Cyanogen Mod Goes Commercial To Make "Available On Everything, To Everyone"
The popular Cyanogen Mod distribution of the Android Open Source Project dropped a bombshell today: the founding members have formed a corporation (currently with a team of seventeen hackers) to work on the project with the founder of Boost Mobile as the CEO. Quoting the announcement: "You have probably seen the pace of development pick up drastically over the past few months. More devices supported, bigger projects such as CM Account, Privacy Guard, Voice+, a new version of Superuser, and secure messaging. We vastly improved our infrastructure. We’re doing more bug fixes, creating more features, and improving our communication. We think that the time has come for your mobile device to truly be yours again, and we want to bring that idea to everybody. ... So what does this all mean for the community? The first thing I wanted to do when I realized we were actually doing this, was tell everyone possible. But when starting a company, you have to think about the larger picture. This meant not announcing until the time was right, our house was in order and we would have something to show. I have seen open source projects come and go, some being bought out and closed, others stagnating and falling by the wayside. I don’t want to see this happen with CM."
Stop this.
Girls code. Girls hack. This is not news, and contributes to an incorrect societal marginalization of people sans Y chromosome in jobs like this.
What's more, you imply a team like this would only have such a woman on their payroll as a sex object.
You would probably say, indignantly "it was just a joke, all in fun!" Joking in this way is not OK. It needs to be shut down and shunned by society, and I'm calling it out everywhere I see it.
I'm a member of the Y-chromosome club, and I condemn alen's message.
COBOL was designed by a woman. Spanning-tree protocol was invented by a woman. This thread is why I use a guy's name to play WoW and Halo.
Stop this.
Girls code. Girls hack. This is not news, and contributes to an incorrect societal marginalization of people sans Y chromosome in jobs like this.
What's more, you imply a team like this would only have such a woman on their payroll as a sex object.
You would probably say, indignantly "it was just a joke, all in fun!" Joking in this way is not OK. It needs to be shut down and shunned by society, and I'm calling it out everywhere I see it.
I'm a member of the Y-chromosome club, and I condemn alen's message.
This cannot be repeated enough.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Joking in this way is not OK.
There is no such thing as a joke that is not OK. People like you get offended, but that's because you don't understand the power of a joke. You're not going to change the mind of actual misogynists by telling them you're offended about their beliefs. But when society makes fun of their beliefs by making a joke like that, and everyone laughs instead of seriously agreeing, that means we're moving past it. We're showing those people their arguments have been shot down so many times they're not even worth it debating anymore. We can just voice what they're parroting and everyone understand it to be a joke, because that's the only thing that opinion makes sense as.
When you take it seriously and get offended, you actually legitimize their position. Stop it.
Commenters on Slashdot should not be able to hide behind "Anonymous Coward" to post comments like this. This kind of comment should be a bannable offense.
It's a stupid comment posted by an idiot, but what you advocate, simply because the AC's statement offended you, is much, much worse.
If you don't like it, browse comments at > +2, leave here and go to a forum that censors, or better yet, put on your big boy/girl pants and ignore it instead of trying to control everyone else's experience on /. just because you are offended.
> There is no such thing as a joke that is not OK.
The punchline needs to bring attention to the problem and not further victimize the subject. This "joke" had no point, and was simply mocking women. That makes it not OK. Sexist jokes are ok when we are laughing at the asshole, not the victim. This "joke" suggested all a women can do is stand in a booth. If the joke were rephrased to show the idiocy of males in technology, then it'd be different. But that takes thought and actual wit, of which the original joker had none.
"If the joke were rephrased to show the idiocy of males in technology, then it'd be different." Oh you mean like all the jokes about men being unable to take care of babies, or children? Jokes about men being "nerds" and "dorks"? About being "commitment-phobes"? Jokes about men not "manning up"? Jokes about men being socially or fashionably inept? Jokes about men buying fast cars because of their small penises? Jokes about men being domestic buffoons in the family? Or how about all the feminist jokes about "all men" being rapists or abusers or oppressors? It seems to me that men have been taking jokes for a long long time. Equally, it seems to me that it is YOU who cannot take a joke which must make it really hard for you to live with yourself.
With this move, they are now beholden to shareholders (i.e. the Venture Capitalists) and profit is the #1 priority, despite the flowery, rainbow-colored unicorn fantasy they are promoting.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that CM is going to become payware and possibly even supported by ads integrated directly into the O/S, with underlying information snooping software that gives them your private info so they can sell it to marketing firms.
So, no, I don't like it one bit.