5 ms·

Sex and Gor and open source

62 points by healsdata 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
alexandercrohde 10y ago
At first I thought this article would be linkbaity-gossip about a tech individual's private matters. However I think it raises a good point: Generally our attitude toward different sexual preferences (previously labeled 'deviant') is that it is illegal and wrong to use them to hold back somebody's career. However fetishism thus far hasn't been approached the same way as homosexuality, nor has the debate even begun in any public fashion. I think this debate will have to happen and it's very nuanced.
- empthought 10y ago
  It's not illegal to use homosexuality to "hold back somebody's career" in most jurisdictions, though. Only just enough jurisdictions for multinational corporations to set policies about it.
- di4na 10y ago
  Disclaimer : i am a dom/top/whatever you want to call it in my private life. Even more interestingly, the majority of the fetish/BDSM community is heavily feminist and open minded. (There are always grey nuance and complex case but still) It is a community that is deeply rooted into consent and people that submit making a conscious and informed decision. You tend to meet people that accept someone else opinion or lifestyle, that are team player and adapt to others, more than proselyts or zealots. Interestingly, the legal implications are complex, and most of the time, in the US, would not support the lifestyle that much. Consensual non-consent or violence is a strange place legally. But from the public information so far, it seems hard to believe that this was about proselytising or promoting anything. Just a witch hunt. Which, to be honest, do not surprise me. I am semi public about my personal involvement since 50 Shades, because i accept the problem i could get in exchange of informing people that need it (50 shades is hated in a lot of the community for good reasons) It is not easy and you get a lot of anxious/uneasy look.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    To be clear: the claim here --- not that you'd know it from the article --- is that proselytizing was in fact an issue.
    - di4na 10y ago
      Well proselytising what ? Because once again, the fact he plays as a Gorean master does not mean he believes women to be subhuman. This tends to be the problem with most of these things. But in any case we really lack information here.
      - aries1980 10y ago
        Regardless what he believes, whether it is in line with the mainstream western values or not, it hurts the inclusion and tolerance to expel members based on that. One's taste, political views (regardless how extreme it is) should not be a subject of investigation in a professional community.
    - mcphage 10y ago
      It wasn't an issue in Dries' article, either.
  - uwootm8 10y ago
    Disclaimer : i am a drug user/junkie/whatever you want to call it in my private life. Even more interestingly, the majority of the drug using community is heavily feminist and open minded. (There are always grey nuance and complex case but still) It is a community that is deeply rooted into using drugs and people that use drugs making a conscious and informed decision. You tend to meet people that accept someone else opinion or lifestyle, that are team player and adapt to others, more than proselyts or zealots. Interestingly, the legal implications are complex, and most of the time, in the US, would not support the lifestyle that much. Consensual use or addiction is a strange place legally. But from the public information so far, it seems hard to believe that this was about proselytising or promoting anything. Just a witch hunt. Which, to be honest, do not surprise me. I am semi public about my personal involvement since someone else did drugs on tv/movies, because i accept the problem i could get in exchange of informing people that need it (drugs are hated in a lot of the community for good reasons) It is not easy and you get a lot of anxious/uneasy look.
tptacek 10y ago
This article is written from one side of a complicated conflict. It's the perspective of the ousted Drupal member that his beliefs are entirely packaged up in the BDSM subculture that he takes part in, and that to have a problem with his beliefs is to persecute his BDSM subculture. It's the perspective of the other Drupal members who ousted him that his beliefs are not in fact cabined in that subculture, but in fact bleed out of it into his interactions with the broader world. They cite evidence. Since the beliefs that we're talking about could be broadly and probably inaccurately but by how much I don't know described as "females are subhuman", it's the perspective of the Drupal members who did the ousting that those beliefs matter very much to the project. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that this TechCrunch article basically defined away the controversy. That doesn't help anyone make sense of it. I'm happy letting the Drupal community work this stuff out for themselves though, and also flagged this story, which is, after all, really just drama.
- crawfordcomeaux 10y ago
  Community governance in a world where open source is increasing and privacy decreasing will necessarily require drama as long as emotions are involved. The article raises questions in the controversy worth exploring in countless open source projects. I didn't encounter evidence cited by the ousting members in the article. Can you link to your sources?
  - tptacek 10y ago
    You didn't encounter pretty much any of the other side in that article, which is not an accurate summary of the controversy. I'm not sure this article makes a good starting point for discussing this issue, and I'm not sure the issue itself is really worth mining to find a good starting point.
    - ohbecause 10y ago
      The fact you didn't reply but chose to divert the conversation indicates to me you're either on the board of the DA or an Acquia employee, or (knowing the tight relationship between the two) more likely both. I have read every piece of information available to the public and there has been no evidence of any wrongdoing. What you're doing here is wrong. I hope someday you see that.
losvedir 10y ago
Sad. I definitely agree with the article's "yes (no), hell no, hell no" answers. But I wonder how many people would answer the same here as with Brendan Eich being forced to resign or Curtis Yarvin being dis-invited from LambdaConf. Edit to be more clear: I can understand either position as long as it applies consistently. I also think I may have pattern matched this incorrectly as "person unfairly ostracized for his personal sexual preferences", when perhaps the part that will get play in the tech community is "woman hating white male", in which case this will fit right in with Eich and Yarvin.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Yarvin was not disinvited from LambdaConf. LambdaConf was boycotted because Yarvin presented there. (To your edit: so far as I know, the issue with Yarvin has more to do with outspoken racism than with gender equity).
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Disinvited from strangeloop I think? It's hard to keep track of it all.
    - mcphage 10y ago
      Right, disinvited from strangeloop. When he was invited to speak at LambdaConf, pressure was brought to bear to get him disinvited. When that didn't work, people instead brought pressure against LambdaConf's sponsors, speakers, and attendees, in an effort to get LambdaConf cancelled.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        That's a lurid way to describe people boycotting (pretty successfully) a conference.
        mcphage 10y ago
        Which claim are you objecting to? That people attempted to get him disinvited? That people pushed LambdaConf's sponsors to pull out? That people pushed LambdaConf's speakers to pull out? That people encouraged LambdaConf's attendees to switch to MoonConf? Calling that "attempting to get LambdaConf cancelled" doesn't seem particularly lurid, especially not compared to things like "You chose to die on this hill."
mgbmtl 10y ago
The Techcrunch article has a broken link to Dries' blog post: http://buytaert.net/living-our-values http://buytaert.net/living-our-values The Techcrunch article focuses too much on BDSM in general. If I understand correctly, the problem here is on the specific aspect of viewing women as inferior and the fact that this contributor wields significant influence in a community where (like many free software communities) gender is a problem. This isn't very different than being anti-gay and being the lead of a big free software project. Some people can pretend that their personal opinions have no impact on their work, but that's very rarely the case. If there was more diversity, this would probably be less of an issue.
- tnones 10y ago
  It is both notable and unsurprising that the Drupal code of conduct [1] makes zero mention of any of the topics in this debate. Nothing about sexuality, nothing about feminism, or equality, ... Yet every discussion about this immediately turns to gender politics. I think this shows the duplicitous nature of COCs: no matter what the letter says, the intent, as understood by nearly everyone, is to apply it to filter by reigning morality, under the threat of public punishment. When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who keep manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights, even when the people involved don't mind. Case in point, the Drupal Association member who resigned because he called his friend a pussy, who in turn didn't mind it. It is disingenuous to uphold a code of respect, diversity and inclusion while simultaneously expecting everyone to conform to the wishes of the most easily offended. More so to act like the only way to be respectful to women is to treat them like fragile flowers. Some people prefer traditional gender roles, in or outside the bedroom, and some are women. The last thing these inclusion activists want is diversity, it would expose them as the sheltered and privileged upper class they are. [1] https://www.drupal.org/dcoc https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
  - mgbmtl 10y ago
    > Nothing about sexuality, nothing about feminism, or equality, [...] From the DCOC: "The Drupal community and its members treat one another with respect." > When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who keep manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights [...] I don't know for Drupal, but gender is an issue in most computer-science related fields, I doubt that Drupal is immune to this. Free Software has a lower % of women involved than computer science in general. In any case, until there is near parity, there is a gender problem. I agree that 'we' are pretty bad at handling incidents. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. There's been an evolution in the last 10 years, but clearly more work to be done.
netaustin 10y ago
I spent a good portion of my early career working with Drupal on large-scale media sites and got to know some folks central to the movement. I liked almost everyone I met, including Dries, but after starting my own agency, left the platform and the community. Not because of individual conflicts, but because I concluded that I did not want my agency to orbit Acquia. This is what happens in commercially mature open source communities, and a huge source of mundane conflict. The founder and BDFL of the movement becomes the founder and BDFL of a venture funded, IPO-bound startup, and incentives start to become crossed. Or in the case this case, incentives become entirely perverted. So I have a darker take on this: Dries banned Crell as a face-value reason to strip a competitor of a seat at the core contributor table. Crell works for Platform.sh, a challenger to Acquia's main hosting platform product. Drupal has lots of very senior architectural voices already, so losing Crell isn't going to jeopardize the platform, and it's more convenient for Acquia for them to work in the same place. According to Crell's post about this [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing], the Drupal Association apparently attempted to apply their code of conduct and found repeatedly that Crell had done nothing wrong. But then Dries decided to ban Crell with little fanfare. Hard to believe that Dries cares that much about Crell's sex life. Easy to believe that he's become a cutthroat opportunist who would use the Code of Conduct to optimize Acquia's outcomes. What would have happened if Crell had worked for Acquia? That's the thing about a BDFL. Give him enough VC money and ultimately all that's left is a giant D.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lowry 10y ago
  Thumbs up. Acquia has too influence on Drupal. This is exactly why I stuck with Drupal 7 for my side projects, without any plans to migrate to Drupal 8.
- nearlythere 10y ago
  There's an appearance of conflict of interest, and you are not the only one to make this accusation. But this is a red herring. It was also brought up on the related Reddit thread. Someone surmised this might be "motivated by the direct competition." To which rszrama (Ryan Szarma) said "As a co-founder of Platform.sh, I know with absolute certainty this is not the case." Assuming Ryan knows more than both of us, and he would be in a position to gain from making such a claim -- it's important to note he emphatically said NO. https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/dfcg0n8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...
SexyCyborg 10y ago
I'm not at all surprised by this. I'm not a BDSM enthusiast, but in my personal life I wear clothes and have body mods that while legal and socially acceptable in my country, many Westerners find outrageous and deeply offensive. I have always complied with the standards and dress code of any business event I attend. It's simply what I wear in my personal time. It's been a huge obstacle to getting recognition when dealing with Western tech media. Even when I don't appear at all with the project, simply the off-camera creator's appearance being offensive has been sufficient excuse for exclusion. I have no doubt that BDSM enthusiasts, or Furries, or many others face similar issues even when they check all aspects of their lifestyle at the door and it has no bearing on their projects. As part of a knee-jerk reaction to community problems with sexism, parts of tech are now deeply, deeply conservative and judgmental about anything even vaguely sexual. You can very easily have permanent damage done to your career prospects by appearing or acting in some way different from what they feel is the norm. Once that's done, there's no appeasement or washing away the stain- you might as well embrace your eccentricity and resign yourself to whatever fringe niche will have you.
slang800 10y ago
> More generally, is it OK for an open-source community to ban/ostracize a member purely because their “belief system” — perhaps better described as a complicated fantasy milieu in which they happen to spend their personal time — was doxxed? [hell no] It's interesting to compare this with the TechCrunch article written after Brendan Eich was ousted for his “belief system”: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-ceo-following-criticism-of-his-support-for-prop-8/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mo...
WillyOnWheels 10y ago
http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/ http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/

62 points by healsdata 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

At first I thought this article would be linkbaity-gossip about a tech individual's private matters. However I think it raises a good point: Generally our attitude toward different sexual preferences (previously labeled 'deviant') is that it is illegal and wrong to use them to hold back somebody's career. However fetishism thus far hasn't been approached the same way as homosexuality, nor has the debate even begun in any public fashion. I think this debate will have to happen and it's very nuanced.

empthought 10y ago
It's not illegal to use homosexuality to "hold back somebody's career" in most jurisdictions, though. Only just enough jurisdictions for multinational corporations to set policies about it.
di4na 10y ago
Disclaimer : i am a dom/top/whatever you want to call it in my private life. Even more interestingly, the majority of the fetish/BDSM community is heavily feminist and open minded. (There are always grey nuance and complex case but still) It is a community that is deeply rooted into consent and people that submit making a conscious and informed decision. You tend to meet people that accept someone else opinion or lifestyle, that are team player and adapt to others, more than proselyts or zealots. Interestingly, the legal implications are complex, and most of the time, in the US, would not support the lifestyle that much. Consensual non-consent or violence is a strange place legally. But from the public information so far, it seems hard to believe that this was about proselytising or promoting anything. Just a witch hunt. Which, to be honest, do not surprise me. I am semi public about my personal involvement since 50 Shades, because i accept the problem i could get in exchange of informing people that need it (50 shades is hated in a lot of the community for good reasons) It is not easy and you get a lot of anxious/uneasy look.
- tptacek 10y ago
  To be clear: the claim here --- not that you'd know it from the article --- is that proselytizing was in fact an issue.
  - di4na 10y ago
    Well proselytising what ? Because once again, the fact he plays as a Gorean master does not mean he believes women to be subhuman. This tends to be the problem with most of these things. But in any case we really lack information here.
    - aries1980 10y ago
      Regardless what he believes, whether it is in line with the mainstream western values or not, it hurts the inclusion and tolerance to expel members based on that. One's taste, political views (regardless how extreme it is) should not be a subject of investigation in a professional community.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    It wasn't an issue in Dries' article, either.
- uwootm8 10y ago
  Disclaimer : i am a drug user/junkie/whatever you want to call it in my private life. Even more interestingly, the majority of the drug using community is heavily feminist and open minded. (There are always grey nuance and complex case but still) It is a community that is deeply rooted into using drugs and people that use drugs making a conscious and informed decision. You tend to meet people that accept someone else opinion or lifestyle, that are team player and adapt to others, more than proselyts or zealots. Interestingly, the legal implications are complex, and most of the time, in the US, would not support the lifestyle that much. Consensual use or addiction is a strange place legally. But from the public information so far, it seems hard to believe that this was about proselytising or promoting anything. Just a witch hunt. Which, to be honest, do not surprise me. I am semi public about my personal involvement since someone else did drugs on tv/movies, because i accept the problem i could get in exchange of informing people that need it (drugs are hated in a lot of the community for good reasons) It is not easy and you get a lot of anxious/uneasy look.

tptacek 10y ago

This article is written from one side of a complicated conflict. It's the perspective of the ousted Drupal member that his beliefs are entirely packaged up in the BDSM subculture that he takes part in, and that to have a problem with his beliefs is to persecute his BDSM subculture. It's the perspective of the other Drupal members who ousted him that his beliefs are not in fact cabined in that subculture, but in fact bleed out of it into his interactions with the broader world. They cite evidence. Since the beliefs that we're talking about could be broadly and probably inaccurately but by how much I don't know described as "females are subhuman", it's the perspective of the Drupal members who did the ousting that those beliefs matter very much to the project. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that this TechCrunch article basically defined away the controversy. That doesn't help anyone make sense of it. I'm happy letting the Drupal community work this stuff out for themselves though, and also flagged this story, which is, after all, really just drama.

crawfordcomeaux 10y ago
Community governance in a world where open source is increasing and privacy decreasing will necessarily require drama as long as emotions are involved. The article raises questions in the controversy worth exploring in countless open source projects. I didn't encounter evidence cited by the ousting members in the article. Can you link to your sources?
- tptacek 10y ago
  You didn't encounter pretty much any of the other side in that article, which is not an accurate summary of the controversy. I'm not sure this article makes a good starting point for discussing this issue, and I'm not sure the issue itself is really worth mining to find a good starting point.
  - ohbecause 10y ago
    The fact you didn't reply but chose to divert the conversation indicates to me you're either on the board of the DA or an Acquia employee, or (knowing the tight relationship between the two) more likely both. I have read every piece of information available to the public and there has been no evidence of any wrongdoing. What you're doing here is wrong. I hope someday you see that.

losvedir 10y ago

Sad. I definitely agree with the article's "yes (no), hell no, hell no" answers. But I wonder how many people would answer the same here as with Brendan Eich being forced to resign or Curtis Yarvin being dis-invited from LambdaConf. Edit to be more clear: I can understand either position as long as it applies consistently. I also think I may have pattern matched this incorrectly as "person unfairly ostracized for his personal sexual preferences", when perhaps the part that will get play in the tech community is "woman hating white male", in which case this will fit right in with Eich and Yarvin.

tptacek 10y ago
Yarvin was not disinvited from LambdaConf. LambdaConf was boycotted because Yarvin presented there. (To your edit: so far as I know, the issue with Yarvin has more to do with outspoken racism than with gender equity).
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Disinvited from strangeloop I think? It's hard to keep track of it all.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    Right, disinvited from strangeloop. When he was invited to speak at LambdaConf, pressure was brought to bear to get him disinvited. When that didn't work, people instead brought pressure against LambdaConf's sponsors, speakers, and attendees, in an effort to get LambdaConf cancelled.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That's a lurid way to describe people boycotting (pretty successfully) a conference.
      - mcphage 10y ago
        Which claim are you objecting to? That people attempted to get him disinvited? That people pushed LambdaConf's sponsors to pull out? That people pushed LambdaConf's speakers to pull out? That people encouraged LambdaConf's attendees to switch to MoonConf? Calling that "attempting to get LambdaConf cancelled" doesn't seem particularly lurid, especially not compared to things like "You chose to die on this hill."

mgbmtl 10y ago

The Techcrunch article has a broken link to Dries' blog post: http://buytaert.net/living-our-values http://buytaert.net/living-our-values The Techcrunch article focuses too much on BDSM in general. If I understand correctly, the problem here is on the specific aspect of viewing women as inferior and the fact that this contributor wields significant influence in a community where (like many free software communities) gender is a problem. This isn't very different than being anti-gay and being the lead of a big free software project. Some people can pretend that their personal opinions have no impact on their work, but that's very rarely the case. If there was more diversity, this would probably be less of an issue.

tnones 10y ago
It is both notable and unsurprising that the Drupal code of conduct [1] makes zero mention of any of the topics in this debate. Nothing about sexuality, nothing about feminism, or equality, ... Yet every discussion about this immediately turns to gender politics. I think this shows the duplicitous nature of COCs: no matter what the letter says, the intent, as understood by nearly everyone, is to apply it to filter by reigning morality, under the threat of public punishment. When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who keep manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights, even when the people involved don't mind. Case in point, the Drupal Association member who resigned because he called his friend a pussy, who in turn didn't mind it. It is disingenuous to uphold a code of respect, diversity and inclusion while simultaneously expecting everyone to conform to the wishes of the most easily offended. More so to act like the only way to be respectful to women is to treat them like fragile flowers. Some people prefer traditional gender roles, in or outside the bedroom, and some are women. The last thing these inclusion activists want is diversity, it would expose them as the sheltered and privileged upper class they are. [1] https://www.drupal.org/dcoc https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  > Nothing about sexuality, nothing about feminism, or equality, [...] From the DCOC: "The Drupal community and its members treat one another with respect." > When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who keep manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights [...] I don't know for Drupal, but gender is an issue in most computer-science related fields, I doubt that Drupal is immune to this. Free Software has a lower % of women involved than computer science in general. In any case, until there is near parity, there is a gender problem. I agree that 'we' are pretty bad at handling incidents. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. There's been an evolution in the last 10 years, but clearly more work to be done.

netaustin 10y ago

I spent a good portion of my early career working with Drupal on large-scale media sites and got to know some folks central to the movement. I liked almost everyone I met, including Dries, but after starting my own agency, left the platform and the community. Not because of individual conflicts, but because I concluded that I did not want my agency to orbit Acquia. This is what happens in commercially mature open source communities, and a huge source of mundane conflict. The founder and BDFL of the movement becomes the founder and BDFL of a venture funded, IPO-bound startup, and incentives start to become crossed. Or in the case this case, incentives become entirely perverted. So I have a darker take on this: Dries banned Crell as a face-value reason to strip a competitor of a seat at the core contributor table. Crell works for Platform.sh, a challenger to Acquia's main hosting platform product. Drupal has lots of very senior architectural voices already, so losing Crell isn't going to jeopardize the platform, and it's more convenient for Acquia for them to work in the same place. According to Crell's post about this [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing], the Drupal Association apparently attempted to apply their code of conduct and found repeatedly that Crell had done nothing wrong. But then Dries decided to ban Crell with little fanfare. Hard to believe that Dries cares that much about Crell's sex life. Easy to believe that he's become a cutthroat opportunist who would use the Code of Conduct to optimize Acquia's outcomes. What would have happened if Crell had worked for Acquia? That's the thing about a BDFL. Give him enough VC money and ultimately all that's left is a giant D.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lowry 10y ago
Thumbs up. Acquia has too influence on Drupal. This is exactly why I stuck with Drupal 7 for my side projects, without any plans to migrate to Drupal 8.
nearlythere 10y ago
There's an appearance of conflict of interest, and you are not the only one to make this accusation. But this is a red herring. It was also brought up on the related Reddit thread. Someone surmised this might be "motivated by the direct competition." To which rszrama (Ryan Szarma) said "As a co-founder of Platform.sh, I know with absolute certainty this is not the case." Assuming Ryan knows more than both of us, and he would be in a position to gain from making such a claim -- it's important to note he emphatically said NO. https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/dfcg0n8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...

SexyCyborg 10y ago

I'm not at all surprised by this. I'm not a BDSM enthusiast, but in my personal life I wear clothes and have body mods that while legal and socially acceptable in my country, many Westerners find outrageous and deeply offensive. I have always complied with the standards and dress code of any business event I attend. It's simply what I wear in my personal time. It's been a huge obstacle to getting recognition when dealing with Western tech media. Even when I don't appear at all with the project, simply the off-camera creator's appearance being offensive has been sufficient excuse for exclusion. I have no doubt that BDSM enthusiasts, or Furries, or many others face similar issues even when they check all aspects of their lifestyle at the door and it has no bearing on their projects. As part of a knee-jerk reaction to community problems with sexism, parts of tech are now deeply, deeply conservative and judgmental about anything even vaguely sexual. You can very easily have permanent damage done to your career prospects by appearing or acting in some way different from what they feel is the norm. Once that's done, there's no appeasement or washing away the stain- you might as well embrace your eccentricity and resign yourself to whatever fringe niche will have you.

slang800 10y ago

> More generally, is it OK for an open-source community to ban/ostracize a member purely because their “belief system” — perhaps better described as a complicated fantasy milieu in which they happen to spend their personal time — was doxxed? [hell no] It's interesting to compare this with the TechCrunch article written after Brendan Eich was ousted for his “belief system”: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-ceo-following-criticism-of-his-support-for-prop-8/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mo...

WillyOnWheels 10y ago

http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/ http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/