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Node.js Forked Again Over Complaints of Unresponsive Leadership (thenewstack.io)
New submitter Kant shares a report: The codebase for popular Node.js JavaScript runtime has been forked again -- the second time in less than three years -- with a growing number of contributors charging that the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) leadership is ignoring repeated violations of the project's code of conduct. The new project, called Ayo will be managed under an open governance model. The complaints centered around ongoing behavior of NodeSource Director of Engineering, and Node.js TSC member Rod Vagg. The TSC received multiple complaints from Node.js members about a Tweet from Vagg promoting a Men's Rights Activist-slanted article, one that cast doubt on the validity of project Code-of-Conducts. In that Tweet, Vagg commented "If you've never considered the potential downsides of codes of conduct, here's a good place to start." [...] On August 21, The TSC voted on whether or not to remove Vagg from its ranks. Of the 10 TSC members who voted, 60 percent voted against removing Rod from the TSC and 60 percent voted against asking Rod to voluntarily resign. That the TSC voted to keep Vagg on the committee inflamed others in the project. One committee member, Myles Borins, resigned in protest. The decision to keep Vagg "undermines our Conduct Guidelines, drives away potential contributors, and in my opinion undermines the Committee's ability to govern," he wrote in a blog post. In a post further explaining the need for the forked Ayo project, developer Rudolf Olah explained that "Driving away contributors can be fatal in the open source world where most developers are essentially using their free time and volunteering to contribute. It is already difficult enough to attract contributors to smaller projects and larger projects, such as Node.js, need to be careful to make all contributors feel welcome."
>> forked again -- the second time in less than three years -- with...contributors charging that...leadership is ignoring repeated violations of the project's code of conduct
Enterprise-ready and eating the world. Got it.
With a name like Rod Vagg he should just get into porn and be done with it.
Should be non-reactionary leadership, forking it for social justice is ridiculous.
Back in the day, software projects used to be killed because of technical limitations. Now they are killed because someone objects to what someone else does in their spare time.
According to the github page it has been forked 7,663 times. This seems to be much ado about nothing.
A real chance to see whether SJWs can actually code now that they have their own fork.
Posted anonymously to preempt needless forks of my own projects.
Buying a political orientation together with your programming language has never been a good idea. If you don't buy into a tax policy when you're buying your breakfast cereals, why would you do that when shopping for your programming tools?
Ezekiel 23:20
So it's a violation of the code of conduct to suggest a code of conduct may not be necessary? From the article I'm not seeing much about mens rights and more to do with 'neurodiversity' - though I'm aware that the support of "men's rights" is like many things, associated with nazis by the left right now (i.e. anything the populist left does not advocate). But assuming he was linking an article about men's rights, does advocating men's rights violate the Node.JS code of conduct?
I glanced at the code of conduct and saw nothing against criticizing the code of conduct, nor against the supposed support of men's rights. What I did find were guidelines saying members should "Be respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences", and "Gracefully accept constructive criticism". So are the people railing against the TSC instead violating the code of conduct?
The code of conduct can be found here: https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
The article linked to raises questions about speech codes of conduct, especially at universities, and points out that some people may have neurological diseases like Tourette's Syndrome that don't make them dangerous but may make them unable to comply with such codes. How exactly this is a "Men's Rights Activist" article is beyond me, although I guess men and men in IT may have more tendencies towards these issues. So some SJW got butt hurt because a writer dared to suggest compassion for people with different neurological wiring and this led to the vote and fork. Know what I find most disturbing? That 40% of the people agreed with the SJWs. If this is all it took to make them lose their minds, it's truly a sad day.
A quick scan of the (long) article that Vagg commented on reveals why the SJWs are so upset. The article is a direct attack on their worldview. The TL;DR version of the article is that people think differently, and the speech codes that have come into vogue at universities therefore discriminate against specific minorities. WTF is a self-flagellating SJW to do when the fight to uphold the victimization of ever smaller sets of imagined minorities ends up victimizing a minority? The cognitive dissonance must be so debilitating that they can't get away from it even in their safe space echo chambers.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It matters because bigotry, bias, racism, etc. can drive away contributors.
How do you think contributors feel about the idea that some "committee" is going to evaluate their morals and kick them out if they don't match the political manifesto du jour?
Open source is about encouraging contributors from the community, not discriminating or disparaging contributors because they happen to be a different race, sex, etc.
Open source is about code. It's not a political platform.
Back in the day, software projects used to be killed because of technical limitations. Now they are killed because someone objects to what someone else does in their spare time.
So let me get this straight.
Rod Vagg tweeted using his personal twitter account, on his own time, and referred to an article which appears to be quite worthy of discussion. The title The Neurodiversity Case for Free Speech pretty-much describes what one finds in the article. It's about "speech codes", and the effects of limiting what people can say.
The article is completely and totally academic, with a position and supporting argument, written by a psychology professor!
And for tweeting a link to this article, he loses his position as Director of Engineering?
You can get doxxed, threatened, and fired for having a political opinion on your own time if you get caught. Even if you don't publicly voice your opinion on the net, you can get fired for being caught on a security camera at a protest.
This political climate - the one we are living in right now - is insane.
actually when allegations of harassment come up in a traditional project, that person is either fired or sent for some stupid HR training...
Except, as far as I can tell from the article, there weren't any "allegations of harassment": he didn't harass anybody. He tweeted a link to an article-- this article. He did not harass anybody.
The article isn't even one about "Men's rights advocacy" ("MRA")-- what he tweeted was a link to an article presenting the case that codes of conduct which suppress free speech discriminate against people with Asperger's syndrome, because these people have problems understanding what other people might thing would be offensive (the article was about "neurodiverse" people in general, but primarily focussed on Aspergers (which the article calls "Aspies").)
I somewhat wonder about the level of meta here. A person is accused of violating speech guidelines by tweeting a link to an article about speech guidelines?