
Drupal project imploding, core developers ejected for S&M hobbies - dgtlmoon
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/03/27/2115233/prominent-drupal-php-developer-kicked-from-the-drupal-project-over-unconventional-sex-life
======
nodesocket
I'm sorry, but how is this different than discriminating based on sexual
preference (being gay)? This sort of stuff has no place in a business setting.
Unfortunately this is the world we live in; everybody is outraged over
something and claiming to be open and inclusive, as long as it prescribes to
their own beliefs.

Where are the TechCrunch social justice warriors (Megan Rose Dickey) about
this?

~~~
wskinner
It's no different, except that people who claim to be open and tolerant never
really are. They are just tolerant of one or the other outgroup to the degree
that that outgroup is socially acceptable.

I think the reason this happens is that people have no principles reason for
tolerating other people. It just "feels right" for certain groups and wrong
for others. So who gets tolerated trails changes in social acceptability.

------
xupybd
From what I've read they were offended at his views on women. Views that never
seemed to be expressed in his professional life.

Seems very wrong to me. We don't need thought police. He should be judged on
his professional actions not private beliefs.

He has beliefs from gorean philosophy, that are something along the lines of
women submitting to men. While many wouldn't agree with him, those same views
are present in many religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and many others.
If he managed to work with women without any problems why was he kicked off
the project?

The responses allude to something they refuse to disclose, but it all seems
very wrong to me. People should be free to believe what they want.

------
Animats
If a gay guy was ejected for being into S&M, people would be screaming.

It's surprising that anybody cares at this point. "50 Shades Darker" just
finished its run. SF has had Bondage a Go Go for over 20 years now.

The Gor thing is a joke at this late date. It's mostly something people do in
Second Life now. It was cool in maybe 1975, when Norman's first books were
out. He's still writing those books, and they sell to women as romances.

(An amusing note on political correctness: the State Department has some
documents on line for their staff returning to the US and re-integrating into
American society. One of the items covered is how political correctness has
changed in the last few years. If you've been working in Ankara or Kuala
Lumpur for the last few years, you may have missed the whole gay marriage
thing.)

------
mherchel
I don't agree with the decision. But, he was not ejected for S&M hobbies. He
was ejected because he was perceived to believe that women are subservient to
men (evidently this was part of some of his online writing).

Here's a timeline of blog posts:

1\. Larry's (the ejectee) initial blog post:
[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
outing](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing)

2\. Dries' (founder of Drupal) following blog post:
[http://buytaert.net/living-our-values](http://buytaert.net/living-our-values)

3\. Statement from the Drupal Association's Exec Director:
[https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-
the...](https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the-
executive-director)

4\. Another blog post from Larry where he clears up misconceptions and answers
questions: [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
part-2](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-2)

More Info:

* Drupal community discussion on /r/Drupal: [https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/)

* A great non-partial tldr; blogpost from Drupal developer Mike Ryan: [http://virtuoso-performance.com/blog/mikeryan/thoughts-drupa...](http://virtuoso-performance.com/blog/mikeryan/thoughts-drupal-community)

~~~
geoah
Gor is a fiction community, as others had said before the Bible and other
fiction books have similar views on women. Gor as all bdsm is a game, it is a
play, an act between consenting adults.

Garfield has never (to our current knowledge) acted in real life upon the
things said in the context of Gor.

------
mdekkers
Ugh, the Drupal community strikes again. I have been working with Drupal for
roughly 10 years, and outside of an initial flurry of commits rarely engage
with that cesspit of a "community". I have the misfortune to have to do a
significant amount of work with Drupal, which was badly designed and written,
then badly redesigned and re-written, with the same pattern repeating twice
more. There are many nice and helpful people in the community, but the
majority of those in a leadership position are nasty little fascists hell bent
on preserving their position of power.

I once got a salescall from Aqcuia, they tried to enroll me in some partner
program or something. The salesguy got chatting with me, I explain in rough
outlines how we train up our developers to become Drupal devs, this being the
reason I wasn't really interested in their training program. Shortly
thereafter, they launched a "Drupal Academy" or some ame, which was pretty
much word for word what I told the lousy slimeball I was talking with on the
phone.

I have no respect for these people, and this is just another unsurprising
demonstration of what they are like.

------
ams6110
Editorialized headline? The actual one is "Prominent Drupal, PHP Developer
Kicked From the Drupal Project Over Unconventional Sex Life"

------
sattoshi
I'm confused. What was the issue for his firing? Was it because his sex life
went public and thus gave the project a bad view?

Kind of if someone abuses legal some legal substance that is frowned upon (I
couldn't think of such a substance, let's pretend it exists) and gets ejected
when it gets out to the public because they now associate a frowned-on
behavior with the project.

OR

Was the issue just that he enjoyed sexual dominance?

Or even a mix of both? I feel like I'm missing something because I don't even
understand the situation.

~~~
ams6110
The Techcrunch story posted is better. It's linked in another comment here.

Edit: Sorry I meant the Inc. story.

"Garfield's accusers ... insist that Gor enthusiasts sincerely believe in the
misogynistic philosophy of gender presented in the books. They point to
Garfield's history of professing less-than-PC opinions about race and gender."

~~~
mercer
> They point to Garfield's history of professing less-than-PC opinions about
> race and gender.

What I don't understand is that if this is the case, why did it go unnoticed
until someone specifically went to dig into Garfield's history?

~~~
cweagans
Drupal developer here. I've worked on core, maintain many contrib modules,
etc. and have worked with Larry IRL on Drupally stuff. I really don't
understand what this quote is talking about if they _aren 't_ specifically
pointing at his history. He's never been less than pleasant and considerate of
others in my IRL interactions with him. Also, from his post:

> Second: I've been involved in the Gorean community since 2002. I've been
> involved in Drupal since 2005. It took until late 2016 for anyone to realize
> I was in both. Moreover, from what I understand from the CWG the first
> "leak" was someone on that alt-lifestyle private forum who found my account
> there, screenshotted it, and started passing it around.

(source: [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
part-2](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-2))

------
xref
Reminder that Codes of Conduct are mostly feel-good and not legally binding,
and there is a big asterisk on all of them; * Unless we feel differently

------
randomname2
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972307)
which has more neutral reporting

------
retrogradeorbit
The Code of Conduct strikes again.

------
chuckdries
Anyone here use drupal? I'm only vaguely aware of it. What does this mean for
the project? I know my university uses it for their entire website.

~~~
tnone
It means the steady downward trend it's been on for the last 7-8 years is
about to accelerate. PHP CMSes fill a niche of bespoke software deployments
made irrelevant by more standardized collaboration and publishing tools with
better usability.

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=drupal](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=drupal)

~~~
devwastaken
>It means the steady downward trend it's been on for the last 7-8 years is
about to accelerate.

I don't see this downward spiral trend you're talking about. Drupal 8 is one
of the most dynamic and thought out CMS's available. Your statement would fit
Wordpress better, and even that would still be wrong because its so widely
used.

~~~
jhall1468
> I don't see this downward spiral trend you're talking about.

He literally posted a graph showing interest over time in Drupal has steadily
been declining.

> Drupal 8 is one of the most dynamic and thought out CMS's available.

Now you sound like a press release.

~~~
devwastaken
>He literally posted a graph showing interest over time in Drupal has steadily
been declining.

They posted google trends. If software lived and breathed by how it was
googled, there wouldn't be many options.

>Now you sound like a press release.

Making generalizations like 'this entire framework is going down' is a better
press release.

------
ThrustVectoring
Link should be to the original source, [https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/26/sex-
and-gor-and-open-sourc...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/26/sex-and-gor-and-
open-source/)

~~~
jackbravo
The original source would be this link:
[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
outing](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing)

Followed by this by Dries Buytaert, Drupal BDFL: [http://buytaert.net/living-
our-values](http://buytaert.net/living-our-values)

And then there was this other response from Larry:
[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
part-2](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-2)

And besides techcrunch, there was this other piece by inc.com:
[http://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/drupal-larry-garfield-
gor.html](http://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/drupal-larry-garfield-gor.html)

------
tedunangst
Core developers? Plural?

------
emiliobumachar
Is it too soon to nickname this scandal Prudal?

