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One Of LLVM's Top Contributors Quits Development Over Code of Conduct, Outreach Program (phoronix.com)
Rafael Avila de Espindola is the fifth most active contributor to LLVM with more than 4,300 commits since 2006, but now he has decided to part ways with the project. From a report: Rafael posted a rather lengthy mailing list message to fellow LLVM developers today entitled I am leaving llvm. He says the reason for abandoning LLVM development after 12 years is due to changes in the community. In particular, the "social injustice" brought on the organization's new LLVM Code of Conduct and its decision to participate in this year's Outreachy program to encourage women and other minority groups to get involved with free software development. "I am definitely sad to lose Rafael from the LLVM project, but it is critical to the long term health of the project that we preserve an inclusive community. I applaud Rafael for standing by his personal principles, this must have been a hard decision," Chris Lattner, tweeted Thursday.
Well what outreach does is nothing but discrimination... and is somehow as bad as other discriminating behaviour...
and Outreach can backfire... The one hired thanks to Outreach may be felt as inferior who needed to put their "diversity" in front to get a job because he is lacking true skills...
Outreach is a bad idea...
I have recently seen a high-profile community project where a key engineer believed (among other things) women should be shielded and kept at home. This engineer, obviously, had conflicts with people in the organization. Actually maybe about 30 people. Eventually, the membership walked off en mass and founded their own project. The new project has essentially the same code of conduct we're discussing here.
You need rules on paper for when stuff like this happens. It helps make slippery stuff like who offended who and whether such offense is out of scope for the project a lot easier to decide.
Bruce Perens.
Maybe YOU need rules on paper, but some of us are all grown up and don't need a piece of paper to tell us how we should behave.
Ok, so he's not anti-woman and anti-minority, he's anti-outreach to women and minorities to encourage them to participate.
There's an important difference that was cited on the SO post last week between tolerance and inclusiveness. We shouldn't just be tolerating people, we should be welcoming. If you invite someone to your party and they don't know anyone and everyone else is friends you could say "I did enough! I invited them, it's up to them now!" but we all know how uncomfortable it can be, especially if they are shy, to approach a group of people they don't know. Inclusiveness is not just inviting someone and tolerating their presence but saying "Hey, thanks for coming here are some people I would like you to meet that I think you would get along well."
He's objecting to the fact that there is an organization that focuses on people just showing up to the party and don't know anyone. While it's true even straight white males from the united states need those same introductions to be included, there are numerous networks that already are performing that duty well. While they may not be explicitly stated as their goal to be "Helping straight white men from America find a welcoming place in the community." the outcome is that they are really well designed to do that. And that's fine too. But we can't pretend that those organizations don't exist.
This is by the way the UNIX philosophy "Do one thing well". It's great that we have lots of organizations that have organically developed to help one specific set of people (nerdy guys) find a place in open source. But having separate organizations that are focused on different problems is what the Unix Philosophy applied to recruitment recommends.
They actually have this in their CoC:
"Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. "
They follow by saying they condone "reversism's". In other words if you are white male or female you can be openly harassed within the community because you are considered privileged. What the hell has happened to these projects?!
So, basically, it sounds like he's taking issue with the fact that they expect him to treat dark skinned people and people with boobs as equals and with respect. We all know that's crazy talk and the work of the evil SJW conspiracy. (If you can't tell that I'm speaking sarcastically, you need help.)
No.
"The last drop was llvm associating itself with an organization that openly discriminates based on sex and ancestry".
In other words, he's the one who is against discriminating on sex and ancestry, and the project has officially taken leave of that.
The code of conduct doesn't just land from Mars. It's the result of various people in the team agitating for change. The CoC might well be being promoted to give people who have a political agenda, not a coding agenda, the opportunity to gain more control.
Software rewards a high degree of discipline, a coherent technical approach. It's sometimes necessary to prune code contributions that are rubbish in spite of the fact that this might hurt someone's feelings of self-worth. When this happens its easier to blame another's bias than your own incompetence.
It would be interesting to know the level of code contribution, and its quality, from the promoters of the CoC.
Well what outreach does is nothing but discrimination...
snip
Outreach is a bad idea...
Um, where I get what you are saying, I don't agree that outreach is discrimination nor is it necessarily a bad idea.
Looking for qualified candidates within under represented demographics is not discrimination per se. If this effort to create diversity does not affect your standards, what is the issue? I think diversity is a good thing in a team working on something...
That's not to say that all outreach programs are executed correctly and don't end up being discrimination and thus bad ideas. If your program causes you to lower your standards, accept less qualified contributors, then it's all the things you say. However, this is not necessarily a given. I've seen diversity programs that DON'T change standards or give preferential treatment to under represented demographics but did target demographics to solicit qualified candidates and educated hiring managers to be sensitive to personal bias and the use of objective criteria for selecting candidates. These programs where good things, not bad.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Seems to me he was upset about people prying into him:
I cannot take is how the social injustice movement has permeated it. When I joined llvm no one asked or cared about my religion or political view.
I don't want anyone interrogating me about my beliefs and views, so I don't blame him for leaving
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The problem is that "disrespect" is based on the perception, rather than the intent, and there's an inherent conflict of interest in a review setting (like in any quality-control process or collaborative effort).
I'm very passionate about what I do. It's part of what makes me good at what I do, because I actually care about doing a good job, rather than just hitting the magic "40" on my time card and getting a paycheck. I will not hesitate to call out anyone's stupid failures. Mistakes or lack-of-training issues are fine, and we will accept those and move on, but failure due to being inattentive or simply lazy is not acceptable, and anyone failing in such a way needs to be aware that they're not performing up to the standards expected of my team. Frankly, I don't care what gender you are (or aren't), or how old you are, or your socioeconomic status, or really any other factor than whether you do the job. In my opinion, I'm perfectly in compliance with any nondiscrimination policy, because I don't discriminate.
To someone else's perspective, though, they think I'm complaining because they're black, or Jewish, or young, or blonde, or whatever particular insecurity they want to call out, because they're too inattentive to understand that they were actually doing something wrong.
The moment discrimination is brought up, especially in an enterprise with a "Code of Conduct" that is venerated above producing quality results, it's no longer a discussion about the right way to actually do the job. It's a discussion about sensitivity, and framing discussion, and having nice polite conversations with 3 HR reps and two managers, at whatever time they can all fit a discussion into their schedules. By the time that discussion takes place, the same failures have been repeated three times, and now there's a quality-control issue that needs to be addressed. Of course, that actual process issue has now become "normal", and any further complaint about the failure is just more "harassment".
In the end, the person who noticed the original problem is punished, the problem persists, and weeks of effort are wasted on what could have been fixed in five minutes of candid discussion. There have been many cases where this process has itself been abused to attack anyone who dares to complain about someone who is more skilled at gaming the management than actually doing their job.
As an alternative to a flawed "Code of Conduct", I suggest simply an environment of open failures, along the following lines:
In short, if you want to say someone's wrong, it had better be something that's either not yet documented, or the document supports your opinion. It's very difficult to put discrimination into writing without making it obvious, especially when it's a document that anyone else can fix. At the same time, encouraging people to admit their own mistakes prevents hero worship and excessive egos. It's much easier to take a complaint when you know that your competency is not also under attack.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Let's be clear. That organization practices reverse discrimination in order to bring more women and minorities into the industry.
And that purported "reverse" discrimination consisted of a single internship set aside for somebody who is not a heterosexual white male.
That's it: one internship.
If he's triggered by having even a single internship devoted to trying to address barriers to entry for women and minorities, I'll say that this wasn't the problem; it's just the excuse he's giving.
His claim is that Outreachy is discriminatory because it's mission is to increase visible minority and female participation in open source.
No, Outreachy is discriminatory because it hires interns based on their sex and ancestry.
It's called 'positive discrimination' in the real world.