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Drupal Developers Threaten To Quit Drupal Unless Larry Garfield Is Reinstated (drupalconfessions.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot previously covered the story of Larry Garfield, a Drupal developer who was allegedly banned from the community for his BDSM/Gorean lifestyle, after he was outed by a colleague with a grudge. Now, dozens of core Drupal developers, committers, and funders have banded together in an open letter to Dries Buytaert, the CTO of Acquia, Drupal trademark owner, and Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) of the Drupal project. Among other things, they demand that Larry Garfield be reinstated, threatening to abandon the project if their demands are not met. Here's an excerpt from the letter: "If you will not fight for us and restore our faith in the professionalism of the Drupal community, then a number of us will be permanently leaving the Drupal community, ceasing all contributions to the official, Drupal-branded branch of the codebase, and ceasing participation in all Drupal communities. This is not our first choice, but we cannot and will not participate in a community that encourages abusers to totally destroy people's careers for personal or ideological reasons."
It would be a boring world if people could not enjoy some socially-unaccepted hobbies in private without fearing for their employment.
Would it be okay to launch an Internet-wide Two Minutes' Hate against them to put pressure on their employer? (Assume, perhaps, that they're in some leadership position â" like, say, CTO.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
False. Larry does not follow any such creed. He plays at it. Play, fantasy.
He does say that it is his contention that some women enjoy this some of the time. He would appear to be correct as he has a number of active feminist ex-lovers supporting him. Reports of his general behaviour with and to women have been described by women and men (how would they know!) as exemplary.
There are also Gorean groups where gender is reversed. So what?
There is a difference between fantasy and real life. Accept that.
If he treated people as you claim you would have a point but he does not do so and you do not have a point.
As I said on the previous post about this situation, who cares? His code still works, and there are no allegations that he's trying to fuck the other contributors or for that matter, practicing his kinks with anyone who's not consenting to how he gets his rocks off.
However repugnant "goreanism" might be, I'm rather more repulsed by someone like you demanding that hackers pass some kind of political purity test. Go fuck yourself.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you had that position should that prevent you from being employed?
Politics is like that. My local representative (who I did not vote for, but for other reasons) is a member of a mainstream political party that opposed decriminalising homosexuality twenty years ago (almost to the day in that state, a bit longer ago in my state I think). Some prominent people in that party still want to turn back the clock (eg. Senator Eric Abetz). Locking people up for being gay is a bit worse that proposition 8 isn't it? Some people express truly revolting and reactionary opinions and still call themselves conservative, but it's not a crime. If someone wants to support that bunch they shouldn't be sacked for it IMHO no matter what politics the boss has.
Good men oppose actions not thought.
You are arguing something completely unrelated. This is about someone choosing who works for them. If they are making that choice based on what the person does outside the workplace it's unfair and intrusive IMHO.
Someone who's a BDSM "slave" isn't usually a real slave, they're just pretending because they and their partner enjoy it. It's like how someone who dresses up in a nurse uniform to have sex isn't usually a real nurse, they're just pretending because they and their partner enjoy it.
A BDSM "slave" has agreed in advance what they'll do and what their limits are, and has a safeword that would stop everything as soon as they say it. People into BDSM are generally much MORE concerned about consent than the average person - because we push the envelope so much, we have to know that the emergency stop will work. And there's usually a lot of love and caring in the relationship, just like in a "vanilla" (non-BDSM) relationship, although the feelings might be expressed differently.
And are you saying that "vulnerable highly-autistic women" are not allowed to have any kinks? I have no knowledge of the people involved, but it seems plausible to me that she got a man to love and care for her, look after her, help structure her life, and have a fulfilling sexual relationship with, and he got a woman to love and care for him as best she could (those things can be difficult for an autistic person), and an obedient partner in life and in bed - that seems like a relationship which is positive for both the people involved.
As for the "passed her on to a friend of his", well, relationships sometimes end. Sad but true, both for BDSM and "vanilla" (non-BDSM) relationships. If he still cared for her, then helping her find someone else seems like a generous thing to do that would be good for her. Especially if, due to her issues, she would have had problems being on her own and/or finding someone else. And if they're looking for someone for her, then their circle of friends would be the first place to look, because they know and trust those people.
So, from what's publicly known, I don't see anything he's done that's wrong. Unconventional, sure. Against certain people's morals, certainly. But then again, if the standard is "against certain people's morals", then we should be kicking out all women from the project for not wearing a burqa.
Yes. Ask the autist slave how they feel. Lol.
It is ridiculous, right? She clearly has no ability to determine what is best for her, and needs someone to take care of her and tell her what is acceptable.
oh, wait