Monday, September 24th 2018
Linux Community Hit by the Blight of Social Justice Warfare, A Great Purge is Coming
Through the 1990s, Microsoft had become a super-corporation threatening to monopolize all of computing. A band of talented developers got together with lawyers that could fish out loopholes in proprietary licenses, and with some generosity from big software, Linux grew from a scrappy Unix-like OS kernel to the preeminent operating system for enterprises at first, and handheld consumer electronics later. Today it's most popular operating system on the planet. Like every big organization, the Linux Foundation is hit by employee-activism.
Employee-activism is the new unionism. Whereas trade-unions of the old fought for tangible bread-and-butter issues affecting blue-collar folk of the early Industrial era, today's employee-activist is an intellectual predator seeking to maximize their organizational footprint on the backs of other people echoing their political ideas, often through blatant insubordination and disregard for the chain of command. Survival of the fittest has changed to "survival of the loudest." From forcing Linus Torvalds to apologize for speaking his mind in public, to coming up with a new Code of Conduct document, social-justice activism within the Linux Foundation threatens to devolve the culture of meritocracy to a toxic "safe space" prioritizing inclusion of identity rather than skill, as HardOCP comments. A major blow-back from the meritocrats is taking shape.
In a major revision to the license, software developers contributing to the Linux kernel source-code will soon be able to withdraw their contribution, if they are ever cornered by the rest of the community over perceived code-of-conduct violation (i.e. not pandering to identity politics or speaking their minds like Torvalds does). This is big, as many of the older generations of contributors who have made critical contributions without with Linux cannot function, now have a legal recourse, and could reduce the amount of political activism within the community.
Since 2015, identity politicians have been trying to force the Linux Foundation to join the Contributor Covenant, a special Code-of-Conduct agreement that seeks to change the "the predominantly white, straight, and male face of programming." On September 16, the Foundation agreed to implement CC Code of Conduct. Shortly following that, groups of pro-CC developers went on a character-assassination spree of top Linux developers by amplifying and often distorting, their political views (which are irrelevant to the task of programming).
Sources:
Lulz, HardOCP
Employee-activism is the new unionism. Whereas trade-unions of the old fought for tangible bread-and-butter issues affecting blue-collar folk of the early Industrial era, today's employee-activist is an intellectual predator seeking to maximize their organizational footprint on the backs of other people echoing their political ideas, often through blatant insubordination and disregard for the chain of command. Survival of the fittest has changed to "survival of the loudest." From forcing Linus Torvalds to apologize for speaking his mind in public, to coming up with a new Code of Conduct document, social-justice activism within the Linux Foundation threatens to devolve the culture of meritocracy to a toxic "safe space" prioritizing inclusion of identity rather than skill, as HardOCP comments. A major blow-back from the meritocrats is taking shape.
In a major revision to the license, software developers contributing to the Linux kernel source-code will soon be able to withdraw their contribution, if they are ever cornered by the rest of the community over perceived code-of-conduct violation (i.e. not pandering to identity politics or speaking their minds like Torvalds does). This is big, as many of the older generations of contributors who have made critical contributions without with Linux cannot function, now have a legal recourse, and could reduce the amount of political activism within the community.
Since 2015, identity politicians have been trying to force the Linux Foundation to join the Contributor Covenant, a special Code-of-Conduct agreement that seeks to change the "the predominantly white, straight, and male face of programming." On September 16, the Foundation agreed to implement CC Code of Conduct. Shortly following that, groups of pro-CC developers went on a character-assassination spree of top Linux developers by amplifying and often distorting, their political views (which are irrelevant to the task of programming).
653 Comments on Linux Community Hit by the Blight of Social Justice Warfare, A Great Purge is Coming
I suppose, in that sense, that you can say that I'm mindless of the feelings of Donald Trump. I'm pretty sure he's capable of handling me calling his persona mindless - he's a big boy, after all, being president and all that. I'm pretty sure he can take someone characterizing him as "mindless". Saying I exemplify mindlessness, though, is a bit of a stretch, unless you can come up with some more examples as to me not caring about or taking into account all relevant factors when discussing or dealing with a subject, as that statement implies that my entire appearance (at least on this forum) represents a mindless attitude.
As for being a sensitive snowflake; I called you out for attacking me personally, while you attacked me for making a characterization of a third party affiliated with neither of us. Who, if anyone, is being overly sensitive here?
And not to sound flippant, but as a patriotic US citizen you really ought to know that the term is Commander in Chief.Corporations want stability. Again, Occam's razor tells us that it's more likely that corporations support this to ensure a stable and predictable development of the system, and not with the hope of effecting the overthrow of the current regime or removal of significant contributors.
@Valantar Wow, we have never agreed so completely on something. This has been one seriously weird week.. LOL!
Now please explain for us all how your political ramblings are in any way related to the topic of this thread.
Also, you didn't clarify what exactly makes my statement constitutes "slander". I'd appreciate an explanation of just how it reaches that level, if you don't mind.
I guess it could be entertaining watching @mtcn77 @DRDNA selectively ignoring every actual response to their arguments or question posed to them, and how you instead focus solely on further degrading the thread, but instead it just makes me sad. Not that I really like the tone that's been thrown around for the past few posts from anyone (myself included, at least partly), but before you arrived, at least this resembled a productive and enlightening discussion. Now it's all gone to shit. Thanks.
Also,can you please tell me (and the rest of the world) what "neuro-pseudonym" means?
And it's still baffling to me how you can actually believe that people campaigning for social justice - which literally means making the world more fair - are doing so for popularity, and not, you know, to make the world more fair. Doesn't it make sense for that to be a goal in and of itself? One of these explanations is reasonable and logical, the other demonstrates a fundamental disbelief in human dignity and an accompanying belief that all human activity is cynical and self-serving. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which, and which explanation fits the best to, as you term it, sound reason.
I've never had to actively argue for the applicability of Occam's razor this many times in a single debate. It's rather weird.
As said many times before, "fairness" really has no relevance to the field of programming. The goal is to reach the best code humanly possible. That said, everyone should be respectful (not fair) of everyone else which is what the old Code of Conflict meant by "be excellent to each other."
b) Your example is entirely too narrow, presents a black-and-white situation in an area where shades of grey dominate, and very conveniently omits the situations in which a code of conduct would be relevant - in fact, you're selectively presenting the few examples in which it wouldn't. Here's a far more relevant example: A coder submits good code, but it has a few flaws. The coder is then hung out to dry by an asshole who isn't capable of giving feedback in a constructive way. Two main outcomes are realistic here: the asshole is confronted and asked to change their behaviour (and hopefully complies), or the code is abandoned as the initial coder seeks out an environment where work is given proper feedback. The former alternative is fair, meritocratic, and conducive to creating a productive work environment for most of those involved. The latter is counterproductive and damaging both to the community and individuals involved.You say "fairness has no relevance", yet keep promoting your own view of what constitutes fairness in this situation. The context-stripped, asocial meritocracy (yes, that's a contradiction, as meritocracy would imply a social context) that you're promoting is nothing more than an attempt at stripping out relevant context that's inconvenient to your views.At least we can agree to something. Crying "censorship!" and "thought police!" every time someone wants enforceable rules to ensure productive cooperation is indeed juvenile.I'm in no way a fan of no-platforming (in fact, I'm quite adamant that it's fundamentally wrong - the effort should be spent convincing people that they shouldn't want to listen to (for example) Nazis, not in denying Nazis the right to speak. Not listening to Nazis ought to be obvious, but sadly it isn't for many people today.). Nor have I said that I am. My impression is that the people promoting no-platforming are a loud and visible but marginal group, but one that often succeeds in riling up tensions and gaining local attention by using some simple and effective tactics.
I disagree with you in my diagnosis of the root of the problem, though: if it wasn't for the rise of political extremism (particularly right-wing, as there are very few actual extremist left-wing organizations active today) over the last decade or two, this would never have happened. And it has nothing to do with coddling; it has to do with people (finally!) feeling safe enough to speak up against mistreatment and abuse, whether it's discrimination, rape, assault, domestic violence, homophobia, racism, or anything else, really. It might seem counter-intuitive that these developments have been parallel, but it's also logical - either can be seen as a reaction to the other. The main difference is that one party wants more liberty, justice and openness, while the other promotes regressive attitudes, hate, discrimination and xenophobia. I know which side I support, but I also have no problem saying when people I agree with in principle make mistakes or promote damaging policies (such as no-platforming). The problem here is that people seem to assume that anyone progressive must agree with all progressives, which is obviously not true. Which is also why I try to focus on the arguments presented by people here and not setting up straw-man arguments painting everyone else as a reactionary old-south racist or some such. I would appreciate if others here would offer the same respect, though.
If a maintainer isn't doing their job then someone on TAB would deal with the situation.
The "fairness" component is opinion derived from the action the TAB member took and highly contextual.The meritocracy isn't going away. How the best code gets determined isn't changing.Freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with the right to be heard. Why the sudden surge of extreme right activists? Because of the surge in the extreme left activists. One rises in anger to counter the arguments of the other. Listening is the first step to addressing the problem.Watch the video. They address this very point. TL;DW: you're wrong. The meteoric shift is on the left (especially in schools and campuses). Movement on the right is retaliatory (Trump getting elected is the most visible example). The fanatical population on the right are likely in the 10s of thousands (talking the people brandishing swastikas, KKK, etc.). Fanatical population on the left is in the 100s of thousands or millions (talking SJW, ELF, BLE, Anti-Fa, etc.).Bold go to the police. Underline depends on context but it may be covered under freedom of speech. If you don't feel safe going to the police then that's an institutional problem that need to be addressed (a lot of districts are actively working on it). Underlined could be covered under Department of Labor or consultation with a lawyer. Generally though, it's just humans being humans.
If you really have need of a "safe space," that's what they call a "restraining order." It travels with you. Much better. ;)
If you do something stupid that's going to impact every user and every contributor, I have no problem saying "what the f**k were you thinking?" In fact, I saw one like that yesterday where if I accepted it, it would have broke the build because the moron merged the wrong branch into their own with a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to their work and is also half broken. Something like that deserves scrutiny and I'm not going to sugarcoat it because, the gravity of the problem needs to be recognized.