
In Honor of Alan Turing: A message from the sponsor - aaronbrethorst
http://www.linux-magazine.com/content/view/full/55727
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dredmorbius
Count me among those who never suspected (though, in truth, the matter also
never came up).

Jon: welcome to the Out world. Wonderful essay.

And thanks, Maddog, for all you've done for Linux and FOSS (and various
techish bits before then) all these years.

~~~
fiorix
I never suspected that, too.

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jgrant27
Wonderful contrast from ESR's disgusting article.

~~~
Argorak
I may have missed something. Could you please post a link?

~~~
RobAley
See [1] for his views on homaphobia, and [2] for his views on race.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157324> [2]
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3826846>

Edit: The link in [2] is dead, it previously linked to
<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4270>

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mrbill
I'm sorta sad that this is even newsworthy; his personal life has nothing to
do with his work regarding technology.

~~~
RobAley
Wider issues in society always affect what we do in our work lives, for a
number of reasons.

Very few of us work purely in the technology industry. That is, our customers
or market are not technical in nature, technology is usually used in support
of other goals.

More pertinent to this case, Alan Turing’s life and death shows us how issues
such as sexuality affect technical work. Who knows what Alan may have done had
he lived longer, or what he would have achieved if he wasn't side-lined when
he was alive.

In particular terms of why it is newsworthy on HN, as per the guidelines
"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than
hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might
be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." For me as a hacker,
it falls right within this definition.

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jff
"The position and actions of various U.S. “churches” who actively promote harm
to homosexuals both in the United States and in other countries. Their use of
my tax dollars to sustain these churches in their fight to deny me rights
particularly infuriates me."

Whaaaaaat? I don't think it's supposed to work that way.

Edit: a bit further down, it seems that he considers his tax dollars to be
supporting Fred Phelps' church because if somebody tries to burn it down, the
fire department will put it out. That's... certainly an interesting position,
especially coming from someone who does not live in Topeka or even in Kansas.

~~~
shirro
I don't want to go church bashing and I don't know how it is in the US but in
Australia church run enterprises pick up a lot of government contracts for job
placement, school chaplaincy and delivery of social services. Also church run
schools receive a lot of public funding (sometimes in excess or poor public
schools) while still pocketing large fees. And they do this without having to
pay taxes. I am mainly concerned about this in Aus because of the denial of
qualified counselling services to kids in favour of evangelism and the
Internet and games censorship lobby. But there is no doubt the anti-gay lobby
here is primarily driven by religious organisations and I don't doubt they
benefit from the lobbying capabilities and funding that comes from being close
with government.

~~~
femto
Be careful about the funding claims. Australian public schools receive their
funds from both state and federal governments. Private schools receive funds
only from the federal government. Generally (always?) public schools receive
more government funding than private schools, but splitting of their income
source may mean that they receive less from a single government source than a
private school.

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adrianhoward
Well said that man.

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sigzero
Kuddos to Jon.

