6 ms·

Kip's a very long time and skilled BSD hacker. The landlord episode is completely irrelevant to this subject.

bro-stick 11y ago
The weaker road is to circle the wagons, my friend. Because someone seems good at something excuses criminal behavior through systematic harassment, intimidation, threats and attempted endangerment the lives of others? I think not. We should forget because of the slap on the wrist in San Quentin? I doubt it. But you would let him off the hook and forget about it, it's unimportant. Riight. That sort of behavior bleeds over because it makes a person a liability, rendering them untrustworthy for anything significant. Jeremy Clarkson was handled appropriately, Macy was not. As further evidence, I know of at least five (5) startups whom passed on about a dozen seemingly technical badasses for being too arrogant... capable but unable to mesh with various ventures. In a word: hubris. If a community's leadership doesn't consistently defend boundaries of civility, it's not going to endure because teams are fragile and cofounder/early participant squabbles kill more ventures/projects than anything else. Someone like that must prove beyond measure that they have changed, especially when others think no one's watching... Or they're just playing society for fools, again. (The five startups all found exceptionally smart and nice early employees, and four of them exited in 7-8 figure territory. One combined with amother startup and pivoted.)
- gherkin0 11y ago
  > because of the slap on the wrist in San Quentin It's that kind of thinking that gets people thrown in prison for 30 years for non-violent drug crimes. He went to prison, he didn't just get a fine and community service. I don't think that's a "slap on the wrist."
  - bro-stick 11y ago
    Then you agree with the unfairness. If a black person did this, they would get 30 years. End the War on Drugs and let many more of the mandatory minimum folks out, not just because it's costly, but because it's unjust. But that's a distraction away from the seriousness of the crimes committed and the lack of punishment in this case. So it is indeed, comparatively, a slap on the wrist, compared to people serving much longer sentences for far, far less. Edit: Solitary confinement is one of the worst forms of passive torture imaginable and most state prison systems deliberately abuse it on a routine basis... This should also end.
bigmofo 11y ago
The page referenced, refers to Matt Macy and not Kip. If it is the same person, then I disagree. One can't tell whether he would undermine any project he is on because he does not care about other people. That landlord episode was not a crime of passion where one can chuck it up to emotions at the time. Looks like something that was thought about and planned for an extended period of time. The landlords cared very little about how they were effecting their tenants lives.
- bro-stick 11y ago
  Nope, read the article again. Here's an excerpt: Kip Macy, 39, and his wife, Nicole Macy, also 39, were deemed "landlords of hell" by authorities for menacing the tenants of their San Francisco apartment building. There are plenty of links about Kip and Nicole's adventures: http://sfgate.com/crime/article/Landlords-from-hell-deal-includes-prison-time-4610530.php http://sfgate.com/crime/article/Landlords-from-hell-deal-inc... http://huffpost.com/us/entry/3468487 http://huffpost.com/us/entry/3468487 The combination of antisocial, stupidity and passive-aggressive actions results in someone whom comes off as the worst kind of liability. I'll let you take Kip and/or Nicole in as roommates, see how long that lasts.
  - bigmofo 11y ago
    I read the article. My only question was where Matt on the nextbsd page and Kip are the same person. I guess I could have searched first. Anyway this article seems to help indicate Kip and Matt of the nextbsd article are probably the same person: http://gawker.com/383763/freebsd-developer-kip-macy-arrested-for-tormenting-tenants http://gawker.com/383763/freebsd-developer-kip-macy-arrested... Definitely not somebody I would want to associated with, work with on any project or be around. Even though he has served his time and could be a changed person, one would always wonder.
    - bro-stick 11y ago
      Wikipedia could be wrong, but it currently says Kip Macy is involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextBSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextBSD And, indeed, kmacy commits show up https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD/commits/NextBSD-CURRENT https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD/commits/NextBSD-CURRENT Of course commit names are like the email From: field without using git's commit gpg signature features, but it seems to point in that direction.
felixgallo 11y ago
the guy sawed through critical beams of a building that people were living in in order to make it unsafe and induce collapse. Then, when his family put up their life savings in order to bail him out before trial, he ran away to Italy and screwed his parents out of retirement. At a minimum, he's a criminal sociopath who would correctly flunk the background check at a minimum wage fast food restaurant. Maybe ethics and morality and character don't matter to you when you install software, but they sure do matter to me when I install init systems.
- bro-stick 11y ago
  Exactly. Thank you. Trust is the most important part of the social contract. Burn that, and someone like that should be DK'ed until they can prove otherwise. Others quick to defend by attacking the messenger damaging their precious worldview is cognitive dissonance at work, but they should get their facts straight and know whom they're protecting before jumping over the holes in the floor. I agree that people should get a second chance, but only when they earn back trust, otherwise it says whatever they can get away with is okay, as long as we benefit from their other work. It's not okay. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me"
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  I care about ethics in software, too, but only insofar as they extend to technical and political issues played with the software specifically. I wouldn't care if Lennart Poettering was a rapist, because that is irrelevant to the workings of systemd. I do care about his architectural vision and how he promotes it.
  - bro-stick 11y ago
    Code by itself isn't often very useful, the community around it is often far more valuable. It's hard to know if someone who's committed antisocial acts didn't leave landmines in code or is hard to work with when it comes to support of issues or community discussions. Hans Reiser (reiserfs) is a murderer, and I think it's hard to justify working with someone like that.

The weaker road is to circle the wagons, my friend. Because someone seems good at something excuses criminal behavior through systematic harassment, intimidation, threats and attempted endangerment the lives of others? I think not. We should forget because of the slap on the wrist in San Quentin? I doubt it. But you would let him off the hook and forget about it, it's unimportant. Riight. That sort of behavior bleeds over because it makes a person a liability, rendering them untrustworthy for anything significant. Jeremy Clarkson was handled appropriately, Macy was not. As further evidence, I know of at least five (5) startups whom passed on about a dozen seemingly technical badasses for being too arrogant... capable but unable to mesh with various ventures. In a word: hubris. If a community's leadership doesn't consistently defend boundaries of civility, it's not going to endure because teams are fragile and cofounder/early participant squabbles kill more ventures/projects than anything else. Someone like that must prove beyond measure that they have changed, especially when others think no one's watching... Or they're just playing society for fools, again. (The five startups all found exceptionally smart and nice early employees, and four of them exited in 7-8 figure territory. One combined with amother startup and pivoted.)

gherkin0 11y ago
> because of the slap on the wrist in San Quentin It's that kind of thinking that gets people thrown in prison for 30 years for non-violent drug crimes. He went to prison, he didn't just get a fine and community service. I don't think that's a "slap on the wrist."
- bro-stick 11y ago
  Then you agree with the unfairness. If a black person did this, they would get 30 years. End the War on Drugs and let many more of the mandatory minimum folks out, not just because it's costly, but because it's unjust. But that's a distraction away from the seriousness of the crimes committed and the lack of punishment in this case. So it is indeed, comparatively, a slap on the wrist, compared to people serving much longer sentences for far, far less. Edit: Solitary confinement is one of the worst forms of passive torture imaginable and most state prison systems deliberately abuse it on a routine basis... This should also end.

bigmofo 11y ago

The page referenced, refers to Matt Macy and not Kip. If it is the same person, then I disagree. One can't tell whether he would undermine any project he is on because he does not care about other people. That landlord episode was not a crime of passion where one can chuck it up to emotions at the time. Looks like something that was thought about and planned for an extended period of time. The landlords cared very little about how they were effecting their tenants lives.

bro-stick 11y ago
Nope, read the article again. Here's an excerpt: Kip Macy, 39, and his wife, Nicole Macy, also 39, were deemed "landlords of hell" by authorities for menacing the tenants of their San Francisco apartment building. There are plenty of links about Kip and Nicole's adventures: http://sfgate.com/crime/article/Landlords-from-hell-deal-includes-prison-time-4610530.php http://sfgate.com/crime/article/Landlords-from-hell-deal-inc... http://huffpost.com/us/entry/3468487 http://huffpost.com/us/entry/3468487 The combination of antisocial, stupidity and passive-aggressive actions results in someone whom comes off as the worst kind of liability. I'll let you take Kip and/or Nicole in as roommates, see how long that lasts.
- bigmofo 11y ago
  I read the article. My only question was where Matt on the nextbsd page and Kip are the same person. I guess I could have searched first. Anyway this article seems to help indicate Kip and Matt of the nextbsd article are probably the same person: http://gawker.com/383763/freebsd-developer-kip-macy-arrested-for-tormenting-tenants http://gawker.com/383763/freebsd-developer-kip-macy-arrested... Definitely not somebody I would want to associated with, work with on any project or be around. Even though he has served his time and could be a changed person, one would always wonder.
  - bro-stick 11y ago
    Wikipedia could be wrong, but it currently says Kip Macy is involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextBSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextBSD And, indeed, kmacy commits show up https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD/commits/NextBSD-CURRENT https://github.com/NextBSD/NextBSD/commits/NextBSD-CURRENT Of course commit names are like the email From: field without using git's commit gpg signature features, but it seems to point in that direction.

felixgallo 11y ago

the guy sawed through critical beams of a building that people were living in in order to make it unsafe and induce collapse. Then, when his family put up their life savings in order to bail him out before trial, he ran away to Italy and screwed his parents out of retirement. At a minimum, he's a criminal sociopath who would correctly flunk the background check at a minimum wage fast food restaurant. Maybe ethics and morality and character don't matter to you when you install software, but they sure do matter to me when I install init systems.

bro-stick 11y ago
Exactly. Thank you. Trust is the most important part of the social contract. Burn that, and someone like that should be DK'ed until they can prove otherwise. Others quick to defend by attacking the messenger damaging their precious worldview is cognitive dissonance at work, but they should get their facts straight and know whom they're protecting before jumping over the holes in the floor. I agree that people should get a second chance, but only when they earn back trust, otherwise it says whatever they can get away with is okay, as long as we benefit from their other work. It's not okay. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me"
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
I care about ethics in software, too, but only insofar as they extend to technical and political issues played with the software specifically. I wouldn't care if Lennart Poettering was a rapist, because that is irrelevant to the workings of systemd. I do care about his architectural vision and how he promotes it.
- bro-stick 11y ago
  Code by itself isn't often very useful, the community around it is often far more valuable. It's hard to know if someone who's committed antisocial acts didn't leave landmines in code or is hard to work with when it comes to support of issues or community discussions. Hans Reiser (reiserfs) is a murderer, and I think it's hard to justify working with someone like that.