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Comment by nindalf | Hacker News Reader

There’s that libertarian streak of “his project, his rules” in this thread. He can include or exclude anyone he wants because it’s his project.

Well, I read the very first line and see that he doesn’t want me, or people like me to be a contributor to this project. And that’s fine. His project, so I hear. But personally, I’ve felt welcome to contribute to every other open source project out there. I’ve felt welcome to apply to any job out there. It feels jarring to be excluded like this. I feel hurt. I shouldn’t be made to feel like this, just because of my religious views.

And no, please don’t split any hairs like “no, he’s not excluding, he’s actually describing…”. You wouldn’t be supporting him if the first line changed to be based on race instead of religion. Then why are you supporting him now?

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> I’ve felt welcome to contribute to every other open source project out there

This is strange to me, because... we're not welcome in every other open source project. Many open source projects are maintained by a single person or a small team and are not particularly interested in accepting changes from outsiders. SQLite is one of those; they generally don't accept contributions.

> Well, I read the very first line and see that he doesn’t want me, or people like me to be a contributor to this project.

Reading from the top, he makes it abundantly clear it is a code their team adhere to, and external contributors are not expected to adhere to it or even respect it.

SQLite typically doesn’t accept external contributions and will rewrite their ideas themselves.

from https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html:

> SQLite is open-source, meaning that you can make as many copies of it as you want and do whatever you want with those copies, without limitation. But SQLite is not open-contribution. In order to keep SQLite in the public domain and ensure that the code does not become contaminated with proprietary or licensed content, the project does not accept patches from people who have not submitted an affidavit dedicating their contribution into the public domain.

what makes you think that every open-source project should "make you feel welcome"? "I shouldn’t be made to feel like this"—where does that idea come from? "shouldn't" on what basis? many open-source projects' Codes of Ethics/Conduct/whatever make me feel explicitly unwelcome, but a.) I don't care, and b.) I don't feel entitled to feel welcome in everyone else's project. what makes you feel differently?

> many open-source projects' Codes of Ethics/Conduct/whatever make me feel explicitly unwelcome

Most open source projects Code of Conduct boil down to "don't be mean to other contributors, treat them well". I'm sorry this makes you feel explicitly unwelcome. That said, it's never been a problem for me to adhere to that.

This is a first time for me being excluded, and it feels bad. I'm commenting on why this person has gone out of his way to do that.

Exclusion is not the norm in online programming spaces. Nor would we tolerate it if someone started excluding people on the basis of something like race. But seemingly there are apologists for exclusion on the basis of religion.

until a few years ago, it was implicit that everyone contributing to open-source projects would treat each other respectfully, because personal politics or identity issues or whatever were wholly divorced from writing code to make computers do things. this is no longer the case, and people running many open-source projects feel the need to legislate morality upon its contributors, as though they were kindergarten teachers. I personally find this objectionable, and such "spaces" make me feel unwelcome... but, again, I don't care, I don't feel entitled to be a part of any online "space" other than ones I myself create.

what could possibly cause this sense of entitlement in your mind? what universal moral imperative do you believe exists that everyone is supposed to abide by with regards to publicly allowing contributions to their own open-source programming projects, and why do you believe it does or should exist?

> what could possibly cause this sense of entitlement

You keep typing this out in different words, almost like you're seeking to reinforce over and over that I'm entitled. I see what you're doing, you're heard.

And I'll say what I've said earlier - I feel entitled to be treated well because people generally treat me well.

And your brilliant contribution is "but why should that be the norm?" Thanks.

>I feel hurt.

>I shouldn’t be made to feel like this

this is entitlement.

    en·ti·tle·ment
    /inˈtīdlmənt,enˈtīdlmənt/
    noun
    the fact of having a right to something.

somehow reading a Code of Ethics for an open-source project you had an extremely slim chance of ever contributing to has emotionally injured you enough to express said injury on the Internet. when you say "I should not be made to feel like this", you are saying that the sqlite devs are morally in the wrong for having their Code of Ethics written the way that it is, because just reading it caused you pain, because of their implicit disregard for your feelings, Random Person On The Internet.

I'm having trouble seeing the disconnect between "somebody on the Internet has a project whose Code of Ethics caused me emotional pain because it made me feel unwelcome" and the word "entitlement". could you please clarify?

There's something about your line of commenting that just strikes me as dishonest and to be completely honest, kind of gross. I can't quite put my finger on why I feel that way about it though. Maybe the air of superiority that comes though, like you're talking down - 'so entitled, I however would never feel such a thing'. I dunno. Just thought I would say my thoughts out loud, take it as you will.

Frankly I thought the opposite.

It was a cogent breakdown of the flawed reasoning upon which then original author’s premise lies.

thank you—it's disappointing that trying to get people to articulate why they feel a certain way about something is met with such pushback. the parent comment to yours is especially baffling—I can't imagine publicly telling someone that what they've written is "gross" without being able to directly explain why, because that just seems unjustly offensive to me. as an amateur Internet ethnographer I have theories about the pathology of course, but there's no point in sharing them here.

> because personal politics or identity issues or whatever were wholly divorced from writing code to make computers do things

I'd disagree there. The free-software movement, for example, is fundamentally tied up with a certain set of political-moral principles; the open-source movement is similarly tied up with a somewhat different set of principles.

If someone's "not political" then maybe they're a weathervane, or professionally neutral, but it's probably more likely that what they think of as "politics" isn't currently fighting over a topic of salience to them.

Comparing the first rule to something based on race is a bit of a stretch.

Race is completely immutable. But religion is mostly immutable? Most people don't change their religious beliefs after a certain age. In practice, let's acknowledge that religion isn't changed. So telling someone, yeah you're fine to join us as long as you can change this characteristic about you that you almost certainly won't change ... how is that actually different?

I guess in practice I have seen a lot of race based persecution and discrimination, not so much religious persecution. Not saying it doesn’t exist anywhere or for anyone, but based on my own experience, saying “love the lord god” feels way less discriminatory than “white people are preferred to block people” or something.

Ah, fair enough. I come from a country where religion based discrimination is the norm. And I fucking detest it. Whenever I see it I'm going to call it out.

Thanks for the perspective. I see now why folks in this thread are acting so cavalier about this - they haven't seen what I've seen.

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