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Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

240 points by inian 9y ago

nodex-alex 9y ago
or you could just get on writing code instead of that diatribe!
camus2 9y ago
> Larry Garfield, a long-time, veteran contributor to Drupal was ejected from the community, allegedly not for breaking the Code of Conduct, but, to quote your own post on the matter, because “he holds views that are in opposition with the values of the Drupal project." At some point, some open source communities will need to decide whether they work on open technologies or they are political activists with a political mission that serves the interests of a specific political side, or political doctrine[1] If I'm into, I don't know, some niche Porn that isn't illegal, can it be considered "offensive to women" and should I be ejected as a contributor because of my personal sexual tastes in order to satisfy those that might be offended by this, even if I never bring up that matter in public? Now, if I'm part of an atheist association, and I publicly question the reality of a mainstream religion, can it be considered offensive to Muslims and should I be ejected of a totally unrelated community because some of its members that are not even of the religion think that what I said is offensive toward Muslims? 1 : one can argue "free software" is political. It is, but it has to do with the protection of users and their right to access and modify source code. It has nothing to do with women's rights or making blasphemy socially unacceptable, especially when positions are taken outside the context of the project community.
- eli 9y ago
  Community leaders are "political activists" because they exclude members that don't hold their values? Don't most membership organizations (not to mention for-profit companies) work that way?
  - camus2 9y ago
    What values are you talking about? that's my point precisely.
    - ghettoCoder 9y ago
      The actual values are not important. They are merely a tool to achieve the desired outcome when no other avenues are available.
    - eli 9y ago
      You lost me.
- ambirex 9y ago
  I don't think wanting to work on open technologies and other political activities is a binary position. Open software is built by groups of people and one part of building a community it deciding what sort of people you want to work with.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  It seems to me that the two things are not mutually exclusive, and more that every community is inherently political - if it isn't really aware of it, it's never been shook hard enough. The political actions of communities come out of political consensus, which is exactly what's happening with this letter: people are trying to agree on political action. A "politics-free" community is just one where everyone already agrees, or nothing has ever come up for people to disagree over.
- watwut 9y ago
  Plenty of open source communities are political beyond user rights. If you believe NSA should be able to watch everybody all the time, Tor people will kick you out. ------------ Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal. Is it possible to simultaneously believe that women are naturally submissive and happiest when they serve and simultaneously see leadership potential in women who is working under you? I dont know and I am glad that the question is not directly relevant to me. However, if my boss would believe something like that, I guess I would have to either leave the company or accept I will be less likely to be promoted then male college of similar skills. I have no idea whether Garfield is into Gor for kink or for gender philosophy nor whether that philosophy affected his leadership style. I dont care about whether he comes back or not. But, the more I looked into Gor the more it looked like way more then just another flavor of bdsm.
  - enord 9y ago
    >Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal. It's a series of fantasy f*#%ing novels, ofcourse it's role-play. Serious role play maybe, and definitively weird, but the author is _still alive_ and his name is not L. Ron Hubbard. Is he participating in political activism with mysogynistic undertones? Is he otherwise projecting gor-related gender views onto non-consenting parties? No. He just wants to do weird stuff together with other people who want to do weird stuff, socially and sexually. To assume that he holds these views to be morally absolute for everyone is a gross misrepresentation and unfortunately typical of persecution of weird people.
    - Turing_Machine 9y ago
      "It's a series of fantasy f#%ing novels, of course it's role-play." It seems so to me as well. There probably are people who take it a bit too far, just as there are in most fan groups (e.g., people who get cosmetic surgery to look like anime characters, etc.), but I don't recall hearing of any rash of abuse cases involving Goreans (apologies if that's not the right term). I'm wondering just how far this goes. I have a friend who participates in Civil War reenactments (again, apologies if I don't get the terminology right). He plays a Confederate, and spends a considerable amount of time and money getting his gear and persona as close to perfect as he possibly can. That doesn't mean he really believes in slavery, or even that the South should have won the Civil War. Quite the contrary -- I'm 100% sure that he doesn't believe those things. This is just something he does for fun.
amiga-workbench 9y ago
I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Without getting into controversial labels, it's not clear to me who did what to whom and what the people are petitioning for. I seemed to me that (all allegedly) someone was outed as into BDSM and was somehow treated unfairly. I think that certainly falls into the domain of liberal sexual identity politics.
  - speeder 9y ago
    Larry is Gorean Goreans are people that agree with philosophy of professor John Lange, that writes his philosophy in porn books with pen name John Norman What got Larry kicked out is that similarly to Abrahamic religions, Goreans believe there is an inherent hierarchy between men and women. Or at least it is what Dries (Drupal leader) wrote as explanation for the incident. So Larry is being punished literally for "wrong-think", having beliefs that are shared with billions of Abrahamic religion followers around the world. But Goreanism is not a religion, so probably doesn't count as religious discrimination. Also according to a blog lost by Larry, the "proof" used against him was a transcription of a discourse he made in a private wedding.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - noir_lord 9y ago
      > Goreanism is not a religion, so probably doesn't count as religious discrimination. I've often wondered what the difference between a Cult and a Religion is and my best answer seems to be "4 orders of magnitude". 1000 is a cult, 10,000,000 is a Religion. If it's a numbers game then everyone religion went through a stage where it was a cult (and indeed if you look at the history of religion lots of them where treat that way, Roman treatment of Christianity is a well documented one).
pbowyer 9y ago
I hope the community and project can be reconciled. Not for the sake of Drupal, but for everyone involved however tangentially.
EamonnMR 9y ago
Some context: Garfield's statement: https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing Executive Director's statement: https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the-executive-director https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the...
- nebabyte 9y ago
  > > So if and only if Larry did not violate the Code of Conduct, then apologize to Larry and rescind your request to remove himself from the community (if there was a violation, provide the details to Larry and confirm to the public) TL;DR : Please continue iff there was a violation we don't know about > We want to be clear that the decision to remove Larry's DrupalCon session and track chair role was not because of his private life or personal beliefs. The Drupal Association stands by our values of inclusivity. Our decision was based on confidential information conveyed in private by many sources. Due to the confidential nature of the situation we cannot and will not disclose any information that may harm any members of our community, including Larry > This decision followed our established process. As the Executive Director, charged with safekeeping the goodwill of the organization, I made this decision after considering input from various sources including the Community Working Group (CWG) and Drupal Project Lead, Dries Buytaert. Upon Larry’s request for an appeal, the full board reviewed the situation, all the evidence, and statements provided by Larry. After reviewing the entirety of the information available (including information not in the public view) the decision was upheld. > In order to protect everyone involved we cannot comment more, and trust that the community will be understanding TL;DR : We're continuing, there was a violation you don't know about Sounds like it's done, then
  - evunveot 9y ago
    https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3 https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3 TL;DR : The Drupal leadership hasn't accused Larry of a code of conduct violation publicly or privately but they're happy to imply that a secret violation exists so they can cover up the fact that they ousted him because his lifestyle is icky and bad for PR.
  - 9y ago
jacquesm 9y ago
> We know that you have no desire for more press coverage, Dries. The last thing you want is to prolong the media parade that has drawn so much attention to the problems with Drupal governance. That must be why they chose to do this in public rather than in a private letter. As much as I agree with the contents of the letter I reject the way in which it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail. If you don't do 'x' we will leave would have been strong enough without making this yet another public spectacle because it pulls in the world at large to witness whether or not these demands are met. I can't stand Drupal for many reasons (backwards incompatibility by design being the major one) but this is not a nice thing to do.
- tnones 9y ago
  Propriety is a poor excuse to let others control the conversation. From what I've seen, Dries and the Drupal Association have not invited good faith dialogue, quite the opposite. He's edited his statements silently and has subtly shifted his position (first a conflict about values, then about reported behavior). Comments remain moderated and reasonable ones have not been allowed through when they contradict the party line [1]. Many questions that were raised have been handwaved away or ignored. Using PR-speak to sound reconciliatory while doing the opposite is a game two can play at. It may not be nice, but it's better than trying to be reasonable against someone arguing in bad faith. That's a recipe for frog boiling and being a pushover. The idea isn't to endlessly escalate, it's to ensure both sides now have something to gain by cooperating and to lose by defecting. [1] https://twitter.com/stefan_arrr/status/851795109716922370 https://twitter.com/stefan_arrr/status/851795109716922370
- richthegeek 9y ago
  Allowing or organising a witch-hunt and irreparably damaging a career because you disagree with someone's sex life is "not a nice thing to do". Posting doxxed information across the internet, along with euphemistic insinuations that he is an irreparable pervert, attached to his real name, forever to show up as the first result when you Google him ... is "not a nice thing to do" Trying to hold your community leaders up to a higher standard, and refusing to partake in the same backroom whisper campaigns that you're angry about? That's just not even on the same level of "not nice".
ghettoCoder 9y ago
Nothing surprising to see here. This is why I seldom bother getting involved in open source projects and NEVER use my real name. Large, interesting projects are too much like this and groups quickly form using the same BS as in high school only now "wrong brand of shoes" gets replaced with "incorrect values". Whatever that heck that means. I'm still not clear why anyone would care how he gets off on his own time, in the privacy of his home. If this is really a thing then other "identifiable" groups might want to prepare for when the pendulum swing back and then they themselves are holding "incorrect values". edit: removed not
julie1 9y ago
It convinces me Code Of Conduct are basically sticks that will not harm you when you are on the right side of them. Do communities needs sticks to be driven one sided way like cows? At this point it feels like they kind of defy their reason to be and are pretty misused.
- andoon 9y ago
  My experience says that codes of conduct are written with the express desire of keeping all open source communities left-leaning. I've talked to many people about the matter and some of them say that open source is supposed to be left-leaning, and that those are its principles. That ignores that right-leaning users should also be able to benefit from open source values (privacy, for example) and contribute code, and that not everybody who uses open source has to be a supporter of the open source principles (for example, I use an open source browser because it's the best, not because I like open source better than closed source).
  - IGI-111 9y ago
    As usual, depends on the contents of the code. That kind of legalese is just tooling to organize discourse. You won't build an open minded community if its rules mandate righthink. Doesn't mean you can't try and protect people from the kind of stalking and abuse that has happened here. It's a shame that we have to have more than "be professional and don't be a dick" as community guidelines, but if we have to might as well do it correctly.
    - andoon 9y ago
      Someone who doesn't know that he has to "be professional and don't be a dick" is likely to disregard the code of conduct. And you don't need a code of conduct to kick someone out of a project because he's being unprofessional and/or a dick. Therefore codes of conduct are useless.
      - menacingly 9y ago
        I agree. It at least feels like it's more a way to showcase your beliefs and give a list of things that may be used to justify actions later, rather than something constructive.
cies 9y ago
I think free software is to some extend political. We try to work by a higher "inclusive" standard than what is found in society. The letter to Dries writes: > It is unacceptable to judge people based on unspoken, secret rules that they have no say in and cannot know. Unacceptable? Tell that to the pope (pedo trials) and the US gov't (TPP, Guatanamo). They do this all the time. So again, if we agree this is "unacceptable" we say that many of our governing institutions are unacceptable, and thereby set a higher moral community standard then what we are governed by. I for one believe it is very important to do this. > Ensure people carrying out illegal acts related to the conduct of others are reported to the proper authorities. Here again it shows. "Illegal acts" are here scoped by their "relation to the conduct of others", yet are ultimately are defined by gov't. Possession of pot has been illegal, but hell no I'd turn someone in for that: I do not consider is punishment-worthy.
rsyring 9y ago
Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious" standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will suffer. (Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  Indeed, go on Stormfront and you'll find it a religious bastion of diversity and inclusion! Communities have always been free to choose their members and morals. If I can kick someone out for being verbally abusive, why can't I do it for whatever the community agrees on?
  - skylan_q 9y ago
    Indeed, go on Stormfront and you'll find it a religious bastion of diversity and inclusion! Most people laugh, but I'm a regular visitor of a forum where people share a lot of the same controversial views but the makeup of people (except for the fact that it's 99% male) is way more diverse than anywhere else I've been and I've lived in Toronto.
- minsight 9y ago
  I'm not too sure that diversity or inclusion has a net cost.
  - tnones 9y ago
    Diversity and inclusion have a cost of having to deal with ongoing disagreement and friction that comes from coexistence. Diversity(tm) and Inclusion(tm) have a cost of inviting Diversity Experts to tell you why you cannot do any of this on your own and why you need to pay them for it, even though none of their materials or solutions have been peer-reviewed and the readily observable effect is that they make everyone miserable. One is how communities work, the other is how protection rackets work.
  - stillkicking 9y ago
    Diversity and inclusion have a cost of having to deal with ongoing disagreement and friction that comes from coexistence. Diversity(tm) and Inclusion(tm) have a cost of inviting Diversity Experts to tell you why you cannot do any of this on your own and why you need to pay them for it, even though none of their materials or solutions have been peer-reviewed and the readily observable effect is that they make everyone miserable. One is how communities work, the other is how protection rackets work.
dorfsmay 9y ago
In the same line, Brendan Eich. I completely disagree with his views on marriage of homosexuals, but disagree that it led him to have to quit his position at Mozilla Foundation.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  another victim of the proponents of Liberty And Freedom. Who basically dont accept opinions different than theirs.
  - nebabyte 9y ago
    Seems reasonable. The Catholic Church doesn't allow high-ranking members to be atheists, and look, the Old World even gave them their own state.
    - dorfsmay 9y ago
      The Catholic church never pretended to be open-minded!
- pavlov 9y ago
  Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red state be a liability? Republican in a blue state? Evangelical in a secular area? Atheist in a religious one? Scientologists? Mormons? In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs?
Wintamute 9y ago
When your private proclivities don't vibe with the dominant culture (postmodernist/intersectional social justice activism) you can expect to be drummed out of open source communities - we've known this to be true for some time. Very pleased to see the open letter from the community come down firmly against this regressive practice, they are firmly on the right side of history.
- cat199 9y ago
  > right side of history. This phrase to some extent seems to have origins in dialectical materialism which is a marxist philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism I mention this because it seems at odds with your opposition to certain attitudes.
  - Wintamute 9y ago
    I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not familiar enough with dialectical materialism to gain much insight. Have I undermined my own point somehow? In reflection I can see how a phrase like "the right side of history" is somewhat unhelpful, since whichever side is "right" is completely subjective.
    - cat199 9y ago
      This philosophy is the background philosophy of marxism, and was essentially developed within this school. The gist is that that human progress (assumed to exist) is based on a materialist dialectic (action/response/synthesis) - e.g. a sort of historical predeterminism that humankind is unstoppably destined for socialism once society 'evolved' to a certain level of productive capacity - This view of progress is what leads to there being a 'right' and 'wrong' side of history, and as best I can tell the phrase it comes directly from marxists, and is rooted in in their philosophical view of society and progress, which doesn't mean one cant use that same sort of philosophy but leading to another in context, necessarily.. just a mention, since it seems like you might not like sounding marxist, not that that would in some cases be inherently a bad thing either.
fmitchell0 9y ago
There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument: - Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes - Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No - Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over themselves and table-flip: - Does a person's private life affect their public views? - If a person in leadership has their private life exposed (fairly or unfairly), does that affect their leadership role? If you quickly come to a 'Yes' or 'No' in the last two questions, then that is why we don't have constructive dialogue between people with opposing views. Again, we're not talking about blatant discrimination. We're talking about a position of leadership and influence. For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles? It's no different than the 1st amendment. No laws can be made to punish you for speaking, but you can't just say whatever you want without consequence. I'd hope that people would take a breath and really think about that. Is it discrimination if you ask that person to relinquish their leadership role? Who is excluded because of that person being in leadership? Who has been silenced out of fear that the power of leadership trumps their voice? I personally do not know the answers to the two questions, but I'm open to hearing both sides. I also understand how difficult it is to have an answer when you're responsibility is to put people in leadership. With open source, it's even more complicated because you could 'become a leader' simply by being great at contributing!
- irishcoffee 9y ago
  > For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles? Doesn't this just kick the can down the street a few feet? It seems, and I may have interpreted it incorrectly, that the leader or leaders of a community must not personally hold any controversial views at all according to this. Speaking bluntly, I think that is impossible.
  - pryelluw 9y ago
iplaw 9y ago
This is very true. A large portion of these so-labeled SJWs preach inclusion* and diversity^. It's all about total and blind conformity to and their constructed alternative reality, based on unquestionable and irrefutable faux-offense. * inclusion limited to like-minded individuals who share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit; and trust that they will look for and seize upon a point of disagreement. You'll be worse than a poverty-stricken cis white male born of unspeakable privilege. ^ diversity limited to like-minded individuals who share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit; and trust that they will look for and seize upon a point of disagreement. Cis white males not allowed to pursue life, liberty, or happiness due to aforementioned unspeakable privilege.
- orcdork 9y ago
  share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit Look at this strawman I'm clutching. Made it myself, out of straw.
  - camperman 9y ago
    It's called rhetoric.
    - orcdork 9y ago
      Said the Sandy Hook shooting denier.
      - camperman 9y ago
        Of course. Because my opinion on Sandy Hook means the GP isn't using rhetoric.
ekianjo 9y ago
sorry but how does that work to be for tolerance and anti discrimination in the first place ? anti discrimination means you Do NOT tolerate people who discriminate, so you cant be tolerant at the same time. I always see this kind of contradictions in principles.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  Totally agree. I'm fed up of the argument that goes "if you preach tolerance, you must be tolerant of intolerance", for my own understanding of tolerance. Yes, you shouldn't commit a violent act against someone because they are intolerant. No, you shouldn't have to accept their intolerance unreservedly. I also have an issue with the part of the statement that reads along the lines of "we are against discrimination based on someone's race, gender ... or personal beliefs". Sorry, that's ridiculous. If someone believes Jews are parasites, I'm discriminating against them. If someone thinks women are inherently inferior to men, I'm discriminating against them. If I'm not allowed to react differently to someone because of what they believe in, go ahead and unplug me now because i cease to be a thinking human being.
  - nebabyte 9y ago
    So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do you shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be your next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them? Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown no signs of changing. How would your solution address that? Indoctrination? Building an ideological "wall"? Killing those who do not meet your ideology, or wait and hope it 'dies out'? What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?
    - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
      > So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society Challenge those beliefs. I believe i shouldn't be forced to tolerate them, though.
    - 9y ago
StavrosK 9y ago
Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting adults in private?
- HappyTypist 9y ago
  >> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cat199 9y ago
    Yes, and? While I'm not into this kind of stuff, this is 'acted out' in a recreational activity.. As one simple example, this could be his way of coping with the 'reality' that women are evolutionarily 'superior to men' or similar.. If the actual behavior hasn't impacted the community in a way that the community doesn't like directly, the 'problem' is the person making it their business to muckrake and air other people's dirty laundry..
  - mustacheemperor 9y ago
    Note that this isn't a quote from the link above, nor from Larry, and while I don't know much about Gor it's not a full or faithful reflection from what I understand of it. There is no shade of the BDSM community that does not value consent at its core. Fifteen years ago, I would imagine people would have and did receive the same backlash for being "outed" as part of BDSM communities that today are seen as "kink" and fully accepted by pop culture. Also, side note and to actually quote the above link - I find myself "walking on eggshells" considering how to comment in this thread, and I think that reflects the same wider problems that are making this issue so catalytic.
  - imesh 9y ago
Udo 9y ago
Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we're actually talking about (which wasn't made especially clear otherwise): >> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead." Even assuming this is Larry's philosophy, it is pretty much the same philosophy shared by many women & men in various conservative religious faiths, including branches of Christianity, Judaism, & Islam—only they add in the idea that it is divinely ordered. Are we now going to expel all who hold such religious beliefs? << I agree this philosophy is hard to swallow, but the commenter's point about religious belief is well made. Apart from the issue that this is in fact a widely-held belief I would suggest communities allow their members to hold any belief in private, as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value, and as long as that person does not act based on that belief during community interactions. It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty have to work with people who believe all kinds of things, and they have to work with you. Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that it's even feasible to have good relationships and friendships with people we fundamentally disagree with. In this context, if you're running an open source project, it's expected that people hold an even more varied spectrum of beliefs than would be the case in a traditional company. As long as members can professionally conduct themselves in that environment, firing them is not a productive solution. Presumably the person in question has pledged to uphold Drupal's community values and at first glance it looks like that pledge has not been broken.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > ...as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value... I honestly don't care about that even, as long as people can discuss their ideas and leave the group if they're done tolerating each other. > It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty have to work with people who believe all kinds of things... In popular usage, "tolerance" is slowly becoming synonymous with "acceptance" or "celebration". But in reality, you just described real tolerance right here. It's a good balance because we can absolutely agree to disagree and be part of a healthy community anyway. Keeping "tolerance" as tolerance is the best recipe for actual diversity of identity and thought in my opinion. EDIT: Clarified my phrasing a bit.
slaunchwise 9y ago
I'm really struggling to figure why I should give a fuck about what, who or how Larry Garfield fucks.
- cheez 9y ago
  First they came for Larry's penis and I did not speak out, because it was not my penis.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantively like this here.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anonemouse145 9y ago
Personal experience: I met a good chunk of the people involved, and they're weirdos who we chose not to have business dealings with because you could tell something was off. We poached one of their best developers, who jumped ship the moment they saw we offered a less insane place to work. The rest of the community were too far up their own duffs to even notice us, and they were all geeking over going to their version of summer camp together. The Drupal community- at least the outspoken ones in my area- are just the sort of self propagating incestuous clique that I knew this was going to happen. Have you actually seen Garfield? Dude shows up to conferences wearing a leather fedora with a matching leather vest. He is not a senior citizen. If you page back a bit, Garfield was one of those calling for people to hunt down the vile misogynist GamerGaters. I would wager he doxxed people he disagreed with during that event. Imagine for a moment that Garfield is not a feminist. Maybe he's even an outspoken anti-feminist. And the Drupal community finds out that this anti-feminist used to lock up a severely autistic girl in his basement, and that he wears a fedora, and that he actively participates in a community that celebrates violent sexual acts against women in literature. Would the community care about consent? Would the community defend that person's right to privacy? Would the community preach tolerance? Or would they "punch the Nazi"? I suggest the latter. This whole episode shows exactly what happens to someone guilty of wrongthink. The real debate they're having between the lines is only whether he's guilty or not. And guilt depends largely on which piece of clickbait journalism people read first, or what issue someone is more of an activist about. Our company still uses Drupal, but nobody from our company is going to go to summer camp with the Drupal community.
zappo2938 9y ago
This is big departure from the blow back after Dries made a comment years ago at Drupalcon about encouraging women to enter the Drupal community as graphic design artists. Good for these women today.
oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
> illegally obtaining information from members-only websites (by violating their terms of use) IANAL, but since when have arbitrary website terms and conditions been automatically enforced by criminal law?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Does "illegally" mean criminal law? (Honest question.) I assumed that it meant a civil law violation someone could sue over - usually "civil and criminal" cases like DRM violations are specified as such.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  "illegally" doesn't just mean criminal.
- speeder 9y ago
  Aaron Swartz case... And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS). And a bunch of other cases... In US breaking TOS is literally a crime if you keep using the site (it is akin to virtual trespassing). I think such law is bullshit... but it does exist. (CFAA I think is the law name)
  - rhizome 9y ago
    And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS). Lori Drew, who was acquitted.
lucideer 9y ago
A lot of people are taking either stance: that a person's beliefs squarely should or should not affect their involvement in the project. However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect their beliefs may have on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" might execute poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?
- gooseus 9y ago
  But who does the assessing? What measure do we use to determine which beliefs will create which affects? Is a Gorean belief system more or less likely than an Abrahamic belief system to execute poor judgement with regards to female collaborators? I think the problem with many of these approaches is this notion that we can predict ahead of time. I would agree with your third approach if you just changed the tense of the sentence: > However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect their beliefs _have had_ on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" _might have executed_ poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators? We can't assume behavior from stated beliefs, but past behavior and beliefs may factor into a case where wrong-doing has occurred. If I'm a satanist, that doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice babies... but if you find me connected to a bunch of baby-sacrificing, then you better believe my stated Satanic beliefs will factor into the "motive" part of my prosecution. Not only is this the "innocent till proven guilty" ethos applied generally, it's also going to be far more efficient to judge people case-by-case on observed actions/offenses than by trying to extrapolate potential actions from the subjective interpretations of their words.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    You're right, and I probably should've worded it that way (I can no longer edit). I was using the term "might" in a suggestive, rather than speculative, way.
- camus2 9y ago
Pxtl 9y ago
You know how we always complain how the tech community is treated unfairly about women? How they think we politely ignore the gendered problems our industry faces? How we're not all sexist and we're genuinely trying hard to embrace and include female geeks and coders? This thread. This whole thread right here.
- atom-morgan 9y ago
  Mind elaborating?
stillhere 9y ago
"We believe that tolerance reserved only for people who think and act exactly like we do is no tolerance at all." Oh my god. Then act like it.
- atom-morgan 9y ago
  Then let communities be communities. Remember LambdaConf and Moldbug?
throw7 9y ago
I don't see a positive outcome in this unless Dries steps down. This is vote of no confidence and Dries should really see that. (Note: I don't follow drupal and this is the first I've heard of this, so... this is just from an outsider perspective.)
douche 9y ago
It sounds to me like some other asshole discovered that this guy was into some unusual stuff in his personal life, and decided to go out of his way to be offended about it, make a big stink about it and stir the pot. Given the choice, it's the pot-stirrer I would kick out of my community. You know, if I had my own community. With blackjack...
draw_down 9y ago
From the outside it's been hard to judge who's wrong or right here, the whole thing stinks to high heaven. All I know is I wouldn't want to get involved with a similar big project these days. I guess you could just use a fake name, but that probably wouldn't hold up if you wanted to have any sort of leadership role.
erpellan 9y ago
Code of Conduct. Conduct. CONDUCT! Not: code of thought, beliefs, sexuality, politics, religion.... All the discussions of philosophy and belief systems in this thread are missing the point. It DOES NOT MATTER how you feel about someone else's beliefs. It is not relevant. How they CONDUCT themselves in the community is the only thing that matters.
- YPCrumble 9y ago
  If that were the case it would be called a "Code of Conduct In the [Drupal] Community". Many people assume they should consider any conduct that they don't like in applying a "Code of Conduct".
fabrice_d 9y ago
Not taking sides, but I found this analysis by an experienced community manager interesting: https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-decisions/ https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governanc... "it's complicated"
- lgleason 9y ago
  It's complicated if you are driving an agenda. Otherwise you can conduct things in the open. In my experience the secret tribunals enable bad behavior and bullies.
  - fabrice_d 9y ago
    It's about respecting the privacy of people that could have been harassed by Larry (and Larry's own privacy). How is that an agenda? I don't see a "secret tribunal" here, more a `behind closed doors` trial (https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos). Nothing wrong with that.
ktta 9y ago
Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUDO9M64J:https://www.drupalconfessions.org/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUD...
coreyp_1 9y ago
If you don't want to work with Drupal, then work with something else instead. Open invitation: If you are looking for something to work on (i.e., the project is still pre-alpha quality), check out my work in progress: https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant . I'm an 11+ member of the Drupal community, who wanted a fresh take on a framework. As developers, we have newer tools with different strengths than PHP. That is what I'm working on leveraging. Message me if you want more info.
jwogrady 9y ago
Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to write?
etchalon 9y ago
While, in reading this thread, I understand how people might take offense to someone being excluded based on a privately-held belief, especially one which has not manifested into an actual issue of conduct. But I'm not sure I mind when different standards are applied to any given community's "leaders" vs. its participants. Leaders ultimately represent what a community believes it should stand for. We have, perhaps unrealistically in some case, but justifiably always prosecuted leaders, in any context, for behavior, beliefs and statements that we would absolutely forgive/ignore for the "public".
- lgleason 9y ago
  It's one thing if we are talking about their actions that are part of being a community leader. IE: if a Drupal leader showed porn during a talk at a Drupal conference. It's another to say that their personal actions outside of this official role represent the community. This is why people say that their Twitter views do not represent their employer etc. because there can and should be a separation between the two.
  - etchalon 9y ago
    My point was that "leaders" can not compartmentalize the same way a participant, employee or guest can. Leadership roles are generally, in our society, held to higher standards. I'm also keeping in mind that had this person held views not that women are inherently inferior to men, but that blacks were inherently inferior to whites, there'd be absolutely no discussion about whether they should be removed. You simply cannot hold that type of view and have any credible moral claim to a leadership role, even if your actions as a leader are spotless.
SadWebDeveloper 9y ago
Offtopic... Someone here actually develops software in Drupal? Most people i knew abandoned drupal years ago for Joomla or something in python like Django, its kinda weird/cringeworthy hearing news about Drupal the Community more than the Drupal project.
jwogrady 9y ago
Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to write?
holidaythailand 9y ago
TLDR?

240 points by inian 9y ago

or you could just get on writing code instead of that diatribe!

> Larry Garfield, a long-time, veteran contributor to Drupal was ejected from the community, allegedly not for breaking the Code of Conduct, but, to quote your own post on the matter, because “he holds views that are in opposition with the values of the Drupal project." At some point, some open source communities will need to decide whether they work on open technologies or they are political activists with a political mission that serves the interests of a specific political side, or political doctrine[1] If I'm into, I don't know, some niche Porn that isn't illegal, can it be considered "offensive to women" and should I be ejected as a contributor because of my personal sexual tastes in order to satisfy those that might be offended by this, even if I never bring up that matter in public? Now, if I'm part of an atheist association, and I publicly question the reality of a mainstream religion, can it be considered offensive to Muslims and should I be ejected of a totally unrelated community because some of its members that are not even of the religion think that what I said is offensive toward Muslims? 1 : one can argue "free software" is political. It is, but it has to do with the protection of users and their right to access and modify source code. It has nothing to do with women's rights or making blasphemy socially unacceptable, especially when positions are taken outside the context of the project community.

eli 9y ago
Community leaders are "political activists" because they exclude members that don't hold their values? Don't most membership organizations (not to mention for-profit companies) work that way?
- camus2 9y ago
  What values are you talking about? that's my point precisely.
  - ghettoCoder 9y ago
    The actual values are not important. They are merely a tool to achieve the desired outcome when no other avenues are available.
  - eli 9y ago
    You lost me.
ambirex 9y ago
I don't think wanting to work on open technologies and other political activities is a binary position. Open software is built by groups of people and one part of building a community it deciding what sort of people you want to work with.
ivanbakel 9y ago
It seems to me that the two things are not mutually exclusive, and more that every community is inherently political - if it isn't really aware of it, it's never been shook hard enough. The political actions of communities come out of political consensus, which is exactly what's happening with this letter: people are trying to agree on political action. A "politics-free" community is just one where everyone already agrees, or nothing has ever come up for people to disagree over.
watwut 9y ago
Plenty of open source communities are political beyond user rights. If you believe NSA should be able to watch everybody all the time, Tor people will kick you out. ------------ Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal. Is it possible to simultaneously believe that women are naturally submissive and happiest when they serve and simultaneously see leadership potential in women who is working under you? I dont know and I am glad that the question is not directly relevant to me. However, if my boss would believe something like that, I guess I would have to either leave the company or accept I will be less likely to be promoted then male college of similar skills. I have no idea whether Garfield is into Gor for kink or for gender philosophy nor whether that philosophy affected his leadership style. I dont care about whether he comes back or not. But, the more I looked into Gor the more it looked like way more then just another flavor of bdsm.
- enord 9y ago
  >Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal. It's a series of fantasy f*#%ing novels, ofcourse it's role-play. Serious role play maybe, and definitively weird, but the author is _still alive_ and his name is not L. Ron Hubbard. Is he participating in political activism with mysogynistic undertones? Is he otherwise projecting gor-related gender views onto non-consenting parties? No. He just wants to do weird stuff together with other people who want to do weird stuff, socially and sexually. To assume that he holds these views to be morally absolute for everyone is a gross misrepresentation and unfortunately typical of persecution of weird people.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    "It's a series of fantasy f#%ing novels, of course it's role-play." It seems so to me as well. There probably are people who take it a bit too far, just as there are in most fan groups (e.g., people who get cosmetic surgery to look like anime characters, etc.), but I don't recall hearing of any rash of abuse cases involving Goreans (apologies if that's not the right term). I'm wondering just how far this goes. I have a friend who participates in Civil War reenactments (again, apologies if I don't get the terminology right). He plays a Confederate, and spends a considerable amount of time and money getting his gear and persona as close to perfect as he possibly can. That doesn't mean he really believes in slavery, or even that the South should have won the Civil War. Quite the contrary -- I'm 100% sure that he doesn't believe those things. This is just something he does for fun.

amiga-workbench 9y ago

I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

humanrebar 9y ago
Without getting into controversial labels, it's not clear to me who did what to whom and what the people are petitioning for. I seemed to me that (all allegedly) someone was outed as into BDSM and was somehow treated unfairly. I think that certainly falls into the domain of liberal sexual identity politics.
- speeder 9y ago
  Larry is Gorean Goreans are people that agree with philosophy of professor John Lange, that writes his philosophy in porn books with pen name John Norman What got Larry kicked out is that similarly to Abrahamic religions, Goreans believe there is an inherent hierarchy between men and women. Or at least it is what Dries (Drupal leader) wrote as explanation for the incident. So Larry is being punished literally for "wrong-think", having beliefs that are shared with billions of Abrahamic religion followers around the world. But Goreanism is not a religion, so probably doesn't count as religious discrimination. Also according to a blog lost by Larry, the "proof" used against him was a transcription of a discourse he made in a private wedding.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    > Goreanism is not a religion, so probably doesn't count as religious discrimination. I've often wondered what the difference between a Cult and a Religion is and my best answer seems to be "4 orders of magnitude". 1000 is a cult, 10,000,000 is a Religion. If it's a numbers game then everyone religion went through a stage where it was a cult (and indeed if you look at the history of religion lots of them where treat that way, Roman treatment of Christianity is a well documented one).

pbowyer 9y ago

I hope the community and project can be reconciled. Not for the sake of Drupal, but for everyone involved however tangentially.

EamonnMR 9y ago

Some context: Garfield's statement: https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing Executive Director's statement: https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the-executive-director https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the...

nebabyte 9y ago
> > So if and only if Larry did not violate the Code of Conduct, then apologize to Larry and rescind your request to remove himself from the community (if there was a violation, provide the details to Larry and confirm to the public) TL;DR : Please continue iff there was a violation we don't know about > We want to be clear that the decision to remove Larry's DrupalCon session and track chair role was not because of his private life or personal beliefs. The Drupal Association stands by our values of inclusivity. Our decision was based on confidential information conveyed in private by many sources. Due to the confidential nature of the situation we cannot and will not disclose any information that may harm any members of our community, including Larry > This decision followed our established process. As the Executive Director, charged with safekeeping the goodwill of the organization, I made this decision after considering input from various sources including the Community Working Group (CWG) and Drupal Project Lead, Dries Buytaert. Upon Larry’s request for an appeal, the full board reviewed the situation, all the evidence, and statements provided by Larry. After reviewing the entirety of the information available (including information not in the public view) the decision was upheld. > In order to protect everyone involved we cannot comment more, and trust that the community will be understanding TL;DR : We're continuing, there was a violation you don't know about Sounds like it's done, then
- evunveot 9y ago
  https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3 https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3 TL;DR : The Drupal leadership hasn't accused Larry of a code of conduct violation publicly or privately but they're happy to imply that a secret violation exists so they can cover up the fact that they ousted him because his lifestyle is icky and bad for PR.
- 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

> We know that you have no desire for more press coverage, Dries. The last thing you want is to prolong the media parade that has drawn so much attention to the problems with Drupal governance. That must be why they chose to do this in public rather than in a private letter. As much as I agree with the contents of the letter I reject the way in which it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail. If you don't do 'x' we will leave would have been strong enough without making this yet another public spectacle because it pulls in the world at large to witness whether or not these demands are met. I can't stand Drupal for many reasons (backwards incompatibility by design being the major one) but this is not a nice thing to do.

tnones 9y ago
Propriety is a poor excuse to let others control the conversation. From what I've seen, Dries and the Drupal Association have not invited good faith dialogue, quite the opposite. He's edited his statements silently and has subtly shifted his position (first a conflict about values, then about reported behavior). Comments remain moderated and reasonable ones have not been allowed through when they contradict the party line [1]. Many questions that were raised have been handwaved away or ignored. Using PR-speak to sound reconciliatory while doing the opposite is a game two can play at. It may not be nice, but it's better than trying to be reasonable against someone arguing in bad faith. That's a recipe for frog boiling and being a pushover. The idea isn't to endlessly escalate, it's to ensure both sides now have something to gain by cooperating and to lose by defecting. [1] https://twitter.com/stefan_arrr/status/851795109716922370 https://twitter.com/stefan_arrr/status/851795109716922370
richthegeek 9y ago
Allowing or organising a witch-hunt and irreparably damaging a career because you disagree with someone's sex life is "not a nice thing to do". Posting doxxed information across the internet, along with euphemistic insinuations that he is an irreparable pervert, attached to his real name, forever to show up as the first result when you Google him ... is "not a nice thing to do" Trying to hold your community leaders up to a higher standard, and refusing to partake in the same backroom whisper campaigns that you're angry about? That's just not even on the same level of "not nice".

ghettoCoder 9y ago

Nothing surprising to see here. This is why I seldom bother getting involved in open source projects and NEVER use my real name. Large, interesting projects are too much like this and groups quickly form using the same BS as in high school only now "wrong brand of shoes" gets replaced with "incorrect values". Whatever that heck that means. I'm still not clear why anyone would care how he gets off on his own time, in the privacy of his home. If this is really a thing then other "identifiable" groups might want to prepare for when the pendulum swing back and then they themselves are holding "incorrect values". edit: removed not

julie1 9y ago

It convinces me Code Of Conduct are basically sticks that will not harm you when you are on the right side of them. Do communities needs sticks to be driven one sided way like cows? At this point it feels like they kind of defy their reason to be and are pretty misused.

andoon 9y ago
My experience says that codes of conduct are written with the express desire of keeping all open source communities left-leaning. I've talked to many people about the matter and some of them say that open source is supposed to be left-leaning, and that those are its principles. That ignores that right-leaning users should also be able to benefit from open source values (privacy, for example) and contribute code, and that not everybody who uses open source has to be a supporter of the open source principles (for example, I use an open source browser because it's the best, not because I like open source better than closed source).
- IGI-111 9y ago
  As usual, depends on the contents of the code. That kind of legalese is just tooling to organize discourse. You won't build an open minded community if its rules mandate righthink. Doesn't mean you can't try and protect people from the kind of stalking and abuse that has happened here. It's a shame that we have to have more than "be professional and don't be a dick" as community guidelines, but if we have to might as well do it correctly.
  - andoon 9y ago
    Someone who doesn't know that he has to "be professional and don't be a dick" is likely to disregard the code of conduct. And you don't need a code of conduct to kick someone out of a project because he's being unprofessional and/or a dick. Therefore codes of conduct are useless.
    - menacingly 9y ago
      I agree. It at least feels like it's more a way to showcase your beliefs and give a list of things that may be used to justify actions later, rather than something constructive.

cies 9y ago

I think free software is to some extend political. We try to work by a higher "inclusive" standard than what is found in society. The letter to Dries writes: > It is unacceptable to judge people based on unspoken, secret rules that they have no say in and cannot know. Unacceptable? Tell that to the pope (pedo trials) and the US gov't (TPP, Guatanamo). They do this all the time. So again, if we agree this is "unacceptable" we say that many of our governing institutions are unacceptable, and thereby set a higher moral community standard then what we are governed by. I for one believe it is very important to do this. > Ensure people carrying out illegal acts related to the conduct of others are reported to the proper authorities. Here again it shows. "Illegal acts" are here scoped by their "relation to the conduct of others", yet are ultimately are defined by gov't. Possession of pot has been illegal, but hell no I'd turn someone in for that: I do not consider is punishment-worthy.

rsyring 9y ago

Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious" standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will suffer. (Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)

ivanbakel 9y ago
Indeed, go on Stormfront and you'll find it a religious bastion of diversity and inclusion! Communities have always been free to choose their members and morals. If I can kick someone out for being verbally abusive, why can't I do it for whatever the community agrees on?
- skylan_q 9y ago
  Indeed, go on Stormfront and you'll find it a religious bastion of diversity and inclusion! Most people laugh, but I'm a regular visitor of a forum where people share a lot of the same controversial views but the makeup of people (except for the fact that it's 99% male) is way more diverse than anywhere else I've been and I've lived in Toronto.
minsight 9y ago
I'm not too sure that diversity or inclusion has a net cost.
- tnones 9y ago
  Diversity and inclusion have a cost of having to deal with ongoing disagreement and friction that comes from coexistence. Diversity(tm) and Inclusion(tm) have a cost of inviting Diversity Experts to tell you why you cannot do any of this on your own and why you need to pay them for it, even though none of their materials or solutions have been peer-reviewed and the readily observable effect is that they make everyone miserable. One is how communities work, the other is how protection rackets work.
- stillkicking 9y ago
  Diversity and inclusion have a cost of having to deal with ongoing disagreement and friction that comes from coexistence. Diversity(tm) and Inclusion(tm) have a cost of inviting Diversity Experts to tell you why you cannot do any of this on your own and why you need to pay them for it, even though none of their materials or solutions have been peer-reviewed and the readily observable effect is that they make everyone miserable. One is how communities work, the other is how protection rackets work.

dorfsmay 9y ago

In the same line, Brendan Eich. I completely disagree with his views on marriage of homosexuals, but disagree that it led him to have to quit his position at Mozilla Foundation.

ekianjo 9y ago
another victim of the proponents of Liberty And Freedom. Who basically dont accept opinions different than theirs.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  Seems reasonable. The Catholic Church doesn't allow high-ranking members to be atheists, and look, the Old World even gave them their own state.
  - dorfsmay 9y ago
    The Catholic church never pretended to be open-minded!
pavlov 9y ago
Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red state be a liability? Republican in a blue state? Evangelical in a secular area? Atheist in a religious one? Scientologists? Mormons? In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs?

Wintamute 9y ago

When your private proclivities don't vibe with the dominant culture (postmodernist/intersectional social justice activism) you can expect to be drummed out of open source communities - we've known this to be true for some time. Very pleased to see the open letter from the community come down firmly against this regressive practice, they are firmly on the right side of history.

cat199 9y ago
> right side of history. This phrase to some extent seems to have origins in dialectical materialism which is a marxist philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism I mention this because it seems at odds with your opposition to certain attitudes.
- Wintamute 9y ago
  I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not familiar enough with dialectical materialism to gain much insight. Have I undermined my own point somehow? In reflection I can see how a phrase like "the right side of history" is somewhat unhelpful, since whichever side is "right" is completely subjective.
  - cat199 9y ago
    This philosophy is the background philosophy of marxism, and was essentially developed within this school. The gist is that that human progress (assumed to exist) is based on a materialist dialectic (action/response/synthesis) - e.g. a sort of historical predeterminism that humankind is unstoppably destined for socialism once society 'evolved' to a certain level of productive capacity - This view of progress is what leads to there being a 'right' and 'wrong' side of history, and as best I can tell the phrase it comes directly from marxists, and is rooted in in their philosophical view of society and progress, which doesn't mean one cant use that same sort of philosophy but leading to another in context, necessarily.. just a mention, since it seems like you might not like sounding marxist, not that that would in some cases be inherently a bad thing either.

fmitchell0 9y ago

There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument: - Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes - Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No - Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over themselves and table-flip: - Does a person's private life affect their public views? - If a person in leadership has their private life exposed (fairly or unfairly), does that affect their leadership role? If you quickly come to a 'Yes' or 'No' in the last two questions, then that is why we don't have constructive dialogue between people with opposing views. Again, we're not talking about blatant discrimination. We're talking about a position of leadership and influence. For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles? It's no different than the 1st amendment. No laws can be made to punish you for speaking, but you can't just say whatever you want without consequence. I'd hope that people would take a breath and really think about that. Is it discrimination if you ask that person to relinquish their leadership role? Who is excluded because of that person being in leadership? Who has been silenced out of fear that the power of leadership trumps their voice? I personally do not know the answers to the two questions, but I'm open to hearing both sides. I also understand how difficult it is to have an answer when you're responsibility is to put people in leadership. With open source, it's even more complicated because you could 'become a leader' simply by being great at contributing!

irishcoffee 9y ago
> For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles? Doesn't this just kick the can down the street a few feet? It seems, and I may have interpreted it incorrectly, that the leader or leaders of a community must not personally hold any controversial views at all according to this. Speaking bluntly, I think that is impossible.
- pryelluw 9y ago

iplaw 9y ago

This is very true. A large portion of these so-labeled SJWs preach inclusion* and diversity^. It's all about total and blind conformity to and their constructed alternative reality, based on unquestionable and irrefutable faux-offense. * inclusion limited to like-minded individuals who share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit; and trust that they will look for and seize upon a point of disagreement. You'll be worse than a poverty-stricken cis white male born of unspeakable privilege. ^ diversity limited to like-minded individuals who share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit; and trust that they will look for and seize upon a point of disagreement. Cis white males not allowed to pursue life, liberty, or happiness due to aforementioned unspeakable privilege.

orcdork 9y ago
share the same ideas about gender, religion, feminism, capitalism, politics, race, nationality, hair color and cut, health and body image, aesthetics, and any other category that they deem fit Look at this strawman I'm clutching. Made it myself, out of straw.
- camperman 9y ago
  It's called rhetoric.
  - orcdork 9y ago
    Said the Sandy Hook shooting denier.
    - camperman 9y ago
      Of course. Because my opinion on Sandy Hook means the GP isn't using rhetoric.

ekianjo 9y ago

sorry but how does that work to be for tolerance and anti discrimination in the first place ? anti discrimination means you Do NOT tolerate people who discriminate, so you cant be tolerant at the same time. I always see this kind of contradictions in principles.

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
Totally agree. I'm fed up of the argument that goes "if you preach tolerance, you must be tolerant of intolerance", for my own understanding of tolerance. Yes, you shouldn't commit a violent act against someone because they are intolerant. No, you shouldn't have to accept their intolerance unreservedly. I also have an issue with the part of the statement that reads along the lines of "we are against discrimination based on someone's race, gender ... or personal beliefs". Sorry, that's ridiculous. If someone believes Jews are parasites, I'm discriminating against them. If someone thinks women are inherently inferior to men, I'm discriminating against them. If I'm not allowed to react differently to someone because of what they believe in, go ahead and unplug me now because i cease to be a thinking human being.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do you shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be your next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them? Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown no signs of changing. How would your solution address that? Indoctrination? Building an ideological "wall"? Killing those who do not meet your ideology, or wait and hope it 'dies out'? What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    > So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society Challenge those beliefs. I believe i shouldn't be forced to tolerate them, though.
  - 9y ago

StavrosK 9y ago

Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting adults in private?

HappyTypist 9y ago
>> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cat199 9y ago
  Yes, and? While I'm not into this kind of stuff, this is 'acted out' in a recreational activity.. As one simple example, this could be his way of coping with the 'reality' that women are evolutionarily 'superior to men' or similar.. If the actual behavior hasn't impacted the community in a way that the community doesn't like directly, the 'problem' is the person making it their business to muckrake and air other people's dirty laundry..
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  Note that this isn't a quote from the link above, nor from Larry, and while I don't know much about Gor it's not a full or faithful reflection from what I understand of it. There is no shade of the BDSM community that does not value consent at its core. Fifteen years ago, I would imagine people would have and did receive the same backlash for being "outed" as part of BDSM communities that today are seen as "kink" and fully accepted by pop culture. Also, side note and to actually quote the above link - I find myself "walking on eggshells" considering how to comment in this thread, and I think that reflects the same wider problems that are making this issue so catalytic.
- imesh 9y ago

Udo 9y ago

Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we're actually talking about (which wasn't made especially clear otherwise): >> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead." Even assuming this is Larry's philosophy, it is pretty much the same philosophy shared by many women & men in various conservative religious faiths, including branches of Christianity, Judaism, & Islam—only they add in the idea that it is divinely ordered. Are we now going to expel all who hold such religious beliefs? << I agree this philosophy is hard to swallow, but the commenter's point about religious belief is well made. Apart from the issue that this is in fact a widely-held belief I would suggest communities allow their members to hold any belief in private, as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value, and as long as that person does not act based on that belief during community interactions. It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty have to work with people who believe all kinds of things, and they have to work with you. Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that it's even feasible to have good relationships and friendships with people we fundamentally disagree with. In this context, if you're running an open source project, it's expected that people hold an even more varied spectrum of beliefs than would be the case in a traditional company. As long as members can professionally conduct themselves in that environment, firing them is not a productive solution. Presumably the person in question has pledged to uphold Drupal's community values and at first glance it looks like that pledge has not been broken.

humanrebar 9y ago
> ...as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value... I honestly don't care about that even, as long as people can discuss their ideas and leave the group if they're done tolerating each other. > It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty have to work with people who believe all kinds of things... In popular usage, "tolerance" is slowly becoming synonymous with "acceptance" or "celebration". But in reality, you just described real tolerance right here. It's a good balance because we can absolutely agree to disagree and be part of a healthy community anyway. Keeping "tolerance" as tolerance is the best recipe for actual diversity of identity and thought in my opinion. EDIT: Clarified my phrasing a bit.

slaunchwise 9y ago

I'm really struggling to figure why I should give a fuck about what, who or how Larry Garfield fucks.

cheez 9y ago
First they came for Larry's penis and I did not speak out, because it was not my penis.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantively like this here.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

anonemouse145 9y ago

Personal experience: I met a good chunk of the people involved, and they're weirdos who we chose not to have business dealings with because you could tell something was off. We poached one of their best developers, who jumped ship the moment they saw we offered a less insane place to work. The rest of the community were too far up their own duffs to even notice us, and they were all geeking over going to their version of summer camp together. The Drupal community- at least the outspoken ones in my area- are just the sort of self propagating incestuous clique that I knew this was going to happen. Have you actually seen Garfield? Dude shows up to conferences wearing a leather fedora with a matching leather vest. He is not a senior citizen. If you page back a bit, Garfield was one of those calling for people to hunt down the vile misogynist GamerGaters. I would wager he doxxed people he disagreed with during that event. Imagine for a moment that Garfield is not a feminist. Maybe he's even an outspoken anti-feminist. And the Drupal community finds out that this anti-feminist used to lock up a severely autistic girl in his basement, and that he wears a fedora, and that he actively participates in a community that celebrates violent sexual acts against women in literature. Would the community care about consent? Would the community defend that person's right to privacy? Would the community preach tolerance? Or would they "punch the Nazi"? I suggest the latter. This whole episode shows exactly what happens to someone guilty of wrongthink. The real debate they're having between the lines is only whether he's guilty or not. And guilt depends largely on which piece of clickbait journalism people read first, or what issue someone is more of an activist about. Our company still uses Drupal, but nobody from our company is going to go to summer camp with the Drupal community.

zappo2938 9y ago

This is big departure from the blow back after Dries made a comment years ago at Drupalcon about encouraging women to enter the Drupal community as graphic design artists. Good for these women today.

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago

> illegally obtaining information from members-only websites (by violating their terms of use) IANAL, but since when have arbitrary website terms and conditions been automatically enforced by criminal law?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Bartweiss 9y ago
Does "illegally" mean criminal law? (Honest question.) I assumed that it meant a civil law violation someone could sue over - usually "civil and criminal" cases like DRM violations are specified as such.
dragonwriter 9y ago
"illegally" doesn't just mean criminal.
speeder 9y ago
Aaron Swartz case... And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS). And a bunch of other cases... In US breaking TOS is literally a crime if you keep using the site (it is akin to virtual trespassing). I think such law is bullshit... but it does exist. (CFAA I think is the law name)
- rhizome 9y ago
  And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS). Lori Drew, who was acquitted.

lucideer 9y ago

A lot of people are taking either stance: that a person's beliefs squarely should or should not affect their involvement in the project. However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect their beliefs may have on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" might execute poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

gooseus 9y ago
But who does the assessing? What measure do we use to determine which beliefs will create which affects? Is a Gorean belief system more or less likely than an Abrahamic belief system to execute poor judgement with regards to female collaborators? I think the problem with many of these approaches is this notion that we can predict ahead of time. I would agree with your third approach if you just changed the tense of the sentence: > However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect their beliefs _have had_ on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" _might have executed_ poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators? We can't assume behavior from stated beliefs, but past behavior and beliefs may factor into a case where wrong-doing has occurred. If I'm a satanist, that doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice babies... but if you find me connected to a bunch of baby-sacrificing, then you better believe my stated Satanic beliefs will factor into the "motive" part of my prosecution. Not only is this the "innocent till proven guilty" ethos applied generally, it's also going to be far more efficient to judge people case-by-case on observed actions/offenses than by trying to extrapolate potential actions from the subjective interpretations of their words.
- lucideer 9y ago
  You're right, and I probably should've worded it that way (I can no longer edit). I was using the term "might" in a suggestive, rather than speculative, way.
camus2 9y ago

Pxtl 9y ago

You know how we always complain how the tech community is treated unfairly about women? How they think we politely ignore the gendered problems our industry faces? How we're not all sexist and we're genuinely trying hard to embrace and include female geeks and coders? This thread. This whole thread right here.

atom-morgan 9y ago
Mind elaborating?

stillhere 9y ago

"We believe that tolerance reserved only for people who think and act exactly like we do is no tolerance at all." Oh my god. Then act like it.

atom-morgan 9y ago
Then let communities be communities. Remember LambdaConf and Moldbug?

throw7 9y ago

I don't see a positive outcome in this unless Dries steps down. This is vote of no confidence and Dries should really see that. (Note: I don't follow drupal and this is the first I've heard of this, so... this is just from an outsider perspective.)

douche 9y ago

It sounds to me like some other asshole discovered that this guy was into some unusual stuff in his personal life, and decided to go out of his way to be offended about it, make a big stink about it and stir the pot. Given the choice, it's the pot-stirrer I would kick out of my community. You know, if I had my own community. With blackjack...

draw_down 9y ago

From the outside it's been hard to judge who's wrong or right here, the whole thing stinks to high heaven. All I know is I wouldn't want to get involved with a similar big project these days. I guess you could just use a fake name, but that probably wouldn't hold up if you wanted to have any sort of leadership role.

erpellan 9y ago

Code of Conduct. Conduct. CONDUCT! Not: code of thought, beliefs, sexuality, politics, religion.... All the discussions of philosophy and belief systems in this thread are missing the point. It DOES NOT MATTER how you feel about someone else's beliefs. It is not relevant. How they CONDUCT themselves in the community is the only thing that matters.

YPCrumble 9y ago
If that were the case it would be called a "Code of Conduct In the [Drupal] Community". Many people assume they should consider any conduct that they don't like in applying a "Code of Conduct".

fabrice_d 9y ago

Not taking sides, but I found this analysis by an experienced community manager interesting: https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-decisions/ https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governanc... "it's complicated"

lgleason 9y ago
It's complicated if you are driving an agenda. Otherwise you can conduct things in the open. In my experience the secret tribunals enable bad behavior and bullies.
- fabrice_d 9y ago
  It's about respecting the privacy of people that could have been harassed by Larry (and Larry's own privacy). How is that an agenda? I don't see a "secret tribunal" here, more a `behind closed doors` trial (https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos). Nothing wrong with that.

ktta 9y ago

Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUDO9M64J:https://www.drupalconfessions.org/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUD...

coreyp_1 9y ago

If you don't want to work with Drupal, then work with something else instead. Open invitation: If you are looking for something to work on (i.e., the project is still pre-alpha quality), check out my work in progress: https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant . I'm an 11+ member of the Drupal community, who wanted a fresh take on a framework. As developers, we have newer tools with different strengths than PHP. That is what I'm working on leveraging. Message me if you want more info.

jwogrady 9y ago

Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to write?

etchalon 9y ago

While, in reading this thread, I understand how people might take offense to someone being excluded based on a privately-held belief, especially one which has not manifested into an actual issue of conduct. But I'm not sure I mind when different standards are applied to any given community's "leaders" vs. its participants. Leaders ultimately represent what a community believes it should stand for. We have, perhaps unrealistically in some case, but justifiably always prosecuted leaders, in any context, for behavior, beliefs and statements that we would absolutely forgive/ignore for the "public".

lgleason 9y ago
It's one thing if we are talking about their actions that are part of being a community leader. IE: if a Drupal leader showed porn during a talk at a Drupal conference. It's another to say that their personal actions outside of this official role represent the community. This is why people say that their Twitter views do not represent their employer etc. because there can and should be a separation between the two.
- etchalon 9y ago
  My point was that "leaders" can not compartmentalize the same way a participant, employee or guest can. Leadership roles are generally, in our society, held to higher standards. I'm also keeping in mind that had this person held views not that women are inherently inferior to men, but that blacks were inherently inferior to whites, there'd be absolutely no discussion about whether they should be removed. You simply cannot hold that type of view and have any credible moral claim to a leadership role, even if your actions as a leader are spotless.

SadWebDeveloper 9y ago

Offtopic... Someone here actually develops software in Drupal? Most people i knew abandoned drupal years ago for Joomla or something in python like Django, its kinda weird/cringeworthy hearing news about Drupal the Community more than the Drupal project.

jwogrady 9y ago

Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to write?

holidaythailand 9y ago

TLDR?