The Linux Kernel Adopts A Code of Conduct

[Guest]

EDIT: seriously though, what's up with all the alt-right comments in a Linux forum? Have I woken up in some weird parallel dimension this morning?

[ahjolinna]

GetWokeGoBroke,

bringing SJW politics to anything has never ended well, as we have seen in the past couple of years it has done more harm than good.

Trying to police people thoughts/words never works out, but this is what left/SJW/feminist are still trying to do even when it has backfired spectacularly.

Unfortunately many have to go through this current western phenomenon and learn the hard way that it doesn't work.

[andrebrait]

You've clearly missed exactly how SJWs tend to use the "code of conducts" and how this tends to work in practice.

If someone submits code to a project then that code will get accepted or rejected on it's own merit. Nobody cares who wrote it or what they look like. Linus has made some rather insulting remarks over the years and it's usually something like "this code is pure garbage and you're an idiot for writing it this badly". I've never seen anyone reject a piece of code saying "your code looks good but you're fat so we don't want your code". This does not happen.

I have seen examples of SJWs digging through someone's Internet history and show up and demand that the lead developer of a project with 3 people step down because of some off-hand joke about some fat person made on some completely different site years earlier. That's how this bullshit works, you get SJWs trying to bully people into leaving free software projects because some joke or opinion they shared somewhere totally unrelated to the project - basically saying that you must have all the "right" opinions in all aspects of your private life or you'll get kicked out.

SJWs are basically just bullies.

I for one believe that people should be allowed to have their own opinions and share those as much as they want where it is appropriate with zero consequences to things like software projects where it does not matter.

So, I might now get the concern people have...

Yeah, those are indeed bad things that don't help anyone.

I'm all for having those limitations in place, but within reason. Not digging up stuff from however many years ago.

I mean, if you go far back in my Facebook timeline you will find stuff that's not so good, views that I don't hold anymore, and doing that like I still hold them would be just dishonest and evil.

[andrebrait]

Needless to say, weight, gender, etc have absolutely NOTHING to do with this kind of discussion

Sorry, I don't think I get your response, with this last paragraph. That's the only subject I touched on in my post, so by stating this last paragraph I fail to see (well, actually I did fail to see before this paragraph as well) how the preceding content relates to that.

Ps.: Not being aggressive, I really didn't get it.

[DanL]

EDIT: seriously though, what's up with all the alt-right comments in a Linux forum?

Welcome to Phoronix.

[Cthulhux]

what's up with all the alt-right comments in a Linux forum?

Which kind of politics does being around Linux suggest?

[karolherbst]

the big problem is that it gives a few so much power to abuse. Thats what we need to remember is that power corrupts so when you give people power, it gets abused.

yeah, but that's something we already have anyway. There are a lot of people with power around us every day and we always have to check for if they abuse their power or not. Just by giving people power over us, it doesn't mean they immediately abuse it. Linus in its own way also abused his power already by cursing and insulting people, even if this wasn't his intention.

In the end we have to decide on what kind of abuse of power is still "okay" and which isn't okay at all. Power gets abused all the time, all your life is based on this. You can fight some of it, most of it isn't worth fighting against, because you have better things to do.

The problem is that the Code of Conduct doesn't say you will not harrass or discriminate against those who believe in "gender identity". It takes "gender identity" as an established, objective FACT and requires participants not to discriminate BASED ON it - which means by abiding by the CoC, you implicitly recognise and accept that it is treated as a fact. I suspect that if the CoC said you will not discriminate against people based on where they live on the Flat Earth, sensible people would take objection against it. And I, for one, don't acknowledge the existence of such a thing as "gender identity" any more that I don't acknowledge flat earth. I don't respect it, I don't respect people who claim it, I don't see it as a legitimate concern, I regard it as mildly irritating pseudoscientific prattle that is not worth of anything more than ignorance. Sure, if some people believe in it, like they may believe in fairies or in Santa Claus, whatever, it's their life. But it's extremely worrying that something as serious and respectable as Linux implicitly ENFORCES the adherence to an ideology that is, to put it mildly, highly "problematic" (there, I used that word for once!) from any scientific or rational point of view.

Which is no problem at all, because you shouldn't care what the other person things of yourself, but if you do care, then _you_ have a problem. Granted, the other persons might also have problems of various kinds, maybe you indeed run into some person who thinks something is wrong with the world because people don't believe or accept something.

Okay let's just assume you are a kernel maintainer and you don't achknowledge the existence of "gender identity", is it still okay to discriminate people who do, allthough they create a usefull contribution? Why would it matter to your work (as a maintainer)?

If you agree to this, you basically agree that based on what the other person thinks you are alloweed to discriminate. And I don't see why that is a good thing. Some people believe in the wrong things, some in the right things. Most of the time I don't know what is the right or wrong thing, because "right" and "wrong" itself are social constructs we use ourself to validate and build our believes on. Some of those can be backed up by facts, some are just "right" because it improves our life and living together with other people and we accepted those as "right" due to this.

Some people treat others like shit and are pure assholes, because we accepted them as people in power and it would be hopeless to fight against those, which, like it or not, could also be "right" thinking in our society, because it stabilizes it, even if it empowers assholes.

All this stuff is seriously hard to understand and to accept, most people don't. And by discrimating other persons based on their believes, you are not helping making others feel comfortable with theirs. You have your believes, others have their own. You don't have to accept those, others don't have to as well.

In the end, all one can do is to not be an asshole to others and others might stop being an asshole towards one.

So this was the "rational point of view". Coming to the "scientific point of view":

It doesn't matter what you think. It only matters what you are able to prove. And we have proof that "gender identitiy" is a problem for some people. Don't make it a bigger one by being assholes towards those. I am not an asshole towards you even though I don't accept your believe, but because I want you to understand why you are wrong, I try explaining it to you, why it is wrong to not respect people based on their believes.

By not respecting people you destroy communication, and by destroying communication you take away your chance to change your position _and_ the chance for others to change theirs, which is fundamental in scientific discussions. Without those, the scientific method wouldn't work. Communication is what all science is based upon. It is used to find flaws in proofs by talking with others about it. Something you might have accepted as a fact, might be wrong, because others are able to proof it is a wrong fact. Maybe their method was faulty and the fact you accepted isn't wrong. All this requires communication.

Believe it or not, but most scientific facts are accepted because others accepted the proofs _not_ because the fact itself holds any weight. The weight of fact is given by _others_ agreeing with you and your proofs. Facts itself are so to speak a "social construct" we use to explain our world and how the world works. We have to verify our facts all the time, because we can never say a fact is true, we can only mark it as true. Facts can only be proven wrong, never proven as true. All we can do is to find proofs for all our facts which are consistent with what we experience and try to find that one proof to prove those wrong.

Coming back to your point: the fact is people have issues with their gender identity. This is something we have a lot of evidence for. What we might not have or do have are hypothesis' or theories about why that is. I didn't read any of those, so I don't know anything about the scientific discussions going on there. But the fact that people have indeed problems with it isn't something even you could not accept, otherwise we wouldn't talk about it.

In the end, if your point of view is, that "gender identity" doesn't exist (and proving something doesn't exist is impossible in the first place), then prove why observations about people having issues with their gender identity are in fact false and that all reports are indeed wrong reports.

[Guest]

Which kind of politics does being around Linux suggest?

You mean "contributing to the commons without expecting a monetary compensation"? Leftist for sure. At least that's the reason I am here.

[Henk717]

Most of this code of conduct seems fine, but there is one line that has me a bit worried even though i do not make any kernel contributions myself.
"Using welcoming and inclusive language" is very open to interpretation, i would have personally worded this as make use of professional language.
This because this line is very welcoming to nonsensical reports and debates over identity politics as these days large groups of people can be offended by so many things that there really is no boundary on what is non-inclusive language and that might mean people have to overly self-censor which would be the other end of the issue.
Hopefully its interpreted correctly and people take this as use language you would also use inside a corporate environment rather then make sure to use the correct pronouns and refrain from things like master/slave and black and white when describing your work.

[Cthulhux]

Using Linux because it saves your money is totally not leftist, and I know a lot of people who do just that.