
Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter - inian
https://www.drupalconfessions.org/
======
Udo
Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we're actually
talking about (which wasn't made especially clear otherwise):

 _> > "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that
women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order
is for men to dominate and lead."

Even assuming this is Larry's philosophy, it is pretty much the same
philosophy shared by many women & men in various conservative religious
faiths, including branches of Christianity, Judaism, & Islam—only they add in
the idea that it is divinely ordered. Are we now going to expel all who hold
such religious beliefs? <<_

I agree this philosophy is hard to swallow, but the commenter's point about
religious belief is well made. Apart from the issue that this is in fact a
widely-held belief I would suggest communities allow their members to hold
_any_ belief in private, as long as that belief is not in some way construed
as a community value, and as long as that person does not _act_ based on that
belief during community interactions.

It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty _have_ to work with
people who believe all kinds of things, and they have to work with you.
Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that it's even feasible to have good
relationships and friendships with people we fundamentally disagree with.

In this context, if you're running an open source project, it's expected that
people hold an even more varied spectrum of beliefs than would be the case in
a traditional company. As long as members can professionally conduct
themselves in that environment, firing them is not a productive solution.
Presumably the person in question has pledged to uphold Drupal's community
values and at first glance it looks like that pledge has not been broken.

~~~
Pxtl
This is where professionalism is important. Firmly separating your personal
life and your professional life.

That said, there's a huge gap between a religion a person is imparted with as
a child, and philosophy they chose as an adult and have jumped into with both
feet.

Many people come from backgrounds with bigoted ideas like that, but they don't
colour their daily lives with it because they're not actively married to the
idea - it's just part of the box of stuff they grew up believing passively.

This, on the other hand, is an active _choice_. An active decision that women
are our lessers. That's far more serious. I have a lot more trouble with the
idea of politely ignoring somebody who actively evangelizes this kind of idea
rather than being simply passively being raised with it.

Where do you draw the line? How far do you go in ignoring the fact that key
people in your community are, to be blunt: hateful?

Marvel Comics recently fired an illustrator for hiding Islamist, anti-Semitic
and anti-Christian references in his art. His ideas were "normal" in his
country - should that have been ignored? Reprimanded as long as he kept his
politics out of his art?

~~~
tps5
I don't think you get it.

It doesn't matter what some guy posts on some message board (unless it's a
threat, an incitement of violence, or something along those lines). It doesn't
matter if he says he believes in "Gorean philosophy," whatever the hell that
is.

What matters are his actions. If he's treating women disrespectfully then, by
all means, throw him out. But he's allowed to believe whatever the hell he
wants, and the idea that he should face repercussions for his beliefs is
wrong, whatever age he was when he came to those beliefs.

Sure, there's going to be some correlation between holding misogynistic
beliefs and inappropriate behavior toward women, but we don't punish the
beliefs, we just punish the behavior. That's what makes this a free society.

~~~
Pxtl
I _do_ get it. That's why I started from the important of professionalism, of
separating the professional from the personal. But I'm also pointing out the
other side: that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing crosses the line. If it
was just his _beliefs_ we wouldn't know about them in the first place. But
obviously, we know about them, which means it's not just his beliefs it's his
statements.

If I went around on some other private forum and said "tps5 is sub-human and
should be subservient to me" you'd have reason to say "I will not work with
Pxtl and I'm disappointed that this project is working with him, his behavior
is seriously not okay".

If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share
attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that
more or less okay?

~~~
tps5
> If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share
> attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that
> more or less okay?

Yeah, it's okay.

I would say that, because we are coworkers, you are obligated to treat me
respectfully, whatever your personal beliefs. If you treat me poorly, and I
complain, the issue is the fact that you treated me poorly, not your whacko
belief system.

If this guy behaved improperly towards women, then I have no problem with him
being "removed from the community." But posting X whacko opinion on Y message
board should not hurt you professionally. That applies equally to racism and
holocaust-denial and whatever other fringe beliefs you can come up with.

~~~
Frondo
I'm not sure it's possible to have certain views and maintain a respectful
workplace environment, full stop.

To make an extreme hypothetical: You have a white supremacist coworker and a
black coworker. The white supremacist always treats your black coworker with
respect, kindness, and compassion. She also openly admits that, nothing
personal, but she believes black folks are inferior and should be
expelled/exterminated. Ask the black coworker, is he being treated poorly?

What's the resolution in this situation? If he knows how she feels, but she is
nice to him, how do you propose resolving that?

~~~
ng12
Why is she openly admitting it? If she brings it to work that's the problem.

~~~
Frondo
What if she were out marching with a white power rally on the weekend, and the
black coworker happened to see her there?

What's that going to be like on the following Monday? If asked, in this
hypothetical, is she supposed to lie?

"So, Jean, I saw you at a white power rally...you were holding an effigy of a
hanged black person...what's that about?"

Or, contrive _any_ situation in which her views on her black colleague (i.e.
that, although she treats him with kindness and respect, she considers him
subhuman and would like to exile/exterminate him and everyone who looks like
him) were brought into the workplace.

If the white supremacist coworker doesn't bring up her white supremacist views
at work, ever, and treats her black colleague with kindness and respect, at
work, but outside the office does not conceal her views, and when asked
directly does not lie about them ("Yes, Jim, I'd kill every black person if I
could"), how do you resolve the tension that's going to arise from that?

Tell the black colleague, "Jim, don't ask Jean about her white supremacy."?
How's Jim supposed to feel about working with her, knowing what he knows about
Jean?

~~~
ng12
I think the line is "undue hardship". There's a legal precedent that the
accusation of accommodation of religious beliefs causing undue hardship
"generally requires evidence that the accommodation would actually infringe on
the rights of co-workers or cause disruption of work" [1] -- I'd argue the
same goes for any personal belief system. In this scenario Jean is an asshole
but I don't think it causes Jim undue hardship if she never discusses it at
work. Jim has no legal right to like his coworkers, nor does Jean have to be
liked. However, if she hung a Nazi flag by her desk it would be a different
story.

1\.
[https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2009/religionhandshak...](https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2009/religionhandshakeletter.redacted%20for%20posting.final.html)

~~~
Frondo
I would like to find out what people who have been traditionally been the
target of white supremacy groups would say to your reply. I would like to know
if they would consider it acceptable, given the history and context of white
supremacy and the violence toward minorities that it's led to.

I wonder if they would be OK with, "well, Jean marches with a group calling
for your extermination, and you know, throughout history, there's been a lot
of violence from them to people who look like you, but since she doesn't bring
it up at work, deal with it."

I think I'll ask around with my POC friends, in that ham-fisted way white
folks always end up asking about these things ("So, I don't want you to speak
for all people of color, but ... I'm hashing something out on the internet
with some stranger who's probably also a hetero white guy, and ...").

My hunch is, knowing your coworker wishes for the extermination of your people
would be considered hostile and unacceptable, especially by those people
historically targeted by white supremacist violence, even if she's nice to
your face. Like, I imagine you'd have the same tension with a card-carrying
nazi and a Jewish colleague who lost family in the holocaust.

~~~
ng12
I like your assumption that I only have this opinion become I'm insulated from
it. What if I were a homosexual who's had conservative Christian and
conservative Muslim coworkers? It's not a hostile environment as long as each
group treats the other with respect.

To be clear: I think card carrying Nazis are abhorrent and would rather not
interact with them. I also thinking banning them from an apolitical volunteer
group where they do not volunteer their views is wrong.

~~~
Frondo
Well, yeah, I did make that assumption, and I will do so again the next time I
talk to someone on the internet who defers to rules and tells hypothetical
minorities to just deal with hypothetical white supremacists. Based on the
conversations I have had in the past, both with people who endure this stuff
and people who are insulated from it, it really sounds a lot more like you're
insulated from that situation than someone who's had to deal with it. That
whole response sounds lacking in empathy for the people who, hypothetically
speaking, endure having coworkers wish for their expulsion/death.

Also, in the hypothetical, we were talking about a workplace, not a volunteer
group. As for whether card-carrying nazis should be allowed to join apolitical
volunteer groups, I think that each group can surely decide for themselves,
and this is exactly where a code of conduct would apply, e.g. "nazis welcome"
makes it clear up front that nazis aren't going to be uninvited for their
views. Then everyone else can make the call whether _they_ want to be involved
with the Drupal-with-nazis fork or the Drupal-without-nazis fork.

~~~
ng12
Because a workplace is fundamentally different. In the US an employer can fire
an employee for any reason, they also have no obligation do to fire any given
employee for their views. It's kind of a moot point.

You know a lot of people who have worked with Nazis? If you do I feel bad for
those people but it doesn't alter my views. Claiming your position is the
moral high ground doesn't really lend any credence to your argument.

------
ghettoCoder
Nothing surprising to see here. This is why I seldom bother getting involved
in open source projects and NEVER use my real name. Large, interesting
projects are too much like this and groups quickly form using the same BS as
in high school only now "wrong brand of shoes" gets replaced with "incorrect
values". Whatever that heck that means.

I'm still not clear why anyone would care how he gets off on his own time, in
the privacy of his home. If this is really a thing then other "identifiable"
groups might want to prepare for when the pendulum swing back and then they
themselves are holding "incorrect values".

edit: removed not

------
EamonnMR
Some context:

Garfield's statement:

[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
outing](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing)

Executive Director's statement:

[https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-
the...](https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the-
executive-director)

~~~
nebabyte
> > So if and only if Larry did not violate the Code of Conduct, then
> apologize to Larry and rescind your request to remove himself from the
> community (if there was a violation, provide the details to Larry and
> confirm to the public)

TL;DR : Please continue iff there was a violation we don't know about

> We want to be clear that the decision to remove Larry's DrupalCon session
> and track chair role was not because of his private life or personal
> beliefs. The Drupal Association stands by our values of inclusivity. Our
> decision was based on confidential information conveyed in private by many
> sources. Due to the confidential nature of the situation we cannot and will
> not disclose any information that may harm any members of our community,
> including Larry

> This decision followed our established process. As the Executive Director,
> charged with safekeeping the goodwill of the organization, I made this
> decision after considering input from various sources including the
> Community Working Group (CWG) and Drupal Project Lead, Dries Buytaert. Upon
> Larry’s request for an appeal, the full board reviewed the situation, all
> the evidence, and statements provided by Larry. After reviewing the entirety
> of the information available (including information not in the public view)
> the decision was upheld.

> In order to protect everyone involved we cannot comment more, and trust that
> the community will be understanding

TL;DR : We're continuing, there was a violation you don't know about

Sounds like it's done, then

~~~
evunveot
[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
part-3](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3)

TL;DR : The Drupal leadership hasn't accused Larry of a code of conduct
violation publicly or privately but they're happy to imply that a secret
violation exists so they can cover up the fact that they ousted him because
his lifestyle is icky and bad for PR.

------
amiga-workbench
I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another
social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

~~~
vertex-four
For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are kinky (and,
separately, a large chunk of the kink community agrees broadly with modern
feminist views). Nobody I've spoken to within my subset of the social justice
community wants somebody to be removed from the Drupal community based on how
they go about their personal relationships and sexuality.

~~~
nebabyte
> For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are ki

Gonna stop you right there - there exists no "record" this needs to be on.

Or rather, were there a need for it to be "on a record", such a community
would already be failing their supposed 'without the community needing to know
or care' ideal.

~~~
vertex-four
I'm just saying, that it'd be entirely illogical for the social justice
community at large to be against the practice of kink, given that many of its
members practice kink in a wide variety of ways. There's no reason to assume
that the SJW community at large will be against the practice of any consensual
sexuality, which many people in this thread are doing.

~~~
nebabyte
And _I 'm_ just saying, the ideal of "don't know, don't care" can't purport to
be upheld when analyses like these enter into "people X and people Y do Z to
what degree".

You can't have it both ways.

~~~
vertex-four
I never said "don't know, don't care" \- though I certainly don't care, even
if I do know. I was _only_ attacking the idea that it's a bunch of nebulous
"SJWs" kicking Larry out of the community, and pointing out that this is a
nonsensical idea from the very start. There is no better way to do that given
that many people believe SJWs are literally the devil than to say "we do
literally this, why the fuck would we attack someone for it?"

------
dorfsmay
In the same line, Brendan Eich. I completely disagree with his views on
marriage of homosexuals, but disagree that it led him to have to quit his
position at Mozilla Foundation.

~~~
pavlov
Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board
can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere
optics of a PR issue can be enough.

That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of
involuntary termination.

~~~
humanrebar
> The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability...

It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information
being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked.
There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities.

I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So
could being a Democrat in a red state be a liability? Republican in a blue
state? Evangelical in a secular area? Atheist in a religious one?
Scientologists? Mormons?

In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs?

~~~
noxToken
> _In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be
> CEOs?_

In short, yes.

There are plenty of rational people out there who don't care what someone does
in their private life as long as it doesn't have a readily apparent effect on
business. It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are
others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone
else may hold. That is, the fact that a CEO is a Dom in a D/s relationship
will resonate so negatively with some people that is can adversely impact
business.

Do you remember the Cheerios commercial[0] with the interracial family? People
have much bigger skeletons in their closets, and from a business standpoint,
that's a liability. It's not right. It's not fair. But it's reality.

[0]: [http://www.today.com/news/cheerios-ad-mixed-race-family-
draw...](http://www.today.com/news/cheerios-ad-mixed-race-family-draws-racist-
responses-6C10169988)

~~~
coldpie
> It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others
> who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else
> may hold.

In Eich's case, it wasn't a private matter. He used his money and influence to
attempt to enforce his religious views on people who do not subscribe to his
religion. When you are involving the government in public enforcement of your
personal views, they are not personal any longer.

~~~
humanrebar
The donor list was not public. Some people believe private political behavior
should stay private, just like voting.

Saying "this is too important for privacy to apply" affects more issues than
just politics advocacy.

In this situation, people apparently _are_ applying the template: "When you X,
it's no longer personal anymore".

~~~
coldpie
Are you sure it wasn't public? Those kinds of donation rolls often are. In
either case, I do think it is reasonable to reject a CEO who is actively
attempting to harm their own employees through government enforcement of
personal religious beliefs. Especially for an altruistic company like Mozilla.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also opposed to gay marriage
at that time, would you agree that that they should also have been
disqualified?

If not, why not?

~~~
coldpie
I don't think it's an interesting comparison, given one is a choice between
two "lesser evils" and elected by three hundred million citizens VS the other
being a leader of a private company appointed by a board from a pool of
presumably many (or at least several) valid candidates. Totally different
scenarios.

But yes, it was a big black mark against them and they, too, received lots of
public pressure to change their public policy on the matter. And eventually,
they did. Eich refused to even say he wouldn't make such a donation again,
much less apologize for the harm he caused.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Sorry, why should a public official should be held to a lower standard than
the director of a private company? I'm not seeing that.

Most observers believe that the passage of Proposition 8 in California had far
more to do with black churches turning out for Barack Obama than it did with
contributions from people like Eich.

Edit: updating with citation.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/11...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html)

70% of black voters supported Proposition 8, which means that they were
_against_ gay marriage.

~~~
coldpie
You're right that I didn't answer your question directly. To be explicit, yes,
I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents
should disqualify you from holding public office. However, when presented with
two options that both fail that test, I will vote for the lesser of the two
evils presented to me.

I don't think that Mozilla was faced with that dichotomy, and the fact that
Eich was relatively quickly and easily replaced backs that up.

~~~
humanrebar
> I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your
> constituents should disqualify you from holding public office.

Should officials be cajoling or forcing people to "convert" (not every
religion has conversion as such)? Nope.

Can we divorce all laws from any metaphysical worldview? No. That's not
possible. We presume certain things matter, like human lives, freedom of
conscience, truth, the health of the planet, etc. Banning murder assumes that
the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist and/or does not require human
sacrifice to get into heaven. I can't come up with the right adjective, but
that's imposing an (a)theological position on constituents. It's obviously the
right position, too.

Point being, even the idea of "inalienable rights" is an (a)theological
position. Some people think rights are given by God or the nature of humanity.
Others think laws are given by the people and groups that can enforce them.

The goal isn't to have agnostic laws. That's literally impossible. The goal is
to find a just baseline worldview we can all compromise on and have tolerant
laws that follow from that.

~~~
coldpie
I don't agree with your premise, and this isn't the forum to debate that. But
even if I did, given that even members of the same religion have disagreements
about the morality of gay marriage, I don't think your argument is relevant to
this specific situation.

------
erpellan
Code of Conduct. Conduct. CONDUCT!

Not: code of thought, beliefs, sexuality, politics, religion....

All the discussions of philosophy and belief systems in this thread are
missing the point. It DOES NOT MATTER how you feel about someone else's
beliefs. It is not relevant. How they CONDUCT themselves in the community is
the only thing that matters.

~~~
YPCrumble
If that were the case it would be called a "Code of Conduct In the [Drupal]
Community". Many people assume they should consider any conduct that they
don't like in applying a "Code of Conduct".

------
fmitchell0
There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There
are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument:

\- Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes

\- Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No

\- Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No

There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over
themselves and table-flip:

\- Does a person's private life affect their public views?

\- If a person in leadership has their private life exposed (fairly or
unfairly), does that affect their leadership role?

If you quickly come to a 'Yes' or 'No' in the last two questions, then that is
why we don't have constructive dialogue between people with opposing views.
Again, we're not talking about blatant discrimination. We're talking about a
position of leadership and influence.

For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work,
should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a
leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles?

It's no different than the 1st amendment. No laws can be made to punish you
for speaking, but you can't just say whatever you want without consequence.

I'd hope that people would take a breath and really think about that. Is it
discrimination if you ask that person to relinquish their leadership role? Who
is excluded because of that person being in leadership? Who has been silenced
out of fear that the power of leadership trumps their voice?

I personally do not know the answers to the two questions, but I'm open to
hearing both sides. I also understand how difficult it is to have an answer
when you're responsibility is to put people in leadership. With open source,
it's even more complicated because you could 'become a leader' simply by being
great at contributing!

~~~
iplaw
This is a truly personal matter that, in my opinion, bears no relevance to his
public-facing leadership role and responsibilities. He's into BDSM, so what?
If your PornHub/xHamster/whatever search history was exposed, how catastrophic
would it be to your career? Would people that you respect immediately feign
disgust, knowing very well that they have similar search histories? It's easy
to point the finger when it's someone else taking the heat, but I guarantee
that everyone who claims to be a member of the opposition would sing a
different tune if it was their private life that was investigated and exposed.
Pure hypocrisy.

It's GamerGate type shit all over again, chock full of faux outrage and
manufactured drama. I think that sensational journalism has rubbed off on
society. People are used to having their emotions exploited and being force
fed specific facts sans context to steer their opinion and, at large, public
consensus.

Instead of it being CNN steering the public opinion of Trump, it's a group of
misdirected, misguided, uneducated, incompatible, unaccepting, pig-headed SJW-
type individuals steering the dialogue regarding Drupal.

~~~
humanrebar
> People are used to having their emotions exploited and being force fed
> specific facts sans context to steer their opinion and, at large, public
> consensus.

It's worse than that. Many actually like it. Outrage is click bait because
people _like_ clicking on it. If you're reading it, it's for you.

People like a good two minute hate. It creates all sorts of interesting
sensations.

~~~
cat199
> People like a good two minute hate. It creates all sorts of interesting
> sensations.

\- Humanrebar, 2017

------
camus2
> Larry Garfield, a long-time, veteran contributor to Drupal was ejected from
> the community, allegedly not for breaking the Code of Conduct, but, to quote
> your own post on the matter, because “he holds views that are in opposition
> with the values of the Drupal project."

At some point, some open source communities will need to decide whether they
work on open technologies or they are political activists with a political
mission that serves the interests of a specific political side, or political
doctrine[1] If I'm into, I don't know, some niche Porn that isn't illegal, can
it be considered "offensive to women" and should I be ejected as a contributor
because of my personal sexual tastes in order to satisfy those that might be
offended by this, even if I never bring up that matter in public? Now, if I'm
part of an atheist association, and I publicly question the reality of a
mainstream religion, can it be considered offensive to Muslims and should I be
ejected of a totally unrelated community because some of its members that are
not even of the religion think that what I said is offensive toward Muslims?

1 : one can argue "free software" is political. It is, but it has to do with
the protection of users and their right to access and modify source code. It
has nothing to do with women's rights or making blasphemy socially
unacceptable, especially when positions are taken outside the context of the
project community.

~~~
watwut
Plenty of open source communities are political beyond user rights. If you
believe NSA should be able to watch everybody all the time, Tor people will
kick you out.

\------------

Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender
relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is
nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is
wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because
they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as
possible/legal.

Is it possible to simultaneously believe that women are naturally submissive
and happiest when they serve and simultaneously see leadership potential in
women who is working under you? I dont know and I am glad that the question is
not directly relevant to me.

However, if my boss would believe something like that, I guess I would have to
either leave the company or accept I will be less likely to be promoted then
male college of similar skills.

I have no idea whether Garfield is into Gor for kink or for gender philosophy
nor whether that philosophy affected his leadership style. I dont care about
whether he comes back or not. But, the more I looked into Gor the more it
looked like way more then just another flavor of bdsm.

~~~
enord
>Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender
relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is
nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is
wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because
they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as
possible/legal.

It's a series of fantasy f*#%ing novels, ofcourse it's role-play. Serious role
play maybe, and definitively weird, but the author is _still alive_ and his
name is not L. Ron Hubbard. Is he participating in political activism with
mysogynistic undertones? Is he otherwise projecting gor-related gender views
onto non-consenting parties? No. He just wants to do weird stuff together with
other people who want to do weird stuff, socially and sexually. To assume that
he holds these views to be morally absolute for everyone is a gross
misrepresentation and unfortunately typical of persecution of weird people.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"It's a series of fantasy f#%ing novels, of course it's role-play."

It seems so to me as well. There probably are people who take it a bit too
far, just as there are in most fan groups (e.g., people who get cosmetic
surgery to look like anime characters, etc.), but I don't recall hearing of
any rash of abuse cases involving Goreans (apologies if that's not the right
term).

I'm wondering just how far this goes. I have a friend who participates in
Civil War reenactments (again, apologies if I don't get the terminology
right). He plays a Confederate, and spends a considerable amount of time and
money getting his gear and persona as close to perfect as he possibly can.
That doesn't mean he _really_ believes in slavery, or even that the South
should have won the Civil War. Quite the contrary -- I'm 100% sure that he
_doesn 't_ believe those things. This is just something he does for fun.

~~~
enord
It seems to me to go just so far as one is willing to believe thought can be a
crime in itself.

"Oh so you believe this or that? Well you now embody those beliefs and are
complicit in all crimes motivated by them. Your mere presence is oppressive to
people who have been slighted by actions or words motivated by the same
beliefs. May your career end and your friends abandon you."

------
StavrosK
Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh
man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a
scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What
the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting
adults in private?

~~~
HappyTypist
>> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that
women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order
is for men to dominate and lead."

~~~
cat199
Yes, and?

While I'm not into this kind of stuff, this is 'acted out' in a recreational
activity..

As one simple example, this could be his way of coping with the 'reality' that
women are evolutionarily 'superior to men' or similar..

If the actual behavior hasn't impacted the community in a way that the
community doesn't like directly, the 'problem' is the person making it their
business to muckrake and air other people's dirty laundry..

------
rsyring
Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious"
standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will
suffer.

(Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)

~~~
Flow
I've started to mentally replace the words "inclusion and diversity" with
"conformity" on certain places on the net.

~~~
dullgiulio
The key is "tolerance" and "inclusion". Those are, of course, superior to
intolerance and exclusion.

To have tolerance, you cannot tolerate intolerance. It is maybe illogical, but
necessary.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
I'd argue allowing some intolerance is required because no system is 100%
anything.

Your comment shows the exact sort of thinking the people you're responding to
are going off on.

The issue is people are trying to implement nonviolent communication
principles in communities without learning how to process the world through
the lens of nonviolent communication. And others are using the natural
misunderstandings as evidence against nonviolent communication, as though the
concept is the problem instead of people interpreting the concept in violent
ways society teaches us to.

~~~
jolux
Karl Popper wrote on this subject and I've yet to find a suitable rebuttal.
The intolerant cannot be tolerated because doing so would lead to the
elimination of tolerance. His justification is whether the intolerant are
willing to discuss things rationally or whether they will steamroll you
without any concern for intellectual integrity.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
This is a black and white interpretation. Here's your refutation:

When we try to outlaw people being themselves, we overlook their needs. That
isn't a productive framework and will ultimately compile into systemic issues
over time. Tolerating intolerance says nothing about timberline, types of
intolerance, scale, etc. It lacks make and is therefore a problematic
principle for governing human behavior.

~~~
jolux
Ok, but there is very clearly a boundary on acceptable behavior that we
classify as not just "being yourself." How are you planning to draw that line?
This isn't some unanswerable subjectivity we're talking about, and it's more a
testament to the paucity of education in America that we can't recognize
rational discussion from irrational anymore.

For most other people, it's a pretty clear line. Everyone is entitled to their
own opinions, but not their own facts.

------
Wintamute
When your private proclivities don't vibe with the dominant culture
(postmodernist/intersectional social justice activism) you can expect to be
drummed out of open source communities - we've known this to be true for some
time. Very pleased to see the open letter from the community come down firmly
against this regressive practice, they are firmly on the right side of
history.

~~~
cat199
> right side of history.

This phrase to some extent seems to have origins in dialectical materialism
which is a marxist philosophy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism)

I mention this because it seems at odds with your opposition to certain
attitudes.

~~~
Wintamute
I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not familiar enough with dialectical
materialism to gain much insight. Have I undermined my own point somehow? In
reflection I can see how a phrase like "the right side of history" is somewhat
unhelpful, since whichever side is "right" is completely subjective.

~~~
cat199
This philosophy is the background philosophy of marxism, and was essentially
developed within this school. The gist is that that human progress (assumed to
exist) is based on a materialist dialectic (action/response/synthesis) -

e.g. a sort of historical predeterminism that humankind is unstoppably
destined for socialism once society 'evolved' to a certain level of productive
capacity -

This view of progress is what leads to there being a 'right' and 'wrong' side
of history, and as best I can tell the phrase it comes directly from marxists,
and is rooted in in their philosophical view of society and progress, which
doesn't mean one cant use that same sort of philosophy but leading to another
in context, necessarily..

just a mention, since it seems like you might not like sounding marxist, not
that that would in some cases be inherently a bad thing either.

~~~
Wintamute
Thank you for the explanation. Makes sense!

------
douche
It sounds to me like some other asshole discovered that this guy was into some
unusual stuff in his personal life, and decided to go out of his way to be
offended about it, make a big stink about it and stir the pot.

Given the choice, it's the pot-stirrer I would kick out of my community. You
know, if I had my own community. With blackjack...

------
oneeyedpigeon
> illegally obtaining information from members-only websites (by violating
> their terms of use)

IANAL, but since when have arbitrary website terms and conditions been
automatically enforced by criminal law?

~~~
speeder
Aaron Swartz case...

And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in
Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they
broke MySpace TOS).

And a bunch of other cases... In US breaking TOS is literally a crime if you
keep using the site (it is akin to virtual trespassing).

I think such law is bullshit... but it does exist. (CFAA I think is the law
name)

~~~
rhizome
_And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in
Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they
broke MySpace TOS)._

Lori Drew, who was acquitted.

------
jacquesm
> We know that you have no desire for more press coverage, Dries. The last
> thing you want is to prolong the media parade that has drawn so much
> attention to the problems with Drupal governance.

That must be why they chose to do this in public rather than in a private
letter.

As much as I agree with the contents of the letter I reject the way in which
it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail. If you don't do 'x' we will
leave would have been strong enough without making this yet another public
spectacle because it pulls in the world at large to witness whether or not
these demands are met.

I can't stand Drupal for many reasons (backwards incompatibility by design
being the major one) but this is not a nice thing to do.

~~~
richthegeek
Allowing or organising a witch-hunt and irreparably damaging a career because
you disagree with someone's sex life is "not a nice thing to do".

Posting doxxed information across the internet, along with euphemistic
insinuations that he is an irreparable pervert, attached to his real name,
forever to show up as the first result when you Google him ... is "not a nice
thing to do"

Trying to hold your community leaders up to a higher standard, and refusing to
partake in the same backroom whisper campaigns that you're angry about? That's
just not even on the same level of "not nice".

~~~
jacquesm
All agreed upon. Still no reason to resort to a veiled version of public
blackmail.

Buytaert is wrong, there is really no doubt about that. But if you want to
make a point you simply send the letter to its intended recipient and follow
up on the threat to leave if you are ignored or unhappy with the outcome.

If you want to increase the spectacle you do so publicly, with the direct
result that Drupal gets hurt even further in the process _no matter what the
outcome will be_.

~~~
detaro
Does Drupal get hurt even further? Or does Drupal look like a project with a
strong community that stands up to perceived errors of its leadership by
demanding better justifications? FWIW, I think many other communities would
have imploded by now, and at least the posts that have been linked here have
been surprisingly civil.

I might agree with you if it were a call to resign or similar, but they aim at
getting (to them very relevant) information that has been demanded in public
(and I have to assume in private as well) before, without result, not
necessarily at a reversal of the decision.

~~~
jacquesm
Some of the signatories call for his resignation.

The problem here is that the producers of drupal are a _much_ smaller set of
people than the consumers of something like drupal. It's the consumers that
will have to decide whether they want to base their next project on Drupal or
not and all this infighting is giving of an aura of extreme instability. So as
a result the drupal project as a whole will suffer because some fraction of
that audience will decide to move on from Drupal.

------
cies
I think free software is to some extend political. We try to work by a higher
"inclusive" standard than what is found in society.

The letter to Dries writes:

> It is unacceptable to judge people based on unspoken, secret rules that they
> have no say in and cannot know.

Unacceptable? Tell that to the pope (pedo trials) and the US gov't (TPP,
Guatanamo). They do this all the time. So again, if we agree this is
"unacceptable" we say that many of our governing institutions are
unacceptable, and thereby set a higher moral community standard then what we
are governed by. I for one believe it is very important to do this.

> Ensure people carrying out illegal acts related to the conduct of others are
> reported to the proper authorities.

Here again it shows. "Illegal acts" are here scoped by their "relation to the
conduct of others", yet are ultimately are defined by gov't. Possession of pot
has been illegal, but hell no I'd turn someone in for that: I do not consider
is punishment-worthy.

------
slaunchwise
I'm really struggling to figure why I should give a fuck about what, who or
how Larry Garfield fucks.

------
lucideer
A lot of people are taking either stance: that a person's beliefs squarely
should or should not affect their involvement in the project.

However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the _material effect_
their beliefs may have on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an
industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not
reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" might execute
poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

~~~
gooseus
But who does the assessing? What measure do we use to determine which beliefs
will create which affects? Is a Gorean belief system more or less likely than
an Abrahamic belief system to execute poor judgement with regards to female
collaborators?

I think the problem with many of these approaches is this notion that we can
predict ahead of time. I would agree with your third approach if you just
changed the tense of the sentence:

> However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect
> their beliefs _have had_ on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In
> an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not
> reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" _might have
> executed_ poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

We can't assume behavior from stated beliefs, but past behavior and beliefs
may factor into a case where wrong-doing has occurred. If I'm a satanist, that
doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice babies... but if you find me connected to
a bunch of baby-sacrificing, then you better believe my stated Satanic beliefs
will factor into the "motive" part of my prosecution.

Not only is this the "innocent till proven guilty" ethos applied generally,
it's also going to be far more efficient to judge people case-by-case on
observed actions/offenses than by trying to extrapolate potential actions from
the subjective interpretations of their words.

~~~
lucideer
You're right, and I probably should've worded it that way (I can no longer
edit). I was using the term "might" in a suggestive, rather than speculative,
way.

------
draw_down
From the outside it's been hard to judge who's wrong or right here, the whole
thing stinks to high heaven.

All I know is I wouldn't want to get involved with a similar big project these
days. I guess you could just use a fake name, but that probably wouldn't hold
up if you wanted to have any sort of leadership role.

------
throw7
I don't see a positive outcome in this unless Dries steps down. This is vote
of no confidence and Dries should really see that. (Note: I don't follow
drupal and this is the first I've heard of this, so... this is just from an
outsider perspective.)

------
ekianjo
sorry but how does that work to be for tolerance and anti discrimination in
the first place ? anti discrimination means you Do NOT tolerate people who
discriminate, so you cant be tolerant at the same time. I always see this kind
of contradictions in principles.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Totally agree. I'm fed up of the argument that goes "if you preach tolerance,
you must be tolerant of intolerance", for my own understanding of tolerance.
Yes, you shouldn't commit a violent act against someone because they are
intolerant. No, you shouldn't have to accept their intolerance unreservedly.

I also have an issue with the part of the statement that reads along the lines
of "we are against discrimination based on someone's race, gender ... _or
personal beliefs_ ". Sorry, that's ridiculous. If someone believes Jews are
parasites, I'm discriminating against them. If someone thinks women are
inherently inferior to men, I'm discriminating against them. If I'm not
allowed to react differently to someone because of what they believe in, go
ahead and unplug me now because i cease to be a thinking human being.

~~~
nebabyte
So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do you
shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be your
next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them?

Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown no
signs of changing. How would your solution address that? Indoctrination?
Building an ideological "wall"? Killing those who do not meet your ideology,
or wait and hope it 'dies out'?

What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?

~~~
ekianjo
> So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do
> you shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be
> your next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them?

As long as they do not impede on my or anyone else Freedom's, it's fine for
them to have their own beliefs about the world or whatever. Why should we ALL
have the same beliefs anyway?

> Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown
> no signs of changing.

Sorry but society as a whole has NEVER collapsed no matter how many
disharmonies there are or were amongst us - even civil wars do not bring down
entire societies. There's a lot more harm to be done by putting limits on how
people should think, and this kind of line of thought is actually what leads
to conflict more often than not.

> What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?

So what? Leaders who do not represent folks have been elected for centuries
already, it's hardly something new. You know, live with it.

------
etchalon
While, in reading this thread, I understand how people might take offense to
someone being excluded based on a privately-held belief, especially one which
has not manifested into an actual issue of conduct.

But I'm not sure I mind when different standards are applied to any given
community's "leaders" vs. its participants. Leaders ultimately represent what
a community believes it should stand for. We have, perhaps unrealistically in
some case, but justifiably always prosecuted leaders, in any context, for
behavior, beliefs and statements that we would absolutely forgive/ignore for
the "public".

~~~
lgleason
It's one thing if we are talking about their actions that are part of being a
community leader. IE: if a Drupal leader showed porn during a talk at a Drupal
conference. It's another to say that their personal actions outside of this
official role represent the community. This is why people say that their
Twitter views do not represent their employer etc. because there can and
should be a separation between the two.

~~~
etchalon
My point was that "leaders" can not compartmentalize the same way a
participant, employee or guest can. Leadership roles are generally, in our
society, held to higher standards.

I'm also keeping in mind that had this person held views not that women are
inherently inferior to men, but that blacks were inherently inferior to
whites, there'd be absolutely no discussion about whether they should be
removed.

You simply cannot hold that type of view and have any credible moral claim to
a leadership role, even if your actions as a leader are spotless.

------
coreyp_1
If you don't want to work with Drupal, then work with something else instead.

Open invitation: If you are looking for something to work on (i.e., the
project is still pre-alpha quality), check out my work in progress:
[https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant](https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant) .

I'm an 11+ member of the Drupal community, who wanted a fresh take on a
framework. As developers, we have newer tools with different strengths than
PHP. That is what I'm working on leveraging. Message me if you want more info.

------
stillhere
"We believe that tolerance reserved only for people who think and act exactly
like we do is no tolerance at all."

Oh my god. Then act like it.

~~~
atom-morgan
Then let communities be communities. Remember LambdaConf and Moldbug?

------
fabrice_d
Not taking sides, but I found this analysis by an experienced community
manager interesting: [https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-
governanc...](https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-
decisions/)

"it's complicated"

~~~
lgleason
It's complicated if you are driving an agenda. Otherwise you can conduct
things in the open. In my experience the secret tribunals enable bad behavior
and bullies.

~~~
fabrice_d
It's about respecting the privacy of people that could have been harassed by
Larry (and Larry's own privacy). How is that an agenda?

I don't see a "secret tribunal" here, more a `behind closed doors` trial
([https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos)).
Nothing wrong with that.

------
ktta
Google cache:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUD...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUDO9M64J:https://www.drupalconfessions.org/)

------
zappo2938
This is big departure from the blow back after Dries made a comment years ago
at Drupalcon about encouraging women to enter the Drupal community as graphic
design artists. Good for these women today.

------
pbowyer
I hope the community and project can be reconciled. Not for the sake of
Drupal, but for everyone involved however tangentially.

------
SadWebDeveloper
Offtopic... Someone here actually develops software in Drupal? Most people i
knew abandoned drupal years ago for Joomla or something in python like Django,
its kinda weird/cringeworthy hearing news about Drupal the Community more than
the Drupal project.

------
julie1
It convinces me Code Of Conduct are basically sticks that will not harm you
when you are on the right side of them.

Do communities needs sticks to be driven one sided way like cows?

At this point it feels like they kind of defy their reason to be and are
pretty misused.

~~~
andoon
My experience says that codes of conduct are written with the express desire
of keeping all open source communities left-leaning.

I've talked to many people about the matter and some of them say that open
source is supposed to be left-leaning, and that those are its principles. That
ignores that right-leaning users should also be able to benefit from open
source values (privacy, for example) and contribute code, and that not
everybody who uses open source has to be a supporter of the open source
principles (for example, I use an open source browser because it's the best,
not because I like open source better than closed source).

~~~
IGI-111
As usual, depends on the contents of the code. That kind of legalese is just
tooling to organize discourse.

You won't build an open minded community if its rules mandate righthink.
Doesn't mean you can't try and protect people from the kind of stalking and
abuse that has happened here.

It's a shame that we have to have more than "be professional and don't be a
dick" as community guidelines, but if we have to might as well do it
correctly.

~~~
andoon
Someone who doesn't know that he has to "be professional and don't be a dick"
is likely to disregard the code of conduct. And you don't need a code of
conduct to kick someone out of a project because he's being unprofessional
and/or a dick. Therefore codes of conduct are useless.

~~~
vertex-four
> And you don't need a code of conduct to kick someone out of a project
> because he's being unprofessional and/or a dick.

Unfortunately, my experience is that you actually do need to be able to point
to something (a) precise and (b) that the community broadly agrees is a valid
reason, in order to kick someone out without practically dissolving your
community. A code of conduct is simply an agreement which states the
community's beliefs on what are valid reasons to kick someone out.

------
jwogrady
Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to
write?

------
holidaythailand
TLDR?

------
Pxtl
You know how we always complain how the tech community is treated unfairly
about women? How they think we politely ignore the gendered problems our
industry faces? How we're not all sexist and we're genuinely trying hard to
embrace and include female geeks and coders?

This thread. This whole thread right here.

~~~
atom-morgan
Mind elaborating?

