Co-Founder of OSI Banned from Mailing Lists | Hacker News Reader

Co-Founder of OSI Banned from Mailing Lists

i-programmer.info

19 pointsdrummer16 comments

I'm always baffled when I see things like this. The people who are actually creating and sharing being forced out by finger waving moralistic censors who somehow manage to take over leadership positions is a trope that threatens open source communities. I've abandoned projects already because of this pattern, and have seen many friends do the same.

Watching a community that has stood for freedom be destroyed by petty authoritarians is incredibly depressing, but I think that very freedom and openness is what makes it vulnerable to these manipulations.

It seems a lot of these people exist, and a lot of their supporters do too. I'd be perfectly live-and-let-live, and just stay out of their projects, but it seems like they intentionally move into and hijack existing projects as well. I'd really like to see a clear method of letting these people know they are not welcome in a project without giving up the very freedom and openness they're founded on.

Turns out the only reason why early open source communities were viable is because they had high barriers to entry that were meritocratic.

Simply put, we need more barriers at the creation of a group. Openness should be only for people who can contribute something worthwhile. The petty bureaucracy that has killed every major project from Firefox to GTK is not something worthwhile.

Eric S Raymond: Abolish “Codes of Conduct” and all the Orwellian doublespeak that goes with them. It's less bad that people sometimes got their feelings hurt than it is to institutionalize a means by which dissenting opinions are crushed under the rubric of “not nice”.

100% agreed. And the reason why we can't have nice things. Co-opting by people with bad intentions, posing as saviors.

Edit: for the fast downvoter:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8609

The cost of a culture in which avoiding offense trumps the liberty to speak is that crybullies control the discourse.

What was the last time ESR did something of relevance? NTPSec is... questionably relevant. We shouldn't be surprised at his statements here: this is the same person who said that gays got AIDS because they were promiscuous[1] and that police should be suspicious of black people (in a certain age range)[2].

We are better off.

[1]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=26

[2]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7239

[1] is an absolute banger. He continues by saying that homosexual `promiscuity' is worse than the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

> It may turn out that the consequences of sympathizing with NAMBLA are almost equally ugly. If a climate of `enlightened’ tolerance for consensual pederasty and pedophilia tends to increase the rate at which boys are abused, that is a very serious consequence for which gay liberationists will not (and should not) soon be forgiven.

And how else did homosexuals get aids? Sharing needles, getting blood transfusions or being Puerto Rican?

AIDS is an STD. So that’s a good explanation.

It really isn't [0].

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17855487/

> The persistence of disparities in HIV between heterosexual individuals and [homosexual individuals] in the United States cannot be explained solely by differences in risky sexual behavior between these two populations.

Some paper ran a model, and you think a model debunks reality? Guess what: In reality, reality debunks the model.

Hi. I belong to one of those minority populations. I don't see anything wrong with those posts, and certainly nothing worth banning a key member of the open source community over.

So do I. He's certainly not a key member of the open source community these days, and being banned from mailing lists is not exactly excluding him from open source movement. (Though I'd certainly not feel the loss if we did; see above re: key status).

For people in favor of this kind of tone and manners policing, where does it end? Will you be happy when everything you see on google, facebook, twitter and mailing lists is nice?

It has nothing to do with "nice". It's just cultural activism making a power grab. They'll be happy when no one is allowed to say anything that doesn't fit their agenda, just like any authortarian group.

(March 2020)

I think the problem I have with the culture shift is that it's not really fair or balanced. Trump supporters get death threats, are called some of the worst names, and are doxxed online. It's been happening for 4 years and the media/tech community just ignores it.

There is even a new website that will be dedicated to doxxing Trump supporters and encouraging 'aggressive protesting' at their home.

This is more about getting rid of your political enemies and taking power than giving a shit about feelings and the way we treat each other, which is why it won't ever stop.

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Which is why you should treat the internet like you treated it in the 90s as a teen.

Everyone is a pedophile out to get you into their van. Never mention real names, locations or achievements: The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

Just use gpg keys to show that two messages are from the same persona. Nothing adds gravitas to a post than a bunch of random numbers after it.

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