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From the previous discussion, plorkyeran[1] found the email that they suspect got ESR banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opens

From the previous discussion, plorkyeran[1] found the email that they suspect got ESR banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021328.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... I'm not familiar with the culture or standards of the OSI but I don't think I'd wanna participate in a community where this kind of engagement is normal, so good for them I suppose? Edit: replaced plorkyeran's account link with their post. I also now notice others posted the link, but I saw plorkyeran's post. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22521608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22521608

justinmk 7y ago
What parts of that email are so objectionable?
- zozbot234 7y ago
  The "toxic loonytoon" part, referencing a prominent candidate to the OSI board? I mean, surely we can all have our own opinions about any candidate, but the optics aren't that good.
  - monksy 7y ago
    Yes, he has his own opinion. What is wrong with that? IMO: His opinion has a lot of weight here. He founded the project. Without his philosphy in the start you wouldn't be where it is today.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      I'm pretty the point is that OSI already laid down guidelines that asked for civil communication - and name calling is epitome of uncivil communication. Indeed, his comment is basically contesting those guidelines. So this was clearly one of those no recovery situations. Either guidelines for civil behavior or "show me the code" meritocracy wins but it's hard to see "agreeing to disagree" being possible here.
      - monksy 7y ago
        Being a prior mod of a city sub.. "toxic loonytoon" is a rather light thing to be called. My concern is if you're drawing the line over this what you're communicating to people is that you cannot negatively sum up another individual, even when it's warranted. A productive conversation can be had on the merits of the label. Are you trying to incentivize long posts about all of the non-sensical policies that the individual is pushing?
        joe_the_user 7y ago
        Avoiding name calling a standard guideline for civil communication. Maybe there's some moderation standard where just really bad name calling or something is the only no-no that's avoided but that's really the question here. The point is it's pretty plausible the ESR was breaking guidelines that had been laid down already. Maybe he should have broken them for all I know but all I'm saying really is that for an authority to remain credible they have to enforce guidelines specifically when someone is openly defying them. That's it.
  - kazinator 7y ago
    That sort of language is normal in the parliament houses of the developed world, upon which our constitutional democracies are based. If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.
    - iron0013 7y ago
      Well okay, if you insist: Eric S. Raymond is a toxic loonytoon. And there’s plenty of evidence to support that assertion.
      - kazinator 7y ago
        By the "takes one to know one" principle, we should pay attention to Raymond when the calls out another toxic loonytoon.
        iron0013 7y ago
        Except it obviously doesn’t take one to know one. Are we having an actual conversation or just lobbing empty rhetoric
      - a1369209993 7y ago
        I disagree vehemently with this moronic opinion, but am strongly opposed to any attempts to ban you for holding or expressing it.
    - duskwuff 7y ago
      Calling a person a "toxic loonytoon" for the offense of trying to establish standards of acceptable behavior is ridiculous by any sort of "objective standard". If anything, it demonstrates the importance of having those standards, by serving as an example of the sort of behavior that such a standard should condemn.
      - 7y ago
  - downerending 7y ago
    I think it's a reference to one of the people pushing very hard on spreading CoCs everywhere. Can't recall the name. (Corin?) Reading some of that person's tweets, though, left me with a very bad impression. Anyway, search and form your own opinion.
    - sam_lowry_ 7y ago
      Any idea who that may be?
      - larrywright 7y ago
        I’m not going to post it here, but if you email me I will share it. My email is my HN username at gmail.
      - cgh 7y ago
        https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/ https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... He is referring to one of the people running for the board of directors whose major goal is to introduce Codes of Conduct into open source projects.
        josteink 7y ago
        So someone who wants to destroy open source then, at the core of its foundations. I can’t wait until this identity politics pendulum starts swinging back. Some people are going to be really embarrassed about the legacy they left for themselves while it was still around.
      - jshevek 7y ago
        I glanced at the OSI page. I found someone who overtly stated opposition to core FLOSS principals: >"Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too." (OSD FAQ) It doesn't have to be like this. It's time to stop bad actors from using our work in unethical ways. It's time to give open source developers around the world the tools they need to exercise their ethical responsibilities as engineers and members of human society. It's time for us to stop shirking our ethical obligations, and take responsibility for the use of our work. From: https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/Ehmke2020 https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... Also: https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1229456857317683201 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/12294568573176... (Edited to include her position in her own words)
- nabla9 7y ago
  insane political rant part probably. >> * The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking by subverting th freedom-centered principles of OSI. It is very unlikely to be the last such attempt. > Make no mistake; we are under attack. If we do not recognize the nature of the attack and reject it, we risk watching the best features of the open-source subculture be smothered by identity politics and vulgar Marxism. I mean, if you are this much out of touch with reality, maybe it's time to quit Facebook, Twitter etc.
  - fancyfredbot 7y ago
    "ratfucking"? Classy. I don't agree with him but I feel a bit sorry for him. He's passionate about this and he believes what he's saying. Perhaps nothing could make him see things differently, but banning him definitely won't.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
    - monksy 7y ago
      I find it rather concerning that they're that quick to ban him for voicing dissidence. Was there anyone threatened by his speech?
      - kick 7y ago
        He has a long history of making statements like this. Anyone showing up for the first time in years only to intentionally and obviously violate rules should be kicked out. I fully agree with the idea that "ethical" licenses aren't free software, but the dude is a terrible actor in this. He violated the rules, and got banned. That's not a bad thing!
        kragen 7y ago
        I don't see any evidence that he violated the rules; he described Coraline Ada Ehmke as a "toxic loonytoon" as part of his opposition to her ethical beliefs. Whether or not he is correct about that, I don't see how it's a violation of the rules to say so — it's not as if he used a slur against women, white people, or transgender people. Even when he railed against "Marxism" (it's not clear to me whether Ehmke is a Marxist, but certainly some of her supporters are) he didn't use slurs like "commie" or "tankie", despite the bitter hatred of Marxism that his life is oriented around.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" (whatever that means) and going into a rant about political correctness and Marxism is at best incoherent, not exactly original and at worst paranoid and adds nothing of value. It makes you sound like you're one bad day away from chasing swans through the park nakedly and it isn't really productive in any community. People like Eric need to come to terms with the fact that being a productive contributor is not an excuse for anti-social behaviour, that open source communities these days are huge and people from many places who may not get your jokes or your political discussions are participating, and that cultures change.
  - monksy 7y ago
    > conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" There are strong criticisms of CoCs and questioning of the necessity of that. I don't think that's too much of a reach in how that was communicated. A bit exaggerated yes.
    - Barrin92 7y ago
      Context is probably required to understand what 'free discussion' he thinks is under attack. Over the years ESR has blamed gay people for HIV, women for their own suicide, Chinese conspiracy theories and whatnot. To put it simply, he has basically gone mad. Sure there is a nuanced discussion about what is too much for a CoC but the sort of discussion that he thinks is supposed to be cut out actually needs to be shut down. I'm surprised it took this long, to be honest.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    > " "political ratfucking" (whatever that means)" That might sound like generic senseless profanity, but it's actually a term with specific meaning: "Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking Whether or not ratfucking is indeed happening here as ESR asserts is another matter. I mean only to comment on the meaning of the term.
- aeturnum 7y ago
  Uh, I suppose the name calling, strawman-ing of arguments and insinuations of subterfuge. > toxic loonytoon > The actual goal of the movement behind the ESD > banishing contributors for wrongthink > The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking Like I said I don't know the OSI culture (or this context) but nothing about this message strikes me as someone who's acting in good faith. There's lots of nonsense out there, but engaging in good faith is about taking what people say in collaborative environments as given in good faith. I'm open to being wrong and this tone being appropriate. I don't mean ESR has to be nice to people he doesn't like outside of the official policy discussion. But if people are trying to do work this doesn't seem like an appropriate way to engage.
  - josteink 7y ago
    > banishing contributors for wrongthink And now he is banished. Are you really arguing against this?
    - tedunangst 7y ago
      Wrongthink shouldn't make you immune from banishment for being an asshole.
    - aeturnum 7y ago
      I think communities have the right to decide on what kind of engagement they want. ESR could be acting within the community standards of OSI, in which case I don't think he should be banned. I also find the way he engages to be more hostile than I'm comfortable with and probably wouldn't want to work an environment where it was the norm.
      - ogre_codes 7y ago
        ESR was OFF the lists for 20 years prior to posting this message. Seems like he's out-of-touch with what the community standards are.
      - cosmiccatnap 7y ago
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Below email is the quoted statement: ts originator is a toxic loonytoon who believes "show me the code" > meritocracy is at best outmoded and in general a sinister supremacist > plot by straight white cisgender males." I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. And moreover, where a stream of obscenities in an email is considered a normal way of communicating, accompanied by a "if you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen" attitude. "Show me the code meritocracy" can be more or less this. My guess is that OSI has been attempting to change the situation. Part of the change would demanding people avoid streams of "strong language" as ESR uses above. Moroever, I suspect people already said "we're aiming for a better standard of communication". As far the practical value goes, I'm not sure if there is an easy way to change the situation. Installing an ombudsman on projects is kind of hard given the projects are indeed going to belong to those who produce a lot of decent code. People create open source software that scratches their itch, not to conform to others' values.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    > I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. Why not fork those projects and makes those awesome forks full of code with unicorns and glitter? If those single rather abusive individuals have to compete with code + unicorns + glitter, I'm certainly going to switch to that and I bet the others will too
  - tomc1985 7y ago
    His statements seem more like the words of a man who feels strongly and passionately about his cause. It's a little suprising that the OSI keeps such high standards for decorum if that was the message that got him banned. It deserves a warning, maybe, but banning him? Cancel culture indeed.
    - cosmiccatnap 7y ago
      If you said that at work how well would it go you think...
- tunesmith 7y ago
  It's inefficient, and occludes what the discussion is actually about. As someone not deeply familiar with the discussion, I am no further to understanding what ESD is, as the language used is mostly a string of assertions without proof, and little definitional value. In other words, there were better, more effective ways to answer the question, still completely unfettered by any need to be "PC". There's expressing yourself fully and accurately, and there's expressing yourself respectfully. It's entirely possible to do both, and that quoted response really didn't do much of either.
cmcaine 7y ago
Other quotes from the chain by ESR about Eric Schultz: > I am not fooled. You are mounting an ideological attack on our core principles of liberty and nondiscrimination. You will not succeed while I retain any ability to oppose this. and > Because that way he couldn't use our prestige to advance his goals. He couldn't use OSI to pretend to be pro-freedom while actually being against freedom. Both of these messages are hostile, assume bad faith and (as noted by some supporters of ESR's position) unhelpful for resolving the issue.
- darawk 7y ago
  They do not assume bad faith. They define 'liberty and nondiscrimination' in a particular way that the other person, Eric Schulz, objectively opposes. Schulz would probably disagree about the definitions of those terms that ESR is using, but it is not an assumption of bad faith.
- thu2111 7y ago
  They don't assume bad faith, they are accurate depictions of what Schultz wanted to do. I mean, would he even disagree with that? The original proposal was for a license that'd allow anyone except US ICE to use the software, for example. That's ideological. It's pretty clearly different from the non-discrimination policies open source licenses normally have, that's why he had to propose the license to start with. And he wanted to use the OSI to endorse his new license as being open source, whilst it didn't meet the original criteria. In some issues there's no way to helpfully resolve them. What sort of meet-in-the-middle do you propose here, exactly? Either open source licenses as determined by the OSI don't discriminate against particular users, or they can, and that's a values based decision. There's no real way to be 'helpful' about it: no is no.
josteink 7y ago
I find that email a perfect summary of the current situation. A bit rough tone, sure, but I think that shows that he’s actually passionate about these things. That’s good, not bad.
- zionic 7y ago
  Passionate speech is not allowed in the borg-cube of a culture we're growing.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    One could argue that it is possible to speak passionately while following the CoC, and that only certain kinds of passionate speech are forbidden. What I find interesting are the ways that CoCs are sometimes selectively weaponized.
SftwrSvior81 7y ago
What does ESD stand for? I did a quick google search but there were too many seemingly irrelevant hits.
- gvb 7y ago
  Looks like "Ethical Source Definition" defining "ethical open source" analogous to "Open Source Definition" defining "open source" license characteristics. https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/
mjevans 7y ago
The part under discussion appears to be a quoted earlier message; HOWEVER I would much prefer a link to a message plausibly at least to be from the same server as ESR's other messages. I would like a link to the source, rather than someone saying a given source happened to send X. I could not in a quick 5 min of searching through Eric S. Raymond posts on that thread, see the actual source that is quoted.
- mjevans 7y ago
  Viewing that archive by date #1 and searching again, I cannot locate a message plausibly within range of the timestamp #2 of the supposed "Quoted" content. #1 https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/date.html#21328 https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists... #2 ""On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 1:09 PM Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:"" Before potentially defaming anyone I would very much like a reference to the actual words they said, and would hope everyone else similarly judges based on confirmed content.
- aeturnum 7y ago
  In the same previous thread, people say that the offending emails were deleted from the OSI archive[1]. This seems, to me, like a very bad move for exactly the reasons you're highlighting here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518473
  - mjevans 7y ago
    This is problematic because as I point out without an __IMPARTIAL__ __witness__ that I can trust to relay the truth, no matter how horrid, all I (we) have to go on is the hearsay of others. For example, the source you link may have just attempted to reconstruct the message based on what can be seen in the reply. However the chain of authenticity has been extended to contain those who may have motive to unfaithfully reproduce or even fake a/the message. We can't know as the transparency of the archive is now also in question. Edit: Under the assumption the reproduction is faithful, my own personal OPINIONs... Calling someone a loonytoon is uncouth, deserving a brief lecture for attacking someone rather than debating the ideals they happen to believe in at the current time (or in the past if it's a clear reference to such). (Edit 2:) Also in that paragraph, there's a term I'd hesitate to Google for not knowing it's meaning offhand... I'm not sure how good/bad it might actually be. The vividly disgusting and offensive description (which could very easily have been added in the quoted reply) of rat* (censored) is something that a rational adult just shouldn't use on such a forum. If that's what OSI acted on, they really should be more transparent about it as well as their decision process. Most of the version you linked on TechRights is otherwise speech that should be protected and encouraged. It is a protest and valid expression of feelings; save for some charged language.
m463 7y ago
I was wondering what the ESD was. It appears to be this: https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ I worry that "open source" is already a slippery and ambiguous term. It makes RMS's work to clearly define free software (not open source) both hard and important .
- lolCoraAgainK 7y ago
  Duh, that's why they got rid of RMS first.
chx 7y ago
And if you wanted to read a thoughtful critique of the license in question then try https://twitter.com/wwahammy/status/1229668961131864064 https://twitter.com/wwahammy/status/1229668961131864064
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zz9815 7y ago
One needs to read this, if one assumed that the above-cited e-mail got him banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021335.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... Seems odd that someone should be banned for life for a fairly tame message that was already automatically filtered (one assumes for the various word choices not the content)...

justinmk 7y ago

What parts of that email are so objectionable?

zozbot234 7y ago
The "toxic loonytoon" part, referencing a prominent candidate to the OSI board? I mean, surely we can all have our own opinions about any candidate, but the optics aren't that good.
- monksy 7y ago
  Yes, he has his own opinion. What is wrong with that? IMO: His opinion has a lot of weight here. He founded the project. Without his philosphy in the start you wouldn't be where it is today.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    I'm pretty the point is that OSI already laid down guidelines that asked for civil communication - and name calling is epitome of uncivil communication. Indeed, his comment is basically contesting those guidelines. So this was clearly one of those no recovery situations. Either guidelines for civil behavior or "show me the code" meritocracy wins but it's hard to see "agreeing to disagree" being possible here.
    - monksy 7y ago
      Being a prior mod of a city sub.. "toxic loonytoon" is a rather light thing to be called. My concern is if you're drawing the line over this what you're communicating to people is that you cannot negatively sum up another individual, even when it's warranted. A productive conversation can be had on the merits of the label. Are you trying to incentivize long posts about all of the non-sensical policies that the individual is pushing?
      - joe_the_user 7y ago
        Avoiding name calling a standard guideline for civil communication. Maybe there's some moderation standard where just really bad name calling or something is the only no-no that's avoided but that's really the question here. The point is it's pretty plausible the ESR was breaking guidelines that had been laid down already. Maybe he should have broken them for all I know but all I'm saying really is that for an authority to remain credible they have to enforce guidelines specifically when someone is openly defying them. That's it.
- kazinator 7y ago
  That sort of language is normal in the parliament houses of the developed world, upon which our constitutional democracies are based. If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    Well okay, if you insist: Eric S. Raymond is a toxic loonytoon. And there’s plenty of evidence to support that assertion.
    - kazinator 7y ago
      By the "takes one to know one" principle, we should pay attention to Raymond when the calls out another toxic loonytoon.
      - iron0013 7y ago
        Except it obviously doesn’t take one to know one. Are we having an actual conversation or just lobbing empty rhetoric
    - a1369209993 7y ago
      I disagree vehemently with this moronic opinion, but am strongly opposed to any attempts to ban you for holding or expressing it.
  - duskwuff 7y ago
    Calling a person a "toxic loonytoon" for the offense of trying to establish standards of acceptable behavior is ridiculous by any sort of "objective standard". If anything, it demonstrates the importance of having those standards, by serving as an example of the sort of behavior that such a standard should condemn.
    - 7y ago
- downerending 7y ago
  I think it's a reference to one of the people pushing very hard on spreading CoCs everywhere. Can't recall the name. (Corin?) Reading some of that person's tweets, though, left me with a very bad impression. Anyway, search and form your own opinion.
  - sam_lowry_ 7y ago
    Any idea who that may be?
    - larrywright 7y ago
      I’m not going to post it here, but if you email me I will share it. My email is my HN username at gmail.
    - cgh 7y ago
      https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/ https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... He is referring to one of the people running for the board of directors whose major goal is to introduce Codes of Conduct into open source projects.
      - josteink 7y ago
        So someone who wants to destroy open source then, at the core of its foundations. I can’t wait until this identity politics pendulum starts swinging back. Some people are going to be really embarrassed about the legacy they left for themselves while it was still around.
    - jshevek 7y ago
      I glanced at the OSI page. I found someone who overtly stated opposition to core FLOSS principals: >"Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too." (OSD FAQ) It doesn't have to be like this. It's time to stop bad actors from using our work in unethical ways. It's time to give open source developers around the world the tools they need to exercise their ethical responsibilities as engineers and members of human society. It's time for us to stop shirking our ethical obligations, and take responsibility for the use of our work. From: https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/Ehmke2020 https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... Also: https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1229456857317683201 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/12294568573176... (Edited to include her position in her own words)
nabla9 7y ago
insane political rant part probably. >> * The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking by subverting th freedom-centered principles of OSI. It is very unlikely to be the last such attempt. > Make no mistake; we are under attack. If we do not recognize the nature of the attack and reject it, we risk watching the best features of the open-source subculture be smothered by identity politics and vulgar Marxism. I mean, if you are this much out of touch with reality, maybe it's time to quit Facebook, Twitter etc.
- fancyfredbot 7y ago
  "ratfucking"? Classy. I don't agree with him but I feel a bit sorry for him. He's passionate about this and he believes what he's saying. Perhaps nothing could make him see things differently, but banning him definitely won't.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
  - monksy 7y ago
    I find it rather concerning that they're that quick to ban him for voicing dissidence. Was there anyone threatened by his speech?
    - kick 7y ago
      He has a long history of making statements like this. Anyone showing up for the first time in years only to intentionally and obviously violate rules should be kicked out. I fully agree with the idea that "ethical" licenses aren't free software, but the dude is a terrible actor in this. He violated the rules, and got banned. That's not a bad thing!
      - kragen 7y ago
        I don't see any evidence that he violated the rules; he described Coraline Ada Ehmke as a "toxic loonytoon" as part of his opposition to her ethical beliefs. Whether or not he is correct about that, I don't see how it's a violation of the rules to say so — it's not as if he used a slur against women, white people, or transgender people. Even when he railed against "Marxism" (it's not clear to me whether Ehmke is a Marxist, but certainly some of her supporters are) he didn't use slurs like "commie" or "tankie", despite the bitter hatred of Marxism that his life is oriented around.
Barrin92 7y ago
conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" (whatever that means) and going into a rant about political correctness and Marxism is at best incoherent, not exactly original and at worst paranoid and adds nothing of value. It makes you sound like you're one bad day away from chasing swans through the park nakedly and it isn't really productive in any community. People like Eric need to come to terms with the fact that being a productive contributor is not an excuse for anti-social behaviour, that open source communities these days are huge and people from many places who may not get your jokes or your political discussions are participating, and that cultures change.
- monksy 7y ago
  > conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" There are strong criticisms of CoCs and questioning of the necessity of that. I don't think that's too much of a reach in how that was communicated. A bit exaggerated yes.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    Context is probably required to understand what 'free discussion' he thinks is under attack. Over the years ESR has blamed gay people for HIV, women for their own suicide, Chinese conspiracy theories and whatnot. To put it simply, he has basically gone mad. Sure there is a nuanced discussion about what is too much for a CoC but the sort of discussion that he thinks is supposed to be cut out actually needs to be shut down. I'm surprised it took this long, to be honest.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > " "political ratfucking" (whatever that means)" That might sound like generic senseless profanity, but it's actually a term with specific meaning: "Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking Whether or not ratfucking is indeed happening here as ESR asserts is another matter. I mean only to comment on the meaning of the term.
aeturnum 7y ago
Uh, I suppose the name calling, strawman-ing of arguments and insinuations of subterfuge. > toxic loonytoon > The actual goal of the movement behind the ESD > banishing contributors for wrongthink > The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking Like I said I don't know the OSI culture (or this context) but nothing about this message strikes me as someone who's acting in good faith. There's lots of nonsense out there, but engaging in good faith is about taking what people say in collaborative environments as given in good faith. I'm open to being wrong and this tone being appropriate. I don't mean ESR has to be nice to people he doesn't like outside of the official policy discussion. But if people are trying to do work this doesn't seem like an appropriate way to engage.
- josteink 7y ago
  > banishing contributors for wrongthink And now he is banished. Are you really arguing against this?
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    Wrongthink shouldn't make you immune from banishment for being an asshole.
  - aeturnum 7y ago
    I think communities have the right to decide on what kind of engagement they want. ESR could be acting within the community standards of OSI, in which case I don't think he should be banned. I also find the way he engages to be more hostile than I'm comfortable with and probably wouldn't want to work an environment where it was the norm.
    - ogre_codes 7y ago
      ESR was OFF the lists for 20 years prior to posting this message. Seems like he's out-of-touch with what the community standards are.
    - cosmiccatnap 7y ago
joe_the_user 7y ago
Below email is the quoted statement: ts originator is a toxic loonytoon who believes "show me the code" > meritocracy is at best outmoded and in general a sinister supremacist > plot by straight white cisgender males." I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. And moreover, where a stream of obscenities in an email is considered a normal way of communicating, accompanied by a "if you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen" attitude. "Show me the code meritocracy" can be more or less this. My guess is that OSI has been attempting to change the situation. Part of the change would demanding people avoid streams of "strong language" as ESR uses above. Moroever, I suspect people already said "we're aiming for a better standard of communication". As far the practical value goes, I'm not sure if there is an easy way to change the situation. Installing an ombudsman on projects is kind of hard given the projects are indeed going to belong to those who produce a lot of decent code. People create open source software that scratches their itch, not to conform to others' values.
- notyourday 7y ago
  > I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. Why not fork those projects and makes those awesome forks full of code with unicorns and glitter? If those single rather abusive individuals have to compete with code + unicorns + glitter, I'm certainly going to switch to that and I bet the others will too
- tomc1985 7y ago
  His statements seem more like the words of a man who feels strongly and passionately about his cause. It's a little suprising that the OSI keeps such high standards for decorum if that was the message that got him banned. It deserves a warning, maybe, but banning him? Cancel culture indeed.
  - cosmiccatnap 7y ago
    If you said that at work how well would it go you think...
tunesmith 7y ago
It's inefficient, and occludes what the discussion is actually about. As someone not deeply familiar with the discussion, I am no further to understanding what ESD is, as the language used is mostly a string of assertions without proof, and little definitional value. In other words, there were better, more effective ways to answer the question, still completely unfettered by any need to be "PC". There's expressing yourself fully and accurately, and there's expressing yourself respectfully. It's entirely possible to do both, and that quoted response really didn't do much of either.

cmcaine 7y ago

Other quotes from the chain by ESR about Eric Schultz: > I am not fooled. You are mounting an ideological attack on our core principles of liberty and nondiscrimination. You will not succeed while I retain any ability to oppose this. and > Because that way he couldn't use our prestige to advance his goals. He couldn't use OSI to pretend to be pro-freedom while actually being against freedom. Both of these messages are hostile, assume bad faith and (as noted by some supporters of ESR's position) unhelpful for resolving the issue.

darawk 7y ago
They do not assume bad faith. They define 'liberty and nondiscrimination' in a particular way that the other person, Eric Schulz, objectively opposes. Schulz would probably disagree about the definitions of those terms that ESR is using, but it is not an assumption of bad faith.
thu2111 7y ago
They don't assume bad faith, they are accurate depictions of what Schultz wanted to do. I mean, would he even disagree with that? The original proposal was for a license that'd allow anyone except US ICE to use the software, for example. That's ideological. It's pretty clearly different from the non-discrimination policies open source licenses normally have, that's why he had to propose the license to start with. And he wanted to use the OSI to endorse his new license as being open source, whilst it didn't meet the original criteria. In some issues there's no way to helpfully resolve them. What sort of meet-in-the-middle do you propose here, exactly? Either open source licenses as determined by the OSI don't discriminate against particular users, or they can, and that's a values based decision. There's no real way to be 'helpful' about it: no is no.

josteink 7y ago

I find that email a perfect summary of the current situation. A bit rough tone, sure, but I think that shows that he’s actually passionate about these things. That’s good, not bad.

zionic 7y ago
Passionate speech is not allowed in the borg-cube of a culture we're growing.
- jshevek 7y ago
  One could argue that it is possible to speak passionately while following the CoC, and that only certain kinds of passionate speech are forbidden. What I find interesting are the ways that CoCs are sometimes selectively weaponized.

SftwrSvior81 7y ago

What does ESD stand for? I did a quick google search but there were too many seemingly irrelevant hits.

gvb 7y ago
Looks like "Ethical Source Definition" defining "ethical open source" analogous to "Open Source Definition" defining "open source" license characteristics. https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/

mjevans 7y ago

The part under discussion appears to be a quoted earlier message; HOWEVER I would much prefer a link to a message plausibly at least to be from the same server as ESR's other messages. I would like a link to the source, rather than someone saying a given source happened to send X. I could not in a quick 5 min of searching through Eric S. Raymond posts on that thread, see the actual source that is quoted.

mjevans 7y ago
Viewing that archive by date #1 and searching again, I cannot locate a message plausibly within range of the timestamp #2 of the supposed "Quoted" content. #1 https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/date.html#21328 https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists... #2 ""On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 1:09 PM Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:"" Before potentially defaming anyone I would very much like a reference to the actual words they said, and would hope everyone else similarly judges based on confirmed content.
aeturnum 7y ago
In the same previous thread, people say that the offending emails were deleted from the OSI archive[1]. This seems, to me, like a very bad move for exactly the reasons you're highlighting here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518473
- mjevans 7y ago
  This is problematic because as I point out without an __IMPARTIAL__ __witness__ that I can trust to relay the truth, no matter how horrid, all I (we) have to go on is the hearsay of others. For example, the source you link may have just attempted to reconstruct the message based on what can be seen in the reply. However the chain of authenticity has been extended to contain those who may have motive to unfaithfully reproduce or even fake a/the message. We can't know as the transparency of the archive is now also in question. Edit: Under the assumption the reproduction is faithful, my own personal OPINIONs... Calling someone a loonytoon is uncouth, deserving a brief lecture for attacking someone rather than debating the ideals they happen to believe in at the current time (or in the past if it's a clear reference to such). (Edit 2:) Also in that paragraph, there's a term I'd hesitate to Google for not knowing it's meaning offhand... I'm not sure how good/bad it might actually be. The vividly disgusting and offensive description (which could very easily have been added in the quoted reply) of rat* (censored) is something that a rational adult just shouldn't use on such a forum. If that's what OSI acted on, they really should be more transparent about it as well as their decision process. Most of the version you linked on TechRights is otherwise speech that should be protected and encouraged. It is a protest and valid expression of feelings; save for some charged language.

m463 7y ago

I was wondering what the ESD was. It appears to be this: https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/ I worry that "open source" is already a slippery and ambiguous term. It makes RMS's work to clearly define free software (not open source) both hard and important .

lolCoraAgainK 7y ago
Duh, that's why they got rid of RMS first.

chx 7y ago

And if you wanted to read a thoughtful critique of the license in question then try https://twitter.com/wwahammy/status/1229668961131864064 https://twitter.com/wwahammy/status/1229668961131864064

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zz9815 7y ago

One needs to read this, if one assumed that the above-cited e-mail got him banned: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021335.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... Seems odd that someone should be banned for life for a fairly tame message that was already automatically filtered (one assumes for the various word choices not the content)...