Hi, I can't help but notice Wouter that your language is changing a bit more aggressively with each e-mail. First it's an ideology. Later in the day all of a sudden it's an extreme ideology. How does a rainbow flag resemble an extreme ideology? From your e-mails posted here and in the factory mailinglist I gather you are no fan of the LGBTQIA+ movement. But to call a minority group that has to endure abuse day in and day out an extreme ideology, really? To surmise, I find your intentions less than friendly, not to say hostile. Hostile towards a minority group. I am not sure how this movement may have wronged you. What I do know is that you're victimizing yourself at the expense of other people, which is not 'nice' in my book. As for the happenings of your unfortunate friend we lack the context in which his firing came about. Regards, Natasha Op ma 29 mei 2023 20:39 schreef Wouter Onebekend <wouter.onebekend@proton.me>:
Hello,
On Mo, Mai 29 2023 at 15:29:40 +0000, Wouter Onebekend wouter.onebekend@proton.me wrote:
For me, it's disheartening to hear codices of conduct being proposed everywhere one steps. There's reams upon reams of legal disclaimers, CLAs and things you are supposed to do or not do. Can't people just treat each other decently of their own accord? Do they really need codices of conduct and hall monitors everywhere? And if they do, does it have to be as shoddy a piece of paralegal work with ambiguous language that lends itself to abuse by those in power? These codices of conduct do not work like law at all. There is no precision, there is no presumption of innocence, there is no clear definition of wrongdoing - nothing of the sort.
Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if people treated each other well by default, without assuming malice and accusing each other of following an extreme ideology because they have a set of guidelines on how to behave in a space?
I have seen too much malicious abuse of codices of conduct by followers of an extreme ideology to give such documents the benefit of the doubt anymore. Funnily enough, followers of said extreme ideology can violate such codices of conduct at will as long as it is in the service of fighting their sworn enemies.
No we have not. Compare
https://web.archive.org/web/20080208093107/https://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_C...
to the monstrosity of pitfalls it has grown into:
https://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_Conduct
The former is a short reminder to treat people decently the way I outlined above. Nothing more, nothing less. The current one is a long list of protected categories that are beyond criticism by virtue of being listed as protected categories, very vaguely defined transgressions that allow for a case to be made from anythin and catchall clauses extending the reach of openSUSE into people's private life such as the
"openSUSE reserves the right to take actions against behaviors that happen in any context, if they are deemed to be relevant to the openSUSE project and its participants."
one. The blame definitely does not lie with Novell. I am not that familiar with the document's history but I can say that much with certainty.
I did intentionally point at Guiding Principles because I know that code of conduct was just one paragraph out of them before. Guiding principles do mention how involved Novell was at that point, you should have a look there (on old-en.opensuse.org since there is an archived version which doesn't require you to go to archive.org). I'm fully aware of what the previous code of conduct looked like though, and how vague it was about everything it mentioned. That vagueness was a great way to justify banning nearly anyone for their "social discrimination" based on whatever that meant for whoever was moderating the platform you were on.
Did that sort of thing actually happen back in Novell times? I only got involved at an unspecified point in time in the last decade, and other than requesting the odd package inclusion on the factory list I did not really post on - or read - any mailing lists (or hang out on IRC a lot for that matter). I only stumbled upon this discussion by accident and it reminded me of various goings on (codices of conduct, people getting cancelled for views that collided with the radical lefts') I saw in other open source projects. Things have gotten very hostile. Everywhere. And the hostilities always break out across the same dividing lines of "let's have a rainbow flag (or more recently Ukraine flag)"/"let's introduce a code of conduct"/"let's rename our 'master' branch to 'main"/"let's police our code for non-inclusive words" and "let's leave things as they are". Most places the people in the "let's leave things as they are" get forced to shut up on pain of getting thrown out or leave of their own accord. This is a fairly recent development. I did not keep statistics but this encroaching of politics on every open source project happened over the last 5 years, I'd say.
The jury is still out on that. He's doing <something not gainful employment; sorry about being vague here but his life's story is none of the general public's business> right now using up savings. I've offered to put in a good word for him with my employer, but he declined, not wanting to endanger me by referring what might be a bad apple for said employer should he speak out about the things that gall him again. He's not too keen on ending up in an environment just like his previous job again.
And that right there, along with what you said is the core problem. It is awfully hard to be surrounded by people who don't accept you. And harder still to maintain a facade of being like them at all times as seems to be necessary. His facade cracked. He got fired. He's probably right to be worried about dragging me into it. The only difference between us is that he publicly uttered wrongthink (yes, I believe the Orwellian term is quite right here) and may do so again whereas I am careful not to, despite largely sharing his views. Either of these two paths sucks, just in different ways.
The "good" people are causing a lot of grief out there. It's just grief that's never visible because it only affects "bad" people.
I don't really think that the issue lies within the people but rather the systems. Being able to ruin somebody by just firing them is an inexcusable error of the system we live in.
Exacerbated by no-strings-attached, no-consequences-for-the-reporter-ever reporting and flagging systems and processes everywhere.
People should not end up in a situation where their life is endangered like that, especially in a society that keeps replacing various industries with new ones, creating gaps in the market for people that would have to learn an entirely new thing in order to sustain themselves. It's inhumane.
That point of view is a credit to you, but it is not common at all. There is no code of conduct reining in those that will gladly cut off this means of sustenance through smear campaigns. And as far as I can tell they have absolutely zero qualms about their action. That friend of mine who got fired...he kept in touch with a few former colleagues who were as appalled at their company's and the snitches' behavior. Said former colleagues reported the participants of the smear campaign were celebrating the fact he was out on the street - zero regret. Events like these is what I'd like to sow a few doubts about. For I do not believe they are worthy of celebration at all.
Regards,
An Anonymous Techie