simply misunderstood each other.

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

#53

Post by tutfbhuf »

africanboy wrote: post #41
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 usua…

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

True, but I think this should become more known to a wider audience to start an investigation.

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

#54

Post by africanboy »

em-bee wrote: post #48
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.

The problem is also how the issue is depicted.

For example Italy is highly unionised so there can't be a gender pay gap in jobs regulated by a national contract (most of them are)

There is however a gender pay gap between men and women, in general, of a couple thousands euros/year (it kept going down in the last few years)

But it's hard to link it to the fact that women are paid less to do the same job, it's based on the fact that historically many women didn't work or had jobs with a lower general pay (for example 90% of the teachers in primary and elementary schools and 80% in high schools are women)

The issue exists but not because men are usually paid more to do the same job.

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

#55

Post by solarkraft »

Thank you malinagalina for writing this and yannovitch for submitting it. These things are hard to hear about when you mostly follow a group's official channels.

In my mind this article lacks some detail to be 100% convincing (I can't really imagine that a discussion of pay would be penalized, especially in Germany, especially in such an org), but my donations are halted for now. Should this be true the least thing to expect would be Matthias Kirschner stepping down.

For the mean time: Which other Europe/Germany-centered FOSS organizations are there doing similar work one could support instead?

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

#56

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

em-bee wrote: post #48
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.

Hm. Why should they even know? If a person is doing a job, I'm paying for it. If a person wants more, I can either decide to raise wage, if the value I extract from work justifies a raise, or let this person go. It's only a matter of my individual agreement with the worker.

Also, this 'equality' approach _reeks_ socialism to me, and, coming from a country that suffered from socialism for 70 years, I have seen with my own eyes what disastrous economic effect this has on the workforce.

In theory, equal wages lead to more just distribution of wealth. In practice, they just destroy productivity. In the USSR, people had _extremely_ low productivity because life taught them that no matter how hard they work, they'll get paid exactly the same as the most lazy useless colleague who does absolutely nothing all day long.

Salary is a price that a person is willing to sell their work for, and if they are not happy with what they get, they can ask for a raise. If it is not given, it is likely because the work they are doing is not worth it. But they are free to look elsewhere for a bigger pay.

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

#57

Post by africanboy »

tutfbhuf wrote: post #51
africanboy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been proven very often that the good intension of people like Stallman that devoted their life to the cause have been hijacked by people that used FOSS to find employment in big corporations and infiltrated committees and standard bodies to keep pushing their employers' agenda. No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people…

> No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people simply make mistakes, what counts is how the organisation react and the proportion True, but if cases like this happens, then there should be an investigation. > I could make names, but I don't want a shadow ban from HN, suffice to say that some of these people work at Google . You…

> True, but if cases like this happens, then there should be an investigation.

Did somebody ask to the FSFE?

I didn't so I can't honestly take sides on this.

But as a long time donor and former member of the chaos computer club (when I lived in Berlin) I will write to them to ask for more information.

> You are using a newly created (6 days old) account anyways.

I use anonymity to protect myself from retaliation, it happened in the past, it's been bad, but I've learned my lessons.

Anyway it shouldn't be too hard to check if some actual or former Google employee was in the FSF (against Stallman) and my claims are true or a lie.

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

#58

Post by Bancakes »

paganel wrote: post #16
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.

> This is not the first case of racism and sexisme in FOSS and probably won't. The fish rots from the head down, and apart from Stallman (which is mentioned in the article) I for myself would personally add Torvalds to that same conversation (even though with a little less overt sexism, but definitely with more bullying). But because Torvalds's project has had an incredible ROI, i.e. it has made lots of people lots o…

Torvalds isn't a bully, he's very realistic and stern. Sometimes code really is unnecessary garbage. Software engineering is real engineering and linux is used by serious organisations. Contributing code to Linux is like laying your own concrete on top of the burj khalifa.

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

#59

Post by dejw »

emptyparadise wrote: post #49
dejw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

yeah sure. fyi I am a male and I got treated similarly in by my previous employer. I also was able to find a person on similar position who makes more than me. There also was a person who made less than me. This isn't anti woman behavior just typical HR stuff and cost optimization. "Pay as little as possible". I couldn't play the woman or the race card. IT job market is very fluid. If her skills are valuable enough she will get the pay she deserves. Her blog post is less credible than Giulani's polling witness Mellisa Carone. This is not "women and minorities asking for fair treatment". This is a "women and minorities demanding privileged treatment under the threat of making an internet sensation and ruining someone's life with false accusations".

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

#60

Post by sushshshsh »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #7
sushshshsh wrote: post #6

"Our efforts coincided with the resignation of Richard Stallman from the US-based sister organisation of FSFE due to careless revictimisation of female victims of sexual abuse- another gender discrimination issue in our community that would cause the situation in our office to deteriorate quickly." Careless revictimization? I've heard it all. I will never talk to another human being again at work because talking gets…

That's reductionist to the point of meaningless. There's a spectrum of communications from 'professional and respectful' to 'shaming, sexual abuse and discrimination'. It's a lame argument to throw up your hands and pretend there's no way out. Often used by folks seeking to explain away their terrible behavior.

For me, the price of interaction is not worth the risk. I've never seen a time at work where speaking about literally anything has gained me something. And the risk of saying something someone else doesn't like is too big and too impactful on my career.
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