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Drupal Developers Still Rebelling Against Drupal Leadership

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

New submitter cornholed writes: In an update to previous posts on Slashdot, prominent Drupal and PHP Developer Larry Garfield is still defending his reputation against allegations by Drupal leadership against sexual misconduct. As previously reported by a variety of news organizations, Larry was exiled from the Drupal project for adherence to the Gor sci-fi lifestyle.

In the latest round of allegations, Garfield was reportedly asked to resign because an autistic "woman who attended Drupal community events ... was allowed to contribute by him". While some have accused Dries Buytart and the Drupal Association of "Autism Shaming", the leader of the Drupal project claims "this person could be vulnerable and may have been subject to exploitation", hence raising the risk of legal damage to the Drupal project. Larry refutes these allegations, saying these claims are post-hoc and has shared police reports purporting his innocence.

There is still much debate in the Drupal community around why Larry was ejected from his leadership positions. While there's much speculation over Larry's ouster, there is one thing for certain: become a leader in the OSS community and a dossier on your public statements just might be made about you.

35 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Nice objective submission by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    It's nice to see a story submission which isn't trying to drive a slanted narrative for once!

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Nice objective submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I, for one, love that our personal sex lives are now subject to political correctness and mob rule, and that we should only partake of activities people who don't even know you decide are morally acceptable.

      This is the same kind of reasoning that got people fired for being gay or having AIDS in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. But THIS TIME, it's for a Good Cause (TM), right? ... right?

    2. Re:Nice objective submission by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have to say it's rather amusing seeing this kind of blatant Puritanical moral self-righteousness coming from (nominally) social liberals. Not surprising, mind you: creating a tight-knit society that requires its members to adhere to strict, often arbitrary, moral and ethical guidelines is "How to Control Others" 101. The trick is, of course, ostracizing anyone who doesn't fall in line so that everyone whose still in the group sees the consequences of disobedience. Most people, after that, will never dare go against the authority for fear of losing friends/family/job, and even better, they'll watch for "deviant" behavior in their "friends" so they can turn on them and show what good, upstanding people they are. It's not new or clever (see: nearly every society in human history), but it works really, really well. Of course, when there isn't a central authority, the moral code usually becomes stricter and stricter as everyone seeks to show how pure and righteous they are until you end up with a moral code that's literally impossible to follow. Depending on your goal, that may actually be desirable: once everyone is a sinner, it becomes possible to wipe out any adversary no matter how pure they may actually be, but it's playing with fire, as you yourself can also become viewed as a sinner, if you're not careful (witness how in modern feminism white women are starting to become viewed as privileged, and you have to be a disabled trans black immigrant bald non-gender-conforming obese femtosexual to actually be considered oppressed, and therefore unable to be an evil privileged eraser of minorities).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:Nice objective submission by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      This is the same kind of reasoning that got people fired for being gay or having AIDS in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. But THIS TIME, it's for a Good Cause (TM), right? ... right?

      It was always for Good Cause (TM).

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Nice objective submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't so much his lifestyle but that he's "a fucking white male". Code of conducts have been a race and gender based weapon by social justice activists from the start. If he had just been more "diverse" this wouldn't have been an issue.

    5. Re: Nice objective submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The police and the woman's two therapists mentioned in the OP show that it is unreasonable to assume abuse. Combine that with no evidence of abuse, and the oddly disjointed witchhunt against him, and their claims of abuse are fatuous wank.

    6. Re:Nice objective submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      IMHO, I can judge the drupal board without the full facts of the relationship, because I believe it was wrong of them to react in any way to any allegation.

      Maybe they have more convincing evidence of something being wrong that they have no published.
      It's put up or shut up time. Why have they not done so? And I have a very high bar - because it has to be a genuine threat to the project. (I don't care if someone is a convicted murderer or any other crime; even THAT isn't good enough to kick someone off.)

      Also, any evidence of actual harm being suffered by this woman that do have, they should have done the honourable thing and TURNED THAT F**KING OVER TO THE POLICE. Because social workers and police have already looked into this and found NOTHING. (See this commenter.)

    7. Re:Nice objective submission by thesandtiger · · Score: 2

      The system absolutely does have ways to deal with it. The "good" solution would have been them either not having a puritanical shit-fit over someone's kinks that they got squeamish about OR, if they had any verifiable evidence or signs of abuse, to take that info to the authorities ASAP, fire Garfield with no explanation - they don't have to give one - and then shut the fuck up in public about it, offering only "no comment" to any questions.

      Instead, they did the least helpful possible thing. They fired the guy with claims that his private behavior would harm their organization despite having zero evidence that he had behaved unprofessionally at any time, because they got squeamish about his kinks. They then tried to litigate this in the court of public opinion, and started making vague statements that maybe he was abusive based on their biased thinking that individuals with autism can't possibly provide full consent in a relationship. On top of that, they're opening themselves and their organization up to massive legal repercussions since they are making these claims in their capacity as leaders of the organization. And finally and worst, they muddied the waters sufficiently that it's going to be even harder to get any justice (if any is needed) for the individual they are claiming to want to protect.

      The fact that they weren't able to respond with anything remotely approaching emotional maturity to this situation says to me that they are wholly unqualified to be in any position of responsibility until they grow up. They will be lucky to come out of this without their careers being turned into smoldering craters. and their abysmal handling of this has almost certainly caused far more harm to the organization than Garfield's private life would have.

      I'm as socially liberal as they come, and I'm a huge fan of codes of conduct for projects in an industry where it's very clear that codes of conduct are needed. That said, I am able to understand when someone's private behavior is irrelevant to their professional behavior. In this case the situation was caused by, I'm sure, well meaning idiots who have demonstrated they don't have the emotional maturity to be in leadership positions in an organization, and just keep on proving that over and over as this thing goes on. From what I've read, other than some kind of hand gesture thing, there was zero public behavior on Garfield's part in any context related to Drupal that was also related to his private life.

      For several years I was a mandated reporter and will always err on the side of reporting signs or claims of abuse so that they can be investigated. If they believed that there was abuse and they didn't go to police, then they are proving that they don't give a fuck about the person they are claiming to want to protect, and only trying (badly) to cover their asses. I don't personally care for Garfield's kinks, but that's none of my business unless and until he makes it my business, which, as far as I can tell, he hasn't.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
    8. Re:Nice objective submission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Quoting from this on the SJW community takeover formula:

      I've actually been following that case pretty closely. It's interesting because the person that complained (CoralineAda) is also the originator for the code of conduct they eventually merged in (http://contributor-covenant.org/).
      To me it very much looks like.

      1) start shit over UNRELATED nothing
      https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/611569515315507200

      2) step in with a solution
      https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942#issuecomment-113227261

      3) strong arm & shame project into accepting you CoC
      https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/611595849416577024
      https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/611635597145305089

      3a) call reinforcements
      https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/611574385028149248
      https://twitter.com/compay/status/611616476685041664

      4) update CoC to include whatever you want
      https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/611714757318549504

      5) Boot anyone that disagrees with your opinion

    9. Re:Nice objective submission by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      Here's some work that was written about the issue a long time ago:

      http://www.wilhelmreichtrust.o...

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    10. Re:Nice objective submission by tbannist · · Score: 1, Interesting

      On the other hand, if you don't want to be judged for keeping sex slaves, maybe don't bring them with you to a convention where you're one of the leaders, and if you do, maybe don't parade them around. I could quite easily see where some people having seen him parade his sex slave, and having seen that she has a considerable and obvious mental handicap might jump to the conclusion that he was exploiting her. Sure, he has a police note that says he's not raping her, but obviously this type of misunderstanding has happened before, or he wouldn't have that note.

      I'd bet money that the real reason he was eventually dismissed, has nothing to do with his kink. After he refused to resign, he went public and became a shit disturber. At that point, it should have been clear that he was never getting his position back. Kink is one thing, taking your personal crap and using it to divide the community is another. He's toxic now, because of his actions in the project. So the only way back for him is the complete removal of all the other project leaders, which would likely kill Drupal.

      He thinks they're upset with him because he likes to treat women like sex slaves, and it's true that they were likely horrified when they were told that he showed off his sex slave at a Drupal conference. However, once he made it clear it was consensual relationship and that he had no reason to resign, he might have kept his position if he had kept his mouth shut, and let the whole thing blow over. Instead, he had to get righteously indignant and blog about the whole mess. At that point, instead of making the problem go away, he made it much, much worse for himself. When the problem was the kink, it was something that could be dealt with, mostly by being a bit more private about it. But the blog posts made him the problem, and then the only solution was to remove him from the leadership.

      So, in my opinion, nobody's in the right here, it's just a mess created by fallible people.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    11. Re:Nice objective submission by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You want then to publish evidence relating to what he does in private? Seems like not publishing is the right thing to do here.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Drupal is revolting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I haven't looked into the actual issue in the post, though I did read the Gor books as a teen which, sadly, didn't entice me into a lifetime of kink, so I'll just on topic flame bait. (the flying birds were the coolest thing - even cooler bodice chaining semi-porn)

    Drupal is a bad idea that snowballed and now too many depend on it as a skill. I've done a bunch of Drupal jobs and it's convoluted hack on top of convoluted hack. Wordpress is awful but not quite as awful. The Wordpress motto should be "Wordpress ... At Least It's Not Drupal".

    A good and very simple but extensible open source CMS would be a good idea. Even in php. Too bad we don't have one yet.

    Now back to your scheduled flame war about the actual topic.

    1. Re: Drupal is revolting by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      How about the Banshee PHP CMF?

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    2. Re: Drupal is revolting by InfiniteLoopCounter · · Score: 1

      How about the Banshee PHP CMF?

      Yeah... you may want to start scrolling down the Google images of Banshee and look up CMF (see definition 2 and my humble apologies in advance) before you recommend this to your boss as a safe substitute for Drupal.

      I know some people might argue that this is an unfair generalization from one developer to the whole project; that Drupal insn't entirely about screwing you in gratuitous and unpleasant ways you can't escape from. Oh, who's kidding -- this was their plan all along.

    3. Re: Drupal is revolting by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      If my boss is capable of acting like a grown up, yes I would.

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    4. Re:Drupal is revolting by erapert · · Score: 1

      A good and very simple but extensible open source CMS would be a good idea. Even in php. Too bad we don't have one yet.

      Have you heard of October? If so, what is your opinion of it?

  3. Misconduct? by lsllll · · Score: 1

    You call it misconduct, I call it living. It's just symantecs. What's considered inappropriate today is leaning way to the left and takes attention away from the real culprits.

    --
    Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
    1. Re:Misconduct? by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      > symantecs

      --Semantics, in context. FYI

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
  4. So the ... by thadtheman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    weirdos are turning on each other?

  5. I am shocked! by jtara · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Shocked! Shocked! I say!

    So, there's some incorporated foundation or what-not (Ah, "Drupal Association") behind the ongoing poisoning of the Interwebs with 20 year old technology (OK, looked it up 16 year old technology) built on top of 30 year old technology, both of which deserved to die an awful death (we are talking about SOFTWARE here) years ago?

    And, because there are so many sheeples just making the same mistakes over and over to keep this junk alive, that they have nothing better to do than to pick-apart the lives of people involved in some bizarre and complicated (and sounds time-consuming) sexual cult rather than focusing on their own bizarre software cult of meh-ness?

    So, here is my history with PHP. Some time mid-90s (I thought it was 95 or 96, but I just checked facts and I guess PHP never existed before 97) I worked on a project to make one of the first online shopping carts. (The end-customer was Tesco, FWIW). I wrote the shopping cart code in C, for NSAPI.

    But we needed more than just a shopping cart. And I'd heard about this PHP thing, I emailed the author, and he sent me the script. (That's the way it worked at the time.) I think it was helpful in fleshing out the rest of the site. I guess some kind of food catalog. (The company was in the catalog-making business. They were making catalogs on CDROMs (remember those?) and print, and the big deal was they could push a button and publish to BOTH woohoo!. I'd suggested it wouldn't be much of a stretch to also publish to HTML and so I was allowed to noodle with the idea, and somehow it was convenient at the time to incorporate PHP.

    It actually wasn't awful at the time. It was just a little script that some guy made to help him make his personal website. And it worked well enough for our purposes, at the time. I guess.

    That was the last time I ever used PHP. I didn't ride the thing into it's awfulness and "redemption". It was a cute hack, especially for somebody with no formal computer science training.

    But it's led to - even today! - "developers" getting their peanut butter mixed with... er, I mean writing code in HTML pages. And not understanding why the browser is not executing their PHP code or isn't able to stuff PHP variables from Javascript without employing powdered cleanser. Or why websites can't violate the laws of physics and reach into the past and change variable values is code that already ran and went.

    Really, there are far more perverted things going on here than some amusing sexual proclivities that I really do not want to know about.

    Do these people find any time to code?

    More importantly, how sick are these people who still feel the need to abuse one individual, when they are already abusing millions or billions?

    P.S. I really want to cash in my 0.001 shares of Adobe that I got out of this. I can't find the damn Macromedia stock certificate.

    1. Re:I am shocked! by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      So, here is my history with PHP. Some time mid-90s (I thought it was 95 or 96,

      You're not wrong.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. Wow, Gor still producing drama so many years later by skids · · Score: 1

    Back in college there was a running battle over whether to keep the Gor books on shelves in the Sci-Fi library. It consumed an inordinate amount of time and bile. Never read them... never was into cheezy fantasy. Steered clear of the whole mess.

    --
    Someone had to do it.
  7. Jacked Up = Better Drupal Developer, Right? by brian.stinar · · Score: 4, Funny

    I mean, we are talking about Drupal, right? I'm unconvinced that being a sexual deviant is actually a hinderance when it comes to Drupal development. Based on my work with Drupal, it seems like it would be an advantage...?

  8. Response by Larry Garfield by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Needs to be read. You tell me, who appears to be telling the straighter story? https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-5

  9. Larry Garfield's side of the story by steveha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-5

    Briefly: this fiasco went on for weeks without anyone mentioning any concern about the female autistic housemate, so Larry Garfield doesn't believe this current statement. He believes that the actual reason at the core of this is intolerance for his "alternative" lifestyle. And he is severing all ties with Drupal:

    At this point, I cannot in good conscience continue to be an advocate for Drupal in the broader tech community. Though it pains me to say it after 12 years with this project, to be stabbed in the back by so many, even if they're a minority, is unbearable. Doubly so when it's by the project lead, a man whom I had considered a friend.

    It's difficult for me, as a total outsider, to decide whom to believe in this he said/they said situation. But I'm inclined to believe Garfield because of this part of his blog posting:

    ...I don't know what "authorities" Megan refers to, but two autism specialists, a social worker, and three police officers all agreed that nothing illicit, immoral, or illegal was happening, and everything was entirely fine and consensual. I would consider them reasonable "authorities".

    Note that therapists and social workers are "mandatory reporters", and would have been legally required to report to the police if they felt the situation was abusive.

    Given that the police and social workers had already focused their attention on Larry Garfield's personal life and his situation with the autistic female housemate, and nobody threw any red flags that the situation was abusive, it's difficult to believe that the Drupal project's lawyers ordered the Drupal leadership to eject Garfield over suspicions of abuse. It's easier to believe that this is cover for a decision already made for other reasons.

    P.S. Garfield racked up some points with me for this blog post: https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-dont-go-low

    Responding to cyberstalking, prejudice, and blackmail with... cyberstalking, threats, and blackmail? No. NO! Even if you're trying to support me, NO! I do not want any such support.

    (bolding and italics in the original)

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:Larry Garfield's side of the story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why should we value your opinion more than that of three autism specialists, a social worker, and three police officers? -PCP

    2. Re:Larry Garfield's side of the story by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Clearly it's a conspiracy and they're in on it.

      I mean, do you have a better explanation?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Larry Garfield's side of the story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      She's mute by choice. That means she can speak. She just chooses not to. So "she's so autistic she can't speak" is a lie.

      The rest is just your perverted puritan fantasy running amok with you. At this juncture I think you're in more dire need of medical attention to help you with your delusions than anyone actually involved in this story.

    4. Re: Larry Garfield's side of the story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Cops and social workers in Chicago investigated, and determined there was no abuse, that she was competent to consent and was consenting.

      According to Garfield, she is autistic and shy. According to you, she is so mentally handicapped that she cannot consent. So you are the expert here? Are you a trained playlist who has reviewed her case? Or are you just talking out of your ass? Seems like you are autism-shaming.

      I don't really understand BSDM but if everything is consensual it's not my damned business, or yours.

    5. Re: Larry Garfield's side of the story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Its my damned business when personal lives bleed over into the professional

      Unless you work with them, it's really not your problem.

      How is treating someone like a slave ever ok?

      You seem to be under the impression that what other consenting adults do in their private lives somehow has to be ok with you. Strange perversion you have.

  10. Re:WTF Dries? by mean+pun · · Score: 1

    What the Fuck kind of name is Dries anyway?

    A Dutch name. Short for Andries.

    This is exactly the kind of "leadership" you get when you put a foreigner and woman in charge.

    Quick question: do you think Donald Trump is a foreigner?

  11. Something that is bothering me. by thadtheman · · Score: 1

    First. I hate Code of Conducts. For the most part declaring behaviour outside of work is dumb, and at work anything that is unacceptable should not need to be codified. Rules demanding niceness are just agar for Dunning-Krueger. If you can't stand criticism don't program. ( I'm talking to you Poettering. Oh and I don't mean taking a swing at a coworker is permissible, with some extreme exceptions. )

    Not using Drupal AFAIU, Drupal is open source. First. I suspect that if a proprietary company did the same thing, well a proprietary company wouldn't their HR department wouldn't let them.

    What is more, I wonder if the guy has been making contributions for less money then what a similar person would be making in a proprietary company. Open source development is different from closed source development. It's sort of like a "stay at home" wife having sex with her husband versus a prostitute, there's a level of commitment involved.

    This one incident may or may not be justified, but it is not the first such incident. I have to wonder if OSS developers are now going to start asking to be treated in the same manner as proprietary developers, or in liu keeping the copyrights on what they right. Yes it may be petty to "go home and take your ball", but you know what is even pettier? Forcing me top go home and leave my ball behind me.

  12. FFS by jon3k · · Score: 1

    Just fork it already. I'm so tired of hearing about this.

  13. Re: Just the facts ma'am by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeah, dude, just keep on pretending I said such different things than I actually did. I never said that it's possible to keep personal and professional lives in complete isolation, but that's your straw man argument because you can't actually say anything against what I've said without making shit up. If I fuck my girlfriend in the ass with a Bad Dragon dildo while beating her bloody with a cat-o-nine-tails and "force" her to be naked and sit on the floor and be silent except when spoken to whenever she's at home and we both willingly consent to and desire these aspects of our interpersonal relationship, that's not something that's going to get in the way of me trading stocks or issuing pull requests or selling insurance unless one of two things occurs:

    1. I intentionally drag it into my work life and flaunt it to make people uncomfortable on purpose which would be completely my fault and I'd essentially be begging for a reprimand, or
    2. Someone else knows about it, finds out about it, or just can't keep their busybody noses out of my personal life for whatever reason and that person decides to drag it into my work life and flaunt it to make people uncomfortable on purpose. This person would be a shitty person, but it is not my fault that they dragged my dirty laundry out of my room and showed off the stains to my colleagues. This person actually deserves reprimand.

    Your narrative about "mentally handicapped" and "slaves" falls sorely flat. I'm autistic (not internet name-calling autistic, clinically diagnosed autistic.) I'm "mentally handicapped" as you put it. That phrase is technically accurate. However, it is my decision how to live my life, and if I decide to be a mute subservient to someone else and I am happy that way, who the fuck are you to tell me otherwise? You are not a white knight crusader for justice. You are an authoritarian cuck who thinks their opinion of something they actually know nothing about has any value whatsoever.