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Terrible, terrible post to HN. We could argue the religious context of the original asshole politician's statements. We could argue if the linux guys were actu

Terrible, terrible post to HN. We could argue the religious context of the original asshole politician's statements. We could argue if the linux guys were actually making a point involving women at all. We could argue definitions of rape. We could argue whether this belongs on HN. We could argue whether we should be using this platform to make morally persuasive cases about things not directly involving technology. We could argue about the role of women in tech. The list goes on and on. This is just a really bad article. I know it's enough to flag or downvote it, but dang, guys. This should be a no-brainer. It doesn't belong on HN. The only thing this is good for is creating arguments. This boils down to: somebody said something that I could be upset about. Now let's go punish them! Get a grip.

thenomad 14y ago
Don't agree at all. This is about Open-Source developer culture, which I think is reasonably close to the HN mandate. If 50% of the human race feels actively unsafe being near or working with prominent OS developers, that has a huge impact - on female developers, on the perception of Open Source as a whole, on the talent pool available to work on OS projects. (Let's face it, the "legitimate rape" scandal hasn't done the GOP's public image a lot of good - do Linux users really want to be tarred with the same brush?) Now, all of that's only a problem if the arguments made in the article hold up - but that's a matter for debate in comments. No-one's ever said that an article featured on HN had to be completely uncontroversial or universally agreed-with. The subject matter, developer culture, is definitely relevant to HN.