Jump to content

Why the Linux CoC is Bad

LAwLz

This CoC is absolute BS.

 

And I'm known around my neighbourhood for being hard left.

PSU Nerd | PC Parts Flipper | Cable Management Guru

Helpful Links: PSU Tier List | Why not group reg? | Avoid the EVGA G3

Helios EVO (Main Desktop) Intel Core™ i9-10900KF | 32GB DDR4-3000 | GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS ELITE | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NZXT H510 | EVGA G5 650W

 

Delta (Laptop) | Galaxy S21 Ultra | Pacific Spirit XT (Server)

Full Specs

Spoiler

 

Helios EVO (Main):

Intel Core™ i9-10900KF | 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V / Team T-Force DDR4-3000 | GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS ELITE | MSI GAMING X GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB GPU | NZXT H510 | EVGA G5 650W | MasterLiquid ML240L | 2x 2TB HDD | 256GB SX6000 Pro SSD | 3x Corsair SP120 RGB | Fractal Design Venturi HF-14

 

Pacific Spirit XT - Server

Intel Core™ i7-8700K (Won at LTX, signed by Dennis) | GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS GAMING 5 | 16GB Team Vulcan DDR4-3000 | Intel UrfpsgonHD 630 | Define C TG | Corsair CX450M

 

Delta - Laptop

ASUS TUF Dash F15 - Intel Core™ i7-11370H | 16GB DDR4 | RTX 3060 | 500GB NVMe SSD | 200W Brick | 65W USB-PD Charger

 


 

Intel is bringing DDR4 to the mainstream with the Intel® Core™ i5 6600K and i7 6700K processors. Learn more by clicking the link in the description below.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

Sure, what we end up with is a meritocracy of sorts as well. But not the kind of meritocracy of which your average internet dweller will think when they read the term, most of the time. I'm not saying my tech skills are irrelevant (otherwise I could be replaced by a preschooler, after all). But they're by far not the only thing which is required for me to be good at my job. So applying the term to my situation isn't very useful, because people are going to get the wrong idea. We need engineers with good people skills on top of good technological expertise where I work, otherwise we're simply going to fail at our mission.

You will find it very hard to get good merits without things like people skills.

It's possible, but if you have no merits which are tied to working in groups then chances are you will not be put in a position where that is absolutely critical.

 

Like you said, even the thing you describe is a form of meritocracy.

 

What is being suggested by the creator of this CoC in her post-meritocracy statement is that things like race and sexual orientation should play a key role when people are valued as contributors. Do you believe that a trans person should be valued above you at work if you are both doing the same things and doing it equally well?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Sauron said:

The examples given are about different communities moderated by different people.

But the same actors, operating from the same playbook. If this CoC is adopted, attempt to use it as a weapon against people you dislike. If it isn't adopted, engage in a campaign against the holdouts. The FOSS community contributor base ultimately isn't that big.

 

16 hours ago, Sauron said:

But back to the murderer example, what I said only holds true if the murder is unrelated to the community - if that guy went and murdered a fellow developer, do you think they should be allowed to keep contributing as if nothing happened?

Are you comparing this hypothetical to some arsehat saying something arsehatted on his own twitter page about trans people in general? Those are the examples we have at hand. What are your referents in this instance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Aetheria said:

But the same actors, operating from the same playbook. If this CoC is adopted, attempt to use it as a weapon against people you dislike. If it isn't adopted, engage in a campaign against the holdouts. The FOSS community contributor base ultimately isn't that big.

Linux contributors are in the thousands, it's the single biggest open source project in history. The maintainers of Linux have been doing this for decades and are known and respected by... I would like to think most... contributors. Once again, this new CoC doesn't allow any abuse the previous one didn't - it's just a CoC, maintaners and moderators can still act based on their own judgement. If abuses happen then we should certainly complain about them, but I don't think this CoC makes them any more likely than the previous one.

6 minutes ago, Aetheria said:

Are you comparing this hypothetical to some arsehat saying something arsehatted on his own twitter page about trans people in general? Those are the examples we have at hand. What are your referents in this instance?

I'm referring to an exaggeration made in the OP to try and prove the opposite point, I certainly wouldn't consider arsehattery to be comparable to murder.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

What is being suggested by the creator of this CoC in her post-meritocracy statement is that things like race and sexual orientation should play a key role when people are valued as contributors. Do you believe that a trans person should be valued above you at work if you are both doing the same things and doing it equally well?

 

 

I haven't followed her closely enough to be familiar with her views and actions in detail, so I don't know what she personally advocates for. But I couldn't actually find anything like this in the actual new CoC itself. Am I reading the right document?

 

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f

 

I've read that document multiple times now, and honestly, I don't think it's very spectacular, or anything worth getting upset about. Unless I'm reading the wrong thing. IDK.

 

As for your actual question: If my boss said to me "[Person X] is better because they are [part of minority Y].", then I would obviously consider that preposterous. But I don't see anything like that in the CoC. If the author of the CoC advocates for that, that's not really a fault with the CoC itself I think. But maybe I haven't found the right link or right document or am reading the wrong text, or have overseen a sentence or paragraph. Weirder things have been known to happen. It's easily possible that it's going to be badly enforced, but that's possible with any CoC -- even ours. It just depends on the mods, as  @Sauron says. It's not a problem with the text, it's a problem with its application.

 

In any case, most of the time, I try to stay way from FOSS drama -- too many fragile egos to deal with. My life's too short for that.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, alpenwasser said:

 

I haven't followed her closely enough to be familiar with her views and actions in detail, so I don't know what she personally advocates for. But I couldn't actually find anything like this in the actual new CoC itself. Am I reading the right document?

 

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f

 

I've read that document multiple times now, and honestly, I don't think it's very spectacular, or anything worth getting upset about. Unless I'm reading the wrong thing. IDK.

 

As for your actual question: If my boss said to me "[Person X] is better because they are [part of minority Y].", then I would obviously consider that preposterous. But I don't see anything like that in the CoC. If the author of the CoC advocates for that, that's not really a fault with the CoC itself I think. But maybe I haven't found the right link or right document or am reading the wrong text, or have overseen a sentence or paragraph. Weirder things have been known to happen. It's easily possible that it's going to be badly enforced, but that's possible with any CoC -- even ours. It just depends on the mods, as  @Sauron says. It's not a problem with the text, it's a problem with its application.

 

In any case, most of the time, I try to stay way from FOSS drama -- too many fragile egos to deal with. My life's too short for that.

I see why you are confused now.

The things about post-meritocracy is not part of the CoC. What I am referring to is part of the original CoC's author's other website called postmeritocracy.org. It was just a general comment I made about the author of the CoC so that people can better understand her ideology and motivations.

Her disdain for meritocracy is also explained on the CoC's website, which can be found here.

 

 

Anyway, according to the author of the CoC it is a political document out to attack "the status quo".

I believe the reason she says this is because she has at multiple times managed to use it as a tool to oppress certain people who do not share her political views.

As I explained earlier, it is worded vague in places where it benefits her agenda, and worded fairly explicitly in what punishment should be handed out, or what happens with a disagreement (It's designed so that the "offended side" has the upper-hand).

 

 

Here is a decent analysis of the CoC and why it's pretty much useless. The bold part is a response to the section of the CoC above it:

Quote

Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct

Our Pledge

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, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

 

Alright, this sounds great on casual inspection, but here's the thing that is wrong when you give it thought: Coding communities generally DO NOT CARE about most of this. Most may never meet in person and all they see is pull requests, commits, discussions on changes.

 

Second, harassment. This is pure bullshit. If someone is being an asshole, they can be banned without needing a CoC to enforce this. In fact, let me quote Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy novels:

"If you have to write your ethics rules down, you've already lost"

 

Practically all of this is common sense and the coding community is quite good at tossing out abusive assholes with their existing policies, and common sense dictates abusive assholes contribute nothing but drama and thus they get tossed out anyway.

 

And to close any loopholes arguments, someone like Linus Torvalds telling you your code sucks is NOT harassment or abuse, he's shitting on your code, not you, and since the code is raison d'etre of why you and anyone else is there, it is not a personal attack, it is frustration the code is bad, and should be taken as a call to improve it.

 

If you get upset by that, you clearly are unable to take criticism.

Our Standards

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment
include:

* Using welcoming and inclusive language
* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
* Focusing on what is best for the community
* Showing empathy towards other community members

 

This is mostly common sense crap no one needs this CoC for.

 

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

* The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or
advances

Well no shit. A coding environment is no place for this anyway, common sense again, this CoC is telling us crap anyone should know.

 

And if this is just veiled bitching some code strings might sound sexual, get your mind out of the gutter. It's code, not dirty language meant to offend people looking to cry over something.

 

* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks

 

Well, duh. I did not need this patronizing document to explain this.

 

* Public or private harassment

 

Again, duh. Bear in mind, OUTSIDE the coding project is beyond the coding projects purview, you need to contact the proper authorities. If you don't, it's your fault for not trying to deal with things appropriately.

 

* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission

 

Well, no shit. However, if you publish your email address in public anywhere, you can't complain later if it is republished. If you are referring to SSN numbers or something like that, again, common sense dictates this is not allowed anyway in every code community I am aware of, since it's illegal in every jurisdiction I'm aware of.

 

* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

 

This is pretty vague and unreasonable. It's basically a "whatever I don't like clause" and is a slippery slope to oust people for offending whatever fits your definition of this. This is flagrant bullshit and needs removed.

 

Our Responsibilities

Project maintainers are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.

 

Common Sense.txt.

 

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

 

Again, more weasely nonsense that gives god like power to remove anyone for offending you without clear definitions. This section is bullshit and should be amended to the following:

 

"Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors if the offense warrants such sanctions"

 

I purposely excised the "for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful." part because it's the same vague "whatever excuse I want to come up with depending on how I feel" BS I pointed out earlier and could be easily abused to drive out anyone the enforcer of this CoC sees fit according to whatever arbitrary whim they may have.

 

Scope

This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

 

All but the last sentence is fine. The last sentence is a thinly veiled way of giving an excuse for giving a code editor grief for behavior outside the scope defined by the rest of the paragraph, again, at the whim of the enforcer.

 

Enforcement

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting the project team at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The project team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.

 

This isn't too unreasonable, though as a transparency advocate, I would argue all but extremely sensitive cases (like that involving legal issues or private data) should be made public to ensure honesty on the enforcer's part.

 

Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other members of the project's leadership.

 

So decisions on sanctions are made by majority vote or by an arbitrary number of people on the project? This is vague and unhelpful, and yet another potential wedge for abuse.

 

Attribution

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 1.4, available at http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

snip

I see, thanks for that link.

 

I think the trouble with meritocracy here is what people understand it to mean, and how much importance they place on it. Most people I have talked with about the topic have focused very heavily on technical skills, neglecting or even entirely omitting social skills. That's also why I have been somewhat conditioned to it being a red flag for me, and I'll usually try to steer clear of environments which are obsessed with it. If somebody defines merit so narrowly, and then places it above anything and all else, I'm going to have to disagree with that. As you yourself said: People skills matter a lot.

 

If we define merit more broadly, to encompass many more aspects of the human experience, sure, it might become more useful.

 

But even then ... who decides what merit is, and how? Certainly, there are many metrics you can measure, but how to decide which metrics matter, and how much? And yes, you can notice if somebody has good people skills (or rather: somebody can convince you that they have), but it's not like you can just grade that and give them a 8/10 and that's a truly objectively correct measurement. And even in cases where clear metrics exist, how often and how rigorously are they actually applied by the decision-makers? You might be able to measure contribution frequency, compile times and execution speed, but when it comes to things like legibility, commenting quality and beauty of code, things are suddenly more subjective. But are those criteria irrelevant? At least to me, they're not. Your mileage may admittedly vary.

 

So as soon as you have things like that being taken into account (and I think they should be -- people may disagree with me on that, fair enough), you suddenly no longer have a truly objective measurement of a person's merit (and I think objectivity is a goal of a meritocracy, at least for the people with whom I have so far talked about this in my life). People contributing to different parts of a project under different supervisors will not be judged equally because they're not judged by the same people. I mean, just look at this forum: Sure, us moderators try to make the user experience as uniform as possible by talking to each other about problem cases and warnings before taking action, but even in a team which is relatively small compared to the Linux project, we do not always succeed, despite best intentions. And that's from people who are making an active effort -- people in other projects might not even bother with that.

 

And just like with the CoC itself, there's plenty of potential for abuse if the person above you in the food chain is an asshole who doesn't like you. Even if their criticisms are invalid and can be disproved, should it really be upon you to invest the time and energy to do that if you're donating your spare time to a FOSS project? Personally, I just wouldn't bother in such cases and stop contributing. I have enough interesting stuff to do in life where I don't have to deal with abrasive nincompoops.

 

So I suppose one of my main gripes with the term (not the concept, just the word itself) "meritocracy" is that it suggests a standard of objectivity which usually just does not exist. It's not a magical silver bullet which automatically leads to great results, but to many people (at least ones I've talked to), the word sort of implies precisely that (whether or not those people are correct in their assumptions is a different question of course). Yes, what we end up with in practice is sort of a meritocracy as well, as already said, but the term itself has very different connotations for many people.

 

And as said: The CoC just by itself doesn't really ellicit much emotion from me. There isn't really anything in there which I'd consider spectacular news. If she uses it as a tool of power, then that's more of a problem with her and the people listening to her, less with the bare text, I think. Most CoCs could be used for that, probably including our own.

 

Sorry for wall of text. :S

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Sauron said:

Yes, that's what the new CoC says, literally in the part you quoted.

Quote

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.

Yeah, you should focus more on the 

Quote

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.

There are a lot of things this does not include, like political alignment, criminal history etc. They are being intentionally specific and it's not inclusive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, PhantomTates said:

Yeah, you should focus more on the 

There are a lot of things this does not include, like political alignment, criminal history etc. They are being intentionally specific and it's not inclusive.

It also says "everyone". It doesn't matter how many things it specifies, everyone is included in everyone. There are potentially infinite differences one could list between two human beings, and since this list is only present in the mission statement it really doesn't matter how complete or incomplete it is.

 

In the following paragraph, the CoC says this:

Quote

* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences

is part of what everyone should be doing, and states this:

Quote

* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks

is unacceptable.

 

You're basically taking half of a sentence out of context, drawing far-fetched conclusions out of it and ignoring the rest of the document, in particular the parts that address your concerns.

 

@LAwLz that last link you posted basically complains that most of it is common sense or not strictly relevant to "most people" (citation needed), which... I mean... is that supposed to be a problem with it? Seriously? Or about things that literally where already there in the previous document.

Quote

* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

 

This is pretty vague and unreasonable. It's basically a "whatever I don't like clause" and is a slippery slope to oust people for offending whatever fits your definition of this. This is flagrant bullshit and needs removed.

I mean really? The code of conflict closed off with "be excellent to each other"... how is that not 100 times more vague than any of this? This just reinforces my suspicions that many of these people don't actually give a damn about the CoC, they just attack it because they disagree with the author politically and want an excuse to whine on how sJwS aRe RuInInG lInUx AnD eVeRyThInG eLsE i LiKe. I could "criticize" ANY document this way if I really wanted to, there is always something that could be interpreted as malicious or too vague.

Quote

It's code, not dirty language meant to offend people looking to cry over something.

How ironic considering he's the one who's visibly triggered and crying over 82 lines of non-legally-binding text.

Quote

And to close any loopholes arguments, someone like Linus Torvalds telling you your code sucks is NOT harassment or abuse, he's shitting on your code, not you, and since the code is raison d'etre of why you and anyone else is there, it is not a personal attack, it is frustration the code is bad, and should be taken as a call to improve it.

Torvalds SIGNED the new CoC... why are people so anxious to speak on his behalf when he has been perfectly capable of defending himself for 27 years? Also, Torvalds is THE maintainer of the master branch (temporary retirement or not) and the kernel belongs to him - he could shut everything down tomorrow if he wanted to and everyone else would have to scramble to fork it if they still wanted to use Linux.

 

Not to mention Linus himself wrote the code of conflict, which says and I quote:

Quote

If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable.

 

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

How ironic considering he's the one who's visibly triggered and crying over 82 lines of non-legally-binding text.

 

The dude seems like he has some serious anger issues.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Sauron said:

But back to the murderer example, what I said only holds true if the murder is unrelated to the community - if that guy went and murdered a fellow developer, do you think they should be allowed to keep contributing as if nothing happened?

Absolutely. Their code has nothing to do with their actions as a person. They should be held accountable for their crime, but that accountability should be held as a punishment against them directly. Scrubbing their code, or denying a merge that contributes meaningfully is just asinine. It doesn't matter who the code is from. A lot of people have very negative opinions of the NSA from a security perspective, but we don't scrub SELinux from the kernel just because of that. SELinux is a meaningful addition to Linux, it doesn't matter if it was made by the NSA, Jack the Ripper, or Susy the Firefighter.

 

5 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

I see, thanks for that link.

 

I think the trouble with meritocracy here is what people understand it to mean, and how much importance they place on it. Most people I have talked with about the topic have focused very heavily on technical skills, neglecting or even entirely omitting social skills. That's also why I have been somewhat conditioned to it being a red flag for me, and I'll usually try to steer clear of environments which are obsessed with it. If somebody defines merit so narrowly, and then places it above anything and all else, I'm going to have to disagree with that. As you yourself said: People skills matter a lot.

 

If we define merit more broadly, to encompass many more aspects of the human experience, sure, it might become more useful.

 

But even then ... who decides what merit is, and how? Certainly, there are many metrics you can measure, but how to decide which metrics matter, and how much? And yes, you can notice if somebody has good people skills (or rather: somebody can convince you that they have), but it's not like you can just grade that and give them a 8/10 and that's a truly objectively correct measurement. And even in cases where clear metrics exist, how often and how rigorously are they actually applied by the decision-makers? You might be able to measure contribution frequency, compile times and execution speed, but when it comes to things like legibility, commenting quality and beauty of code, things are suddenly more subjective. But are those criteria irrelevant? At least to me, they're not. Your mileage may admittedly vary.

I mean all of the stuff that you mentioned contributes to Merit. A politician's merit, their success, is on their ability to sway people to vote for them. A person in a job who's boss doesn't understand the value of the work done has merit based on their ability to convince their boss of value. That's all part of a meritocracy. 

 

The idea of a post-meritocracy is not to evaluate a person for what they do (whether technically, interpersonally, or personally) but rather to evaluate them for what they are. That what a person *is* should contribute as much towards their merit as what they *do*. It's literally the opposite of equality of opportunity, and is instead just a selective prejudice.

 

In theory you're prejudicing with the intent of balancing other existing prejudice, and in theory that might make sense, but in application it very rarely winds up being a tool used for that. Instead it seems like a lot of the community that promote this idealogy just use it to further enforce existing prejudice and widen the gap. Both sides of the political spectrum have their issues with this, I'm not going to say it's just the far left or far right. It's not helpful from either side.

 

If we want a truly level playing field we need to be removing prejudice, not just reinforcing it. Treating say, just as an example, Caucasians and Africans differently from each other just reinforces this idea that they *are* different. It reinforces the cultural divide between them, and gives the impression that there's a difference that needs to be corrected for even when that difference is entirely sociological and artificial.

 

5 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

So as soon as you have things like that being taken into account (and I think they should be -- people may disagree with me on that, fair enough), you suddenly no longer have a truly objective measurement of a person's merit (and I think objectivity is a goal of a meritocracy, at least for the people with whom I have so far talked about this in my life). People contributing to different parts of a project under different supervisors will not be judged equally because they're not judged by the same people. I mean, just look at this forum: Sure, us moderators try to make the user experience as uniform as possible by talking to each other about problem cases and warnings before taking action, but even in a team which is relatively small compared to the Linux project, we do not always succeed, despite best intentions. And that's from people who are making an active effort -- people in other projects might not even bother with that.

 

And just like with the CoC itself, there's plenty of potential for abuse if the person above you in the food chain is an asshole who doesn't like you. Even if their criticisms are invalid and can be disproved, should it really be upon you to invest the time and energy to do that if you're donating your spare time to a FOSS project? Personally, I just wouldn't bother in such cases and stop contributing. I have enough interesting stuff to do in life where I don't have to deal with abrasive nincompoops.

 

So I suppose one of my main gripes with the term (not the concept, just the word itself) "meritocracy" is that it suggests a standard of objectivity which usually just does not exist. It's not a magical silver bullet which automatically leads to great results, but to many people (at least ones I've talked to), the word sort of implies precisely that (whether or not those people are correct in their assumptions is a different question of course). Yes, what we end up with in practice is sort of a meritocracy as well, as already said, but the term itself has very different connotations for many people.

Meritocracy is not necessarily a large scale thing though. Meritocracy can exist within scopes of a workforce, not just a workforce as a whole. It can exist withing specific demographics, not just society as a whole. The Meritocracy you're arguing against is not the same meritocracy this author is arguing against. What you're arguing for is the meritocracy that she's arguing against. She's not arguing against the idea of valuing people for their *technical* skills over other skills, she's arguing against judging people for their skills in general instead of valuing their demographics.

 

Ultimately meritocracy is about skills. All those things you put on a resume or in your CV when you apply to a job, "I'm great at working with teams and can help bring a positive atmosphere to your workforce", "I've been programming for 30 years and have a ton of experience with development across a variety of languages", "I have a great deal of patience and can work through issues to help resolve a customer and turn a negative review to a positive!" are all part of your merit and are all things that, in a normal workforce, you're rewarded for. Cultural bias and prejudice undermines that meritocracy, but the solution isn't to impose more bias on top of it. It's to break down the barriers between separate groups so that instead of "white people" and "black people" making different amounts of money, you just have 'people" making money.

 

And just to be clear I used caucasian and african examples throughout these two replies but that's just because it's an easy and convenient example. The same applies regardless of the demographic you're talking about. Whether it's other races, age based discrimination, sex based discrimination, sexual orientation, or favorite colour. The thing that contributes to everyone being treated differently *is* everybody being seen differently. Treating them differently just reinforces those differences, it doesn't break them down.

 

5 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

And as said: The CoC just by itself doesn't really ellicit much emotion from me. There isn't really anything in there which I'd consider spectacular news. If she uses it as a tool of power, then that's more of a problem with her and the people listening to her, less with the bare text, I think. Most CoCs could be used for that, probably including our own.

 

Sorry for wall of text. :S

The biggest problem I have with it, is the exact same as the one that @LAwLz brought up from the Ruby Dev. There's very specific punishments specified not just for violating the CoC but also for selective or discretionary enforcement of the CoC. If you have a really tight knit community who talk to one another and communicate well that's one thing because those rules themselves can be selectively enforced, but with a community as diverse, widespread, and intermittent as the Linux community, new people in positions of authority are very likely to see those in the CoC and assume that they are strictly applied.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

@LAwLzAbsolutely. Their code has nothing to do with their actions as a person. They should be held accountable for their crime, but that accountability should be held as a punishment against them directly. Scrubbing their code, or denying a merge that contributes meaningfully is just asinine. It doesn't matter who the code is from. A lot of people have very negative opinions of the NSA from a security perspective, but we don't scrub SELinux from the kernel just because of that. SELinux is a meaningful addition to Linux, it doesn't matter if it was made by the NSA, Jack the Ripper, or Susy the Firefighter.

Their actions INSIDE the community should absolutely be grounds to expel them from it - I never said their previous additions should be removed, but if they can't work with other people in a professional manner they do more harm than good and should leave the community.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Sauron said:

Their actions INSIDE the community should absolutely be grounds to expel them from it - I never said their previous additions should be removed, but if they can't work with other people in a professional manner they do more harm than good and should leave the community.

FOSS shouldn't be a closed walled garden. It's not something where there should be any distinction between "inside" the community and "outside" the community. You shouldn't be "a part" of the community or not and you certainly shouldn't be expelled from it. The "us vs them" tribe mentality needs to stop. People are people.

 

Code is code. Some people are good, some people are bad. Some code is good, some code is bad. Good code from bad people is still good code. Bad code from good people is still bad code. Good code should be merged, bad code should be expelled. Good people should be encouraged to work on projects, bad people shouldn't be.

 

But if a bad person does all of the work and fixes a problem to refuse to merge the code out of spite for them is asninine and frankly ridiculous. Principles are great, but not when they get in the way of making the project better.

 

Your comment reminds me of the Sway devs who said that even if a third party put in all the work to develop patch code for their wayland implimentation to work Nvidia's EGLStreams driver they wouldn't merge it because nvidia are jerks. Okay nvidia are jerks? So? Refusing to merge it does nothing to hurt them. Do you know who it does hurt? Your users.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

If we define merit more broadly, to encompass many more aspects of the human experience, sure, it might become more useful.

Others have already addressed this, but yes, meritocracy means more than just your technical knowledge.  It encompasses all aspects of your skill set needed to do the job.  I work at a computer store, where we do repairs and sell parts/systems.  For the repair side, obviously a technical background is needed to do the job; but if you can't interact well with customers or your own co-workers, then you're not going to last long.  The ability to both repair systems effectively and deal with customers properly, falls directly under the heading of a meritocracy.

13 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

But even then ... who decides what merit is, and how?

I would think that would be obvious, whomever is in charge of hiring/promoting you.

13 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

And yes, you can notice if somebody has good people skills (or rather: somebody can convince you that they have), but it's not like you can just grade that and give them a 8/10 and that's a truly objectively correct measurement. And even in cases where clear metrics exist, how often and how rigorously are they actually applied by the decision-makers?

There will always be an inherent bias on the part of the reviewer.  No matter how hard one tries to be neutral, humans will always have biases.  How extreme those biases are will vary wildly from person to person.  If you want to live in an unbiased world.....well, I hate to break it to you, but It's never going to happen.  As an example, I use the SCOTUS nomination (brought to mind by the recent manufactured drama in the Kavanaugh hearing).  In a normal interview process for the SCOTUS, they don't ask if the person has a bias, because they expect that they will.  What they focus on, is whether the individual can put aside their bias to deal with the law in an impartial manner.  That's all you can expect of anyone doing a review for hiring or promotion.

13 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

People contributing to different parts of a project under different supervisors will not be judged equally because they're not judged by the same people.

So, what's your alternative solution?  What else works besides a merit-based system?

13 hours ago, alpenwasser said:

It's not a magical silver bullet which automatically leads to great results, but to many people (at least ones I've talked to), the word sort of implies precisely that

It sounds to me like your issue isn't with a meritocracy (you even admit to ending up with basically a meritocracy anyway), it's with people who misconstrue the term.  That can be applied to pretty much any subject throughout history.  There will always be those who - intentionally or not - abuse a system, because they either don't or won't understand it properly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 20/09/2018 at 9:57 AM, LAwLz said:

Github projects about how they are sexist and not "diverse" enough

now, what the actual fuck

ASUS X470-PRO • R7 1700 4GHz • Corsair H110i GT P/P • 2x MSI RX 480 8G • Corsair DP 2x8 @3466 • EVGA 750 G2 • Corsair 730T • Crucial MX500 250GB • WD 4TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

FOSS shouldn't be a closed walled garden. It's not something where there should be any distinction between "inside" the community and "outside" the community. You shouldn't be "a part" of the community or not and you certainly shouldn't be expelled from it. The "us vs them" tribe mentality needs to stop. People are people.

I'm sorry but that gets you nowhere. When thousands of people work on a project there needs to be some coordination and some professional courtesy between members of the team. FOSS gives you the ability to fork it and do your own thing, not to barge into the mainline code and act how you wish. It's not a matter of us vs them, it's a matter of trying to get things done. This is true of every major project, if you join the KDE community and start acting like a douche you'd better believe you'll be kicked out eventually.

 

(on a side note, humanity doesn't deserve the kde project luke_love48x48.png.d7f75937cd5cc1b948d8d8dd54f3de73.png bless their souls)

14 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Code is code. Some people are good, some people are bad. Some code is good, some code is bad. Good code from bad people is still good code. Bad code from good people is still bad code. Good code should be merged, bad code should be expelled. Good people should be encouraged to work on projects, bad people shouldn't be.

You might be surprised by how much debate there is around what "good code" is. There is no universal metric and almost nobody is too good to be replaced. Most people with some professional coding background will be able to produce functional code that solves the problem it's supposed to; the rockstar programmer is mostly a myth. In a project with thousands of contributors, one asshole with great code is usually not worth the pain in the ass that is working with them - and by asshole I don't mean being blunt when criticizing code, I mean harassing and bullying other contributors. I don't know if this is a common problem in the community and if so how widespread it is, but if anyone fits that description they need to go.

15 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

But if a bad person does all of the work and fixes a problem to refuse to merge the code out of spite for them is asninine and frankly ridiculous. Principles are great, but not when they get in the way of making the project better.

See above, that's just not a thing; not to mention one doesn't simply come out of nowhere with a massive kernel patch and manage to be considered an asshole by the community in a day's work. There are steps people take to start contributing to Linux and by the time you get to work on really crucial stuff you'd think people would have your human skills figured out.

 

The "best" contributors aren't the ones who pull a miraculous patch out of their butts every so often - they are the ones who dedicate the most time to the project and help coordinate development. You can't do that if you can't interact with people in a respectful manner.

15 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Your comment reminds me of the Sway devs who said that even if a third party put in all the work to develop patch code for their wayland implimentation to work Nvidia's EGLStreams driver they wouldn't merge it because nvidia are jerks. Okay nvidia are jerks? So? Refusing to merge it does nothing to hurt them. Do you know who it does hurt? Your users.

That's not what this is though. As you might imagine, a lot of people in the kernel community don't exactly like microsoft and yet plenty of MS employees contribute to Linux in a peaceful and professional way. That's all anyone is asking - that whatever you do, you do with some common courtesy and respect, at least within kernel dev team channels.

8 hours ago, aezakmi said:

now, what the actual fuck

The actual CoC says nothing of the sort, I suggest you read it if you haven't, it's just 82 lines and they are pretty short.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

LINUS TORVALDS PLEASE COME BACK AND SAVE YOUR PROJECT!

Computer users fall into two groups:
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Not reading the whole thing, lol. But I know a little on this.

 

As a TLDR anything (whether a CoC, gov law or company recruitment guideline) that actively discriminates on the base of gender, race or sexuality is discrimination. Don't give a dam what genitals they have, what colour their skin is blah blah, IT IS DISCRIMINATION. That "they need the help" argument is silly. Not only does it just continue a cycle of discrimination (the best way to turn people against each other is by giving someone else advantages for BS reasons), but it can only really be argued if you believe said race/gender/sexuality is interior... unless they're trying to argue the gov (that apparently allows this/does it themselves....) discriminates (I mean, they do... affirmative action...)

 

This probably sounds rough, that's because it is. Can't be bothered typing out the whole thing because I'm pretty sure this is common sense to anyone that has taken the time to think about it.

 

Anyways, I'm sure no one wants to here my politics and to be honest I really don't want to either. Politics just irritates me, and unless there's a point to posting, there's no point to take the time to type this out (who woulda guessed something with no point would have no point :facepalm:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 20/09/2018 at 12:43 PM, wasab said:

So the most productive Linux contributors must be very nice people then?

If that's the case, I guess Linus Torvalds should just quit and get a real job because he obviously is the meanest person in the Linux world. 

https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2014/04/linus-torvalds-rants.aspx?m=1

you all should know that he is not a shield for bad behavior anymore... https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-takes-a-break-from-linux/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 21/09/2018 at 5:42 AM, LAwLz said:

[...]

What is being suggested by the creator of this CoC in her post-meritocracy statement is that things like race and sexual orientation should play a key role when people are valued as contributors. 

That is so not true! Try to find these words "race" or "sexual orientation" in the manifesto, they are not there! The statement that calls for diversity of identities, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives also does not say that this should be taken as a key role, but that it should be harnessed because "Homogeneity is an antipattern".

 

https://postmeritocracy.org/ 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 9/25/2018 at 1:32 PM, N1NJ4W4RR10R said:

Not reading the whole thing, lol. But I know a little on this.

 

As a TLDR anything (whether a CoC, gov law or company recruitment guideline) that actively discriminates on the base of gender, race or sexuality is discrimination. Don't give a dam what genitals they have, what colour their skin is blah blah, IT IS DISCRIMINATION. That "they need the help" argument is silly. Not only does it just continue a cycle of discrimination (the best way to turn people against each other is by giving someone else advantages for BS reasons), but it can only really be argued if you believe said race/gender/sexuality is interior... unless they're trying to argue the gov (that apparently allows this/does it themselves....) discriminates (I mean, they do... affirmative action...)

 

This probably sounds rough, that's because it is. Can't be bothered typing out the whole thing because I'm pretty sure this is common sense to anyone that has taken the time to think about it.

 

Anyways, I'm sure no one wants to here my politics and to be honest I really don't want to either. Politics just irritates me, and unless there's a point to posting, there's no point to take the time to type this out (who woulda guessed something with no point would have no point :facepalm:)

Can you show me the line in the new CoC where it "actively discriminates on the basis of gender, race or sexuality"?

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Can you show me the line in the new CoC where it "actively discriminates on the basis of gender, race or sexuality"?

Apologies, appears I got the one that wrote the CoC this is based upon mixed up with the CoC itself.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

It is the duty of all sane, responsible people to oppose the SJW cult in all of its forms, wherever it exists, and whenever it attempts to. The Linux CoC is just another (successful so far) attempt to impose PC tyranny/censorship/repression on the Linux community.

 

There is no evidence that the Linux/FOSS community has ever been intolerant and hateful towards anyone. With some effort, a few example of sexism, racism, etc. could no doubt be found (could they?). However, they would be dwarfed by the staggering volume of invective and hatred targeting whites, males, conservatives, Christians, etc. The fact that anyone can contribute with whatever degree of anonymity has always assured that equality prevails.

 

Three points come immediately to mind.

 

The author of the CoC is Coraline Ada Ehmke. To call him/her/it/? an extremist would be a bit of an understatement. He/she/it/? is a fanatical opponent of “meritocracy’. He/she/it/? has literally said “Meritocracy is a dystopian delusion and needs to be rooted out wherever it takes hold” (I guess the real world has to go). A better argument might that Coraline and his/her/its/? “allies” need to be rooted out wherever they have taken hold.

 

Coraline has stated that “humanity” is more important than competence. What does “humanity” mean to him/her/it? Nothing less than unthinking, unquestioning devotion to her/his/its/? notion of ideological purity. If you think for yourself, you are not “humane” and must be expelled.

 

The following Tweet show how tolerant he/she/it/? is.

 

“Punch diversity of thought in the face”

 

Of course, we have been here before. Under Mao, the dominant ideology was straight from Caroline (“better red than expert’). Predictably, 10s of millions died from starvation as a consequence. The Nazis had “Jewish Science”. The list of ideological fanatics goes on and on

 

Some folks have argued that criticizing Coraline is an ad-hominem attack. That’s a valid point. However, focusing just on the CoC doesn’t make it any better. The following is a quote from the CoC.

 

“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.”

 

Sounds reasonable (it isn’t). However, notice what’s missing. According to the CoC it’s entirely OK to attack people for their nationality, politics, social class, and/or criminal history. However, there is more to the CoC.

 

Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

 

In other words, if you dare to utter a non-PC thought anywhere, you will be attacked, shunned, banned, and exiled. Don’t believe me. Take a look at the OpalGate debacle (Coraline was a major player in that one). A person by the name of Elia made comments on Twitter that trans activists didn’t like. Whatever the merits of his comments, they had nothing to do with his contributions to the Open Source community. Coraline insisted that he be expelled anyway.

 

Of course, it gets worse. A person (he/she/it/?) by the name of Sage Sharp attacked a Linux TAB member by the name of Ted Tso, as a “rape apologist”. What horrible thing did Ted Tso actually do? He use actual statistics to debunk feminist lies about the prevalence of rape. See “[LCA2011-Chat] Some Anti-Harassment Policies considered harmful”. Anyone can read Ted Tso’s online comments and see that he is no ‘rape apologist’. The charge is patently absurd.

 

So why did Sage Sharp go bonkers when Ted Tso’s only crime was using facts? Because SJW’s are a cult with set of “Sacred Beliefs”. Sacred Beliefs don’t have to be true, indeed most are crazy fictions. However, they are Sacred. Ted Tso committed the ultimate crime of challenging a Sacred Belief with facts. Just as in Mao’s China or the USSR under Stalin, the worst possible crime is a thought crime.

 

It almost like he dared to suggest that the Earth orbits the Sun. Everyone knows that’s a fiction.

 

This note should how that the CoC isn’t harmless or “just being nice”. It is an attempt on the part of vile people to impose their Fascism, bigotry, and hate on everyone else. Fight SJW Fascism. Fight the PC Gestapo. Fight them now. Fight them forever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

It is the duty of all sane, responsible people to oppose the SJW cult in all of its forms, wherever it exists, and whenever it attempts to. The Linux CoC is just another (successful so far) attempt to impose PC tyranny/censorship/repression on the Linux community.

 

There is no evidence that the Linux/FOSS community has ever been intolerant and hateful towards anyone. With some effort, a few example of sexism, racism, etc. could no doubt be found (could they?). However, they would be dwarfed by the staggering volume of invective and hatred targeting whites, males, conservatives, Christians, etc. The fact that anyone can contribute with whatever degree of anonymity has always assured that equality prevails.

 

Three points come immediately to mind.

 

The author of the CoC is Coraline Ada Ehmke. To call him/her/it/? an extremist would be a bit of an understatement. He/she/it/? is a fanatical opponent of “meritocracy’. He/she/it/? has literally said “Meritocracy is a dystopian delusion and needs to be rooted out wherever it takes hold” (I guess the real world has to go). A better argument might that Coraline and his/her/its/? “allies” need to be rooted out wherever they have taken hold.

 

Coraline has stated that “humanity” is more important than competence. What does “humanity” mean to him/her/it? Nothing less than unthinking, unquestioning devotion to her/his/its/? notion of ideological purity. If you think for yourself, you are not “humane” and must be expelled.

 

The following Tweet show how tolerant he/she/it/? is.

 

“Punch diversity of thought in the face”

 

Of course, we have been here before. Under Mao, the dominant ideology was straight from Caroline (“better red than expert’). Predictably, 10s of millions died from starvation as a consequence. The Nazis had “Jewish Science”. The list of ideological fanatics goes on and on

 

Some folks have argued that criticizing Coraline is an ad-hominem attack. That’s a valid point. However, focusing just on the CoC doesn’t make it any better. The following is a quote from the CoC.

 

“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.”

 

Sounds reasonable (it isn’t). However, notice what’s missing. According to the CoC it’s entirely OK to attack people for their nationality, politics, social class, and/or criminal history. However, there is more to the CoC.

 

Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

 

In other words, if you dare to utter a non-PC thought anywhere, you will be attacked, shunned, banned, and exiled. Don’t believe me. Take a look at the OpalGate debacle (Coraline was a major player in that one). A person by the name of Elia made comments on Twitter that trans activists didn’t like. Whatever the merits of his comments, they had nothing to do with his contributions to the Open Source community. Coraline insisted that he be expelled anyway.

 

Of course, it gets worse. A person (he/she/it/?) by the name of Sage Sharp attacked a Linux TAB member by the name of Ted Tso, as a “rape apologist”. What horrible thing did Ted Tso actually do? He use actual statistics to debunk feminist lies about the prevalence of rape. See “[LCA2011-Chat] Some Anti-Harassment Policies considered harmful”. Anyone can read Ted Tso’s online comments and see that he is no ‘rape apologist’. The charge is patently absurd.

 

So why did Sage Sharp go bonkers when Ted Tso’s only crime was using facts? Because SJW’s are a cult with set of “Sacred Beliefs”. Sacred Beliefs don’t have to be true, indeed most are crazy fictions. However, they are Sacred. Ted Tso committed the ultimate crime of challenging a Sacred Belief with facts. Just as in Mao’s China or the USSR under Stalin, the worst possible crime is a thought crime.

 

It almost like he dared to suggest that the Earth orbits the Sun. Everyone knows that’s a fiction.

 

This note should how that the CoC isn’t harmless or “just being nice”. It is an attempt on the part of vile people to impose their Fascism, bigotry, and hate on everyone else. Fight SJW Fascism. Fight the PC Gestapo. Fight them now. Fight them forever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×