Editorial Linux Community Hit by the Blight of Social Justice Warfare, A Great Purge is Coming

[INSTG8R]

The women that worked for Turing that went thru the data were actually called Computers.

 

[R-T-B]

Can the Editorial tag please be applied to the forum post as well? Because it is vital that everyone understands this is an editorial. A shitty editorial, solely designed as clickbait.

Yes it's an editorial. Still a painful one to read, and sure to be a shitstorm. It's days like today I wonder why I come here.

 

[StrayKAT]

I'd love to see more women in tech.

People with a dystopian view of the world and assume the worst about many others around them? Not so much.

 

[R-T-B]

using that word isnt a bannable offence.

Using offensive language enough times actually is. Intent is considered of course, but still, I suggest you read the rules.

 

[Vayra86]

Yes it's an editorial. Still a painful one to read, and sure to be a shitstorm. It's days like today I wonder why I come here.

At the risk of jinxing it, I think there has been plenty of content in here so far. Can we keep this afloat, I wonder...

 

[Ahhzz]

At the risk of jinxing it, I think there has been plenty of content in here so far. Can we keep this afloat, I wonder...

I'm going to lay my money on "No"....

 

[FordGT90Concept]

This so reminds me of GamerGate...but GamerGate actually had merit at its core because of an ethics in journalism violation.

What started this? A patch submitted to change "master/slave" relationship. The mere suggestion of changing it is absurd because in the contexts it is used, it's rooted in 20+ years of consistency. Torvalds said as much using his typical colorful language.

The only merit maybe that Torvalds has an abrasive personality but that's not news to anyone. Maybe Torvalds needs a secretary to filter his communication with the public.


No matter what happens, it was a mistake for Linux Foundation to commit the Contributor Covenant's Code of Conduct almost verbatim. Because of that decision, I think Linux Foundation is in danger of becoming a mirror of RedHat (very corporate) while all of the open source developers (like Torvalds) jump to a fork.

 

[StrayKAT]

ethics in journalism violation.

No one (that matters) even remembers that. Gamers are all Nazi neckbeards who live in their moms' basements. Nothing to see here. And don't you forget it.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm going to lay my money on "No"....

Reading through it's already pretty south. I'm steering clear.

 

[m0ca]

Four pages of comments and forum warfare and not one person actually acknowledging that they've read the CoC... Internet can be fun place. Here it is folks (don't worry, it's actually shorter than some posts here ):

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-conduct.html

To me, that's just a long-winded way of saying to other people: "Don't be a dick." I honestly don't get the drama, and that goes for the editorial as well. You can relax, the women will stay in the kitchen (for the unitiated, that's troll bait).

Good job, editorial poster, you've made me come out of my lurking closet. It only goes to show that drama sells

 

[StrayKAT]

To be serious, if this was company politics, it's like watching HR drive everything. That's basically what's happening here, but in open source terms. CoC is a way to provide a sort of HR service.

Why anyone wanted that is beyond me though.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Four pages of comments and forum warfare and not one person actually acknowledging that they've read the CoC... Internet can be fun place. Here it is folks (don't worry, it's actually shorter than some posts here ):

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-conduct.html

To me, that's just a long-winded way of saying to other people: "Don't be a dick." I honestly don't get the drama, and that goes for the editorial as well. You can relax, the women will stay in the kitchen (for the unitiated, that's troll bait).

Good job, editorial poster, you've made me come out of my lurking closet. It only goes to show that drama sells

Welcome! Too bad I couldn’t welcome you under better circumstances.

 

[StrayKAT]

You all aren't being any less dramatic with the smugness.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Four pages of comments and forum warfare and not one person actually acknowledging that they've read the CoC... Internet can be fun place. Here it is folks (don't worry, it's actually shorter than some posts here ):

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-conduct.html

To me, that's just a long-winded way of saying to other people: "Don't be a dick." I honestly don't get the drama, and that goes for the editorial as well. You can relax, the women will stay in the kitchen (for the unitiated, that's troll bait).

Good job, editorial poster, you've made me come out of my lurking closet. It only goes to show that drama sells

Read the preamble:

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

Underlined the inflammatory part. The words leading up to it says everything that's necessary. Why enumerate specifics? Weaponization, especially lawyers. Kick those mean white men out, especially Torvalds. Because he offends me. [facepalm.jpg]

Now read the introduction on Contributor Covenant's website:
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

Open Source has always been a foundation of the Internet, and with the advent of social open source networks this is more true than ever. But free, libre, and open source projects suffer from a startling lack of diversity, with dramatically low representation by women, people of color, and other marginalized populations.

Part of this problem lies with the very structure of some projects: the use of insensitive language, thoughtless use of pronouns, assumptions of gender, and even sexualized or culturally insensitive names.

Marginalized people also suffer some of the unintended consequences of dogmatic insistence on meritocratic principles of governance. Studies have shown that organizational cultures that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality. People with “merit” are often excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Meritocracy also naively assumes a level playing field, in which everyone has access to the same resources, free time, and common life experiences to draw upon. These factors and more make contributing to open source a daunting prospect for many people, especially women and other underrepresented people.

(For more critical analysis of meritocracy, refer to this entry on the Geek Feminism wiki.)

No highlighting necessary, it's all inflammatory, self righteous, assertive, and generally disgusting.


Going to emphasize this quote: "But free, libre, and open source projects suffer from a startling lack of diversity, with dramatically low representation by women, people of color, and other marginalized populations." Why does that matter at all? It all boils down to machine code that is being executed. Either it does the job or it does not. What human wrote the code matters little. Only the result matters.

 

[Ahhzz]

Four pages of comments and forum warfare and not one person actually acknowledging that they've read the CoC... Internet can be fun place. Here it is folks (don't worry, it's actually shorter than some posts here ):

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-conduct.html

To me, that's just a long-winded way of saying to other people: "Don't be a dick." I honestly don't get the drama, and that goes for the editorial as well. You can relax, the women will stay in the kitchen (for the unitiated, that's troll bait).

Good job, editorial poster, you've made me come out of my lurking closet. It only goes to show that drama sells

I think any time you put a group of people affected by a particular action, in charge of "regulating" that action, it's not going to go the way it was intended. To reference the American constitution, the 27th Amendment addresses that exact concern with regards to our policy makers.

Not sure that making the programming community a stomping ground for people who feel offended is a good idea, but there's also something to be said wrt the fact that there are always more and less powerful people in any environment larger than 2 people. History shows us that those powerful people have a tendency to want to keep that power, and some will take drastic steps to do so. I know for a fact in the circles I've been in, women have been looked down on as less skilled coders, simply because they are women. To say that the same couldn't possibly happen to people who don't fall into the societal norms of male/female is burying one's head in the sand. I still fall back to my basic tenet. "Don't be a dick". It's very simple to express one's opinions without insisting on belittling anyone else, and we shouldn't need a committee, or a set of guides to do so. But, here we are.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

"Don't be a dick."

"Don't be a dick".

Ironic because the Code of Conflict literally ended with “Be excellent to each other.” That's apparently not good enough in 2018.

 

[Ahhzz]

Ironic you mentioned that because the Code of Conflict literally ended with “Be excellent to each other.”

Exactly!! I don't understand why we need someone to point that out to everyone.... I'm not saying we shouldn't have it, I'm saying we shouldn't need it..

That's apparently not good enough in 2018.

To your edit, not sure how I feel about it. This is a tech forum. This place is literally populated with a bunch of geeks. I'm going to assume that the percentage of bullied people is a bit higher in our forums because of that fact. I think, because it's 2018, we do need to continue to use every avenue available to people to prevent as much of that crap as we can manage. I also think, just as in many situations, sometimes things are carried a bit too far.
The question is, I guess, how much annoyance are people willing to deal with in order to save lives? I'm not saying this is life or death. However, studies all over the place tie together animal cruelty and criminal violent tendencies. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to agree that children have been literally bullied to death. I think any time we can try to correct that behavior, we run the risk of saving a life.

Why though ? I mean as a personal wish or something else ? I hear this so often , is there a reason to want that in particular ?

I would like to see more capable people in tech, would that result in more women ? I don't know, maybe, shouldn't it work like that ?

Fair question!! I know of at least one lady who in her early years, enjoyed programming and computers, but was repeatedly told she couldn't program properly simply because she was a woman. Last I talked to her, she was still in the Navy, desk work.
In a perfect world, I think society would be a socialist thing. From each what they can do, to each what they need. The best programmers would have programming jobs, no matter their social status or sex. Reality is Darwin: survival of the fittest. I think most people spend their lives trying to fit in the middle somewhere, and the best people pull people along with them....

 

[trparky]

I'm saying we shouldn't need it.

I admit, we shouldn't need it. If all of us just learned to get along with one another on this big water-covered rock floating in space there would be far less anger, war, and bloodshed. But until we evolve a better human then yes, we're going to need a rule saying... "Don't be an asshole!!!"

I'm all for changing the CoC to be just that one phrase. "Don't be an asshole!!!" Simple, to the point, and with none of the extraneous political bullshit.

 

[the54thvoid]

Exactly!! I don't understand why we need someone to point that out to everyone.... I'm not saying we shouldn't have it, I'm saying we shouldn't need it..

Unfortunately, people can be arseholes. And each ass has two cheeks, one on the left, on the right.

 

[Vya Domus]

I'd love to see more women in tech.

Why though ? I mean as a personal wish or something else ? I hear this so often , is there a reason to want that in particular ?

I would like to see more capable people in tech, would that result in more women ? I don't know, maybe, shouldn't it work like that ?

 

[m0ca]

Read the preamble:

Underlined the inflammatory part. The words leading up to it says everything that's necessary. Why enumerate specifics? Weaponization, especially lawyers.

Now read the introduction on Contributor Covenant's website:
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

No highlighting necessary, it's all inflammatory, self righteous, assertive, and generally disgusting.


Going to emphasize this quote: "But free, libre, and open source projects suffer from a startling lack of diversity, with dramatically low representation by women, people of color, and other marginalized populations." Why does that matter at all? It all boils down to machine code that is being executed. Either it does the job or it does not. What human wrote the code matters little. Only the result matters.

I'm just not able to read all that in, sorry. The first bit just sounds like they're actually giving people a list of don't-be-a-dick topics (cause people are people and more often than not, they need very specific instructions on how to do just about anything) and the CC website reference sounds more like copyright related stuff than an extension of the CoC. To me, it's like saying: "We didn't do this from scratch, but we used this framework already out there." All common sense as far as I'm concerned.

P.S. Weird reply system. Removes quotes from your post in the preview. Can't be bothered to figure it out right now as I want to go build my stronghold in Pillars of Eternity. Ha, you didn't expect such underhanded game advertising here. Seriously though, liking the game. Anyway, hope the post is easy enough to follow. And I don't think Linux will be dying because of this

 

[StrayKAT]

Why though ? I mean as a personal wish or something else ? I hear this so often , is there a reason to want that in particular ?

I would like to see more capable people in tech, would that result in more women ? I don't know, maybe, shouldn't it work like that ?

It's not a personal wish, per se. I don't work with anyone or get out that much. But it is one half of humanity I wouldn't want to see strangely absent.

I'm still of the mindset that women are just individuals though and aren't going to offer anything uniquely "feminine" that would suddenly change the paradigms of technology or anything silly like that.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I'm just not able to read all that in, sorry. The first bit just sounds like they're actually giving people a list of don't-be-a-dick topics (cause people are people and more often than not, they need very specific instructions on how to do just about anything) and the CC website reference sounds more like copyright related stuff than an extension of the CoC. To me, it's like saying: "We didn't do this from scratch, but we used this framework already out there." All common sense as far as I'm concerned.

Tell me what's wrong with the original Code of Conflict:

The Linux kernel development effort is a very personal process compared to “traditional” ways of developing software. Your code and ideas behind it will be carefully reviewed, often resulting in critique and criticism. The review will almost always require improvements to the code before it can be included in the kernel. Know that this happens because everyone involved wants to see the best possible solution for the overall success of Linux. This development process has been proven to create the most robust operating system kernel ever, and we do not want to do anything to cause the quality of submission and eventual result to ever decrease.

If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable. If so, please contact the Linux Foundation’s Technical Advisory Board at <tab@lists.linux-foundation.org>, or the individual members, and they will work to resolve the issue to the best of their ability. For more information on who is on the Technical Advisory Board and what their role is, please see: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects/linux/tab

As a reviewer of code, please strive to keep things civil and focused on the technical issues involved. We are all humans, and frustrations can be high on both sides of the process. Try to keep in mind the immortal words of Bill and Ted, “Be excellent to each other.”

I can only name one problem: that last paragraph wasn't enforced. No one put Torvalds in a timeout corner when he deserved it. Is that going to change under the Code of Conduct? If yes, Linux is ruined because the SJWs will enforce their will over the community of developers. They will attempt to divorce Linux from the hardware it runs on confusing the contributors and fragmenting the code base (master will be called unicorns and slaves will be called rainbows, for example, which goes to which...we'll find out when it crashes). Many contributors will move to other distros because of the toxic culture SJWs bring with them (I'd argue as toxic as Torvalds but far less productive than Torvalds). If no, why change it from the Code of Conflict at all which said what needed to be said and no more? You know, the thing everyone agreed to when they contributed to the Linux project.

 

[Vya Domus]

But it is one half of humanity I wouldn't want to see strangely absent.

I see no reason why that would be strange at all. Women are a minority in this field, just how they are a majority in others. I am sure no one has ever thought women are strangely absent from the frontlines or from cleaning the sewers or working in coal mines. But I am sure you've seen that being brought up many times. I see nothing wrong with wishing that a particular group would be better represented in a field if that's achieved through merit. When you start setting arbitrary rules and motives just for the sake of seeing that group grow, well, that's when things go terribly wrong. And this whole thing reeks of that.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I am usually in Stockholm twice a year. With each year it gets darker and darker. Bums around, foreign protests. I have many friends working in Sweden and also living there, Upsalla and the well known Rinkeby, you don't need to stroll there to find used syringes lying around(maybe I am unlucky) it is enough to see that in the city center. The places have changed. It is not like in WW2 ghettos as you imagine, the false calm feeling there? I am honestly laughing how giving living space to anyone have screwed your real estate business, they still live like bees in one cramped flat and sell out their flats for cosmic prices to poor students creating a bubble. The abuse of social benefit system. It is not only the press. It boils down there. Why your far right party won historically the biggest percent now? That's also media hype? Enough derail, I am sorry. As I said in my post, nobody cares... that's my point. Each country has their own problems.



You simply mentioned in your previous post about this thing - world & geo-political. It is really not. I touched local issues in each region, they overshadow these things. And if it really doesn't touch us, we don't care really. We get touchy if it really touches us locally, as TheLostSweede took the bait. These things are unimportant for most of the world really.

Linus should do a fork. He said there like 20 active contributors really for Linux Kernel. I guess the vote will go inside there. And... empty seat usually doesn't remain like that for long.

Sorry, but you seem to live in some alternate universe. I was in Uppsala a couple of months ago and it looked just like when I went to school there, well, apart from all the new apartments that were being built on the north side of the city centre. I didn't see any syringes either, only a couple of beggars. Gottsunda is the trouble spot and it hasn't changed for over 20 years. Rinkeby has had issues since the 1960's, so nothing new there. But again, these are small, isolated areas, not the country as a whole as you seem to want to make it out to be, along with the media. Hell, I saw much more syringes and needles when I lived in London. I had neighbours dealing drugs there and I didn't even live close to the "bad" areas there.

I think you need to travel more if you think I was referring to WWII type ghettos. You only need to go to some of the poorer Asian countries to see massive ghettos. Hey, I was just in India, there we can talk about ghettos, in fact, some people are so damn bad off they sleep under a motorway bridge, as at least that way, they stay dry when it rains.

The housing prices in Sweden are messed up, but even that started long before the 2015-2016 refugee situation. There had been very little construction going on for about a decade before that, which was already pushing up the house prices. Obviously what happened, made the situation worse.

For abusing the social benefits system, you got some concrete examples here, or just more media hype?

And the far right party gained a massive 4.68% and they're still only the third biggest party. How is this historically the biggest percentage when they gained 7.2% in the previous election? Are you just bad at math, or again listening to the media hype?

You clearly care a lot about it for some reason. Does Sweden have problems? Yes, but many of them have been around since the 1960's when Sweden started to take in migrants from Eastern Europe. Oh and we took in quite a lot of Fins and Baltic people during WWII as well, maybe we should kick them all out too, along with their relatives, what do you think?

I really don't understand how a post about Linus Torvalds has anything to do with Sweden, apart from the fact that he lived there for a few years.
And I took the bait? Well, I don't understand why you started posting about Sweden. I would be equally engaged if you posted about where I live now, as there's a pretty shitty situation here too right now, but a very different one.

But please, do your research before spouting garbage.