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> 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

by camus2 10y 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 10y 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 10y ago
  What values are you talking about? that's my point precisely.
  - ghettoCoder 10y ago
    The actual values are not important. They are merely a tool to achieve the desired outcome when no other avenues are available.
  - eli 10y ago
    You lost me.
ambirex 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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.

by camus2 10y ago

eli 10y 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 10y ago
What values are you talking about? that's my point precisely.
- ghettoCoder 10y ago
  The actual values are not important. They are merely a tool to achieve the desired outcome when no other avenues are available.
- eli 10y ago
  You lost me.

ambirex 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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.