6 ms·

They'll never call for my head because I wouldn't suggest that minor-aged victims of sexual assault could have been engaging consensually.

bitwize 7y ago
Neither did Stallman. What he said was that it likely appeared that she was engaging consensually. And he was certainly no fan of Epstein, whom he called a serial rapist. Lest you think this is a niggling distinction, Sage Sharp pronounced Linus guilty of inciting violence by making a humorous comment about his friend Greg Kroah-Hartman's height. (Something like: "Greg is a giant; watch out or he might squish you.") That's how they operate. They go digging to find the six words that will hang you, and if you don't capitulate they go to your boss (read: corporate sponsors if you have your own project).
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  "They." You'll have to be clearer which conspiracy you're talking about; I don't have a binding for that pronoun.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    By "they" I mean the principals involved in social-justice entryism into free software. None that I know of are signatories to that list. They include: * Coraline Ada Ehmke * Sage Sharp * Aurynn Shaw * Valerie Aurora * Sarah Mei * Matthew J. Garrett * Steve Klabnik These are some of the loudest voices calling for the removal and systematic reputational destruction of key free-software developers based on behavior which ranges from bad but not worth a purge to downright innocuous. The list signatories, near as I can tell, are doing damage control on the optics of being affiliated with Stallman and are, to my knowledge, not themselves calling for purges the way the above named individuals and their fellow travellers are. (Edited to include Klabnik. He expressed the need for a "tech antifa" and approved of the use of violence by the same. I think he counts.)
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      So, * Former GitHub Community Management senior developer * Linux kernel contributor * Eiara Limited founder * ext2 dirty bit, ChunkFS developer * Chief consultant at DevMynd * Linux contributor and winner of the FSF Free Software Award * Frequent Hacker News contributor, author of "The Rust Programming Language," member of Rust core team. Seems like some solid contributors to the ecosystem and people who have earned a seat at the table defining what the community looks like; not sure why we're singling them out. Or should we also disapprove of the time rms founded an entire Free Software Foundation for the purposes of putting political pressure on various institutions, organizations, and people to respect the Four Freedoms? Are you sure you disagree with the methods of the people you listed? Or do you merely disagree on what behaviors someone's reputation should suffer for?
      - bitwize 7y ago
        Yes, I'd say that there's a world of difference between setting up a project and a foundation to attract people with like-minded goals and practice advocacy while always showing your hand and keeping a focused scope for your activism on the one hand, and a long march through the existing open source institutions on the other with the aim of subverting and controlling them and assuming their moral authority to redefine what open source is and what our values are, and to drive out all dissenters, on the other. It is literally the difference between a startup and a hostile takeover.
        shadowgovt 7y ago
        Or the difference between an entrenched status-quo closed-source commercial software ecosystem and an industry-disruptive open-source free software movement, perhaps? the downside to revolutions is that sometimes the revolution gets away from the control of those who start it. ;)
        bitwize 7y ago
        Indeed; sometimes you just want to overthrow the cruel Tsar and the Bolsheviks end up taking over. Case in point: https://i.imgur.com/g3cD5C9.png https://i.imgur.com/g3cD5C9.png Here's Sarah Mei declaring her intent to character-assassinate Uncle Bob and have him written out of programming history. And for what? Well, apparently Uncle Bob made some remarks that "C++ is like testosterone", meaning that C++ programmers take an overly "macho" attitude to their work and look down on other programmers. Sarah interpreted this as toxic masculinity. This is where we are today. The old standards of discourse between speaker and audience have passed away. Instead, you must now assume that your statements will be interpreted in the least charitable way by the least reasonable person on earth -- and that person has the phone number of your current employer and every future employer you might apply to. This is how Bolsheviks operate. The means of production (in this case, open source and the discipline of programming in general) belongs to the proletarian vanguard party (the social-justice left purporting to speak on behalf of women, PoC, LGBTQ, etc.) and any kulaks (old-time hackers, overrepresented by straight white males) still clinging to their piece of it must be crushed without mercy. "But silly bitwize," you may counter, "You are comparing losing your reputation in open source with being killed or sent to the gulag. Surely a ridiculous comparison." Apparently Jon Sterling, one of the other thought leaders you admire so much, was "only 30% kidding" about sending his political opponents to real actual gulags: https://i.imgur.com/rlqa73W.png?1 https://i.imgur.com/rlqa73W.png?1
simion314 7y ago
But you will maybe have an unpopular opinion in private and is leaked to the public(like it happened with Mozilla CEO) or you used some bad words 20 years ago or made someone uncomfortable and they will remeber it tomorrow.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Private opinions of CEOs have repercussions. But in Eich's case, it went beyond "private opinion;" he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8. Eich didn't get forced out for having a "bad private opinion;" he got forced out for supporting something materially that would cause material harm to Mozilla staff, then making clear his opinion on the topic was unchanged. Staff that had a lack of confidence in his continued leadership were entirely justified.
  - simion314 7y ago
    It is complex situation but as a CEO or project leader or random open source developer that I am not that well informed with the latest social media culture how do I know what is a controversial opinions? I am legitimately asking this, say maybe I think that X feature is nature not nurture, and there is a discussion at an event about X , what do I Google to know if I should talk about X or not. The problem is more complicated if my opinion today would be controversial in the future.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      I think you're looking for guarantees in the social world. There are no such guarantees (much as there are no guarantees in the tech space... That, say, your favorite language today won't be obsolete in five years and therefore diminish the value of all the time and effort you invested in memorizing its quirks). There are some useful heuristics, such as "try and be a good person, minimize your judgement of others, avoid speculating on things that other people have concrete experience with." Also, be informed about the latest social media culture; Proposition 8 was huge in California (and around the U.S.) and it should have been self-evident to Eich that supporting it was a bad call (I'm a lot less forgiving of Eich than some people are, because it's real hard for me to see his behavior and interpret it as anything other than "He put money behind his convictions and mis-estimated how much political power homosexual people and their allies had in his company to hold him accountable to putting money behind his convictions," which isn't exactly a stellar review of his behavior). We in tech seem to like to believe that the technical world is above politics. It's not; technology serves people, so politics is, of course, part of the story. Politics is just what happens when people interact.

bitwize 7y ago

Neither did Stallman. What he said was that it likely appeared that she was engaging consensually. And he was certainly no fan of Epstein, whom he called a serial rapist. Lest you think this is a niggling distinction, Sage Sharp pronounced Linus guilty of inciting violence by making a humorous comment about his friend Greg Kroah-Hartman's height. (Something like: "Greg is a giant; watch out or he might squish you.") That's how they operate. They go digging to find the six words that will hang you, and if you don't capitulate they go to your boss (read: corporate sponsors if you have your own project).

shadowgovt 7y ago
"They." You'll have to be clearer which conspiracy you're talking about; I don't have a binding for that pronoun.
- bitwize 7y ago
  By "they" I mean the principals involved in social-justice entryism into free software. None that I know of are signatories to that list. They include: * Coraline Ada Ehmke * Sage Sharp * Aurynn Shaw * Valerie Aurora * Sarah Mei * Matthew J. Garrett * Steve Klabnik These are some of the loudest voices calling for the removal and systematic reputational destruction of key free-software developers based on behavior which ranges from bad but not worth a purge to downright innocuous. The list signatories, near as I can tell, are doing damage control on the optics of being affiliated with Stallman and are, to my knowledge, not themselves calling for purges the way the above named individuals and their fellow travellers are. (Edited to include Klabnik. He expressed the need for a "tech antifa" and approved of the use of violence by the same. I think he counts.)
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    So, * Former GitHub Community Management senior developer * Linux kernel contributor * Eiara Limited founder * ext2 dirty bit, ChunkFS developer * Chief consultant at DevMynd * Linux contributor and winner of the FSF Free Software Award * Frequent Hacker News contributor, author of "The Rust Programming Language," member of Rust core team. Seems like some solid contributors to the ecosystem and people who have earned a seat at the table defining what the community looks like; not sure why we're singling them out. Or should we also disapprove of the time rms founded an entire Free Software Foundation for the purposes of putting political pressure on various institutions, organizations, and people to respect the Four Freedoms? Are you sure you disagree with the methods of the people you listed? Or do you merely disagree on what behaviors someone's reputation should suffer for?
    - bitwize 7y ago
      Yes, I'd say that there's a world of difference between setting up a project and a foundation to attract people with like-minded goals and practice advocacy while always showing your hand and keeping a focused scope for your activism on the one hand, and a long march through the existing open source institutions on the other with the aim of subverting and controlling them and assuming their moral authority to redefine what open source is and what our values are, and to drive out all dissenters, on the other. It is literally the difference between a startup and a hostile takeover.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        Or the difference between an entrenched status-quo closed-source commercial software ecosystem and an industry-disruptive open-source free software movement, perhaps? the downside to revolutions is that sometimes the revolution gets away from the control of those who start it. ;)
        bitwize 7y ago
        Indeed; sometimes you just want to overthrow the cruel Tsar and the Bolsheviks end up taking over. Case in point: https://i.imgur.com/g3cD5C9.png https://i.imgur.com/g3cD5C9.png Here's Sarah Mei declaring her intent to character-assassinate Uncle Bob and have him written out of programming history. And for what? Well, apparently Uncle Bob made some remarks that "C++ is like testosterone", meaning that C++ programmers take an overly "macho" attitude to their work and look down on other programmers. Sarah interpreted this as toxic masculinity. This is where we are today. The old standards of discourse between speaker and audience have passed away. Instead, you must now assume that your statements will be interpreted in the least charitable way by the least reasonable person on earth -- and that person has the phone number of your current employer and every future employer you might apply to. This is how Bolsheviks operate. The means of production (in this case, open source and the discipline of programming in general) belongs to the proletarian vanguard party (the social-justice left purporting to speak on behalf of women, PoC, LGBTQ, etc.) and any kulaks (old-time hackers, overrepresented by straight white males) still clinging to their piece of it must be crushed without mercy. "But silly bitwize," you may counter, "You are comparing losing your reputation in open source with being killed or sent to the gulag. Surely a ridiculous comparison." Apparently Jon Sterling, one of the other thought leaders you admire so much, was "only 30% kidding" about sending his political opponents to real actual gulags: https://i.imgur.com/rlqa73W.png?1 https://i.imgur.com/rlqa73W.png?1

simion314 7y ago

But you will maybe have an unpopular opinion in private and is leaked to the public(like it happened with Mozilla CEO) or you used some bad words 20 years ago or made someone uncomfortable and they will remeber it tomorrow.

shadowgovt 7y ago
Private opinions of CEOs have repercussions. But in Eich's case, it went beyond "private opinion;" he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8. Eich didn't get forced out for having a "bad private opinion;" he got forced out for supporting something materially that would cause material harm to Mozilla staff, then making clear his opinion on the topic was unchanged. Staff that had a lack of confidence in his continued leadership were entirely justified.
- simion314 7y ago
  It is complex situation but as a CEO or project leader or random open source developer that I am not that well informed with the latest social media culture how do I know what is a controversial opinions? I am legitimately asking this, say maybe I think that X feature is nature not nurture, and there is a discussion at an event about X , what do I Google to know if I should talk about X or not. The problem is more complicated if my opinion today would be controversial in the future.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    I think you're looking for guarantees in the social world. There are no such guarantees (much as there are no guarantees in the tech space... That, say, your favorite language today won't be obsolete in five years and therefore diminish the value of all the time and effort you invested in memorizing its quirks). There are some useful heuristics, such as "try and be a good person, minimize your judgement of others, avoid speculating on things that other people have concrete experience with." Also, be informed about the latest social media culture; Proposition 8 was huge in California (and around the U.S.) and it should have been self-evident to Eich that supporting it was a bad call (I'm a lot less forgiving of Eich than some people are, because it's real hard for me to see his behavior and interpret it as anything other than "He put money behind his convictions and mis-estimated how much political power homosexual people and their allies had in his company to hold him accountable to putting money behind his convictions," which isn't exactly a stellar review of his behavior). We in tech seem to like to believe that the technical world is above politics. It's not; technology serves people, so politics is, of course, part of the story. Politics is just what happens when people interact.