10 ms·

What parts of that email are so objectionable?

• zozbot234 7y ago
  The "toxic loonytoon" part, referencing a prominent candidate to the OSI board? I mean, surely we can all have our own opinions about any candidate, but the optics aren't that good.
  • downerending 7y ago
    I think it's a reference to one of the people pushing very hard on spreading CoCs everywhere. Can't recall the name. (Corin?) Reading some of that person's tweets, though, left me with a very bad impression. Anyway, search and form your own opinion.
    • sam_lowry_ 7y ago
      Any idea who that may be?
      • larrywright 7y ago
        I’m not going to post it here, but if you email me I will share it. My email is my HN username at gmail.
      • cgh 7y ago
        https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/ https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... He is referring to one of the people running for the board of directors whose major goal is to introduce Codes of Conduct into open source projects.
        • josteink 7y ago
          So someone who wants to destroy open source then, at the core of its foundations. I can’t wait until this identity politics pendulum starts swinging back. Some people are going to be really embarrassed about the legacy they left for themselves while it was still around.
      • jshevek 7y ago
        I glanced at the OSI page. I found someone who overtly stated opposition to core FLOSS principals: >"Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too." (OSD FAQ) It doesn't have to be like this. It's time to stop bad actors from using our work in unethical ways. It's time to give open source developers around the world the tools they need to exercise their ethical responsibilities as engineers and members of human society. It's time for us to stop shirking our ethical obligations, and take responsibility for the use of our work. From: https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/Board+Member+Elections/2020+Individual+and+Affiliate+Elections/Ehmke2020 https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Board+of+Directors/... Also: https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1229456857317683201 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/12294568573176... (Edited to include her position in her own words)
        • zozbot234 7y ago
          Yup, that's C. A. Ehmke. I'm not sure why she's so opposed to core FLOSS principles, even going as far as calling them evil and unethical; I feel like we're all circling back somehow to the bad old "Linux is cancer" attitudes from the 1990s.
          • thu2111 7y ago
            She thinks she's a warrior fighting on the side of the angels, it's what gives her life meaning and structure. To be a warrior-for-good requires there to be evil people to fight. If there are evil people then they must be denied access to anything good. If open source is good, then evil people must be denied access to it, which can only be done via the licenses, which would make them not open source anymore, which open source projects will obviously reject. The only remaining solution is to try and manipulate people by manipulating the definition of open source. The problem for people like Ehmke is there aren't really many evil people in society, and those who do exist tend to get handled by the justice system. So she just ends up picking fights with random people. She's bad news and anywhere she shows up is best recommended to evict her post-haste.
          • fourthark 7y ago
            FWIW this looks like her current summary of the situation: https://where.coraline.codes/blog/ethical-source-osi-elections/ https://where.coraline.codes/blog/ethical-source-osi-electio...
      • tropo 7y ago
        Looks like this one: "Ehmke, Coraline Ada" She has done more than anybody else to cause destructive internal strife in Open Source software projects. Her being on the OSI board is simply appalling. OSI needs to be defunded and ignored if she can not be removed.
        • voldacar 7y ago
          Not sure why you're getting downvoted, Ehmke is a parasite
    • larrywright 7y ago
      I know exactly who you are talking about. I’ve had some heated exchanges with them on Twitter. What started out as me just trying to understand the viewpoint of someone who is different than me, quickly turned into them turning their followers into an angry mob that flooded me with personal attacks. This one incident turned me off of not only that person but the entire cancel culture movement.
      • joshuamorton 7y ago
        > This one incident turned me off of not only that person but the entire cancel culture movement. Are you perchance saying that you "cancelled" the cancel culture movement based on a single interaction you didn't enjoy?
        • larrywright 7y ago
          Between that interaction (which wasn’t solely me, there were other people that were treated similarly), and other things I have witnessed from people in that movement, I’m confident that it’s not healthy and not something I want any part of. They have noble goals, but the approach is wrong in a lot of cases. Many of the people have the same toxic personalities that they rail against so loudly.
        • lmm 7y ago
          There is no problem with an individuals choosing not to engage based on their own experience. The problem with cancel culture is that we are encouraged to treat people as "cancelled" based on hearsay.
          • joshuamorton 7y ago
            You're under no obligation to do anything. Individuals are simply exercising their own right not to engage based on their own experience. From other comments, you seem to be drawing a distinction between "social pressure" and "individual choices". Can you explain when one becomes the other?
  • monksy 7y ago
    Yes, he has his own opinion. What is wrong with that? IMO: His opinion has a lot of weight here. He founded the project. Without his philosphy in the start you wouldn't be where it is today.
    • joe_the_user 7y ago
      I'm pretty the point is that OSI already laid down guidelines that asked for civil communication - and name calling is epitome of uncivil communication. Indeed, his comment is basically contesting those guidelines. So this was clearly one of those no recovery situations. Either guidelines for civil behavior or "show me the code" meritocracy wins but it's hard to see "agreeing to disagree" being possible here.
      • monksy 7y ago
        Being a prior mod of a city sub.. "toxic loonytoon" is a rather light thing to be called. My concern is if you're drawing the line over this what you're communicating to people is that you cannot negatively sum up another individual, even when it's warranted. A productive conversation can be had on the merits of the label. Are you trying to incentivize long posts about all of the non-sensical policies that the individual is pushing?
        • joe_the_user 7y ago
          Avoiding name calling a standard guideline for civil communication. Maybe there's some moderation standard where just really bad name calling or something is the only no-no that's avoided but that's really the question here. The point is it's pretty plausible the ESR was breaking guidelines that had been laid down already. Maybe he should have broken them for all I know but all I'm saying really is that for an authority to remain credible they have to enforce guidelines specifically when someone is openly defying them. That's it.
  • kazinator 7y ago
    That sort of language is normal in the parliament houses of the developed world, upon which our constitutional democracies are based. If there is some sort of evidence that the candidate in question is in fact a toxic loonytoon, by some sort of objective standard, then it's perfectly fine to use that language. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade, and a toxic loonytoon a toxic loonytoon.
    • iron0013 7y ago
      Well okay, if you insist: Eric S. Raymond is a toxic loonytoon. And there’s plenty of evidence to support that assertion.
      • kazinator 7y ago
        By the "takes one to know one" principle, we should pay attention to Raymond when the calls out another toxic loonytoon.
        • iron0013 7y ago
          Except it obviously doesn’t take one to know one. Are we having an actual conversation or just lobbing empty rhetoric
      • a1369209993 7y ago
        I disagree vehemently with this moronic opinion, but am strongly opposed to any attempts to ban you for holding or expressing it.
    • duskwuff 7y ago
      Calling a person a "toxic loonytoon" for the offense of trying to establish standards of acceptable behavior is ridiculous by any sort of "objective standard". If anything, it demonstrates the importance of having those standards, by serving as an example of the sort of behavior that such a standard should condemn.
      • 7y ago
• nabla9 7y ago
  insane political rant part probably. >> * The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking by subverting th freedom-centered principles of OSI. It is very unlikely to be the last such attempt. > Make no mistake; we are under attack. If we do not recognize the nature of the attack and reject it, we risk watching the best features of the open-source subculture be smothered by identity politics and vulgar Marxism. I mean, if you are this much out of touch with reality, maybe it's time to quit Facebook, Twitter etc.
  • fancyfredbot 7y ago
    "ratfucking"? Classy. I don't agree with him but I feel a bit sorry for him. He's passionate about this and he believes what he's saying. Perhaps nothing could make him see things differently, but banning him definitely won't.
    • monksy 7y ago
      I find it rather concerning that they're that quick to ban him for voicing dissidence. Was there anyone threatened by his speech?
      • kick 7y ago
        He has a long history of making statements like this. Anyone showing up for the first time in years only to intentionally and obviously violate rules should be kicked out. I fully agree with the idea that "ethical" licenses aren't free software, but the dude is a terrible actor in this. He violated the rules, and got banned. That's not a bad thing!
        • kragen 7y ago
          I don't see any evidence that he violated the rules; he described Coraline Ada Ehmke as a "toxic loonytoon" as part of his opposition to her ethical beliefs. Whether or not he is correct about that, I don't see how it's a violation of the rules to say so — it's not as if he used a slur against women, white people, or transgender people. Even when he railed against "Marxism" (it's not clear to me whether Ehmke is a Marxist, but certainly some of her supporters are) he didn't use slurs like "commie" or "tankie", despite the bitter hatred of Marxism that his life is oriented around.
• Barrin92 7y ago
  conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" (whatever that means) and going into a rant about political correctness and Marxism is at best incoherent, not exactly original and at worst paranoid and adds nothing of value. It makes you sound like you're one bad day away from chasing swans through the park nakedly and it isn't really productive in any community. People like Eric need to come to terms with the fact that being a productive contributor is not an excuse for anti-social behaviour, that open source communities these days are huge and people from many places who may not get your jokes or your political discussions are participating, and that cultures change.
  • monksy 7y ago
    > conflating a code of conduct with "political ratfucking" There are strong criticisms of CoCs and questioning of the necessity of that. I don't think that's too much of a reach in how that was communicated. A bit exaggerated yes.
    • Barrin92 7y ago
      Context is probably required to understand what 'free discussion' he thinks is under attack. Over the years ESR has blamed gay people for HIV, women for their own suicide, Chinese conspiracy theories and whatnot. To put it simply, he has basically gone mad. Sure there is a nuanced discussion about what is too much for a CoC but the sort of discussion that he thinks is supposed to be cut out actually needs to be shut down. I'm surprised it took this long, to be honest.
  • catalogia 7y ago
    > " "political ratfucking" (whatever that means)" That might sound like generic senseless profanity, but it's actually a term with specific meaning: "Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking Whether or not ratfucking is indeed happening here as ESR asserts is another matter. I mean only to comment on the meaning of the term.
• aeturnum 7y ago
  Uh, I suppose the name calling, strawman-ing of arguments and insinuations of subterfuge. > toxic loonytoon > The actual goal of the movement behind the ESD > banishing contributors for wrongthink > The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking Like I said I don't know the OSI culture (or this context) but nothing about this message strikes me as someone who's acting in good faith. There's lots of nonsense out there, but engaging in good faith is about taking what people say in collaborative environments as given in good faith. I'm open to being wrong and this tone being appropriate. I don't mean ESR has to be nice to people he doesn't like outside of the official policy discussion. But if people are trying to do work this doesn't seem like an appropriate way to engage.
  • josteink 7y ago
    > banishing contributors for wrongthink And now he is banished. Are you really arguing against this?
    • tedunangst 7y ago
      Wrongthink shouldn't make you immune from banishment for being an asshole.
    • aeturnum 7y ago
      I think communities have the right to decide on what kind of engagement they want. ESR could be acting within the community standards of OSI, in which case I don't think he should be banned. I also find the way he engages to be more hostile than I'm comfortable with and probably wouldn't want to work an environment where it was the norm.
      • ogre_codes 7y ago
        ESR was OFF the lists for 20 years prior to posting this message. Seems like he's out-of-touch with what the community standards are.
      • cosmiccatnap 7y ago
• joe_the_user 7y ago
  Below email is the quoted statement: ts originator is a toxic loonytoon who believes "show me the code" > meritocracy is at best outmoded and in general a sinister supremacist > plot by straight white cisgender males." I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. And moreover, where a stream of obscenities in an email is considered a normal way of communicating, accompanied by a "if you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen" attitude. "Show me the code meritocracy" can be more or less this. My guess is that OSI has been attempting to change the situation. Part of the change would demanding people avoid streams of "strong language" as ESR uses above. Moroever, I suspect people already said "we're aiming for a better standard of communication". As far the practical value goes, I'm not sure if there is an easy way to change the situation. Installing an ombudsman on projects is kind of hard given the projects are indeed going to belong to those who produce a lot of decent code. People create open source software that scratches their itch, not to conform to others' values.
  • notyourday 7y ago
    > I think open source has a serious problem in the sense that there are a lot of projects headed by single, rather abusive and obsessed individuals. Why not fork those projects and makes those awesome forks full of code with unicorns and glitter? If those single rather abusive individuals have to compete with code + unicorns + glitter, I'm certainly going to switch to that and I bet the others will too
  • tomc1985 7y ago
    His statements seem more like the words of a man who feels strongly and passionately about his cause. It's a little suprising that the OSI keeps such high standards for decorum if that was the message that got him banned. It deserves a warning, maybe, but banning him? Cancel culture indeed.
    • cosmiccatnap 7y ago
      If you said that at work how well would it go you think...
• tunesmith 7y ago
  It's inefficient, and occludes what the discussion is actually about. As someone not deeply familiar with the discussion, I am no further to understanding what ESD is, as the language used is mostly a string of assertions without proof, and little definitional value. In other words, there were better, more effective ways to answer the question, still completely unfettered by any need to be "PC". There's expressing yourself fully and accurately, and there's expressing yourself respectfully. It's entirely possible to do both, and that quoted response really didn't do much of either.