4 ms·

I still don't quite get it - meritocracy should invite all to participate and have their contributions considered equally, that's what open source development i

I still don't quite get it - meritocracy should invite all to participate and have their contributions considered equally, that's what open source development in this style is about. To say it's not something we should strive for seems ridiculous.

jordigh 11y ago
It's a long article, and judging by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes? I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to begin with, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages. But the actual article, which I have my doubts you've read, explains this better.
- ultramancool 11y ago
  > It's a long article, and by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes? Sorry, I had read it before. I just didn't really get an opportunity to discuss it. > I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to get those advantages, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages. I'm not saying perfect meritocracy is something we have, but it's something we should strive for and act under at least. We shouldn't over or undervalue contributions just because someone is a certain race/gender/etc in my opinion. It's patronizing and to do so seems only to contribute to the problem further.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    I think meritocracy is one of those things that seems well-intentioned like "separate but equal" or "don't ask don't tell" which sound like a good thing but in fact make things worse. It tries to fix a problem by ignoring it. You can't fix social disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. They exist for everything we do, including writing code.
    - ultramancool 11y ago
      > You can't fix social disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. The goal of an open source project should not be to fix social disadvantages but to produce the best possible product. They do this best via meritocracy, accepting contributions happily from anyone and choosing the best of them, not by rewarding or punishing people for things which they cannot change. Doing so makes the resulting product worse as you're not getting the best code from the best people, but instead discriminating on other factors unrelated to your end goal. Is it really "racist" or "sexist" to say this? Is it not the truth? EDIT: Added some wording to clarify.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        The goal of an open source project should not be to fix social disadvantages but to produce the best possible product. Why? Lots of open source projects have social goals; for example, there's the Debian Social Contract, the Mozilla Manifesto, and Ubuntu is itself named after an humanitarian philosophy. These goals often override technical quality: Debian will rather ship a more buggy and incomplete FOSS software than one which doesn't comply with the Social Contract.
        ultramancool 11y ago
        These are some hilariously bad examples. Every Debian user I know adds repositories which violate the social contract, for proprietary drivers, codecs, etc. Ubuntu, while it's named after a humanitarian concept removed this for this very reason: it goes against making the best product possible. I'd argue that most people prefer an OS without said social restrictions and I think Ubuntu is evidence of it rather than evidence against it. That said, most of the restrictions in the things you've listed are technical or legal in nature and _do_ actually have to do with the resulting product rather than unrelated social disadvantages. The Debian social contract simply states "no discrimination" which is certainly in line with meritocracy in my view of it at least. To answer why: because people want quality software and political agendas are a niche at best. There are much better places to address such things.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  I think a lot of people are opposed to sexism or racism precisely because they undermine meritocracy. If you take away fairness or meritocracy as a goal, you are left with chauvinism, supremacy, and tribalism masquerading as their opposites.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

jordigh 11y ago

It's a long article, and judging by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes? I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to begin with, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages. But the actual article, which I have my doubts you've read, explains this better.

ultramancool 11y ago
> It's a long article, and by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes? Sorry, I had read it before. I just didn't really get an opportunity to discuss it. > I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to get those advantages, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages. I'm not saying perfect meritocracy is something we have, but it's something we should strive for and act under at least. We shouldn't over or undervalue contributions just because someone is a certain race/gender/etc in my opinion. It's patronizing and to do so seems only to contribute to the problem further.
- jordigh 11y ago
  I think meritocracy is one of those things that seems well-intentioned like "separate but equal" or "don't ask don't tell" which sound like a good thing but in fact make things worse. It tries to fix a problem by ignoring it. You can't fix social disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. They exist for everything we do, including writing code.
  - ultramancool 11y ago
    > You can't fix social disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. The goal of an open source project should not be to fix social disadvantages but to produce the best possible product. They do this best via meritocracy, accepting contributions happily from anyone and choosing the best of them, not by rewarding or punishing people for things which they cannot change. Doing so makes the resulting product worse as you're not getting the best code from the best people, but instead discriminating on other factors unrelated to your end goal. Is it really "racist" or "sexist" to say this? Is it not the truth? EDIT: Added some wording to clarify.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      The goal of an open source project should not be to fix social disadvantages but to produce the best possible product. Why? Lots of open source projects have social goals; for example, there's the Debian Social Contract, the Mozilla Manifesto, and Ubuntu is itself named after an humanitarian philosophy. These goals often override technical quality: Debian will rather ship a more buggy and incomplete FOSS software than one which doesn't comply with the Social Contract.
      - ultramancool 11y ago
        These are some hilariously bad examples. Every Debian user I know adds repositories which violate the social contract, for proprietary drivers, codecs, etc. Ubuntu, while it's named after a humanitarian concept removed this for this very reason: it goes against making the best product possible. I'd argue that most people prefer an OS without said social restrictions and I think Ubuntu is evidence of it rather than evidence against it. That said, most of the restrictions in the things you've listed are technical or legal in nature and _do_ actually have to do with the resulting product rather than unrelated social disadvantages. The Debian social contract simply states "no discrimination" which is certainly in line with meritocracy in my view of it at least. To answer why: because people want quality software and political agendas are a niche at best. There are much better places to address such things.
pervycreeper 11y ago
I think a lot of people are opposed to sexism or racism precisely because they undermine meritocracy. If you take away fairness or meritocracy as a goal, you are left with chauvinism, supremacy, and tribalism masquerading as their opposites.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]