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An anonymous response to dangerous FOSS Codes of Conduct

25 points by lingben 11y ago

thescribe 11y ago
I think this is a very well-written article about FOSS culture. If you disagree it should be easy to disagree with facts.
- lingben 11y ago
  Thanks, that's why I shared it on here. I suspected that its rational approach may not receive a warm reception since so much of today's dialogue about this topic is driven by emotions. Glad that I was wrong. I find it alarming that this toxic culture is invading the tech field. Because of its nature, coding is, has been and will continue to be the best environment for meritocracy to flourish and be rewarded. If you are a good programmer and can deliver, no one really cares if you're young, old, black, white, purple, man, woman, etc. They will want to hire you and/or work with you. Squashing that for a superficially forced diversity "solution" is both short sighted and wrong. Discriminating against any category of people, no matter on what personal basis you decide to create that category is short sighted and wrong. Or should I say 'problematic'? ;) To leave things on a positive note, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about: https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit
  - cmsj 11y ago
    > If you are a good programmer and can deliver, no one really cares if you're young, old, black, white, purple, man or woman. They will want to hire you and/or work with you. That sounds nice when asserted as true, but is it actually true? > Squashing that for a superficially forced diversity "solution" is both short sighted and wrong. I'd note that the article talks about the importance of diversity of opinion. I have three further notes... -- An Open Source project is more than just programmers - it's users, documenters, testers, bug triagers, bug reporters, advocates, folk who give talks at conferences, people who put the project's logo on their laptop lid, trainers, consultants, book authors, book readers, etc, etc. You simply can't reduce the contributions of any person, to an objective scoring of their programming work product. -- We have the concept of professional conduct, IMO it's perfectly reasonable for a project to choose to require that of its community, if it so desires. -- Open Source is one of the greatest forms of free speech, so if you don't like the way something is running, say your own thing with your code and your conduct. If one claims that the right thing to do with detractors, is to ignore them, then one will have no problem running a free-for-all community/project amidst the hailstorm of criticism from folk who have a bad time there, or otherwise think it should change. See also, Linus.
Mz 11y ago
Eh, I am not for the CoCs and I agree with some of the points made here. But it also comes across as rather insensitive and blind to the very real problems of the people who are dreaming up CoCs etc. I have spent a lot of years working to try to find a better path forward. I appear to be the highest karma openly female member of HN. So far, that doesn't seem to have done that much for me. I sometimes question my stance. It gets little attention or support and the bitching from both sides gets a lot more attention and upvotes and...I am not sure there is any point to anything I do. I don't expect to have a regular job ever again, so some of the concerns that other marginalized people express kind of do not apply to me. But I do feel that I face very real barriers as a woman that posts like this one completely dismiss as not real. I generally do not agree with the approach of the people dreaming up CoCs, but I am sympathetic to the frustrations that fuel those choices and this post does not offer real solutions to very real problems. Unfortunately, it comes across as very dismissive of people who have very real problems. I don't think this is the way to start a constructive discussion about how to find a real path forward.
- thescribe 11y ago
  I found your perspective quite insightful, so thank you for taking the time to respond. I believe the author represents a very valid sense of alienation and dismissal many people feel when a code of conduct appears on a project they may have worked on for years. While I cannot speak for the author, I have had several conversations with people who hold views similar to that of the author in the past week thanks to current events. People are afraid. They see the Contributor Covenant and other codes of conduct and view them as at best a cudgel for exclusion and at worst a power grab by political groups they feel unwelcome with. I'll be honest, when I first read this article I pretty much pumped my fist in the air, this is like a call to arms against those awful codes of conduct. So I may be so blind to the issues of the people who call for codes of conduct that it is in the 'unknown unknowns' for me. I just don't know about them.
  - Mz 11y ago
    Thanks. If you want to get a little insight into some of those unknown unknowns from my perspective, you might be interested in reading my personal blog. Some of the more salient posts are listed in my profile.

25 points by lingben 11y ago

I think this is a very well-written article about FOSS culture. If you disagree it should be easy to disagree with facts.

lingben 11y ago
Thanks, that's why I shared it on here. I suspected that its rational approach may not receive a warm reception since so much of today's dialogue about this topic is driven by emotions. Glad that I was wrong. I find it alarming that this toxic culture is invading the tech field. Because of its nature, coding is, has been and will continue to be the best environment for meritocracy to flourish and be rewarded. If you are a good programmer and can deliver, no one really cares if you're young, old, black, white, purple, man, woman, etc. They will want to hire you and/or work with you. Squashing that for a superficially forced diversity "solution" is both short sighted and wrong. Discriminating against any category of people, no matter on what personal basis you decide to create that category is short sighted and wrong. Or should I say 'problematic'? ;) To leave things on a positive note, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about: https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit
- cmsj 11y ago
  > If you are a good programmer and can deliver, no one really cares if you're young, old, black, white, purple, man or woman. They will want to hire you and/or work with you. That sounds nice when asserted as true, but is it actually true? > Squashing that for a superficially forced diversity "solution" is both short sighted and wrong. I'd note that the article talks about the importance of diversity of opinion. I have three further notes... -- An Open Source project is more than just programmers - it's users, documenters, testers, bug triagers, bug reporters, advocates, folk who give talks at conferences, people who put the project's logo on their laptop lid, trainers, consultants, book authors, book readers, etc, etc. You simply can't reduce the contributions of any person, to an objective scoring of their programming work product. -- We have the concept of professional conduct, IMO it's perfectly reasonable for a project to choose to require that of its community, if it so desires. -- Open Source is one of the greatest forms of free speech, so if you don't like the way something is running, say your own thing with your code and your conduct. If one claims that the right thing to do with detractors, is to ignore them, then one will have no problem running a free-for-all community/project amidst the hailstorm of criticism from folk who have a bad time there, or otherwise think it should change. See also, Linus.

Mz 11y ago

Eh, I am not for the CoCs and I agree with some of the points made here. But it also comes across as rather insensitive and blind to the very real problems of the people who are dreaming up CoCs etc. I have spent a lot of years working to try to find a better path forward. I appear to be the highest karma openly female member of HN. So far, that doesn't seem to have done that much for me. I sometimes question my stance. It gets little attention or support and the bitching from both sides gets a lot more attention and upvotes and...I am not sure there is any point to anything I do. I don't expect to have a regular job ever again, so some of the concerns that other marginalized people express kind of do not apply to me. But I do feel that I face very real barriers as a woman that posts like this one completely dismiss as not real. I generally do not agree with the approach of the people dreaming up CoCs, but I am sympathetic to the frustrations that fuel those choices and this post does not offer real solutions to very real problems. Unfortunately, it comes across as very dismissive of people who have very real problems. I don't think this is the way to start a constructive discussion about how to find a real path forward.

thescribe 11y ago
I found your perspective quite insightful, so thank you for taking the time to respond. I believe the author represents a very valid sense of alienation and dismissal many people feel when a code of conduct appears on a project they may have worked on for years. While I cannot speak for the author, I have had several conversations with people who hold views similar to that of the author in the past week thanks to current events. People are afraid. They see the Contributor Covenant and other codes of conduct and view them as at best a cudgel for exclusion and at worst a power grab by political groups they feel unwelcome with. I'll be honest, when I first read this article I pretty much pumped my fist in the air, this is like a call to arms against those awful codes of conduct. So I may be so blind to the issues of the people who call for codes of conduct that it is in the 'unknown unknowns' for me. I just don't know about them.
- Mz 11y ago
  Thanks. If you want to get a little insight into some of those unknown unknowns from my perspective, you might be interested in reading my personal blog. Some of the more salient posts are listed in my profile.