
Open Letter to the Linux Foundation - anujbahuguna
https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2019/11/08/OpenLetterLinuxFoundation.html
======
djsumdog
So what did this person do? Just wear a MAGA hat? What kind of world do we
live in where we consider supporting a democratically elected political
candidate a code of conduct violation?

I was at the KiwiCon where Ranty Ben got kicked out. I want to be fair: I
thought his talk was stupid and not very useful. But I don't think he should
have gotten kicked out. The organizers wouldn't even say why he got kicked
out. They didn't say how he specifically violated the Code of Conduct. Was it
the ASCII art Goatcx in PGP signing art? Was it the comment about how if you
did x to secure yourself you'd be "about as inconspicuous as a tr __ __ __*
Polynesian girl in the desert " or "lesbian f __ __* porn " ?

Hackercons have never really been professional. Later on in that same
conference, a Mac kernel hacker did a talk on gdb where he said it was so
terrible it'd be like grabbing pig balls. He had a Photoshoped image of the
organizer holding some pig balls. The organizer came out, looked at it as the
audience laughed and walked off. Obviously they were friends; it was a joke,
but I ask you ... what if he had chosen one of female organizers instead?

In such an environment, where is the line? We do we even consider kicking
someone out because one person was offended? I realize non-hackercons need to
be more professional. Yet, we don't throw people out for preferring emacs vs
vim, and we shouldn't throw anyone out for their political beliefs.

~~~
Iv
I used to take principled free speech position in these kind of arguments. I
have for Maybe 10 years.

I stopped when I realized that not once, in all the hotly debated discussions
I had, I found anything of value in the person being censored. Actually in
most cases, removing them provided a smoother environment/community/event.

I stopped caring about hate speech removal when it is actually about hate
speech. Now I worry about state censorship more and stop defending trolls and
Nazis.

~~~
rmtech
> in all the hotly debated discussions I had, I found anything of value in the
> person being censored

I think history is a better guide because we can more clearly see what was
valuable. Things that were censored in the past:

* Heliocentricism

* Evolution, esp of humans from other apes

* Capitalism/market economics (in socialist states)

* Currently mainstream views about biology (e.g. Lysenkoism)

Free speech is a "hits" business: most of the value comes from a few
incredibly valuable ideas that someone powerful is trying to censor. The
damage done to Russia and China under communism easily exceeds all the extra
"smoothness" that they got out of censoring those who disagreed with them.

~~~
Iv
Yes, which of these views would have been shut down by a policy forbidding
hate speech?

I am now mostly worried about state censorship, which do remove things like
the items you list.

Censoring hate speech and people who promote exclusion of minorities? I have
not a single example of it being detrimental to a healthy debate.

~~~
rmtech
I'm pretty sure that all of those views were censored because they were
immoral according to the dominant ideology of the day, and in every case it
would have been argued that this time the censorship was good because the
dominant ideology was good, whereas previous instances of censorship were bad.

How would someone in the USSR know that censorship of opponents of Lysenkoism
was bad? As far as they were concerned, the people being censored were evil
counter-revolutionaries of whom nothing good could come.

~~~
hunter2_
Wouldn't "only censor/condemn hate that's tied to a protected class" be a
decent test? Where protected class is defined as the stuff people cannot
change about themselves. This test seems quite timeless and orthogonal to the
problematic "immoral."

~~~
NhanH
White male is decidedly a protected class with that definition.

Disclaimer: I am Asian and like to point out irony, don't lynch me.

~~~
Iv
Yes and? Hate speech against white male would be brought down as well.

~~~
Fellshard
Let's dive into that: here are tweets made by the accusers leading to Linux
Foundation's judgment.
[https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dtnamp/linux_foundat...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dtnamp/linux_foundation_revokes_attendees_registration/f6xvd46/)

~~~
Iv
Well, have clear rules, clear penalties and due process, saying crap about any
skin color is hate speech. You have no shortage of that in the US right now.

That's not my country and not much of my business but if half of your country
is fine using its free speech defending KKK apologists and the other half only
meets that with apathy, don't be surprised if some Black Panthers come back to
life and use their own free speech fighting back.

And maybe I am less shocked by this affair because in many European cities,
wearing a MAGA hat would be seen pretty close as wearing nazi insignia. Under
it, lies either someone very racist or someone very confused. And either way
probably someone that is not going to have a constructive participation.

So yeah, probably lack of clear rules, lack of due process, I hope that's the
takeaway they'll get from it.

Arbitrary enforcement of vague rules is authoritarianism, but you can have
clear rules and due process to limit hate speech. It has been done
successfully in several places.

~~~
manigandham
What you think MAGA stands for is not what it actually stands for. You're
stating all kinds of extremist positions that 99% of people in the US do not
hold.

Anyone can stir up outrage against a made up situation.

------
swalsh
Here is the thread for more context:
[https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976](https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976)

I spent maybe 40 minutes last night trying to find out what Charles did that
violated the CoC. The best I could do was find this:
[https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1187181890920312833](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1187181890920312833)

It seems like he was kicked from the conference for having the nerve to make a
youtube video with his opinion.

If someone can show me something more significant... PLEASE... because i've
been searching, I just haven't found it.

~~~
Fellshard
Sarah Mei has been involved in this type of attack before, so this raises
alarm bells to me that she's at the center of another. I fear she's becoming a
massive influence towards this kind of Stalinistic attack.

~~~
Fellshard
Let me give an example of the kind of 'motive imputation' attacks she leads on
a regular basis:
[https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304)

This is exactly parallel to her current tweet which LF responded to.

Live by Twitter, die by Twitter.

~~~
enriquto
oh my god, they are complaining about an acronym DDD, because it somehow
sexual (not being a native english speaker, I fail to spot the innuendo). If
there's anything to complain about ddd is the name clash with Data Display
Debugger, a really cool debugger for linux.

I wonder about the callous ignorance of Sarah Mei, who purports to be a
feminist but ignores such an important program written by another woman.

~~~
korethr
> because it somehow sexual (not being a native english speaker, I fail to
> spot the innuendo).

In the US, DD is a cup size for a brassiere, and thus indirectly refers to
breast size on women. DD for sometime has been considered to be an uncommonly
large breast size for a woman, especially a woman of otherwise more common
proportions. DDD, being the next cup size up for reasons I don't understand
(instead of cup sizes going E, F, etc), would therefore imply a woman even
bustier than the supposedly uncommonly-busty DD-breasted woman.

Yes, I think it's silly, too. Human mammary tissue has exactly fuck all to do
with programming.

~~~
monksy
That's an unreasonably huge leap for the audience to make that connection.

~~~
Mirioron
As somebody else pointed or, that's the explanation Sarah Mei gave on Twitter
in the past.[0] The tweet about them discovering "3D" is on point.

[0]
[https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahmei/status/10732511533604823...](https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304)

~~~
monksy
She's not going to care about that.

------
dgrin91
This has some very interesting parallels to the current drama at Stack
Overflow w/Monica Cellio. Someone is accused of breaking the CoC. The
governing body expels this person in a public an explicit way. Looking into
the details shows that really that person was just not following $GROUP_THINK.

In Stack Overflow's case this seems to be headed towards a Slander/Libel. I
hope we don't end up in a world where this is the only way to follow
$GROUP_THINK.

~~~
zozbot234
> Someone is accused of breaking the CoC. The governing body expels this
> person in a public an explicit way. Looking into the details shows that
> really that person was just not following $GROUP_THINK.

Note that this is pretty much what you would predict if CoC's were
_inherently_ politicized statements, as much as a MAGA hat. Which is exactly
what opponents of CoC's have been contending for a long time.

~~~
hunter2_
> if CoC's were inherently politicized statements

Aren't they, though, if it happens that what CoC's say align much, much more
with one political group than another? This obviously implies that the latter
group believes in conducting themselves quite differently than the code
mandates, and they need to suppress those beliefs (or at the very least, not
act on those beliefs) while engaging with the group whose code it is.

~~~
Aperocky
The problem is, Does the majority of the developers contributing to Linux
believe in this code? Or is it forced upon them by political activist that
doesn’t do much coding because they spend much of their time on ‘social
justice‘?

~~~
hunter2_
Even with a majority, you've got some percentage having to deal with what the
majority wants, which is a heavy dose of irony if the point of the CoC is
blanket inclusion in the first place. The conclusion is that inclusion itself
excludes those who don't like inclusion, and excluding that group is
warranted, isn't it?

------
michaelmrose
>Hi all, We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code
of Conduct was violated and his registration to the event has been revoked.
Our events should and will be a safe space

Could we try to be less orwellian? Are we really banning people who say things
we don't like on YouTube?

~~~
voxl
If someone says they're going to bomb an event on Twitter should they be
banned? Yes, everyone agrees.

If someone says they're a race realist and that they're going to make fun of
all the black people in tech should they be banned? Not everyone agrees.

If someone analyzes IQ studies about race realism to highlight the flaws in
methodology but doesn't outright condemn race realism should they be banned?
No, everyone agrees.

To claim that its 1984 because we're trying to work out the fuzziness in the
middle is absurd.

~~~
08-15
> If someone says they're going to bomb an event on Twitter should they be
> banned? Yes, everyone agrees.

What? No, not everyone agrees! That someone should be arrested, but keep his
Twitter account. We have laws and law enforcement for a reason, and we don't
need companies to play speech police, which, incidentally, in this particular
case, would make law enforcement _more difficult_.

> If someone analyzes IQ studies... everyone agrees.

Unfortunately, you're wrong again. Some radicals would want you banned for
merely using the word "race", regardless of context.

~~~
DuskStar
> What? No, not everyone agrees! That someone should be arrested, but keep his
> Twitter account. We have laws and law enforcement for a reason, and we don't
> need companies to play speech police, which, incidentally, in this
> particular case, would make law enforcement more difficult.

Exactly what I was thinking. And frankly, I'd rather have someone post "Imma
shoot up ur confrence" _and get arrested_ because of that post than have them
avoid Twitter and instead, yaknow, _actually shoot up the conference_.

------
Hitton
This SJW policing really sickens me. Brendan Eich, Curtis Yavin, Donglegate,
"sexist" t-shirt astrophysicist, RMS, now this guy and who knows how many less
prominent ones. And the problem is that it's so widespread. I don't know of
any community which isn't infected by it.

And really, what can you do about it? If you are not already set for life you
can't afford to step out against it unless you are willing to risk your
livelihood.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Just curious, are you set for life? If not, do you think you are risking your
livelihood by leaving this comment?

~~~
dcolkitt
My intuition is that Cancel Culture operates a lot like the Drug War. The vast
majority of non-PC speech and illicit drug use skirts by the Eye of Sauron
without getting caught. But every now and then some poor bastard has his life
ruined because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Saying that Cancel Culture doesn't do harm because people aren't afraid to
wear a MAGA hat, is like saying the Drug War doesn't do harm because people
aren't afraid to drop acid. Regardless of what percentage of people are
caught, it's unjust to destroy someone's life because they put the wrong
substance in their body or the wrong idea in their mind.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I was in no way suggesting that cancel culture isn't harmful.

------
mrburton
My personal opinion - keep politics and religion the fuck out of the IT
community.

I personally love building, coding, etc. I rather watch two people argue about
emacs vs. vim; I vote vim. Or spaces vs. tabs; I vote spaces.

Remember the days when you could sit at work building something for your
customers without having to hear about someone's political or religious views?

Pro Tip: Treat politics and religious like bedroom talk. Keep it out of the
work environment. Leave it for the bar/pub, with your friends or on social
media.

Now real talk - tabs vs. spaces? ;)

~~~
vnxli
That's the scary thing. He left it on social media and they went out and found
it and used it against him. I 1000% agree with how you feel about it but this
is a big issue when people go looking for someone's faults in their personal
lives or past to try and publicly ruin someone's reputation.

But for real talk - I prefer tabs. They feel cleaner and you don't have to
count. It's just one button and you're done. Who want's to push spacebar that
many times?

~~~
mrburton
Now I'm going to find your github account and comment on every line of code
that has a tab! lol

Take back the tab comment and we'll be okay! ;)

------
Smithalicious
Hmmm, so exactly the thing that so many people said would happen has happened?
Surely not!

CoCs are not laws. The purpose of laws is to define what _is_ allowed by what
is explicitly prohibited and by these being all that is prohibited. CoCs on
the other hand are an ill-defined subset of what is prohibited that is
selectively enforced for political goals. They do not bring any of the
benefits of codified laws. They do not clarify what is and isn't allowed since
they are so general that none of those who wouldn't grasp these rules
intuitively would grasp them after reading a CoC. I see no value added by
CoCs, only potential for abuse.

------
im3w1l
When Linux adopted the Contributor Covenant, it's author had this to say

> I can't wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it's been infiltrated
> by SJW's Hahahah

> Some people are saying that the Contributor Covenant is a political
> document, and they're right.

~~~
dmatech
Well the suspicion is that Linus's daughter Patricia got pulled into
Coraline's stuff (she's listed as a signatory in
[https://postmeritocracy.org/](https://postmeritocracy.org/)).

~~~
meowface
Isn't it more likely that that just is and was her genuine position? Linus's
daughter doesn't necessarily have to have the same political views as her
father.

~~~
dmatech
She likely has very different views.
[https://opensource.com/life/15/8/patricia-torvalds-
interview](https://opensource.com/life/15/8/patricia-torvalds-interview)

------
quantummkv
Is anyone surprised by this? I certainly am not. It really is inevitable.

When the whole CoC was shoehorned in the Linux Kernel, many people warned that
this was going to happen. We were just hand waved with "No such thing would
happen" because the people behind the CoC were not racist, etc, despite when
the previous events like the whole opal mess indicated otherwise.

The really ironic thing here is that America(and Silicon Valley) was built on
historical events like this. A whole lot of geniuses and skilled people were
driven to America by similar groupthink lynchings happening in Europe and Asia
up until and including WW2. They built America into a powerhouse. If this
continues to happen then Silicon Valley is going to get a painful history
lesson they could have easily avoided.

~~~
commandlinefan
> It really is inevitable.

Has there ever been an instance of a CoC being used in a reasonable way
against an actually unreasonable person? From the history, it appears that
CoC’s were designed to stop Linus Torvalds, specifically, but he’s still
around (but he does seem to be afraid of CoC enforcers now).

~~~
mfer
> Has there ever been an instance of a CoC being used in a reasonable way
> against an actually unreasonable person?

Yes. Though, most CoC violations are handled privately for those involved so
we don't hear much about them.

~~~
quantummkv
> Yes. Though, most CoC violations are handled privately

That really sounds like abuse of power with extra steps. Either ALL of these
violations should be private or NONE of them should be. Selectively enforcing
something like this is just bias and vendetta politics

~~~
sandov
I think that a reasonable code would allow the punished party to publicly
disclose their punishment, otherwise the punishers (for lack of a better term)
would do whatever they wanted. But it should be private by default.

~~~
type0
So maybe the expected outcome is merging of HR-SJW positions and NDA-CoC so
that "everyone" can feel safe

------
EricE
I used to think The Great Filter as one of the explanations to the Fermi
Paradox was just nuts - but sadly the last several years in particular have
shown how it's absolutely possible. Apparently civilizations can be _too_
successful.

Then again I suppose one shouldn't be too surprised; it would be easy to argue
that Rome fell mainly because it became too successful and turned inward onto
itself - much like many parts of our society are - the need for a letter like
this to be written is proof there.

~~~
ElijahLynn
We don't live in a civil society, we are only at the beginning of a civil
society. ~ Jacque Fresco

------
znpy
Uh, this imho sheds light onto another completely different but bigger issue:

Certain people or organizations, due to their size (organizations) or
influence (people/organizations) become some sort of judges in moral topics
and the problem here is that they usually have backgrounds in other stuff,
have not been elected by anyone (often times they just start screaming louder,
and people follow) and do not apply any form of fairness to the accused.

There is no form of due process, no hearings, just attacks.

This is not justice.

And let me be clear: this problem is beyond the specific political tone of
this specific case, and happens on both sides of the political spectrum.

People just start throwing accusations at each other, and who screams the
louder and/or manages to get more attention wins.

It's scary.

~~~
psweber
I heard an interesting idea today. "Boomers" have been criticizing "young
people today" for being "snowflakes". It might be the case that with their
fresher perspective on technology and culture, the younger people realized the
perilous path involved in taking action now. Older, less savvy people are
being caught unaware of the ramifications of certain types of speech and
action in the modern world.

~~~
lliamander
I think many young people, including those referred to as "snowflakes" are
hardly being cautious with their online behavior, or what they say to people.

~~~
psweber
They gave rise to Snapchat, knowing that they'd want to control what went on
the record. Now they're the first to figure out the new rules of public
communication.

------
jonbronson
There appears to be a sizable segment of society that is unwittingly expanding
their definition of politics to encompass civility and human decency. To treat
them as if these are somehow merely political opinions, rather than the
foundations of professional ethics. We're living in an era of political
extremism and populism, and it's going to clash with everyday and professional
life. This is not the fault of those holding the line of ethics. It should be
seen as a wake up call that the things being touted as opinion and politics
are actually far outside the realm of normal. And while this is somehow being
tolerated in the political sphere, there's no reason to expect that to be the
case in smaller more intellectual areas, such as the Linux Foundation.

~~~
Ajedi32
Have you considered that maybe it might be the other way around? Issues which
where formerly just a matter of political opinion are now being presented as
moral issues, and that as a result anyone perceived to be on "the other side"
(regardless of any nuances present in their actual opinion) must be a
dispicable human being who deserves whatever consequences they receive for
their iniquity.

(And before you counter with an extreme example of a truly dispicable opinion,
consider the context here: is what Mr. Wood said here in any way comparable to
the example you're about to give?)

~~~
jonbronson
No, I'm quite certain that people deserve to be treated with equal dignity and
respect regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin,
or disability. Perhaps in the past this masqueraded as a political question,
but it's too late to put that cat back in the bag. If we're sophisticated
enough to hold a conference on the future of open source service
orchestration, surely we have it in us to call a spade a spade and keep our
conferences safe from bad actors.

~~~
meowface
I agree with you. But if you're going to call a spade a spade, you should be
able to describe its spadery. In what way is this banned individual a bad
actor?

~~~
Fellshard
No one has been able to specify any evidence. I'm tracking any dead ends I run
into when asking for evidence under the hash tag:
[https://twitter.com/hashtag/LinuxFoundationKangarooCourt](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LinuxFoundationKangarooCourt)

------
notadev
What privilege to insert oneself into an organization that exists because of
the hard work and dedication of others, fix a problem that didn't exist by
harassing the powers that be into accepting a set of rules you've imposed, and
then begin using those rules to retroactively punish anyone you don't like.

The people who should be blamed for this aren't social justice types. They're
just doing what they do. It's the spineless leadership of these organizations
that allow interlopers to destroy that which was built by others as an
exercise of their new power.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Spineless? KubeCon uses a system of racial preferences when giving out free
tickets [1]. The leadership isn't spineless, they're evil and they believe in
this stuff.

(Hell, they also have preferences for gays, as if they're a marginalized or
underrepresented group. That's batshit crazy.)

[1] [https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-
cloudnat...](https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-
cloudnativecon-north-america-2019/attend/diversity-scholarships/)

~~~
meowface
>Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s diversity scholarship program provides
support to those from traditionally underrepresented and/or marginalized
groups in the technology and/or open source communities (including, but not
limited to: persons identifying as LGBTQ, women, persons of color, and/or
persons with disabilities) who may not otherwise have the opportunity to
attend CNCF events for financial reasons.

This is so confusing to me. What if you don't belong to an underrepresented or
marginalized group but also don't have the opportunity to attend CNCF events
for financial reasons? What if you do belong to such a group, do actually have
the money to attend, but lie and say you don't so you can easily get a free
ticket? If they're going to help people because of financial issues, why does
it matter if they're, for example, homosexual or heterosexual? Just because
you may face other difficulties in life due to being homosexual that you may
not have otherwise faced if you were heterosexual doesn't mean your lack of
money is somehow more real than a heterosexual person's lack of money.

If they want to provide support to such a person, why not donate a percentage
of the proceeds to LGBTQ organizations, for example, instead of letting them
attend when someone who didn't share their birth characteristics but is
otherwise in the same position can't? To use an extreme example, a gay person
born to poor parents in San Francisco probably has a big leg-up in life over a
straight person born to poor, meth-addicted, petty criminal parents in Idaho
(accounting for cost of living differences etc., so the poor SF family has
more money in total). Why not make the scholarship uncontrollable-attribute-
blind and just make it based on financial need, or a combination of financial
need and open source contributions, or something?

To LGBTQ HN readers, how do you feel about policies like these?

(Also, I don't think is at all "evil", as the parent said. Just baffling and
ideological.)

------
ckastner
Regardless of what he did or didn't do (I don't have any information on that),
I find the phrase "we have reviewed social and video" concerning.

What does that have to do with the event and its code of conduct?

~~~
sincerely
[https://events.linuxfoundation.org/about/code-of-
conduct/](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/about/code-of-conduct/)

> Individuals who participate (or plan to participate) in Linux Foundation
> events should conduct themselves at all times in a manner that comports with
> both the letter and spirit of this policy prohibiting harassment and abusive
> behavior, whether before, during or after the event. This includes
> statements made in social media postings, online publications, text
> messages, and all other forms of electronic communication.

~~~
ckastner
Thank you for providing the source.

That sounds incredibly far-reaching.

~~~
foo98765
It sort of is but it basically just means they can ban anyone from their
events at any time for any reason--and they pretty much have that right anyway
CoC or no CoC.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
I regularly see posts that are...intense...on this forum, and many others.
They make anything that Wood did seem pretty tame.

I guess any organization has a right to do whatever they want with their
hosted services, but you might ask a certain Ms. Streisand about how certain
small issues can blow up.

There's a good chance that Mr. Wood will suddenly see a great deal of
rather...strident...support, as a result of this. Robert Martin is pretty
cool, but not everyone is Uncle Bob.

~~~
ncmncm
Now I know a thing about this Wood guy that I would never have known without
UB's complaint. It does not, in fact, inspire me to lend him support, or even
the clean socks I am led to guess he lacks.

Another result of UB's announcement is that I have noticed Uncle Bob,
appropriately or ironically, shares initials with the infamous Undefined
Behavior.

------
d_burfoot
One of the features I really want in both Facebook and Twitter is the ability
to mark people as enemies. Starting with a small number (eg 100x) of
friend/enemy labels, they can use graph analysis algorithms to infer my level
of friendship or antagonism towards everyone in the network, following the
ancient principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It would be very
helpful for me to be able to click on a new person's profile and see how
aligned we are. After all, I don't want to go to parties with my enemies, I
don't want to work for companies run by my enemies, I don't want to contribute
to projects initiated by my enemies, etc, and I assume my enemies feel the
same way about me.

~~~
nullc
In Steve Jackson Games' card game Illuminati (probably the most accurate model
of online communities today) the fanatic is the opposite of the fanatic.

------
mikece
This, btw, is why I have separate twitter accounts for my silos of interest:
my fellow programmers don't care about the non-tech podcasts, I follow, my
politics, my religion, my hobbies, and especially my views on Star Wars -- I
have separate accounts and separate social circles for each of these topics.
I'm surprised so many people use just _one_ account for everything because any
two people, selected at random, can find a reason not to like each other. I
prefer to keep a tight focus.

~~~
ElijahLynn
I keep one account for everything because I want to draw people who are like
minded to my circle. I don't want to hide that. I am who I am.

~~~
mikece
But are you, really? As an amateur radio operator my interests and social
circle have almost no overlap with my interests and social circle as a
programmer, and almost no overlap with my interests and social circle
politically, religiously, etc. in a very true sense I am several different
people at once and if my hobbyist self manifested at work to the exclusion of
all else the best I could hope for is that I be asked if maybe I should take a
day off and rest. I don’t expect to find people who overlap with more than one
of my interests but am overjoyed when I do. I can’t imagine being a bigger
jackass than to manifest all of my interests to all people at all times and
express a “this is who I am, take it or leave it!” attitude. The greatest joy
in life is finding a good friend or even best friend who shares three or more
of these interests. Heck, our spouses don’t always share more than two!

------
Andrew_nenakhov
We, the people, should just make a new Linux Foundation and new FSF. The
current ones are clearly broken. Postmeritocracy my ass.

~~~
lone_haxx0r
Or even a more broad software development community that strives for fairness
and well-thought guidelines instead of the current ones.

------
big_chungus
I don't understand. Are people mad because he posted a picture of himself in a
maga hat? That seems awfully milquetoast. You know you live in a bubble when
you want to black-list half the nation for a common political view.

Edit: it seems that people are annoyed because he's tied to a guy named John
Sonmez. Any context on why this guy is bad? It looks like he caters to the
same crowd Jordan Peterson does, but hasn't said anything offensive? The most
I can find are references to "SJW"s, which doesn't sound particularly bad
(especially when you consider what people on the "other side" say/do).

~~~
mikeyouse
From the most recent controversy - he seems like a pretty odious person?

[https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/11860996963909632...](https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/1186099696390963200)

~~~
big_chungus
I agree that guy sounds like a jerk, but he's not the guy who got kicked out
of a conference. It was someone associated with him. And I believe the
rationale for that guy getting kicked out was wearing a maga hat.

------
htk
It’s ironic how the excess of political correctness is distancing people more
than the original problems PC was aiming to solve.

------
xrd
There is a twitter feed where more is discussed, this is a good starting
point:

[https://twitter.com/CHERdotdev/status/1190404796924268544](https://twitter.com/CHERdotdev/status/1190404796924268544)

~~~
xrd
This is the person and comments he is discussing:

[https://twitter.com/mimismash/status/1185942308769976320](https://twitter.com/mimismash/status/1185942308769976320)

------
Fellshard
For anyone who sees this: the link is being flag- and vote-brigaded, rather
than being discussed, about an hour after it was listed. The same conduct that
spawned the letter is being applied here to attempt to mute dissent.

------
ngngngng
Alright, I've spent a couple hours trying to figure this out. Correct me if
I'm wrong here. Asking the "woke" individuals on twitter what Charles did
wrong will invoke a response of "F you do your own research it's obvious what
Charles did wrong."

Man A said something racist to Woman B, Charles then stepped in and said
"let's have a reasonable phone call and sort this out civilly." What gets more
interesting is Woman B has at least one tweet saying "White men in tech ain't
shit." So she's definitely racist. edit: (could be wrong about who is who
here, but someone involved in getting him banned definitely said the white men
in tech comment.)

Charles is getting this hate because by saying to the "Obviously racist" man
A, "lets have a civil phone call about this," He's obviously siding with
racists instead of siding with the marginalized minorities. (sarcasm)

Charles is getting tons of comments that he should shut the F up and listen to
these marginalized groups instead of trying to butt in and make himself look
good. Charles is Mormon, 9 Mormons were just burned alive in Mexico, so
obviously Charles has no idea what it's like the be a part of a hated,
marginalized group.

edit: Sorry it's hard to tell, I'm definitely being sarcastic in parts of this
post.

Opinion here, I think people on twitter are working very hard to turn
"differing politics" into "unacceptable bigotry." And it's definitely working.
It seems the original racist guy mainly has a problem with affirmative action.
And he definitely doesn't use current politically correct speech around gender
either. But is that grounds for banning a dude just for associating with the
"racist guy". I'll leave that up to the reader to decide.

~~~
NilsIRL
Is there any way to have evidence for what you're saying?

I've been looking for at this HN thread and there still hasn't been any
evidence of the original tweets.

Why would people be mad at Charles for "let's have a reasonable phone call and
sort this out civilly."?

There seems to be some missing information including a video that no one has
posted.

~~~
praveenperera
That was actually their stated reason: "tone policing":

[https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20](https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20)

~~~
Fellshard
So that means they fully accepted and swallowed Mei's fabricated, ascribed
motivation.

Wonderful. Another big score for Mei's list of successful reputation attacks.

------
Iv
Saying that making a complaint public and it's answer public constitutes
harassment just sounds trollish. If it all happened privately he would have
complained about that as well. Actually he does when he says the exact motives
are hidden.

I find it funny that the tech community, here like in many instances, is
struggling to reinvent the wheel.

Processes to handle violation of rules and complaints exist, they are called
tribunals. They are based on a few things that are there for a reason:

\- clear written rules

\- independent judges and executives

\- appeal procedures

\- public process

\- contradictory procedure where plaintiff and defender are heard

If you are going to enforce rules without these, you'll always be called
tyrannical

~~~
nabdab
> Saying that making a complaint public and it's answer public constitutes
> harassment just sounds trollish

Have we really reached the point where people think it’s normal to run every
proceeding live on Twitter? Imagine if this was at an event, and a person was
wearing a “I love HN” hat”, if another attendant stood up on a chair and
started screaming from the top of their lungs “This makes me feel
uncomfortable!!! It’s a violation of the CoC!!”.

Would your first thought be “this is a great process” or “perhaps we should
tell the screamer to stop yelling and talk to the officials”.

It constitutes harassment because the aim here was not a proper review of a
potential Violation, but an attempt at instilling mob mentality against an
individual and forefinger due process in evaluating the case.

As for the complaint about exact motives being hidden. The argument is only
that since the rest was conducted in public, the public should have
transparency into the motives and review. Which seems reasonable as a response
to this case, not as a general rule.

~~~
Iv
First, twitter is one of the many public medias. If something is appropriate
publicly, then it is appropriate on twitter. It all depends on the rules.

> if another attendant stood up on a chair and started screaming from the top
> of their lungs “This makes me feel uncomfortable!!! It’s a violation of the
> CoC!!”.

First, you'll have to admit, putting on twitter would be far less disruptive.

Then, if people in the community value a CoC (I personally am on the fence
over that tbh) they should value a fair process and examine the complaints
they receive.

"No, that complaint is frivolous" could be the judges answers. And quickly
they'll discover why there are penalties for frivolous lawsuits.

> It constitutes harassment

Exactly. And its great that there is a process to file your complaint!

> Which seems reasonable as a response to this case, not as a general rule.

Yeah, so what is the problem again?

But generally, you want as much of the judicial process open. You want to know
what was done, what the witnesses confirm, how the defendants pleaded and how
the judges reasoned on the conclusion.

Closing one of these parts has to be done only consciously for protection
reasons, which in that case, I see none.

------
mikece
I think back to the epic flame wars of the 1990s and wonder why nobody has
retroactively applied CoC infractions on all of the offending parties of the
past. Would there even _be_ a Linux Foundation left if we did that?

------
Google234
Who is honestly suprised? This is the inevitable outcome of all these modern
CoCs.

------
ezoe
Through the history, we've learned that the trial shall be hold at open court.
It's not that open court is best to protect the plaintiff/defendant, but it's
least harmful way to ensure fair trial.

The history proved countless times that the secret lawsuit filling, followed
by the secret court judgement was not gone well.

Even in the world where be judges, prosecutors and lawyers requires years of
formal training and qualification, we had and are continuously having so many
harmful judgement and only after decades if not centuries later, when complete
third parties who doesn't share the outdated moral of that time can have the
truly fair view of that event.

Even worse, in the context of OSS community, the people who judge are not
lawyer, probably no formal training on law and moral. They are in the current
position because they had been contributing the OSS for long time.

So. I think it's best to handle these situation to the traditional court
rather than private decision from self-elected OSS chair.

~~~
AgentME
If a well-known white supremacist political commentator got into Linux and
wanted to do an introductory talk on some Linux aspect at the conference,
should the conference be obligated to accept them just because they haven't
been found guilty of ... what?

If I hosted a party (or a conference), and a large fraction of the people I
talked to at the event told me that person X at the event was creeping on them
and they weren't coming back if person X was there, do I need to wait for
person X to be found guilty of being a creep to ban them from the next event?

Event organizers should have more leeway over their events than just "keep
convicts out".

Not saying that the conference organizers necessarily made the right call here
with Charles Wood, just arguing that they have the right to make such a call.
And people have the right to argue that it was the wrong call. I'm just
disagreeing with the concept that it wasn't even their call to make. It
especially doesn't seem to make much since to expect that the current court
system can handle this call.

------
aaronchall
Summary:

> In summary, it appears to this humble observer that The Code of Conduct
> process at The Linux Foundation went very badly off the rails with regard to
> Charles Max Wood. That LF owes Mr. Wood, and the Software Community at
> large, a profound apology. That LF should keep all future Code of Conduct
> complaints and decisions personal and confidential. That LF should publish
> and follow a well defined process for accepting, reviewing, and adjudicating
> future Code of Conduct complaints. And that some form of reparation be
> provided to Mr. Wood for the public harm that was done to him by the
> careless and unprofessional behavior of The Linux Foundation.

> Yours

> Robert C. Martin.

~~~
McGlockenshire
> That LF should keep all future Code of Conduct complaints and decisions
> personal and confidential. That LF should publish and follow a well defined
> process for accepting, reviewing, and adjudicating future Code of Conduct
> complaints.

How any organization of any significant size can adopt a CoC without having
these types of policies in place is madness. Especially handling it in private
first!

------
luord
As someone not from the USA, I'm mystified by the implication that wearing a
political party hat (the currently elected political party at that) makes a
place unsafe. And not even wearing it at the event, but at some place else,
some time in the past.

I'm glad that brilliant people like Uncle Bob mention how... strange this
stuff is.

------
zelly
There are people who end up conservative for predetermined reasons, like where
they were born or what religion they were born into. Statistically you inherit
your politics from your parents. Some of those people will become good
developers and engineers. Should they be forced to stay in the closet or be
ridiculed or fired? Should they scrub toilets instead?

~~~
jancsika
In other words-- a hiring process would look at things like team cohesion, but
also take into account that an applicant's potential difficulty in that area
may likely be due to circumstances that were outside of their control.

I've always found that a fair idea. Oddly, this is the only reference to that
idea I've seen on HN that didn't have a bunch of child posts attacking it.

~~~
moron4hire
There is a reason it's illegal to ask about political affiliation during job
interviews in the US.

------
sam_lowry_
Aside from employing Torvalds, LF has a lot of really muddy business. The
whole OpenAPI gang is a shame on FOSS, and this is just something I touched
professionally.

~~~
mikeyouse
What's the backstory on OpenAPI for someone completely unfamiliar?

~~~
sam_lowry_
Er.. in short, tech-blind industry representatives are using the LF brand to
advance their careers, and LF insiders are helping them out of sheer kindness.

------
salawat
Context!

Here's John's side of the story.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx-
jWg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx-jWg)

Main thread from cmaxw weighing in. No issues with him):
[https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824](https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824)

Kim Crayton's oh so enlightened response (scroll to the top):
[https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504](https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504)

Personally, I find the behavior absolutely unacceptable. Two people can agree
to disagree, but if someone flat out rejects coming to the table in the first
place, you are in the wrong, which seems to be the MO of John's accusers.
Sarah Mei at least is one of the same folks who was involved with the
"cancelling" of Richard Stallman.

~~~
detaro
I probably missing context (I for sure haven't spent much time on looking into
it, and don't plan to), but it seems to be a call to come to the table with
someone who's self-described actions are:

> _" Because this, my friends, is how you deal with SJWs. You troll the hell
> out of them and they have no weapon they can use against you.

Stop fighting them with logic. Just say inflammatory, illogical things to
them."_

[https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/11861277413907415...](https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/1186127741390741505)

I don't think you should assume people are in the wrong just because they do
not want to spend time playing nice with that.

~~~
ncmncm
This is the most enlightening post I have seen on this page. Thank you.

------
bartmcpherson
So outside this individual case, how open or public should these types of
decisions be made? For transparency, shouldn't people that are part of the
community know when these actions/accusations take place and what/how
decisions were made?

------
dependenttypes
> First let me say that I find it highly problematic that the complaint and
> the decision were public. Indeed I am surprised that LF would accept a
> publicly submitted code of conduct complaint. I am much more than surprised
> that LF would ever consider publicly responding to such a complaint.

Transparency is good though.

~~~
Fellshard
There is nothing less transparent than giving a public judgment without any of
the reasoning that led to that judgment.

~~~
jonbronson
"Our events should and will be a safe space."

Seems like a pretty clear reason. He demonstrated that he promotes a hostile
attitude toward marginalized individuals who they want to attend the
conference.

~~~
Fellshard
How? There's been a lot of motivations ascribed to him, but where has he
concretely promoted or performed in a hostile way?

------
rainyMammoth
I'm not surprised by this. Kubernetes specifically got a very left activist
community. Anyone even slightly disagreeing with the vocal minority is being
shamed on Twitter under the excuse to keep it an "inviting" and "open"
community. I hope everyone can see the irony here.

------
tlynchpin
No refunds for canceling KubeCon registration after November 4th.

------
ElijahLynn
This part loses me:

"Indeed I am surprised that LF would accept a publicly submitted code of
conduct complaint."

Of course they should accept a public complaint, this isn't a secret society,
it is an open source society, not a secret box where you can only complain in
private.

~~~
lliamander
Public complaints such as these are a form of public harassment, which is
forbidden by the CoC.

If there's going to be a public show of it, then the decision making process
should likewise be transparent and open. That it wasn't falsifies your claim
about it being an "open society".

These points were of course addressed in the letter.

~~~
ElijahLynn
Your statement that a public complaint == public harassment is an inference.

~~~
lliamander
A pretty reasonable one, since people got Wood kicked out of a conference _for
trying to help and be civil_.

------
sachdevap
I understand the title used on HN tries to follow what the article title is,
but it is thoroughly useless in giving me any information on the link. Why
should I even open this link?

~~~
quantummkv
I don't see whats wrong with the title? The article is exactly what the title
suggests - An open letter to the linux foundation

~~~
CharlesColeman
> I don't see whats wrong with the title? The article is exactly what the
> title suggests - An open letter to the linux foundation

The problem is the title gives you _no_ information about what the letter is
actually _about_. An open letter could do anything from raising an important
for the community...to something that's tedious and irrelevant (e.g. "An open
letter to the linux foundation about the lack of vegan food in the
cafeteria").

~~~
petercooper
That seems to be general policy. I track title edits and they are frequently
(though certainly not always) made less informational:
[https://hackernewstitles.netlify.com/](https://hackernewstitles.netlify.com/)
.. there are pros and cons so it's not a clear cut good or bad thing.

~~~
fourthark
Fascinating! Thank you!

------
soyiuz
This whole discussion thread has really made me disappointed with the HN
community. Almost every reply is expressed in the same, alt-right terms
("SJWs", "free-speech", and mock outrage, as evidenced by the outsize number
of f-bombs). Inexplicably, the scapegoat throughout seems to be a woman.

Take stock of your anger. Our industry is dominated by men, in a culture that
has repeatedly shown to be hostile to minorities of all kinds, women, and
people of color. Is this the best you can do? Even if this particular incident
is unjust in your opinion, you are certainly not the victim here. At most you
are asked to moderate your already dominating voices, slightly.

I never saw nearly as much engagement with posts that document actual abuses
of financial or professional hierarchies: systemic rape, discrimination,
harassment. But god forbid someone got reprimanded for being a bigot in public
(or whatever this story is about). Conferences are well documented source of
toxicity in our profession. The means to remedy the problem may be clumsy, but
instead of punching down, try understanding what these policies mean to
address and suggest something constructive.

------
akerro
Is Linus going to be banned from LF conferences for the ugly words he said
about people?

------
nullc
Okay I went digging for context.

There are some comments here about 'ddd' but AFAIK that drama is not part of
the sequence of events in this drama. (instead that appears to be a separate
issue worth it's own facepalming)

It appears to me that the sequence of events goes something like:

A person tweeted that she's glad she's not getting into tech today because the
violent language used by people promoting diversity would have scared her away
(actual tweet is removed, but here is the proximal discussion:)
[https://twitter.com/Aimee_Knight/status/1185755719762620416](https://twitter.com/Aimee_Knight/status/1185755719762620416)

People piled on and responded abusively.

An acquaintance of hers, John Sonmez a lifestyle vlogger (who's shtick is
apparently telling people how to be a man) waded into twitter and aggressively
told off everyone who was attacking in an effort to deflect the attacks, here
is his video talking about what he did:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjQ3Mx-
jWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjQ3Mx-jWg) He was about one notch more
civil than the sterotype of a foul mouthed 13yr/old boy playing a first person
shooter on xbox. (or at least I don't think he actually told someone that he
*ed their mother... but you get the idea...)

Predictable consequences were predictable and included getting his books
pulled by publishers and other serious fallout.

Charles Max Wood (cmaxw), subject of the open letter, was friends with Jonh
Sonmez and was pressured to disassociate with John. He said he didn't approve
of John's remarks but declined to disassociate,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jY1FQHLdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jY1FQHLdk)
and tried reaching out to people to insert himself as a mediator.
[https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824](https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824)

This was not welcome by some people who described his calls for civility as
tone policing. (and worse:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/11871112486783...](https://mobile.twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/1187111248678326276)
)

A 2016 picture of cmaxw visiting the trump tower wearing a MAGA hat, was found
and was used to support an argument against cmaxw:
[https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976](https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976)

The events covered in the letter pick up from there.

[If I'm entirely off place, lemme know quickly so I can fix or nuke this post.
I freely admit that I am entirely incompetent at sorting out twitter
dramafests, I try to never use twitter: It says right in the name what it's
for: Twits. And who has time for twits?]

------
mfer
I remember sitting in a session at a linux foundation conference where someone
on staff at TLF was the speaker and took a shot at President Trump and his
supporters. It was subtle but unmistakable. I think the shot likely violated
the CoC but nothing ever came of it. I can't find a session video or I'd link
it.

I remember hearing it and thinking, statistically speaking there are
supporters of Trump in the audience. Later, when I brought this up with
others, I found someone who was a Trump supporter who is uncomfortable about
that attacks on Trump and Trump supporters are allowed. The CoC notes
unacceptable behavior includes, "offensive or degrading language".

I share this because the linux foundation is over a global community of people
from various countries. People have different opinions on politics and other
beliefs. Open source is a place where people of many differences can come
together.

Having personally seen a bias against Trump supporters makes me want see this
be handled above reproach.

~~~
strictfp
You have misunderstood this movement. It's not about fairness or stopping
discriminatory behavior. It's about banning all opinions except the sanctioned
one.

"Do not speak unless you are one of us, do not think unless you have been told
how to, do not hold us to the same standards as we hold others."

Those should be the mottos of these idiots.

~~~
ncmncm
Just keep telling yourself that.

~~~
LocalH
Actions speak louder than words.

------
sandov
War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery— and Witch-hunting is Tolerance.

------
duxup
>The timeline of events, as far as I can determine them, is as follows:

-content that has a lot of missing context-

Is what is described what actually happened?

It seems like the writer might not know either.

~~~
Fellshard
That's why the letter is a request for clarity in light of seeming
impropriety.

------
tal8d
Good thing illumos implemented the CoC a few weeks ago, we wouldn't want
anyone to miss out on the cancel culture!

[https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/developer/T89a037970789a...](https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/developer/T89a037970789ab29)

------
joshberkus
Charles Woods was denied a pass to Kubecon on the basis of his podcasted
support for attacks on women and black people in tech by Mr. Somnez. It had
absolutely zero to do with MAGA hats.

------
arminiusreturns
Those of us who warned against the CoC's who were lambasted are over here
saying "I told you so" but will continue to be ignored. I have had multiple
very liberal hacktivist type friends approach me asking how we are going to
avoid these things being used to weaken the FOSS community, and I don't have a
very good answer other than we need to fork the orgs... but now that even our
former arch enemeis (microsoft) have become funders and influencers in those
orgs, it's a large uphill climb to get any org-fork to relevance. Certain
people and orgs who have always hated FOSS are probably giggling in the corner
as we all turn on ourselves.

------
hacknat
Does the CoC even apply to conferences? Or the rest of the foundation? I
thought it was just for the Kernel development process?

~~~
johnny22
it's probably not the same CoC. Lots of conferences have CoCs, and the CoC
aren't always the same as any related software projects.

------
LordHumungous
COC's being used as a weapon to purge political opponents? Shocking, who could
have predicted it.

------
emilfihlman
Damn, this letter really highlights the sad state of things :/

------
Bostonian
It appears that someone who wore a pro-Trump MAGA hat to a software conference
is being punished for violating an event Code of Conduct. Unless there is a
general ban on hats and clothing with political statements at software events,
this is clearly discriminatory.

"The Linux Foundation received a public tweet sent to the @KubeCon twitter
address. That tweet recommended that Kube Con discontinue their association
with Charles Max Wood. The reasons given in this complaint were his request
for an open and civil phone call, and a picture of Mr. Wood wearing a MAGA
hat.

The Linux Foundation publicly replied from the @linuxfoundation twitter
account as follows:

Hi all, We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code
of Conduct was violated and his registration to the event has been revoked.
Our events should and will be a safe space."

~~~
fenwick67
> It appears that someone were a pro-Trump MAGA hat to a software conference
> is being punished for violating an event Code of Conduct. Unless there is a
> general ban on hats and clothing with political statements at software
> events, this is clearly discriminatory.

You don't know (and this letter's author doesn't know) that wearing a MAGA hat
was what they considered a violation of the code of conduct.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> The reasons given in this complaint were his request for an open and civil
> phone call, and a picture of Mr. Wood wearing a MAGA hat.

It is the only possible conclusion given this information. Is there more?

~~~
fenwick67
This is what they said:

> We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code of
> Conduct was violated

It could have been "he wore the wrong hat" but it also could have been "we
looked and he was harassing people on Twitter".

------
ausjke
Whenever I saw news like this, I feel the system designed for USA might be
close to expire, mean it is no longer working for the goodness of the people.

Left and right can no longer tolerate different opinions at all, left controls
most of the media and universities and to some extent, the social media, so in
most cases, it actually is the left bullies the right, to the point some of
the left just lost their mind when they spot a MAGA hat, this is insane.

the left combined with socialism agenda looks great on paper or ideology, but
it will kill the society for good. I have long been thinking that we're
doomed, the current system is an version out of date, and there is no new
release on the horizon, chaos is the only step next.

------
eximius
Just... don't. use. Twitter.

I mean, dear god, it's a cesspool of incivility. It's very structure
discourages civil discourse because everyone is trying to be the most pithy.

And clicking on the links that are supposed to be the 'context' around this
shit show.... how on earth is anyone supposed to navigate that mess?

No, just stay far, far away.

~~~
zelly
Every day someone somewhere gets fired for something they posted on Twitter.
I've never heard of anyone getting hired for a tweet.

~~~
httpsterio
I got, sent out a tweet looking for work and got an interview the next day in
my city. ended up working there for a while.

------
Veelox
@ mods I 100% understand why this is flagged and it is already being a mess
but it has 100+ upvotes in <1 hour. If possible I think this issue is
important enough to some such as myself in the community that this post should
be allowed on the front page.

------
coleifer
Please let the Linux foundation know how you feel directly:

events@linuxfoundation.org

------
kd3
I like the open and public way of handling such matters. You won't have much
transparency in private and that is dangerous. However, i am against their
decision. All these "community guidelines" and "code of conduct" bullshit just
get abused to attack and censor people.

------
Chris2048
Article flagged, because despite the relevance to a tech community, and the
high profile of R Martin, some people in HN can't help abuse "flagging" for
things they disagree with.

~~~
Chris2048
To be clear: The article _was_ flagged, not that I flagged it.

------
cosmiccatnap
To call something like this orwellian is to misunderstand and disrespect the
whole concept of what orwell was warning about in the first place. Im not
going to reply because the quality of theses conversations are simply
apologist at best and I dare not say what they are at worst, if you think this
is a left right thing you've not been paying attention. With that said, I
think as usual an xkcd sums this up better than I could in many paragraphs.

[https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

~~~
Fellshard
Can you explain how that comic applies in this circumstance?

------
ycombonator
Two men walk into a bar one wearing “si se puede” and the other “make America
great again”. The bar happens to be in Silicon Valley......

------
goatinaboat
What grinds my gears about situations like this is that the people inventing
and enforcing these so-called CoCs are never actual engineers, just
individuals who have somehow infiltrated the engineering community and are
dictating to its authentic members.

~~~
xrd
That's an interesting point. Can you share more about who is an actual
engineer and who isn't? Is this a certification? Do you consider yourself part
of the engineering community, and if so, how does someone get admitted, either
by your standards or the standards of the community?

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camdenlock
The really troubling thing is how people like this “Sarah Mei” are allowed to
call shots. Why does anyone even give credence to what she says? She’s clearly
a power-hungry megalomaniac who spends all of her time “calling out” people
who violate her religious beliefs (Intersectionalism / Foucaltian Power
Dynamism).

Sorry, not everyone is a member of that religion, so we should not be policing
based upon your own personal religious beliefs.

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DoreenMichele
So his complaint is they accepted a public complaint and responded publicly,
he thinks this is evil incarnate, _but_ he is going to justify publicly
posting his lengthy complaint about the whole thing based on "This was all
done publicly."

My knee jerk reaction is to think of my mother saying: _Two wrongs don 't make
a right._

(To be clear, if this were framed differently, I probably wouldn't have a
problem with it. But as it is, it just reeks of "Do as I say, not as I do.")

