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Linus Torvalds On Linux's Code of Conduct (bbc.com)
Linus Torvalds oversees every line of code added to the Linux kernel, but in recent years the male-dominated community has become increasingly divided, reports BBC. Rows about sexism and rudeness led to the creation of a Code of Conflict (CoC) in 2015 which was short -- simply recommending people "be excellent to each other." That has now been replaced by a more detailed Code of Conduct -- which retains the acronym, but attempts to be more inclusive and eliminate insulting and derogatory comments and behaviour. Reader sinij writes: Recently Linux Community adopted a new controversial Code of Conduct authored by Contributor Covenant also known for authoring the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto. In an exclusive email interview with the BBC, Mr Torvalds shared his thoughts on his decision to temporarily step aside, the controversy behind the CoC, and the defects of the community he set up. His thoughts on CoC: The advantage of concentrating on technology is that you can have some mostly objective measures, and some basis for agreement, and you can have a very nice and healthy community around it all. I really am motivated by the technology, but the community around Linux has been a big positive too. But there are very tangible and immediate common goals in any technical project like Linux, and while there is occasionally disagreement about how to solve some particular issue, there is a very real cohesive force in that common goal of improving the project. And even when there are disagreements, people in the end often have fairly clear and objective measures of what is better. Code that is faster, simpler, or handles more cases naturally is just objectively 'better', without people really having to argue too much about it.
In contrast, the arguments about behaviour never seem to end up having a common goal. Except, in some sense, the argument itself. Have you read the Twitter feeds and other things by the people who seem to care more about the non-technical side? I think your 'hyped stories' is about as polite as you can put it. It's a morass of nastiness. Instead of a 'common goal', you end up with horrible fighting between different 'in-groups'. It's very polarising, and both sides love egging the other side on. It's not even a 'discussion', it's just people shouting at each other. That's actually the reason I for the longest time did not want to be involved with the whole CoC discussion in the first place. That whole subject seems to very easily just devolve and become unproductive. And I found a lot of the people who pushed for a CoC and criticised me for cursing to be hypocritical and pointless. I could easily point you to various tweet storms by people who criticise my 'white cis male' behaviour, while at the same time cursing more than I ever do.
So that's my excuse for dismissing a lot of the politically correct concerns for years. I felt it wasn't worth it. Anybody who uses the words 'white cis male privilege' was simply not worth my time even talking to, I felt. "And I'm still not apologising for my gender or the colour of my skin, or the fact that I happen to have the common sexual orientation. What changed? Maybe it was me, but I was also made very aware of some of the behaviour of the 'other' side in the discussion. Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance look bad. And don't get me wrong, please -- I'm not making excuses for some of my own rather strong language. But I do claim that it never ever was any of that kind of nastiness. I got upset with bad code, and people who made excuses for it, and used some pretty strong language in the process. Not good behaviour, but not the racist/etc claptrap some people spout. So in the end, my 'I really don't want to be too PC' stance simply became untenable. Partly because you definitely can find some emails from me that were simply completely unacceptable, and I need to fix that going forward. But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot of the people who complain about excessive political correctness.
In contrast, the arguments about behaviour never seem to end up having a common goal. Except, in some sense, the argument itself. Have you read the Twitter feeds and other things by the people who seem to care more about the non-technical side? I think your 'hyped stories' is about as polite as you can put it. It's a morass of nastiness. Instead of a 'common goal', you end up with horrible fighting between different 'in-groups'. It's very polarising, and both sides love egging the other side on. It's not even a 'discussion', it's just people shouting at each other. That's actually the reason I for the longest time did not want to be involved with the whole CoC discussion in the first place. That whole subject seems to very easily just devolve and become unproductive. And I found a lot of the people who pushed for a CoC and criticised me for cursing to be hypocritical and pointless. I could easily point you to various tweet storms by people who criticise my 'white cis male' behaviour, while at the same time cursing more than I ever do.
So that's my excuse for dismissing a lot of the politically correct concerns for years. I felt it wasn't worth it. Anybody who uses the words 'white cis male privilege' was simply not worth my time even talking to, I felt. "And I'm still not apologising for my gender or the colour of my skin, or the fact that I happen to have the common sexual orientation. What changed? Maybe it was me, but I was also made very aware of some of the behaviour of the 'other' side in the discussion. Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance look bad. And don't get me wrong, please -- I'm not making excuses for some of my own rather strong language. But I do claim that it never ever was any of that kind of nastiness. I got upset with bad code, and people who made excuses for it, and used some pretty strong language in the process. Not good behaviour, but not the racist/etc claptrap some people spout. So in the end, my 'I really don't want to be too PC' stance simply became untenable. Partly because you definitely can find some emails from me that were simply completely unacceptable, and I need to fix that going forward. But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot of the people who complain about excessive political correctness.
But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot of the people who complain about excessive political correctness.
Coming soon to this thread: Those people.
And I'm still not apologising for my gender or the colour of my skin, or the fact that I happen to have the common sexual orientation.
Oh, yes you are, yes you are ... you may not know it yet, but you are ...
We gave them too much attention, took them too seriously, and now we have to alter our own behavior, 'least we be associated with their scum and villainy. What a truly awful time to be alive.
Surely no one believes that only nazis and fascists have a problem with this right?
There are some devs who are perfectly decent human beings who simply don't want political agendas pushed through software development code of conducts. Is that so unreasonable?
Non-binary people can't fathom a world where the "Us vs Them" extremist thinking is bad. Therefore, if you don't care about PC language, and cowering before the LGBT Crowd's demands, you MUST BE A NAZI!!!!!!!
This isn't about Linus being a Nazi, because I don't even think he is, but when that is HIS fears(being called a Nazi), because he doesn't retreat at being labeled a "white cis male", that is really telling to where we are as a society. And only a few of us find this to be actually frightening?
I don't care what people are, really. I just don't want to be told what I must do, what I must say, especially when it is being backed by the full power of government. This is nothing more than Nazi like bully tactics. People should take a long look at how Nazi's actually worked. The Political Correct Left is more like Nazis than anything.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
My problem is that the center left folks are not criticizing the far left angry "I hate white cis males who are all nazis who deserve to be taxed/punished".
Since the centre left is not criticizing these folks, they are opening the door to some godawful policies being put in place to police our thoughts and words when/if the next time they get voted in.
The internet is the great anonymizer.
There is no way for someone to know that a contributor to the linux kernel is of a certain color, race, gender, or sexual orientation unless they volunteer that information.
And why would they? What does it have to do with Kernel development?
In my experience, this is the battle cry of the incompetent. When they don't get their way, suddenly it's because of your discrimination against their $trait that you couldn't have possibly known about in the first place.
Why do we even have to know the sexual orientation, gender or race of programmers and engineers? Other than language difficulties from non-english as their first language speakers causing misunderstanding, here really shouldn't be any drama. Even stupid jokes should be excluded, its a technical list.
But when a code of conduct lists people to protect, it starts a once side argument. How about don't be an asshole to everyone, why does the CoC have to state a list of people that you shouldn't be an asshole too? This is is nothing but political propaganda and those politics should stay off technical lists.
All this "cis white males" are the enemy being pushed around is no better than someone pushing "color hair LGBTQ+" stereotypes need to be protected.
This "Us vs Them" is what these types code of conducts promote. If you have to list people to protect instead of language, you picked out a group of people as offenders and make the others victims. The Tribal nature of silicon valley that whites straight males are the enemy and then put into code of conduct is wrong, and it's being spread around projects is petty and a way to try to get back at people.
"Be Excellent to each other" shouldn't be written to imply "This means you, white cis males!".
Just because the world is divided in left vs right, worse than ever, we in tech should be above this tribal nature, not going towards it at full speed.
... of the Categorical Imperative:
Emphasis mine here: acting ethically doesn't mean you have to cripple yourself by focusing solely on other peoples's rights. But they're part of the constraints you actually operate under, so it's best not to ignore them.
This isn't just an ethical prescription, it's practical advice. Treating your coworkers with respect doesn't precluding fighting over technical details. In fact, if you've never tried it you'll be amazed at how much more productive a heated but respectful argument is over one where everyone's objective is to beat the other guy by any means available. That's the difference between the best ideas winning and the loudest dickheads winning.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Linus points out that there are plenty of people on the other side of the political correctness line who are every bit as nasty as some of those who are against it. If your desire is to avoid being associated with the worst sort of people from side A, it seems that you should also want to avoid the same from the other side as well. I think that line of reasoning itself is terrible as you can find plenty of awful people who believe in anything. You can broadly use the same argument for free speech itself (and you often here it used) and why it should be limited. Hopefully most people can see the issue when framed this way. However, that's my own argument, not Linus's and I don't know if he'd agree with me it to begin with.
I think that Linus actually had a pretty good take on all of this years ago:
So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other. Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences, not about "how do we make everybody nice and sing songs sound the campfire" . . . Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.
I think "Don't be a massive dick to anyone else" is probably sufficient as far as code of conduct goes. Yes it's vague, but any precise set of rules to govern behavior is going to be incomplete and subject to all manners of pettiness.
Do you care whether the kernel developer working with you who sits a few thousand miles away is male, female something in between or completely different, black, white, brown, green-orange polka dotted, gay, bi, straight, fucking his pet goat...?
And if so, WHY?
How the fuck is any of this relevant to their work?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What is the most viable fork of Linux for when the Merit-based contributors rescind their copyrights from this now Diversity-based project?
Obvious? No.
Does the meta narrative have a SJW theme all over it? Maybe.
I'd be willing to bet dollars-to-donuts that Patricia had a huge rule in convincing her father to do a 180 but I think we need more facts to determine that though. Speaking of facts, there are few that rather stand out to me after reading Tiago's perspective. Paraphrasing:
Interestingly enough Linus' daughter, Patricia Torvalds, activist of "Guerilla Feminism, supports the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto which was created by Stupid Juvenile Whiner Coraline Ada Ehmke, the latter who also created the Code of Conduct.
Ruby's CoC is simple and to the point. It is summarized as "Matz is nice and so we are nice," commonly abbreviated as MINASWAN.
But Ruby's simply CoC "wasn't good enough" for Coraline though. After Coraline's attempted hijacking of Ruby's CoC was 100% shot down by Matz ...
Matz isn't alone. Other have voiced their criticism of her CoC:
Back in 2013 Stupid Juvenile Whiner Sage Sharp targeted Linus. Failing that, she is now targeting Ted Tso calling him a "rape apologist".
Funny how these people love to play Judge, Juror, and Executioner, all at once without any evidence, and want to their CoC to be inclusive even when they aren't, but I digress.
What do these examples have to do with Linux, Linus, and the CoC ?
Eric Raymond pointed the dangers of meritocracy back in 2015. with his Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs article. The example he brought up was about djangoconcardiff lying about patch rejection in the django community.
rosarior shut that down.
Now I hate conspiracy theories with a passion but does the "recent" rash of CoC changes seem to be politically driven? Maybe. There SEEMS to be a larger narrative at play.
Regardless, I still think it is too early to tell but this inclusion of meritocracy is definitely something to keep an eye out for in the future.
Ever committed a patch to the kernel? You have to sign off with your real name and email address.
With that info, you are very far from anonymous.
And there are certainly people that can use that info to cross-reference your goings all across the internet
and learn lots of personal details.
Mainstream Leftwing Tweet: Stupid cis white cracker!....... Mainstream Leftwing Tweet: Die heteronormative scum!...... Mainstream Leftwing Tweet: U suk whyte males!...... Linus: Oh thats not nice...... Random Altright Tweet: Stupid n word!....... Linus: OH NO WHAT HAVE I DONE??? HERE PROGRESSIVES TAKE EVERYTHING YOU WANT I WAS WRONG YOU WERE RIGHT TAKE THE KEYS TO THE CASTLE DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!
Nothing successfully succeeds merit.
But many things can tear it down for a while.
Currently its the resurgence of the post modernistic, identity politics, which if boiled down to the most simplistic concept maybe could be described as artificially constructed power wars for furthering utopian totalitarian fascism.
It (merit based competence hierarchies) will come back in every area, the only question is how much damage has been done to that particular field in the meantime.
Linus fell prey to "everyone I don't agree with is a Nazi" ruse. It goes like this: SJWs exaggerate the numbers and influence of "nazis" in the anti-PC movement, and make everyone else in it "guilty" by association. That's a fallacy, and one someone smart like Linus should have seen right through.
I'm afraid Linux is fucked now. I'm in favor of weighing people's opinions by the amount of work they contribute to the effort. SJWs very rarely contribute anything: they spend most of their time "resisting" and "fighting the oppression", there's simply no time left for any productive endeavors. Seen it at least half a dozen times in my time in the industry. When real grievances (if any) are addressed, they will come up with even more esoteric ones, or demand preferential treatment for "minorities" or some other self-defeating bullshit. And by then it'll be too late to pull back, because you don't want to be a cis white male patriarchal Nazi transphobe bigot, do you, Linus?
Social justice is about recognizing how the mechanisms of privilege influence outcomes in our society, if you are a cishet white male, you have benefits that are denied to others simply for their sex, skin, color, etc. and these things need to be accounted for in order to achieve a fair society.
SJWs have no interest in lifting anyone up. They are only interested in shouting down. They serve no constructive purpose.