7 ms·

Debian developer demoted, quits after two decades with project

56 points by mbreese 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
troon-lover 5y ago
- tiahura 5y ago
  There seems to be an overlap between people that can’t take a joke and receptiveness to systemd.
  - abriosi 5y ago
    I'm not sure if this specific comment is a success on likes or dislikes, and that is terrifying
  - bitwize 5y ago
    From the other side, there seems to be an overlap between systemd haters and Nazis: https://mobile.twitter.com/kuschku/status/1156488420413362177 https://mobile.twitter.com/kuschku/status/115648842041336217...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- klyrs 5y ago
  For the same reason you chose the word "deviants," probably: to vent and fuel outrage.
  - pipeline_peak 5y ago
    He was falsely accused of being supportive of sexist jokes, that is a deviation from the truth.
    - dusted 5y ago
      It's tragicomic that an accusation of being supportive of jokes is even a thing..
      - hulitu 5y ago
        Humour is dangerous in a corporate environment or in a dictatorship. Especially when it ridicules the "leaders".
    - detaro 5y ago
      You know very well that that's not what deviants generally means.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - pipeline_peak 5y ago
rurban 5y ago
mostly over this: https://www.preining.info/blog/2015/10/looking-at-the-facts-sarah-sharps-crusade/ https://www.preining.info/blog/2015/10/looking-at-the-facts-... eg he called SJW's at debian leadership "brainless feminists". you could have made much better and more grounded arguments.
- dusted 5y ago
- arein3 5y ago
- hanselot 5y ago
- krageon 5y ago
  Much better and more grounded arguments were made. This article is honestly a grounded view of someone who is being incredibly toxic for a community that is honestly concerned with improving (after perhaps a suboptimal history).
  - rurban 5y ago
    the linux community improving? hardly. the figureheads got better, but the minions are still toxic. the debian community improving? no, it's on a downwards spiral since.
sonicggg 5y ago
bitwize 5y ago
We as a community do not tolerate verbal abuse or marginalizing[0] language anymore. Grow up, live in the fucking now (and not the 90s/2000s when open source was a good ole boys' club) and adjust your attitude -- or face the consequences. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the community or how much you contribute; you are not entitled to leadership or prestige if you're a bigoted asshole. [0] There was a great bit in the series Rules of the Game where a character says "Don't use words like 'hottie' or 'lush'; it's marginalising." The choice of "marginalising" over "offensive" is a clever one; offensive language is subjective, whereas marginalizing language objectively reinforces existing power structures designed to exclude.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Who does Linus marginalise? I can accept "someone" as an answer but I think that word has a darker connotation which is deeply unfair to ascribe to Linus given that he is rude and obnoxious sometimes but I don't think he's ever rude and obnoxious about (say) Chinese people or amputees.
- hulitu 5y ago
  > We as a community do not tolerate verbal abuse or marginalizing[0] language anymore. Grow up, live in the fucking now (and not the 90s/2000s when open source was a good ole boys' club) and adjust your attitude -- or face the consequences. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the community or how much you contribute; you are not entitled to leadership or prestige if you're a bigoted asshole. English might not be my native language but, in my opinion, this statements contradicts itself.
4gotunameagain 5y ago
It is sad that one of the most prestigious Linux distributions, and the one I have been using daily for a decade, is apparently being run over by contemporary politics which are incredibly irrelevant to the nature of the project.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Projects have culture as well as technology. Sometimes you do need to keep an eye on the former. In this case I don't know enough about Debian to say, but the idea that "politics" is by definition irrelevant to software projects by virtue of ignoring this cultural/human aspect is why people don't like nerds (which I do think is a very hurtful stereotype mostly peddled by jealous/confused morons, but it's not always wrong)
  - 4gotunameagain 5y ago
    The relevant culture is the belief in free and open source software, in openness and transparency, and a community oriented approach, as stated in the Debian Social Contract. All of which are quite irrelevant to the incredibly exaggerated gender and identity politics landscape of the US right now
    - hulitu 5y ago
      It's, unfortunately, not specific to US. This "freedom movement" has reached also some european countries. English does not really have a gender for substantives but the languages who have sound ridiculous.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      The identity politics of 1860 denied base humanity of black people. The identity politics of 1920 didn't allow women to vote. The identity politics of 1960 didn't allow black people to vote. The identity politics of 2010 didn't allow gay marriage. The identity politics of today persecutes parents of transgender children, forbids abortion of life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, and censors educators who would talk about the history above. What's wrong with 'contemporary politics?' Are the politics of yesteryear actually preferable?
mhh__ 5y ago
My thoughts: Linus's conduct isn't great, people who make a huge fuss about it often need to touch grass. I pay actual money every month to organizations that could be described as part of the woke-conspiracy, I believe in them, but some parts of this culture are simply ridiculous. They mean well but all this analyzing/micro-aggression crap is a coping mechanism that I can only feel leads to a weak mind. I remember asking someone, from a position of genuine curiousity (albeit slightly morbid because I was surprised and felt it was subtly quite misandrist), why they felt having any men in an event for women to write code in made her feel threatened, and I got insta-talked-down-to by a moderator. This was at a university, they build these environments to try and help, but they end up separating people from arguments/other culture which I think just makes people lazy, dumb, and arrogant. I'm not in the "burn the whole rotten system down" camp, but it was eye-opening.
- mxmilkiib 5y ago
  To understand women (and often also non-binary) only spaces, I guess one'd need to learn about trauma. Imo the phrase "subconscious bullying" I think about covers "micro-aggressions" and was available before, but, idk, using that probably makes those accused of it less likely to engage.
  - belorn 5y ago
    There used to be a saying that left voters were simply right voters that has yet to be the victim of a crime, commonly with the subtext that people who are victim of crime by low social economic demographics are only acting rational based on that trauma.
    - johnny22 5y ago
      I wonder how true that really is. My only personal experience is being held up at gunpoint by some dude tryin to steal my only computing device that i couldn't afford to replace. My politics haven't changed though.
      - 5y ago
staticelf 5y ago
I strongly believe that the projects that adhere to woke people like Debian seems to do will slowly be disfavored by developers and the most skilled ones will join other projects and they will then thrive while projects filled with SJW will slowly succumb to meaningless discussions, projects and become more and more irrelevant. In order to make progress you can't throw out people because their opinions differs from yours. Identity politics is something that destroys productivity and prohibits challenging thoughts since it basically requires everyone to think and act in the same way. Just look at Mozilla, Firefox usage it's the lowest it's ever been and their focus seems to be on everything except what's relevant to their core business.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

56 points by mbreese 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

troon-lover 5y ago

tiahura 5y ago
There seems to be an overlap between people that can’t take a joke and receptiveness to systemd.
- abriosi 5y ago
  I'm not sure if this specific comment is a success on likes or dislikes, and that is terrifying
- bitwize 5y ago
  From the other side, there seems to be an overlap between systemd haters and Nazis: https://mobile.twitter.com/kuschku/status/1156488420413362177 https://mobile.twitter.com/kuschku/status/115648842041336217...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
klyrs 5y ago
For the same reason you chose the word "deviants," probably: to vent and fuel outrage.
- pipeline_peak 5y ago
  He was falsely accused of being supportive of sexist jokes, that is a deviation from the truth.
  - dusted 5y ago
    It's tragicomic that an accusation of being supportive of jokes is even a thing..
    - hulitu 5y ago
      Humour is dangerous in a corporate environment or in a dictatorship. Especially when it ridicules the "leaders".
  - detaro 5y ago
    You know very well that that's not what deviants generally means.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pipeline_peak 5y ago

rurban 5y ago

mostly over this: https://www.preining.info/blog/2015/10/looking-at-the-facts-sarah-sharps-crusade/ https://www.preining.info/blog/2015/10/looking-at-the-facts-... eg he called SJW's at debian leadership "brainless feminists". you could have made much better and more grounded arguments.

dusted 5y ago
arein3 5y ago
hanselot 5y ago
krageon 5y ago
Much better and more grounded arguments were made. This article is honestly a grounded view of someone who is being incredibly toxic for a community that is honestly concerned with improving (after perhaps a suboptimal history).
- rurban 5y ago
  the linux community improving? hardly. the figureheads got better, but the minions are still toxic. the debian community improving? no, it's on a downwards spiral since.

sonicggg 5y ago

bitwize 5y ago

We as a community do not tolerate verbal abuse or marginalizing[0] language anymore. Grow up, live in the fucking now (and not the 90s/2000s when open source was a good ole boys' club) and adjust your attitude -- or face the consequences. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the community or how much you contribute; you are not entitled to leadership or prestige if you're a bigoted asshole. [0] There was a great bit in the series Rules of the Game where a character says "Don't use words like 'hottie' or 'lush'; it's marginalising." The choice of "marginalising" over "offensive" is a clever one; offensive language is subjective, whereas marginalizing language objectively reinforces existing power structures designed to exclude.

mhh__ 5y ago
Who does Linus marginalise? I can accept "someone" as an answer but I think that word has a darker connotation which is deeply unfair to ascribe to Linus given that he is rude and obnoxious sometimes but I don't think he's ever rude and obnoxious about (say) Chinese people or amputees.
hulitu 5y ago
> We as a community do not tolerate verbal abuse or marginalizing[0] language anymore. Grow up, live in the fucking now (and not the 90s/2000s when open source was a good ole boys' club) and adjust your attitude -- or face the consequences. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the community or how much you contribute; you are not entitled to leadership or prestige if you're a bigoted asshole. English might not be my native language but, in my opinion, this statements contradicts itself.

4gotunameagain 5y ago

It is sad that one of the most prestigious Linux distributions, and the one I have been using daily for a decade, is apparently being run over by contemporary politics which are incredibly irrelevant to the nature of the project.

mhh__ 5y ago
Projects have culture as well as technology. Sometimes you do need to keep an eye on the former. In this case I don't know enough about Debian to say, but the idea that "politics" is by definition irrelevant to software projects by virtue of ignoring this cultural/human aspect is why people don't like nerds (which I do think is a very hurtful stereotype mostly peddled by jealous/confused morons, but it's not always wrong)
- 4gotunameagain 5y ago
  The relevant culture is the belief in free and open source software, in openness and transparency, and a community oriented approach, as stated in the Debian Social Contract. All of which are quite irrelevant to the incredibly exaggerated gender and identity politics landscape of the US right now
  - hulitu 5y ago
    It's, unfortunately, not specific to US. This "freedom movement" has reached also some european countries. English does not really have a gender for substantives but the languages who have sound ridiculous.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    The identity politics of 1860 denied base humanity of black people. The identity politics of 1920 didn't allow women to vote. The identity politics of 1960 didn't allow black people to vote. The identity politics of 2010 didn't allow gay marriage. The identity politics of today persecutes parents of transgender children, forbids abortion of life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, and censors educators who would talk about the history above. What's wrong with 'contemporary politics?' Are the politics of yesteryear actually preferable?

mhh__ 5y ago

My thoughts: Linus's conduct isn't great, people who make a huge fuss about it often need to touch grass. I pay actual money every month to organizations that could be described as part of the woke-conspiracy, I believe in them, but some parts of this culture are simply ridiculous. They mean well but all this analyzing/micro-aggression crap is a coping mechanism that I can only feel leads to a weak mind. I remember asking someone, from a position of genuine curiousity (albeit slightly morbid because I was surprised and felt it was subtly quite misandrist), why they felt having any men in an event for women to write code in made her feel threatened, and I got insta-talked-down-to by a moderator. This was at a university, they build these environments to try and help, but they end up separating people from arguments/other culture which I think just makes people lazy, dumb, and arrogant. I'm not in the "burn the whole rotten system down" camp, but it was eye-opening.

mxmilkiib 5y ago
To understand women (and often also non-binary) only spaces, I guess one'd need to learn about trauma. Imo the phrase "subconscious bullying" I think about covers "micro-aggressions" and was available before, but, idk, using that probably makes those accused of it less likely to engage.
- belorn 5y ago
  There used to be a saying that left voters were simply right voters that has yet to be the victim of a crime, commonly with the subtext that people who are victim of crime by low social economic demographics are only acting rational based on that trauma.
  - johnny22 5y ago
    I wonder how true that really is. My only personal experience is being held up at gunpoint by some dude tryin to steal my only computing device that i couldn't afford to replace. My politics haven't changed though.
    - 5y ago

staticelf 5y ago

I strongly believe that the projects that adhere to woke people like Debian seems to do will slowly be disfavored by developers and the most skilled ones will join other projects and they will then thrive while projects filled with SJW will slowly succumb to meaningless discussions, projects and become more and more irrelevant. In order to make progress you can't throw out people because their opinions differs from yours. Identity politics is something that destroys productivity and prohibits challenging thoughts since it basically requires everyone to think and act in the same way. Just look at Mozilla, Firefox usage it's the lowest it's ever been and their focus seems to be on everything except what's relevant to their core business.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]