Curious to see $site_users' opinions on the matter. Personally I think it'll be great in making contributions to the kernel seem less "scary", and hopefully clear out some hostility which the...
The Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of 'be excellent to each other'. Explicit guidelines have demonstrated success in other projects and other areas of the kernel.
Here is a Code of Conduct statement for the wider kernel. It is based on the Contributor Covenant as described at www.contributor-covenant.org From this point forward, we should abide by these rules in order to help make the kernel community a welcoming environment to participate in.
Curious to see $site_users' opinions on the matter. Personally I think it'll be great in making contributions to the kernel seem less "scary", and hopefully clear out some hostility which the commit hints at. My one concern is that "Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting" is a little vague as unacceptable behaviour, but I trust it'll be applied in good faith.
From what I've seen on Reddit, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. Some people are convinced "the SJWs" have got "dirt" on Linus and are forcing him to make these changes :/
The response is overwhelmingly negative not just because a CoC had been adopted, but because of the particular CoC that had been adopted. This particular code is pretty popular with other open...
The response is overwhelmingly negative not just because a CoC had been adopted, but because of the particular CoC that had been adopted. This particular code is pretty popular with other open source projects, and the biggest issue is not the code itself, but the code's author who is on the record saying that this code is political and also on the record as anti-meritocracy advocate.
This comes after some JS libraries tried forbidding ICE from using them and then Python removing master/slave terms - people are dragging politics into software, and a lot of people, me included don't want that.
That reminds me of a line from N.K. Jemisin's Hugo award speech from a few weeks ago: "... when they win it's meritocracy but when we win it's identity politics." IMO true meritocracy is an...
"... when they win it's meritocracy but when we win it's identity politics."
IMO true meritocracy is an impossible and fundamentally flawed ideal to begin with, and the unfortunate reality is also that the word has been co-opted by some remarkably shitty people with the intent of using it as a wedge issue. And personally, I always preferred Egalitarianism to Meritocracy anyways. All people are equal and deserve equal opportunities... but that sometimes means that those with less fortunate backgrounds deserve a helping hand over those coming from privileged positions.
I also find it ironic that so many people, especially even here on Tildes, are reacting so negatively to Linus' decision and the Linux CoC change when this is a community founded on very similar principals of "Don't be an asshole". I say kudos to Linus for learning that he needs to stop being one and kudos to the Linux kernel team for adopting a better CoC to reflect that.
As I've stated - the CoC itself is not really bad, it's what is attached to it. After this political wave got to FLOSS community people became paranoid, and I want to believe that Linux would not...
I also find it ironic that so many people, especially even here on Tildes, are reacting so negatively to Linus and the Linux CoC change when this is a community founded on very similar principals of "Don't be an asshole".
As I've stated - the CoC itself is not really bad, it's what is attached to it. After this political wave got to FLOSS community people became paranoid, and I want to believe that Linux would not fall victim to a political divide, but that remains to be seen.
As for your view on meritocracy - you seem to operate on broad terms, but here is the thing about our particular situation at hand - meritocracy in Open Source is as true and impartial as it gets right now, because all you have to do to get into most projects is contribute code. The more code you've contributed the more useful you are to the community. And the goal here is to make software, not to "help" anyone as you are putting it - it's simple, people that can make software are making software for everyone else to share, use and abuse. The background doesn't matter, some projects are being developed completely behind pseudonyms and so on. And it's also pretty apolitical - the desire to be apolitical is one of the reasons why so many people are adopting ready-to-use license templates like GPL or BSD and outsourcing all the advocacy to FSF and the like - we only want to code. Anything that isn't code is off-topic. That's what brought a lot of people, me included into that sphere, and somehow without adopting any CoCs we are where we are. However lately people started meddling with associated field, issues had been opened on github that had nothing to do with the code in question and so on. And the most damaging thing about these attempts to push some ideology, conduct and other things where they don't belong is that it distracts from the most important - making code. And then you see HOW STRONGLY people are willing to take sides on smallest issues if they become political - like master/slave terminology in python. That creates a rift in a community that already suffers from segmentation - we have enough ideological issues about the code on hand - the systemd is as effective at segmentation as anything, so I really, really don't want people taking sides and contributing to something or not contributing to something just because of attached politics. Because if you divide the community like this in the end everybody loses, the code gets worse, the time spent over off topic political argument is wasted, and the core thing that is our software suffers.
I generally agree with you about open source code contributions being as close to a meritocracy as you can get, but why is "making code" more important than the conduct of those in charge of the...
I generally agree with you about open source code contributions being as close to a meritocracy as you can get, but why is "making code" more important than the conduct of those in charge of the codebases? Linus has always been a cantankerous asshole, and that's not a good thing nor should it be encouraged or "protected" IMO. Him taking some time off and acknowledging he needs to do better isn't going to ruin Linux, and in fact is likely to improve the kernel development environment as people will feel less intimidated from attempting to join it. Like it or not Linus is an ambassador and his behavior is reflected on the entire Linux community.
Similarly with regard to the master/slave terminology thing... It's a relatively harmless change as far as the code is concerned, and if it improves the development environment by making it more welcoming and potentially encourages more people to contribute, why fight against it? "Tradition" and semantics is significantly less important than that, IMO.
I get where you're coming from with regards to wishing politics was kept out of software development, but that's unfortunately an unrealistic expectation at this point as that ship has already sailed... so I say let's just deal with it as quickly/painlessly as possible by embracing the changes and attempting to be more welcoming and inclusive.
This part of your comment is exactly the thing I'm taking a stand against. Making code is the sole purpose why Open Source exists. It's about making code, anything else is secondary, code is king....
but why is "making code" more important than the conduct of those in charge of the codebases?
This part of your comment is exactly the thing I'm taking a stand against. Making code is the sole purpose why Open Source exists. It's about making code, anything else is secondary, code is king.
Him taking some time off and acknowledging he needs to do better isn't going to ruin Linux, and in fact is likely to improve the kernel development environment as people will feel less intimidated from attempting to join it.
But you also don't want some people to join it, because you have to understand the responsibility of contributing to something as huge as a Linux kernel. Every potential bug in the kernel is a security hole or a data loss on millions of machines all around the world. Projects of such magnitude are and should stay out of reach of people that are unsure about their quality of code. You have to at least be confident about your code and be ready to take harsh criticism if you are going to mess around with the kernel. That's one of the main reasons why Linux is as good as it is.
Similarly with regard to the master/slave terminology thing... It's a relatively harmless change as far as the code is concerned
It is not harmless as far as the code is concerned. As far as the code is concerned it is absolutely unnecessary and useless. This change doesn't contribute anything to the code, however it has another effect - everyone is now taking a stand about it and the community is being divided, and that distracts from the code.
Pardon me, but I feel like two points in your argument do not line up This seems incongruous to me, as if you're both arguing that people's behavior doesn't factor into Open Source but also it...
Pardon me, but I feel like two points in your argument do not line up
Making code is the sole purpose why Open Source exists. It's about making code, anything else is secondary, code is king.
It is not harmless as far as the code is concerned. As far as the code is concerned it is absolutely unnecessary and useless. This change doesn't contribute anything to the code, however it has another effect - everyone is now taking a stand about it and the community is being divided, and that distracts from the code.
This seems incongruous to me, as if you're both arguing that people's behavior doesn't factor into Open Source but also it does? If the sole purpose is the production of code and people tell you that Torvalds' flippant behavior is distracting from that why does it escape scrutiny?
Notice the order. It doesn't have an effect on the code, the impact is 0. And I've said that the code comes first. If the code has nothing to gain by making that change then we can travel down the...
Notice the order. It doesn't have an effect on the code, the impact is 0. And I've said that the code comes first. If the code has nothing to gain by making that change then we can travel down the ladder - and we see a negative impact on the existing community, since they are now distracted from the code and people are taking stands - something that was never before an issue.
If the sole purpose is the production of code and people tell you that Torvalds' flippant behavior is distracting from that why does it escape scrutiny?
It doesn't and people kept telling him about it, and now he is admitting to it. But the addition of the CoC that followed is a separate issue altogether. You can read my comment on it from yesterday here if you are interested
I did read your comment, but it struck me less as a statement about what should or shouldn't be general practice and more about what you, personally, do or do not like in practice. And that sort...
I did read your comment, but it struck me less as a statement about what should or shouldn't be general practice and more about what you, personally, do or do not like in practice.
And that sort of follows in why I think the CoC and Torvalds' behavior are not separable. For one because he serves as a prime example of an issue the CoC is designed to tackle, and for two because his e-mail appears to very clearly state that his own decision is part of a larger attempt to change the workflow on the Linux project, and that includes changing the code of conduct so that the mistakes he admits to aren't reproduced or re-occur as little as feasible.
Torvalds might have enjoyed his own rants as well, I don't think they would have become a thing had he not. But it seems like he recognizes that his personal preferences potentially get in the way of delivering his goals with the Linux project, so he is adjusting accordingly.
But in reality CoC means nothing, unless enforced, and the enforcement is up to the maintainers anyway, so why bother with CoCs that have vague definitions?
And that sort of follows in why I think the CoC and Torvalds' behavior are not separable. For one because he serves as a prime example of an issue the CoC is designed to tackle
But in reality CoC means nothing, unless enforced, and the enforcement is up to the maintainers anyway, so why bother with CoCs that have vague definitions?
For the same reason any group bothers to outline their codes of conduct: so people may understand beforehand what is expected of them and what behavior will result in what action. So it doesn't...
For the same reason any group bothers to outline their codes of conduct: so people may understand beforehand what is expected of them and what behavior will result in what action. So it doesn't need to be explained again and again whenever an issue arises, regardless of the reason for the issue, but it can be referred back to as being the foundational guideline or the 'starting point' so to speak.
The same question could be leveled at Tildes, as another concrete example, and the response would be much the same I think.
But in reality few, if any people would actually go through the text like CoC - it's a known fact that virtually nobody reads the license agreement before using the software, and the same idea...
For the same reason any group bothers to outline their codes of conduct: so people may understand beforehand what is expected of them and what behavior will result in what action.
But in reality few, if any people would actually go through the text like CoC - it's a known fact that virtually nobody reads the license agreement before using the software, and the same idea applies here - most people would likely to know about what's written in the CoC only if they'll run into an issue with it. That brings us to the important thing - having a CoC that phrases things vaguely allows people that moderate the contributors to ban and remove people without the need for someone to complain. If in a normal situation you would have to push everyone hard enough that people who are actively participating on the same level as you would complain, not only the whole CoC situation removes the natural back and forth against you and someone who has a problem with you, it allows moderators to just remove you, justifying their actions with mere existence of CoC.
If you want to make the pragmatic argument then I'd like to counter that merely by having moderators you already have to trust that you will not be banned for frivolous reasons. Especially in the...
If you want to make the pragmatic argument then I'd like to counter that merely by having moderators you already have to trust that you will not be banned for frivolous reasons. Especially in the context of FOSS communities where there are no contractual obligations or other avenues of recourse.
The practical truth is that few people read a CoC, just as the practical truth is that if the maintainers of a project agree to ban you for no reason other then disliking you they're fully able to do so. You simply have to trust that they won't, there is no other guarantee. Whether or not a CoC exists and is invoked in that case is a technicality, it's not legally binding. a point you have made as well:
But in reality CoC means nothing, unless enforced, and the enforcement is up to the maintainers anyway
As to the "nobody reads the fine print" argument. That is true, and something to keep in mind for practical reasons, but that doesn't change it's actual value. Code bases don't do away with documentation or licenses either, despite the fact that a large pool of people doesn't necessarily consult them or even particularly care.
And it's also pretty apolitical - the desire to be apolitical is one of the reasons why so many people are adopting ready-to-use license templates like GPL
Hi there! I see a lot of people with the sentiment that meritocracy is an impossible ideal (I guess that's probably true for most ideologies), but I don't really get why meritocracy in particular...
Hi there! I see a lot of people with the sentiment that meritocracy is an impossible ideal (I guess that's probably true for most ideologies), but I don't really get why meritocracy in particular is impossible, could you explain at all?
Well, on the philosophical side, I think it's ultimately an impossible ideal because there is no such thing as objective value. Value is subjective by its very nature so a system designed to...
Well, on the philosophical side, I think it's ultimately an impossible ideal because there is no such thing as objective value. Value is subjective by its very nature so a system designed to promote those with the most ability (to produce value) is inherently subjective as well and thus fundamentally flawed due to our biased natures.
What this translates to on the practical side, thanks to ego, is that those who succeed in a meritocracy naturally tend to look down on those who haven't, and also tend to ignore all the advantages that potentially allowed them to succeed while ignoring any inequalities that potentially led to others' failures... for who can bear to think their success undeserved?
Hence why I prefer egalitarianism, which actually recognizes inequalities and attempts to identify and address them so that all might have equal opportunity to succeed.
Thanks for explaining, that helps a lot! Kind of curious, and I totally realize this is totally dumb and there's a very big difference, but what stops "equal opportunity" egalitarianism from going...
Thanks for explaining, that helps a lot!
Kind of curious, and I totally realize this is totally dumb and there's a very big difference, but what stops "equal opportunity" egalitarianism from going full Harrison Bergeron?
The same thing that prevents any school of thought from being taken to its utmost and absurd extreme, I suppose. For one, within the overarching concept of Egalitarianism there are many widely...
The same thing that prevents any school of thought from being taken to its utmost and absurd extreme, I suppose. For one, within the overarching concept of Egalitarianism there are many widely differing opinions on where to even put the focus (E.g. Equality of outcome, opportunity, autonomy, process, perception, etc.), some of which are generally regarded as mutually exclusive (E.g. You can't have both equality of autonomy and outcome). And within each of those areas of focus there is further divide on which aspects of society should be equalized (E.g. economics, rights, governance, etc.). Then there is even further divide on the ideal approach (E.g. moderation vs absolutism, raising up the disadvantaged vs lowering the advantaged, etc.).
Harrison Bergeron is an example of an absolutist approach to achieving equality of physical opportunity via lowering of the advantaged, taken to the extreme... which IMO is a pretty minority view on the best approach and so an unlikely scenario to need to worry about becoming reality. ;)
p.s. Good choice. Vonnegut is one of my all-time favorite authors. So it goes...
The Contributor Covenant has a ton of baggage and drama associated with it. I particularly empathise with this point of view from when the author attempted to get it applied to Ruby.
The Contributor Covenant has a ton of baggage and drama associated with it.
I particularly empathise with this point of view from when the author attempted to get it applied to Ruby.
Given a choice between only two extremes, I'd far rather have Linus Torvalds telling me
I'm an idiot and my code is shit, than exist in an offence-taking culture where various
forms of criticism are re-branded as "harassment."
The author of this code of conduct tweeted this relatively recently. https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1041441155874009093 I can't help but feel that her motives are more geared towards...
The author of this code of conduct tweeted this relatively recently.
I can’t wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it’s been infiltrated by SJWs. Hahahah
I can't help but feel that her motives are more geared towards "winning" against a perceived enemy rather than trying to improve things for all. In fact, the tone really does suggest "smug asshat"
The tone does indeed suggest a lot of smug, that's entirely fair. It's a bit unsightly for somebody who advocated for a move against antagonizing language to so openly celebrate the prospect of...
The tone does indeed suggest a lot of smug, that's entirely fair. It's a bit unsightly for somebody who advocated for a move against antagonizing language to so openly celebrate the prospect of people who've antagonized them to feel upset. It's an understandable human reaction, and I honestly wouldn't have done any better had I been in that position, but it does deserve criticism.
However, as to the point of
her motives being geared towards "winning" against a perceived enemy rather than trying to improve things for all.
I'm not sure I can fully agree with this, for one because in my experience people like the author, that is to say trans women, do have enemies who do want to see trans people ejected from the FOSS community for a variety of reasons. "winning" against those people is often as simple as just having them know that they cannot eject people, that others will not stand for it, and that to me is actually a net benefit for all.
I'm not sure I can fully agree with this, for one because in my experience people like the author, that is to say trans women, do have enemies who do want to see trans people ejected from the FOSS community for a variety of reasons.
It's not harassment, it's banter, although the term "harassment" is getting watered down by the day. I want to tell people that are writing moronic code that they are morons. It's not harassment,...
It's not harassment, it's banter, although the term "harassment" is getting watered down by the day. I want to tell people that are writing moronic code that they are morons. It's not harassment, it's me being genuine. And I WANT to be called a moron when I do the same. Harsh language helps emphasize just how bad of a mistake you've made. A mistake could be tricky, bad, stupid, idiotic and moronic. See how you can tell the severity by looking at a word? That's the reason why we have these words. Being harsh when unnecessary is as bad as not being harsh when it's needed.
That's remarkably similar to the justification used by a certain segment of the gaming community. It's a lame excuse for toxic behavior there and a similarly lame excuse here as well, IMO. Words...
That's remarkably similar to the justification used by a certain segment of the gaming community. It's a lame excuse for toxic behavior there and a similarly lame excuse here as well, IMO. Words have power. Just because you don't mind when someone berates or demeans you doesn't mean others are similarly unaffected. Empathy is important and one of the major aspects of it is realizing that not everyone is the same as you nor similarly affected by the same words.
And even from a practical perspective it doesn't make sense to be an asshole when there are other, more diplomatic approaches that are just as effective at getting your point across and helping people learn from their mistakes that don't potentially alienate them and drive them away from the community.
There is a difference between being toxic and speaking your mind. Don't forget, that the maintainers are the ones who has to then support the code. Exactly as much as you are giving them. But...
It's a lame excuse for toxic behavior there and a similarly lame excuse here as well, IMO.
There is a difference between being toxic and speaking your mind. Don't forget, that the maintainers are the ones who has to then support the code.
Words have power.
Exactly as much as you are giving them.
Empathy is important and one of the major aspects of it is realizing that not everyone is the same as you nor similarly affected by the same words.
But there is no way to know how someone is affected by any words that I am saying. I don't see it as a reason why we should all dull everything to a watered down corporate speech when we are interacting with each other. Sometimes you have to channel your thoughts by your words, and harsh language is a natural part of this spectrum and human interaction.
When "speaking your mind" makes the community you belong to (or in this case lead) a toxic and unwelcoming one... no, there isn't. And while there is no way you can know "for certain" how someone...
There is a difference between being toxic and speaking your mind.
When "speaking your mind" makes the community you belong to (or in this case lead) a toxic and unwelcoming one... no, there isn't.
And while there is no way you can know "for certain" how someone will be affected by particular words, there are reasonable assumptions you can make based on general truths; very few people enjoy being berated, insulted or personally attacked. Not doing those things isn't "watered down corporate speech", it's showing some basic human decency.
First off, who is the judge of what's toxic and what isn't? Second, you have to take into account that big Open Source projects cross cultural and geographical boundaries, and what is considered...
When "speaking your mind" makes the community you belong to (or in this case lead) a toxic and unwelcoming one... no, there isn't.
First off, who is the judge of what's toxic and what isn't?
Second, you have to take into account that big Open Source projects cross cultural and geographical boundaries, and what is considered acceptable wildly changes from country to country. Should we just dumb down everything to the most fragile country? Should we take a median approach? In a lot of ways trying to organize a large group of developers is a like herding cats, and it's really hard if not impossible to satisfy everyone by any additional rules you are introducing. IMO it's a lot better to let people that can take it stick around with each other naturally than to try and force everyone into additional standards beyond "your code must be good".
You're literally on an opensource social media site attempting to do exactly that. https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes#limited-tolerance-especially-for-assholes...
IMO it's a lot better to let people that can take it stick around with each other naturally than to try and force everyone into additional standards beyond "your code must be good".
You're literally on an opensource social media site attempting to do exactly that.
First off, who is the judge of what's toxic and what isn't?
If you want to dive deep in to moral philosophy and ethics we certainly can, however the short answer is, "the community does and by consensus", as it is in most online and offline settings.
Yes, I am on the Open Source website, but I am not here to write code. The license and distribution of the source of the website we are currently on is irrelevant, because here we are not making...
Yes, I am on the Open Source website, but I am not here to write code. The license and distribution of the source of the website we are currently on is irrelevant, because here we are not making code, we are here to talk. And we've been talking about repositories and mailing lists. I don't mind rules on Tildes, because we don't have any goal here and we aren't trying to build something, we only here to have conversation. And if the conversation is the end goal we have to make sure it's pleasant. However when you contribute a code to anything the manner that you are doing it in should be the last concern if at all, because a conversation in that case is nothing more but a mean to reach the end goal, hence code matters first.
Why should the same not be true even when the end goal is code? Discussion is a critical part of the process of opensource development and if Deimos went around berating contributors on Gitlab...
And if the conversation is the end goal we have to make sure it's pleasant.
Why should the same not be true even when the end goal is code? Discussion is a critical part of the process of opensource development and if Deimos went around berating contributors on Gitlab that would be every bit as detrimental to the project as a whole as if he had done it here on the site itself.
But the discussion must be on topic, if we are talking about contributions and not forums/chats surrounding it. For example, the Contributor Covenant includes 5 examples of "unwelcome behavior", 4...
But the discussion must be on topic, if we are talking about contributions and not forums/chats surrounding it. For example, the Contributor Covenant includes 5 examples of "unwelcome behavior", 4 of which could be simply dismissed as "off-topic". How many pull requests not related to sex toy firmware updates include "sexualized" language? Is this really the issue that needs addressing on contributor level?
IMO, yes it does... because someone can still technically be "on topic" while being an asshole about it. Linus has done that pretty consistently over the years with his personal attacks, insults...
IMO, yes it does... because someone can still technically be "on topic" while being an asshole about it. Linus has done that pretty consistently over the years with his personal attacks, insults and berating of would-be contributors. Nothing he said was "off-topic", but it was still wildly inappropriate, especially for the principal developer / lead maintainer of the community.
Did you have a problem with the "If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable" in the previous CoC? If not, why are you now suddenly so hung up on a CoC that cites specific ways in which people can potentially be made to feel and in some cases actually were being abuse, threatened or otherwise made uncomfortable?
Because the previous one was reserved for "Conflict resolution" specifically, where the new one is a lot broader. And now, Linus decided to stop being an asshole to some people. Fine, it's his...
Because the previous one was reserved for "Conflict resolution" specifically, where the new one is a lot broader.
And now, Linus decided to stop being an asshole to some people. Fine, it's his decision, I respect it, it's good for the community, etc. But now let's make a thought experiment, remember that Linus had been an asshole to a lot of people for years before today, and ask ourselves - what if someone has huge contribution to make to a project like Linux, and that someone is an asshole, and insists on being an asshole - would you think it is a good idea to refuse that contribution on that grounds? Linus is the big daddy of Linux, so no one could've banned him from his own kernel, but what about other contributors? I think it's better to deal with assholes than to deal with bad code, especially if people around these assholes are willing to tolerate them, but with broad CoCs the decision is not up to the active community, and there is no need to have an argument or a conflict before someone enforcing CoC steps in.
You can still accept code contributions from people who are assholes but that doesn't mean they should be allowed free reign to misbehave on the social side of the community and drive other people...
You can still accept code contributions from people who are assholes but that doesn't mean they should be allowed free reign to misbehave on the social side of the community and drive other people away. For every person driven away, that is less potential contributions that will be made in the future, and unless said asshole makes up for all those lost potential contributions it's a net loss. You keep going on about "wasting efforts" and "division" in the community but assholes and asshole behavior does exactly that, too. When someone is being an asshole it derails conversation and diverts efforts away from the topic of actual development and instead drives focus to themselves and their behavior. It's not productive.
It might be productive, it might not be productive - why not leave conflict resolution to people that are interacting in the first place? For example, someone actually making a contribution can...
When someone is being an asshole it derails conversation and diverts efforts away from the topic of actual development and instead drives focus to themselves and their behavior. It's not productive.
It might be productive, it might not be productive - why not leave conflict resolution to people that are interacting in the first place? For example, someone actually making a contribution can always ask for conflict resolution if people are asshole to them, and that, IMO is the the best possible scenario, because that has to come to someone actually having a problem with another person before it gets to any rules
Because individual community interactions don't exist in a vacuum, not every person who gets mistreated is willing to put up with "conflict resolution" (they just leave) and by allowing a toxic...
Because individual community interactions don't exist in a vacuum, not every person who gets mistreated is willing to put up with "conflict resolution" (they just leave) and by allowing a toxic culture to fester you drive away many potentially valuable contributors. This is especially true when it's the head of the community, like Linus is, that is the one being an asshole. He clearly recognized that fact though, so kudos to him for having the courage to admit it and being willing to change.
This is the heart of why I find this argument suspect. If this is genuinely as huge a deal as suggested why is the Linux Kernal so damn successful? It seems more likely to me that good CoC are at...
This is the heart of why I find this argument suspect.
If this is genuinely as huge a deal as suggested why is the Linux Kernal so damn successful?
It seems more likely to me that good CoC are at best orthogonal to project success. Linus is terrible, so where are all the much better than the Linux Kernal projects?
By all means argue good CoC is more moral than the way Linus behaved on LKML but if you want to argue that it'd have been more successful where is your evidence?
Just because an environment is a toxic one does not guarantee its failure nor the success of its rivals. There is something to be said for brand loyalty, momentum, barriers to entry and the sheer...
Just because an environment is a toxic one does not guarantee its failure nor the success of its rivals. There is something to be said for brand loyalty, momentum, barriers to entry and the sheer effort it take to start from scratch or even fork a project, as well as the sheer luck involved in the process. You can even look at reddit as an example of this. IMO reddit is an undeniably toxic environment and yet it is monumentally successful and likely will remain so even with less toxic alternatives available. However I don't think you can deny that a toxic environment is detrimental to the potential of a community driven project, e.g. the linux kernel, which is all I was saying. And I suppose my only "evidence" of that belief would be Tildes itself. The fact Tildes exists at all and that people are choosing to use this site instead of reddit is, in a way, evidence that a less toxic environment may be more productive than a toxic one. We will have to wait and see how it plays out to know for sure though, I guess.
That is a really inappropriate comment.... and do you also not see the insane hypocrisy of defending a change in the CoC to prevent personal attacks by making a very personal attack yourself?
That is a really inappropriate comment.... and do you also not see the insane hypocrisy of defending a change in the CoC to prevent personal attacks by making a very personal attack yourself?
And you suggest treating everyone who I don't know like a victim of abuse based on that argument? I don't understand where are you coming from, people with legit mental trauma should seek help,...
You don't find a victom of abuse of any kind and tell them it's your fault for being so sensitive.
And you suggest treating everyone who I don't know like a victim of abuse based on that argument? I don't understand where are you coming from, people with legit mental trauma should seek help, what else can I say here? Obviously there are exceptions to any rule, but we can't make everything safe for people that react unusually to normal interactions of other people. People with epilepsy might be sent into a seizure by flashing lights, and the best thing we can do for them is to put a disclaimer on things that may cause a seizure, but you can't expect everyone to remove flashing colors from everywhere.
You don't understand what I am saying. When someone is hurt by harassment it is abuse. Calling someone overly sensitive is victim blaming, which is another form of abusive behavior. The effect you...
You don't understand what I am saying. When someone is hurt by harassment it is abuse. Calling someone overly sensitive is victim blaming, which is another form of abusive behavior. The effect you are accomplishing is advocating for abuse!
If you can't see why this is a problem, there is no need to continue discussion.
"Banter" is not a defence and much of what people defend as "banter" can easily be harassment. This is the same as dismissing something as "locker room talk". If "banter" is received as harassing,...
"Banter" is not a defence and much of what people defend as "banter" can easily be harassment. This is the same as dismissing something as "locker room talk". If "banter" is received as harassing, then it is harassment. That is not the fault of the receiver either, as communication goes both ways.
The requirement that critique must be harsh to get its point across is simply wrong. If you can't communicate the importance of something without having to be harsh about it, you aren't good at communication and need to work on it.
Like, if I were to use harsh language right now to communicate what a ridiculous idea it is that it must be necessary, it would be flaming and violate this site's "don't be an asshole" policy.
It's banter when the subject takes it in stride and understands the criticism, sure. But when it reaches the opposite result, when it breeds resentment or makes people feel unfairly put on the...
It's banter when the subject takes it in stride and understands the criticism, sure. But when it reaches the opposite result, when it breeds resentment or makes people feel unfairly put on the spot, then it's not banter any more.
Everything's political, isn't it? What's so good about meritocracy, anyway? I've got news for you: I've been pushing against the use of "master/slave" in projects I work on since 2001. Most of the...
the code's author who is on the record saying that this code is political
I've got news for you: I've been pushing against the use of "master/slave" in projects I work on since 2001. Most of the time it's just a nudge -- "maybe we should call it primary/secondary for clarity's sake" -- but I've been doing it.
people are dragging politics into software, and a lot of people, me included don't want that.
If you think what you're doing is apolitical, chances are your politics are the politics your rulers want you to have. You might say that you're just making tools, but tools are all too often and all too easily used as weapons.
The weapons you help make can just as easily be used against you. Think about that.
I strongly disagree. The article gets into UK(?) politics and not only I am not interested in this, the author's view of it linked deeply with the country he describing. When we talk about Open...
Everything's political, isn't it?
I strongly disagree.
What's so good about meritocracy, anyway?
The article gets into UK(?) politics and not only I am not interested in this, the author's view of it linked deeply with the country he describing. When we talk about Open Source we want to have good code. People that can make good code are contributing to the upstream, and if upstream thinks that the code is good it accepts it. That's how meritocracy works in Open Source, and it is the best way of making open software so far. I think you are seeing a false equivalency here.
If you think what you're doing is apolitical, chances are your politics are the politics your rulers want you to have. You might say that you're just making tools, but tools are all too often and all too easily used as weapons.
What I am doing is apolitical as long as the upstream is apolitical, and it helps to bring people together to code. I have no idea who's commits are in the software that I'm using, and I don't want to know - as long as this is maintained everyone can contribute to a project and use it as they wish - this is the goal, anyway.
But the instance the upstream gets political that forces me to get political as well - for example, if the upstream of "ExampleBSD" for some reason adds a clause to their license that prohibits Ministry of Yoga of India from using their software, and I just happen to be a Yoga lover I would fork ExampleBSD and never contribute any of my code to upstream. From such situation, who exactly wins? ExampleBSD looses a contribution and a lot of users, potentially, all for making a stand that means nothing in the real world and has no positive outcome, despite the maintainer of ExampleBSD having a false sense that he stuck it up to that dirty Yoga lovers in India. And me, the Yoga lover have to maintain my own fork and sync it with upstream ever so often, which means more hassle for me. This mentality is counter-productive and produces negative results.
The weapons you help make can just as easily be used against you. Think about that.
It's Open Source. It's like leaving a gun on the table next to the sign "you can't use that against me, but feel free to shoot whomever". It can't limit who uses it and how.
I think people who think politics were/are/should be not part of something are usually those who are not harmed/affected by those politics (I mean no offense, I usually have to really struggle to...
I think people who think politics were/are/should be not part of something are usually those who are not harmed/affected by those politics (I mean no offense, I usually have to really struggle to understand why some people find political things I don't). I think politics are always part of stuff, be it soccer, programming, economics, science or even mathematics (any reading in history of science will show you examples, but this one I find particularly beautiful, showing how this war between the French and Italian changed the way we think of maths, laws, etc. for at least 2 centuries, and counting). I'm sure that as soon as there is a historian of open source we'll find examples of political issues and politics affecting open source from the beginning. It's just unavoidable. To put a dumb example of politics in coding (not open source), DES and the history of the laws regarding the export of cryptographic algorithms outside of the US was very political.
When we are faced with the fact that there is always political thought embedded into any social activity (and open source is a social activity, in that the contribution doesn't exist in a vacuum, it has to adhere to certain principles and go through a number of people) we can react to it negatively or not. It's inevitable that there will be conflict and that these changes will seem in the beginning negative but IMHO they are long-term positive (and if not they will be reverted or changed again). Yeah, it will create a divide in the beginning but I think in the long term it will be for the better.
I am about to go do other stuff (I've been in this thread for a long time), but I've addressed your arguments in this comment, where I've made an example why bringing politics into code is a bad...
I am about to go do other stuff (I've been in this thread for a long time), but I've addressed your arguments in this comment, where I've made an example why bringing politics into code is a bad idea. Your example with the export of cryptographic algorithms was political, because US Government made it political, people wanted to have code, and the government tried to prevent that. If you want to do political activism by making code and providing tools to people and so on - feel free to do so, but that's not the same as policing useful contributions by conduct or bringing politics where politics don't belong.
The situation on /r/linux has gotten a little toxic right now. People have even started dragging Linus' daughter and her political beliefs into the spotlight.
The situation on /r/linux has gotten a little toxic right now. People have even started dragging Linus' daughter and her political beliefs into the spotlight.
Please don't give them that idea, I want to try out BSD! Slightly more seriously, the aforementioned crowd seem to dislike BSD because of it's license and FreeBSD's recent (also CoC?) changes...
They can go to the BSD community
Please don't give them that idea, I want to try out BSD! Slightly more seriously, the aforementioned crowd seem to dislike BSD because of it's license and FreeBSD's recent (also CoC?) changes relating to inclusion/hate speech.
Today i was thinking "why i'm on Tildes? Look at my frontpage, a lot of topics with one or two responses" and i opened my reddit/linux tab and i had the same feeling. I think i'm ready to ditch...
how glad I am that Tildes actually exists
Today i was thinking "why i'm on Tildes? Look at my frontpage, a lot of topics with one or two responses" and i opened my reddit/linux tab and i had the same feeling. I think i'm ready to ditch that website instead.
Nobody hears anybody anymore, it's just finger pointing and calling names. It's not reddit's fault to be honest, this is what happens when there's a lot of people together.
Yeah, i agree with you. They turned reddit on a conglomerated of posts to be used by other websites too. This is why reddit is full of bots. Popular subs like askreddit has repeated threads and...
Yeah, i agree with you. They turned reddit on a conglomerated of posts to be used by other websites too. This is why reddit is full of bots. Popular subs like askreddit has repeated threads and posts every week.
Translation: they're upset because the new CoC is telling them explicitly that the things they've been doing are wrong and that they need to be nicer and more considerate to other people. Every...
Some people are convinced "the SJWs" have got "dirt" on Linus and are forcing him to make these changes :/
Translation: they're upset because the new CoC is telling them explicitly that the things they've been doing are wrong and that they need to be nicer and more considerate to other people.
Every time someone immediately jumps to the "SJW" insult, you can pretty safely guess that they're the kind of person that this CoC is meant to apply to, especially when what they're responding to is a completely harmless and constructive change that only has a measurable impact in the form of making inclusion of others easier and being an asshole harder.
Even if someone is genuinely only concerned about avoiding the politicizing of open source projects, they need to realize that there is no politicizing of the project. This is only a clarification of rules to keep the community's behavior in check and has no effect on the project itself. The politics will only exist in the community, and rejecting a change because of "the SJWs" is itself a political stance, so it's a bit silly to complain about politicizing if you yourself are engaging in some political posturing.
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this response is, honestly. I think I just felt the need to rant about the absurdity of rejecting such a harmless change.
I've re-written this comment a few times to try to say this properly, so I'll just keep it short, and about the only thing in this whole non-event I care about: This pledge is meaningless. Decent...
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
I've re-written this comment a few times to try to say this properly, so I'll just keep it short, and about the only thing in this whole non-event I care about: This pledge is meaningless. Decent people do not discriminate according to these guidelines, at least where it isn't relevant to the given task. None of these criteria are relevant to projects like Linux, or any software project, and for the most part any project that discriminates according to these rules is full of assholes who will only attract similar assholes, or hopefully die for a lack of contributors, while a more inclusive fork/alternate thrives. Any organization, by adopting this CoC, or make a space, virtual or physical, "inclusive" is simply attempting to be the loudest one to yell "WE'RE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS! LOOK HOW NICE WE ARE," and, generally, are adopting it to cover for the project's shortcomings, in this case Linus being an ass in his position as project maintainer.
I'll gladly clarify anything that seems unclear. I don't mean this as an attack on the good intentions the Contributor Covenant's author, or people who are simply attempting to do the right thing, but I simply feel this is the wrong approach. In my opinion, the right way to do this is to just be decent, and only criticize on relevant criteria.
The other thing I'll mention is I feel a project definitely has the right to separate from people it thinks will hurt it negatively, but a prominent person in an organization has a strong opinion, they should make it clear that it is their own, not the organization's, but this is already fairly normal behavior, and I feel should not be punished provided they've made this clear, and their opinion directly affects the project's goals.
What is the new CoC supposed to do, if not coerce people to be decent? The Code of Conflict said essentially the same thing, and directly laid out a way to file a greivance, while the CC CoC says...
Just trying to coerce people to be decent hasn't been working
What is the new CoC supposed to do, if not coerce people to be decent? The Code of Conflict said essentially the same thing, and directly laid out a way to file a greivance, while the CC CoC says to contact the same email address, to the same part of the same organization. If this was an ineffective method of enforcement beforehand, which I can only politely assume was the case with Sharp, what makes it better with more rosy wording now? The organization will just fail itself again, or else will be changing for reasons that caused the adoption of the new CoC, but not the CoC itself.
Curious to see $site_users' opinions on the matter. Personally I think it'll be great in making contributions to the kernel seem less "scary", and hopefully clear out some hostility which the commit hints at. My one concern is that "Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting" is a little vague as unacceptable behaviour, but I trust it'll be applied in good faith.
From what I've seen on Reddit, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. Some people are convinced "the SJWs" have got "dirt" on Linus and are forcing him to make these changes :/
The response is overwhelmingly negative not just because a CoC had been adopted, but because of the particular CoC that had been adopted. This particular code is pretty popular with other open source projects, and the biggest issue is not the code itself, but the code's author who is on the record saying that this code is political and also on the record as anti-meritocracy advocate.
This comes after some JS libraries tried forbidding ICE from using them and then Python removing master/slave terms - people are dragging politics into software, and a lot of people, me included don't want that.
That reminds me of a line from N.K. Jemisin's Hugo award speech from a few weeks ago:
"... when they win it's meritocracy but when we win it's identity politics."
IMO true meritocracy is an impossible and fundamentally flawed ideal to begin with, and the unfortunate reality is also that the word has been co-opted by some remarkably shitty people with the intent of using it as a wedge issue. And personally, I always preferred Egalitarianism to Meritocracy anyways. All people are equal and deserve equal opportunities... but that sometimes means that those with less fortunate backgrounds deserve a helping hand over those coming from privileged positions.
I also find it ironic that so many people, especially even here on Tildes, are reacting so negatively to Linus' decision and the Linux CoC change when this is a community founded on very similar principals of "Don't be an asshole". I say kudos to Linus for learning that he needs to stop being one and kudos to the Linux kernel team for adopting a better CoC to reflect that.
As I've stated - the CoC itself is not really bad, it's what is attached to it. After this political wave got to FLOSS community people became paranoid, and I want to believe that Linux would not fall victim to a political divide, but that remains to be seen.
As for your view on meritocracy - you seem to operate on broad terms, but here is the thing about our particular situation at hand - meritocracy in Open Source is as true and impartial as it gets right now, because all you have to do to get into most projects is contribute code. The more code you've contributed the more useful you are to the community. And the goal here is to make software, not to "help" anyone as you are putting it - it's simple, people that can make software are making software for everyone else to share, use and abuse. The background doesn't matter, some projects are being developed completely behind pseudonyms and so on. And it's also pretty apolitical - the desire to be apolitical is one of the reasons why so many people are adopting ready-to-use license templates like GPL or BSD and outsourcing all the advocacy to FSF and the like - we only want to code. Anything that isn't code is off-topic. That's what brought a lot of people, me included into that sphere, and somehow without adopting any CoCs we are where we are. However lately people started meddling with associated field, issues had been opened on github that had nothing to do with the code in question and so on. And the most damaging thing about these attempts to push some ideology, conduct and other things where they don't belong is that it distracts from the most important - making code. And then you see HOW STRONGLY people are willing to take sides on smallest issues if they become political - like master/slave terminology in python. That creates a rift in a community that already suffers from segmentation - we have enough ideological issues about the code on hand - the systemd is as effective at segmentation as anything, so I really, really don't want people taking sides and contributing to something or not contributing to something just because of attached politics. Because if you divide the community like this in the end everybody loses, the code gets worse, the time spent over off topic political argument is wasted, and the core thing that is our software suffers.
I generally agree with you about open source code contributions being as close to a meritocracy as you can get, but why is "making code" more important than the conduct of those in charge of the codebases? Linus has always been a cantankerous asshole, and that's not a good thing nor should it be encouraged or "protected" IMO. Him taking some time off and acknowledging he needs to do better isn't going to ruin Linux, and in fact is likely to improve the kernel development environment as people will feel less intimidated from attempting to join it. Like it or not Linus is an ambassador and his behavior is reflected on the entire Linux community.
Similarly with regard to the master/slave terminology thing... It's a relatively harmless change as far as the code is concerned, and if it improves the development environment by making it more welcoming and potentially encourages more people to contribute, why fight against it? "Tradition" and semantics is significantly less important than that, IMO.
I get where you're coming from with regards to wishing politics was kept out of software development, but that's unfortunately an unrealistic expectation at this point as that ship has already sailed... so I say let's just deal with it as quickly/painlessly as possible by embracing the changes and attempting to be more welcoming and inclusive.
This part of your comment is exactly the thing I'm taking a stand against. Making code is the sole purpose why Open Source exists. It's about making code, anything else is secondary, code is king.
But you also don't want some people to join it, because you have to understand the responsibility of contributing to something as huge as a Linux kernel. Every potential bug in the kernel is a security hole or a data loss on millions of machines all around the world. Projects of such magnitude are and should stay out of reach of people that are unsure about their quality of code. You have to at least be confident about your code and be ready to take harsh criticism if you are going to mess around with the kernel. That's one of the main reasons why Linux is as good as it is.
It is not harmless as far as the code is concerned. As far as the code is concerned it is absolutely unnecessary and useless. This change doesn't contribute anything to the code, however it has another effect - everyone is now taking a stand about it and the community is being divided, and that distracts from the code.
Pardon me, but I feel like two points in your argument do not line up
This seems incongruous to me, as if you're both arguing that people's behavior doesn't factor into Open Source but also it does? If the sole purpose is the production of code and people tell you that Torvalds' flippant behavior is distracting from that why does it escape scrutiny?
Notice the order. It doesn't have an effect on the code, the impact is 0. And I've said that the code comes first. If the code has nothing to gain by making that change then we can travel down the ladder - and we see a negative impact on the existing community, since they are now distracted from the code and people are taking stands - something that was never before an issue.
It doesn't and people kept telling him about it, and now he is admitting to it. But the addition of the CoC that followed is a separate issue altogether. You can read my comment on it from yesterday here if you are interested
I did read your comment, but it struck me less as a statement about what should or shouldn't be general practice and more about what you, personally, do or do not like in practice.
And that sort of follows in why I think the CoC and Torvalds' behavior are not separable. For one because he serves as a prime example of an issue the CoC is designed to tackle, and for two because his e-mail appears to very clearly state that his own decision is part of a larger attempt to change the workflow on the Linux project, and that includes changing the code of conduct so that the mistakes he admits to aren't reproduced or re-occur as little as feasible.
Torvalds might have enjoyed his own rants as well, I don't think they would have become a thing had he not. But it seems like he recognizes that his personal preferences potentially get in the way of delivering his goals with the Linux project, so he is adjusting accordingly.
But in reality CoC means nothing, unless enforced, and the enforcement is up to the maintainers anyway, so why bother with CoCs that have vague definitions?
For the same reason any group bothers to outline their codes of conduct: so people may understand beforehand what is expected of them and what behavior will result in what action. So it doesn't need to be explained again and again whenever an issue arises, regardless of the reason for the issue, but it can be referred back to as being the foundational guideline or the 'starting point' so to speak.
The same question could be leveled at Tildes, as another concrete example, and the response would be much the same I think.
But in reality few, if any people would actually go through the text like CoC - it's a known fact that virtually nobody reads the license agreement before using the software, and the same idea applies here - most people would likely to know about what's written in the CoC only if they'll run into an issue with it. That brings us to the important thing - having a CoC that phrases things vaguely allows people that moderate the contributors to ban and remove people without the need for someone to complain. If in a normal situation you would have to push everyone hard enough that people who are actively participating on the same level as you would complain, not only the whole CoC situation removes the natural back and forth against you and someone who has a problem with you, it allows moderators to just remove you, justifying their actions with mere existence of CoC.
If you want to make the pragmatic argument then I'd like to counter that merely by having moderators you already have to trust that you will not be banned for frivolous reasons. Especially in the context of FOSS communities where there are no contractual obligations or other avenues of recourse.
The practical truth is that few people read a CoC, just as the practical truth is that if the maintainers of a project agree to ban you for no reason other then disliking you they're fully able to do so. You simply have to trust that they won't, there is no other guarantee. Whether or not a CoC exists and is invoked in that case is a technicality, it's not legally binding. a point you have made as well:
As to the "nobody reads the fine print" argument. That is true, and something to keep in mind for practical reasons, but that doesn't change it's actual value. Code bases don't do away with documentation or licenses either, despite the fact that a large pool of people doesn't necessarily consult them or even particularly care.
The GPL is a very political license.
It is, but that's not why people are using it, and that's why a lot of people prefer BSD, zlib or WTFPL over it.
It's a license which fully asserts that code is king and implements various protections to preserve that assertion.
Hi there! I see a lot of people with the sentiment that meritocracy is an impossible ideal (I guess that's probably true for most ideologies), but I don't really get why meritocracy in particular is impossible, could you explain at all?
Well, on the philosophical side, I think it's ultimately an impossible ideal because there is no such thing as objective value. Value is subjective by its very nature so a system designed to promote those with the most ability (to produce value) is inherently subjective as well and thus fundamentally flawed due to our biased natures.
What this translates to on the practical side, thanks to ego, is that those who succeed in a meritocracy naturally tend to look down on those who haven't, and also tend to ignore all the advantages that potentially allowed them to succeed while ignoring any inequalities that potentially led to others' failures... for who can bear to think their success undeserved?
Hence why I prefer egalitarianism, which actually recognizes inequalities and attempts to identify and address them so that all might have equal opportunity to succeed.
Thanks for explaining, that helps a lot!
Kind of curious, and I totally realize this is totally dumb and there's a very big difference, but what stops "equal opportunity" egalitarianism from going full Harrison Bergeron?
The same thing that prevents any school of thought from being taken to its utmost and absurd extreme, I suppose. For one, within the overarching concept of Egalitarianism there are many widely differing opinions on where to even put the focus (E.g. Equality of outcome, opportunity, autonomy, process, perception, etc.), some of which are generally regarded as mutually exclusive (E.g. You can't have both equality of autonomy and outcome). And within each of those areas of focus there is further divide on which aspects of society should be equalized (E.g. economics, rights, governance, etc.). Then there is even further divide on the ideal approach (E.g. moderation vs absolutism, raising up the disadvantaged vs lowering the advantaged, etc.).
Harrison Bergeron is an example of an absolutist approach to achieving equality of physical opportunity via lowering of the advantaged, taken to the extreme... which IMO is a pretty minority view on the best approach and so an unlikely scenario to need to worry about becoming reality. ;)
p.s. Good choice. Vonnegut is one of my all-time favorite authors. So it goes...
The Contributor Covenant has a ton of baggage and drama associated with it.
I particularly empathise with this point of view from when the author attempted to get it applied to Ruby.
The author of this code of conduct tweeted this relatively recently.
https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1041441155874009093
I can't help but feel that her motives are more geared towards "winning" against a perceived enemy rather than trying to improve things for all. In fact, the tone really does suggest "smug asshat"
The tone does indeed suggest a lot of smug, that's entirely fair. It's a bit unsightly for somebody who advocated for a move against antagonizing language to so openly celebrate the prospect of people who've antagonized them to feel upset. It's an understandable human reaction, and I honestly wouldn't have done any better had I been in that position, but it does deserve criticism.
However, as to the point of
I'm not sure I can fully agree with this, for one because in my experience people like the author, that is to say trans women, do have enemies who do want to see trans people ejected from the FOSS community for a variety of reasons. "winning" against those people is often as simple as just having them know that they cannot eject people, that others will not stand for it, and that to me is actually a net benefit for all.
I can understand that.
It's not harassment, it's banter, although the term "harassment" is getting watered down by the day. I want to tell people that are writing moronic code that they are morons. It's not harassment, it's me being genuine. And I WANT to be called a moron when I do the same. Harsh language helps emphasize just how bad of a mistake you've made. A mistake could be tricky, bad, stupid, idiotic and moronic. See how you can tell the severity by looking at a word? That's the reason why we have these words. Being harsh when unnecessary is as bad as not being harsh when it's needed.
That's remarkably similar to the justification used by a certain segment of the gaming community. It's a lame excuse for toxic behavior there and a similarly lame excuse here as well, IMO. Words have power. Just because you don't mind when someone berates or demeans you doesn't mean others are similarly unaffected. Empathy is important and one of the major aspects of it is realizing that not everyone is the same as you nor similarly affected by the same words.
And even from a practical perspective it doesn't make sense to be an asshole when there are other, more diplomatic approaches that are just as effective at getting your point across and helping people learn from their mistakes that don't potentially alienate them and drive them away from the community.
There is a difference between being toxic and speaking your mind. Don't forget, that the maintainers are the ones who has to then support the code.
Exactly as much as you are giving them.
But there is no way to know how someone is affected by any words that I am saying. I don't see it as a reason why we should all dull everything to a watered down corporate speech when we are interacting with each other. Sometimes you have to channel your thoughts by your words, and harsh language is a natural part of this spectrum and human interaction.
When "speaking your mind" makes the community you belong to (or in this case lead) a toxic and unwelcoming one... no, there isn't.
And while there is no way you can know "for certain" how someone will be affected by particular words, there are reasonable assumptions you can make based on general truths; very few people enjoy being berated, insulted or personally attacked. Not doing those things isn't "watered down corporate speech", it's showing some basic human decency.
First off, who is the judge of what's toxic and what isn't?
Second, you have to take into account that big Open Source projects cross cultural and geographical boundaries, and what is considered acceptable wildly changes from country to country. Should we just dumb down everything to the most fragile country? Should we take a median approach? In a lot of ways trying to organize a large group of developers is a like herding cats, and it's really hard if not impossible to satisfy everyone by any additional rules you are introducing. IMO it's a lot better to let people that can take it stick around with each other naturally than to try and force everyone into additional standards beyond "your code must be good".
You're literally on an opensource social media site attempting to do exactly that.
https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes#limited-tolerance-especially-for-assholes
https://docs.tildes.net/overall-goals#the-golden-rule
https://docs.tildes.net/code-of-conduct
If you want to dive deep in to moral philosophy and ethics we certainly can, however the short answer is, "the community does and by consensus", as it is in most online and offline settings.
Yes, I am on the Open Source website, but I am not here to write code. The license and distribution of the source of the website we are currently on is irrelevant, because here we are not making code, we are here to talk. And we've been talking about repositories and mailing lists. I don't mind rules on Tildes, because we don't have any goal here and we aren't trying to build something, we only here to have conversation. And if the conversation is the end goal we have to make sure it's pleasant. However when you contribute a code to anything the manner that you are doing it in should be the last concern if at all, because a conversation in that case is nothing more but a mean to reach the end goal, hence code matters first.
Why should the same not be true even when the end goal is code? Discussion is a critical part of the process of opensource development and if Deimos went around berating contributors on Gitlab that would be every bit as detrimental to the project as a whole as if he had done it here on the site itself.
But the discussion must be on topic, if we are talking about contributions and not forums/chats surrounding it. For example, the Contributor Covenant includes 5 examples of "unwelcome behavior", 4 of which could be simply dismissed as "off-topic". How many pull requests not related to sex toy firmware updates include "sexualized" language? Is this really the issue that needs addressing on contributor level?
IMO, yes it does... because someone can still technically be "on topic" while being an asshole about it. Linus has done that pretty consistently over the years with his personal attacks, insults and berating of would-be contributors. Nothing he said was "off-topic", but it was still wildly inappropriate, especially for the principal developer / lead maintainer of the community.
Did you have a problem with the "If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable" in the previous CoC? If not, why are you now suddenly so hung up on a CoC that cites specific ways in which people can potentially be made to feel and in some cases actually were being abuse, threatened or otherwise made uncomfortable?
Because the previous one was reserved for "Conflict resolution" specifically, where the new one is a lot broader.
And now, Linus decided to stop being an asshole to some people. Fine, it's his decision, I respect it, it's good for the community, etc. But now let's make a thought experiment, remember that Linus had been an asshole to a lot of people for years before today, and ask ourselves - what if someone has huge contribution to make to a project like Linux, and that someone is an asshole, and insists on being an asshole - would you think it is a good idea to refuse that contribution on that grounds? Linus is the big daddy of Linux, so no one could've banned him from his own kernel, but what about other contributors? I think it's better to deal with assholes than to deal with bad code, especially if people around these assholes are willing to tolerate them, but with broad CoCs the decision is not up to the active community, and there is no need to have an argument or a conflict before someone enforcing CoC steps in.
You can still accept code contributions from people who are assholes but that doesn't mean they should be allowed free reign to misbehave on the social side of the community and drive other people away. For every person driven away, that is less potential contributions that will be made in the future, and unless said asshole makes up for all those lost potential contributions it's a net loss. You keep going on about "wasting efforts" and "division" in the community but assholes and asshole behavior does exactly that, too. When someone is being an asshole it derails conversation and diverts efforts away from the topic of actual development and instead drives focus to themselves and their behavior. It's not productive.
It might be productive, it might not be productive - why not leave conflict resolution to people that are interacting in the first place? For example, someone actually making a contribution can always ask for conflict resolution if people are asshole to them, and that, IMO is the the best possible scenario, because that has to come to someone actually having a problem with another person before it gets to any rules
Because individual community interactions don't exist in a vacuum, not every person who gets mistreated is willing to put up with "conflict resolution" (they just leave) and by allowing a toxic culture to fester you drive away many potentially valuable contributors. This is especially true when it's the head of the community, like Linus is, that is the one being an asshole. He clearly recognized that fact though, so kudos to him for having the courage to admit it and being willing to change.
This is the heart of why I find this argument suspect.
If this is genuinely as huge a deal as suggested why is the Linux Kernal so damn successful?
It seems more likely to me that good CoC are at best orthogonal to project success. Linus is terrible, so where are all the much better than the Linux Kernal projects?
By all means argue good CoC is more moral than the way Linus behaved on LKML but if you want to argue that it'd have been more successful where is your evidence?
Just because an environment is a toxic one does not guarantee its failure nor the success of its rivals. There is something to be said for brand loyalty, momentum, barriers to entry and the sheer effort it take to start from scratch or even fork a project, as well as the sheer luck involved in the process. You can even look at reddit as an example of this. IMO reddit is an undeniably toxic environment and yet it is monumentally successful and likely will remain so even with less toxic alternatives available. However I don't think you can deny that a toxic environment is detrimental to the potential of a community driven project, e.g. the linux kernel, which is all I was saying. And I suppose my only "evidence" of that belief would be Tildes itself. The fact Tildes exists at all and that people are choosing to use this site instead of reddit is, in a way, evidence that a less toxic environment may be more productive than a toxic one. We will have to wait and see how it plays out to know for sure though, I guess.
That is a really inappropriate comment.... and do you also not see the insane hypocrisy of defending a change in the CoC to prevent personal attacks by making a very personal attack yourself?
And you suggest treating everyone who I don't know like a victim of abuse based on that argument? I don't understand where are you coming from, people with legit mental trauma should seek help, what else can I say here? Obviously there are exceptions to any rule, but we can't make everything safe for people that react unusually to normal interactions of other people. People with epilepsy might be sent into a seizure by flashing lights, and the best thing we can do for them is to put a disclaimer on things that may cause a seizure, but you can't expect everyone to remove flashing colors from everywhere.
You don't understand what I am saying. When someone is hurt by harassment it is abuse. Calling someone overly sensitive is victim blaming, which is another form of abusive behavior. The effect you are accomplishing is advocating for abuse!
If you can't see why this is a problem, there is no need to continue discussion.
"Banter" is not a defence and much of what people defend as "banter" can easily be harassment. This is the same as dismissing something as "locker room talk". If "banter" is received as harassing, then it is harassment. That is not the fault of the receiver either, as communication goes both ways.
The requirement that critique must be harsh to get its point across is simply wrong. If you can't communicate the importance of something without having to be harsh about it, you aren't good at communication and need to work on it.
Like, if I were to use harsh language right now to communicate what a ridiculous idea it is that it must be necessary, it would be flaming and violate this site's "don't be an asshole" policy.
It's banter when the subject takes it in stride and understands the criticism, sure. But when it reaches the opposite result, when it breeds resentment or makes people feel unfairly put on the spot, then it's not banter any more.
Everything's political, isn't it?
What's so good about meritocracy, anyway?
I've got news for you: I've been pushing against the use of "master/slave" in projects I work on since 2001. Most of the time it's just a nudge -- "maybe we should call it primary/secondary for clarity's sake" -- but I've been doing it.
If you think what you're doing is apolitical, chances are your politics are the politics your rulers want you to have. You might say that you're just making tools, but tools are all too often and all too easily used as weapons.
The weapons you help make can just as easily be used against you. Think about that.
I strongly disagree.
The article gets into UK(?) politics and not only I am not interested in this, the author's view of it linked deeply with the country he describing. When we talk about Open Source we want to have good code. People that can make good code are contributing to the upstream, and if upstream thinks that the code is good it accepts it. That's how meritocracy works in Open Source, and it is the best way of making open software so far. I think you are seeing a false equivalency here.
What I am doing is apolitical as long as the upstream is apolitical, and it helps to bring people together to code. I have no idea who's commits are in the software that I'm using, and I don't want to know - as long as this is maintained everyone can contribute to a project and use it as they wish - this is the goal, anyway.
But the instance the upstream gets political that forces me to get political as well - for example, if the upstream of "ExampleBSD" for some reason adds a clause to their license that prohibits Ministry of Yoga of India from using their software, and I just happen to be a Yoga lover I would fork ExampleBSD and never contribute any of my code to upstream. From such situation, who exactly wins? ExampleBSD looses a contribution and a lot of users, potentially, all for making a stand that means nothing in the real world and has no positive outcome, despite the maintainer of ExampleBSD having a false sense that he stuck it up to that dirty Yoga lovers in India. And me, the Yoga lover have to maintain my own fork and sync it with upstream ever so often, which means more hassle for me. This mentality is counter-productive and produces negative results.
It's Open Source. It's like leaving a gun on the table next to the sign "you can't use that against me, but feel free to shoot whomever". It can't limit who uses it and how.
I think people who think politics were/are/should be not part of something are usually those who are not harmed/affected by those politics (I mean no offense, I usually have to really struggle to understand why some people find political things I don't). I think politics are always part of stuff, be it soccer, programming, economics, science or even mathematics (any reading in history of science will show you examples, but this one I find particularly beautiful, showing how this war between the French and Italian changed the way we think of maths, laws, etc. for at least 2 centuries, and counting). I'm sure that as soon as there is a historian of open source we'll find examples of political issues and politics affecting open source from the beginning. It's just unavoidable. To put a dumb example of politics in coding (not open source), DES and the history of the laws regarding the export of cryptographic algorithms outside of the US was very political.
When we are faced with the fact that there is always political thought embedded into any social activity (and open source is a social activity, in that the contribution doesn't exist in a vacuum, it has to adhere to certain principles and go through a number of people) we can react to it negatively or not. It's inevitable that there will be conflict and that these changes will seem in the beginning negative but IMHO they are long-term positive (and if not they will be reverted or changed again). Yeah, it will create a divide in the beginning but I think in the long term it will be for the better.
I am about to go do other stuff (I've been in this thread for a long time), but I've addressed your arguments in this comment, where I've made an example why bringing politics into code is a bad idea. Your example with the export of cryptographic algorithms was political, because US Government made it political, people wanted to have code, and the government tried to prevent that. If you want to do political activism by making code and providing tools to people and so on - feel free to do so, but that's not the same as policing useful contributions by conduct or bringing politics where politics don't belong.
Directly they aren't related, but as I've said in my first reply in this thread - people are paranoid of things to come.
The situation on /r/linux has gotten a little toxic right now. People have even started dragging Linus' daughter and her political beliefs into the spotlight.
Please don't give them that idea, I want to try out BSD! Slightly more seriously, the aforementioned crowd seem to dislike BSD because of it's license and FreeBSD's recent (also CoC?) changes relating to inclusion/hate speech.
Today i was thinking "why i'm on Tildes? Look at my frontpage, a lot of topics with one or two responses" and i opened my reddit/linux tab and i had the same feeling. I think i'm ready to ditch that website instead.
Nobody hears anybody anymore, it's just finger pointing and calling names. It's not reddit's fault to be honest, this is what happens when there's a lot of people together.
Yeah, i agree with you. They turned reddit on a conglomerated of posts to be used by other websites too. This is why reddit is full of bots. Popular subs like askreddit has repeated threads and posts every week.
Translation: they're upset because the new CoC is telling them explicitly that the things they've been doing are wrong and that they need to be nicer and more considerate to other people.
Every time someone immediately jumps to the "SJW" insult, you can pretty safely guess that they're the kind of person that this CoC is meant to apply to, especially when what they're responding to is a completely harmless and constructive change that only has a measurable impact in the form of making inclusion of others easier and being an asshole harder.
Even if someone is genuinely only concerned about avoiding the politicizing of open source projects, they need to realize that there is no politicizing of the project. This is only a clarification of rules to keep the community's behavior in check and has no effect on the project itself. The politics will only exist in the community, and rejecting a change because of "the SJWs" is itself a political stance, so it's a bit silly to complain about politicizing if you yourself are engaging in some political posturing.
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this response is, honestly. I think I just felt the need to rant about the absurdity of rejecting such a harmless change.
Ok I've kinda liked Tildoes, Tildestians, Tilderinos, etc. But this is definitely the best.
Better for whom? And did you read the linked article by the guy who came up with the term in order to argue against its implementation?
I've re-written this comment a few times to try to say this properly, so I'll just keep it short, and about the only thing in this whole non-event I care about: This pledge is meaningless. Decent people do not discriminate according to these guidelines, at least where it isn't relevant to the given task. None of these criteria are relevant to projects like Linux, or any software project, and for the most part any project that discriminates according to these rules is full of assholes who will only attract similar assholes, or hopefully die for a lack of contributors, while a more inclusive fork/alternate thrives. Any organization, by adopting this CoC, or make a space, virtual or physical, "inclusive" is simply attempting to be the loudest one to yell "WE'RE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS! LOOK HOW NICE WE ARE," and, generally, are adopting it to cover for the project's shortcomings, in this case Linus being an ass in his position as project maintainer.
I'll gladly clarify anything that seems unclear. I don't mean this as an attack on the good intentions the Contributor Covenant's author, or people who are simply attempting to do the right thing, but I simply feel this is the wrong approach. In my opinion, the right way to do this is to just be decent, and only criticize on relevant criteria.
The other thing I'll mention is I feel a project definitely has the right to separate from people it thinks will hurt it negatively, but a prominent person in an organization has a strong opinion, they should make it clear that it is their own, not the organization's, but this is already fairly normal behavior, and I feel should not be punished provided they've made this clear, and their opinion directly affects the project's goals.
What is the new CoC supposed to do, if not coerce people to be decent? The Code of Conflict said essentially the same thing, and directly laid out a way to file a greivance, while the CC CoC says to contact the same email address, to the same part of the same organization. If this was an ineffective method of enforcement beforehand, which I can only politely assume was the case with Sharp, what makes it better with more rosy wording now? The organization will just fail itself again, or else will be changing for reasons that caused the adoption of the new CoC, but not the CoC itself.