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Richard Stallman Says Linux Code Contributions Can't Be Rescinded (itwire.com)
An anonymous reader quotes iTWire:
Linux developers who contribute code to the kernel cannot rescind those contributions, according to the software programmer who devised the GNU General Public Licence version 2.0, the licence under which the kernel is released. Richard Stallman, the head of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the GNU Project, told iTWire in response to queries that contributors to a GPLv2-covered program could not ask for their code to be removed. "That's because they are bound by the GPLv2 themselves. I checked this with a lawyer," said Stallman, who started the free software movement in 1984.
There have been claims made by many people, including journalists, that if any kernel developers are penalised under the new code of conduct for the kernel project -- which was put in place when Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided to take a break to fix his behavioural issues -- then they would ask for their code to be removed from the kernel... Stallman asked: "But what if they could? What would they achieve by doing so? They would cause harm to the whole free software community. The anonymous person who suggests that Linux contributors do this is urging them to [use a] set of nuclear weapons in pique over an internal matter of the development team for Linux. What a shame that would be."
Slashdot reader dmoberhaus shared an article from Motherboard with more perspetives from Eric S. Raymond and LWN.net founder Jonathan Corbet, which also traces the origins of the suggestion. "[A]n anonymous user going by the handle 'unconditionedwitness' called for developers who end up getting banned through the Code of Conduct in the future to rescind their contributions to the Linux kernel 'in a bloc' to produce the greatest effect.
"It is worth noting that the email address for unconditionedwitness pointed to redchan.it, a now defunct message board on 8chan that mostly hosted misogynistic memes, many of which were associated with gamergate."
There have been claims made by many people, including journalists, that if any kernel developers are penalised under the new code of conduct for the kernel project -- which was put in place when Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided to take a break to fix his behavioural issues -- then they would ask for their code to be removed from the kernel... Stallman asked: "But what if they could? What would they achieve by doing so? They would cause harm to the whole free software community. The anonymous person who suggests that Linux contributors do this is urging them to [use a] set of nuclear weapons in pique over an internal matter of the development team for Linux. What a shame that would be."
Slashdot reader dmoberhaus shared an article from Motherboard with more perspetives from Eric S. Raymond and LWN.net founder Jonathan Corbet, which also traces the origins of the suggestion. "[A]n anonymous user going by the handle 'unconditionedwitness' called for developers who end up getting banned through the Code of Conduct in the future to rescind their contributions to the Linux kernel 'in a bloc' to produce the greatest effect.
"It is worth noting that the email address for unconditionedwitness pointed to redchan.it, a now defunct message board on 8chan that mostly hosted misogynistic memes, many of which were associated with gamergate."
They may not be able (and neither want) to rescind their contributions, but some people might decide to walk away from the project. Depending on the person this could be a setback for any project, even one as big as the Linux kernel. The fact that Linus himself is "taking a break to fix his behavioural issues" could be a sign of the things to come.
Personally, I don't think foul language is required to tell someone that their contribution is not up to par. Be respectful of others, but also be honest to them. At the same time I also don't believe people need to think of my "feelings" when telling me that I did something stupid. I'd take a good bollocking any day over that wishy-washy we-are-all-equal-unicorns nonsense.
Yes. As I was quoted in the Motherboard article referenced above, you can decline any further participation in kernel development. However, the noisy folks about this issue do not appear to actually participate in kernel development.
Any actual kernel developers who leave will be replaced by one of the other 4000 active this year. If they have been vociferous about their rights to entirely unlimited conduct (and all of the side-issues that seem to come with that) it may be that the folks on the kernel mailing list are already tired of them and won't miss them.
Bruce Perens.
Seriously, Bruce? If you read the CoC, it has nothing to say about anything technical at all. Specifically, it never says that good code will be accepted regardless of who submits it, which is the only CoC any software project should ever have IMO.
The CoC literally has infinitely more content about genitals and what you chose to do with them than it has about making good software, since it has some text about the former and none about the latter.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Funny, placing code quality above irrelevant incidental features like genitals is exactly the point of anti-bigotry initiatives like the new code of conduct. It's patently obvious that detractors either prefer the maintenance of their social position over code quality or simply believe that women and others protected by the code of conduct are incapable of writing quality code. It's transparent and moronic.
Read as a whole, that's entirely the opposite of what the front page of the CC says... It spends one sentence saying "technical contributions" (read: "code quality") should not be an excuse for "bad behavior" (which is arguable), but most of the rest of the paragraphs talking about "irrelevant incidental features like genitals" and how the owners of such are the hardest hit.
Much of the objection to the new CoC as opposed to the previous one is that the previous one was pretty clearly intended to address behavior, and not the subject. If someone is being too much of an ass, the problem is that he's being an ass, not that he was an ass to person XYZ in particular. This is primarily a "watch out for these special people" document and not a "don't be an ass" document.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Not sure I even want to know what this means.
If I were to wager a guess I'd guess the tendency of some people to think everything that happens to them is a form of discrimination based on whatever minority group they happen to be in. We've seen Linus go ballistic on people who presumably are also white heterosexual males, it's not okay but it's a pretty good evidence he's "just" the occasional asshole not a bigot. But if he now attacks the wrong person I expect there to be all kinds of hell and CoC-waving about how Linus is creating a "hostile environment" for women or some sort of LBGT+ group. Some even seem to go around like agent provocateurs, stirring shit up trying to trigger name calling and then pouncing on them as bigots and acting like their taunting is really an act of community service exposing hidden discrimination. And if they don't get the response they want, escalate as this proves how extensive the hidden discrimination is until there's terminations and public boycotts. I think Linus has badly miscalculated in adopting the CoC, it's like an open invitation to all the trolls who are going to try to tear him down and replace him.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There's so much going on here that it's hard to untangle everything. The CoC as written is a blackmailer's charter, but in the real world personalities do matter and it's possible for a person to be excluded simply because "the group" can't work with them.
In a public context like the Linux development team and mailing list I think the reality is that it's hard to hide genuine unfairness and the GPL means that if enough of a mass believe that something has genuinely gone wrong they can take the ball away and play their own game and release their own kernel (trademarking is an issue with that theory, of course). IMO, that's more than enough to "keep it honest".
The new CoC is so broad with its definition of what is abusive that it's suddenly turned normal conversation on the mailing list into a minefield:
"It's crazy to use a signed int for measuring the size of a buffer here."
"'Crazy' is a derogatory comment; you can't refuse my code on that basis."
"Jesus! Right. I'm sorry."
"I'm an atheist and object to your proselytizing at me."
etc.
It's a classic example of more detailed text making it harder to be reasonable instead of easier, or if you prefer making it easier to be unreasonable. For the person who wants to be disruptive, it gives far too many things they can point to while at the same time making it harder for the rest of the group to exclude that disruptive person because "I'm just enforcing the CoC you all agreed to". And none of this is happening in isolation. The damage has been done elsewhere.
As I said on a previous thread, the problems of society are real and need fixed, but they need to be fixed lower down the stack. Once you start writing software that goes into aircraft or cars, meritocracy is the only option.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
400 years of legal history, since the first copyright act in 1710, disagree with you. At a minimum, courts can and will force you to cease sharing that intellectual property.
There were assholes one both sides of gamergate, to be sure. The odd thing was the fringe elements of gaming seemed to be similarly crazy to the mainstream gaming press. But then the gaming press was always a weird fringe of "the press" so I guess that makes sense.
Either way, gamers won, and games remain mostly focused on gameplay (or monetization, but that's a different issue), not pushing a political agenda.
Genre film, and especially comic books, chose a different path, and seem intent on immolating themselves in the fires of political preaching, but gaming has largely escaped that fate. (Computer gaming, anyhow.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Would be nice if the Linux developers wouldn't let themselves be dragged into the CoC trap in the first place. If you are worried about developers hurting the open software community by rescinding code, you'd better consider the damage that SJW crap is bringing to sociëty as a whole. Not just Linux, or open source, but to civilization. Common sense has been replaced by eternal butthurts. Yes, Linus has some problems. Yes, he should get some anger control therapy. But there is zero excuse for turning the community over to groups that demand inclusion for the the sake of inclusion, rather than for the sake of progressing the Linux kernel.
There isn't a single line of code that is better because it was written by a gay person, by a woman, by a transgender, by a religious minority or by a 'person of color'. Code is good or code is bad. That's it. If butthurt snowflakes want to be included for their contributions, they'd better start writing Code of Linux, not Code of Conduct crap.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
If any court allowed you to retroactively change a license or contract it would destabilize everything. What if I built a product on your GPL code and you decided to retroactively change the license? You can change it going forward, but not backward. I don't know any court that would allow changing licenses retroactively to happen. A person could definitely walk away though, or even change the license of their code in subsequent releases. This has happened many times.
Replaced with what? Talentless virtue signalers and diversity hires? Enough is enough. Nobody has a natural right to force themselves and their views on any community without expecting blowback for it. No outsider has a natural right to 'replace' anybody either.
Here's the lovely thing about all this: no, they won't be laughed out of court. It's an interesting argument either way, and one must accept that Stallman is an open source fanatic and isn't going to willingly put forth a position that could harm that movement. I like the guy, but he is not objective here.
The best part though is that computers don't give a rat's ass about your feelings. The talentless gender fluid attention whores who started all this are utterly incapable of maintaining a world class operating system, and they're going to learn that when they try. Also, these people you seem to think have no right to exist unless they choose to conform to your expectations are going to go get together elsewhere and produce something superior and they are going to make sure that the likes of you can never get anywhere near it.
Also, had it occurred to anyone that pissing off a bunch of people who by your own admission are superior to you in technology (or ending meritocracy wouldn't be a stated goal of all this) is probably a really bad idea? The best thing that could come of that is they will rip the code the diversity contributors submit to absolute shreds. Again, neither technology nor most thinking people give a damn about your feelings.
The only ones signalling are the nutters who object to standards, who believe they can decide who can contribute, who think that gender matters more than the code.
Their signals are not POSIX compliant. I see no value in them. If they cannot survive on quality, they don't offer anything of value.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
of the GPL. Would you be posting this same post if the person in question wanted their code back because they discovered it's worth millions? Or if they didn't like the political party Linus Torvald's belongs to?
It's the same thing. The point of the GPL is software freedom. Regardless of the circumstance the software remains free. That freedom _is_ his ethics. Go spend some time reading the many, many things he's written on this topic and you'll find him completely consistent in this regard.
So yeah, no take backs. Whatever the reason.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
In what science-fictional alternate universe would I have not read the GPL? Really.
When you parse licenses, you have to be conscious that they do not exist in a vacuum. They rest upon the entire body of law and precedent going back, in the US case, to British Common Law (yes, courts still cite it here). An important part of all of this law is that when you make a grant, it remains a grant unless the terms of the law or the grant itself allow you to take it back. And generally, they do not. For one thing, the entire structure of business based upon contracts would fail if you had the right to rescind them any time you changed your mind.
So, it does not matter if GPL2 doesn't say it does not terminate, it does matter that the text does not provide any means other than violation of the terms for it to terminate.
Bruce Perens.
What’s being discussed again? Kicking out and ostracizing someone and keeping their contributed code, against their wishes? You guys really think that's a moral or ethical thing to do?
If you don’t want someone included, you don't get to benefit from their contributions either. If you want to benefit from their contributions, then get off your high horse and exercise some tolerance.
The right to ostracize someone and keep and continue benefitting from their volunteered work is not something an ethical person would fight for.
I've been thinking about this and trying to find a reasonable analogy. Best I can come up with is this:
Habitat for Humanity (the folks who build homes for poor people).. When you work with HfH, you donate your time, skill, and labor. When you donate code to the Linux kernel, you are donating your time, skill, and labor.
Now, assume one day one of the HfH guys comes to the jobsite and launches into a rant about xyz.. We don't have to specify what xyz is, only that it's something horribly offensive...
Said person is kicked off the job site and asked to never return to HfH... Does he have the right to expect that all of the houses he helped to build will be pulled down?
Why or why not?
He's gone but someone is still benefiting from his work.
Where do you set the bar for demanding that your time, skill, and labor be returned to you?
I haven't invested a whole bunch of time in this as it doesn't directly concern me (I am not a kernel contributor or a HfH person), but from what I can tell, the courts would disagree with the notion of "taking your toys and going home".
Code contributed to the kernel certainly fits the idea of a "donation". As far as I know, nobody is paid for their contributions (they might be paid to work on the kernel by a third party, but Linus isn't cutting any checks). From what I can deduce, case law has decided that gifts are nonrescindable unless you can show fraud, coercion, or that you were "strongly influenced in an unfair manner".
Furthermore, in both situations we have donations of time, labor, and skill.. Nothing "tangible"..i.e. nobody is keeping something "physical" that is going to deprive you of "x"
I don't believe, personally, that it would be immoral or unethical to keep the code and kick the person out. When the code was contributed both the donator and donee were acting in good faith.
If the situation changes and the parties part ways, then that's the end of their association, but you don't get to rewrite history and time and say "I want my shit back".
Physics declares you cannot get your time, labor, or skill back (entropy increases) so demanding that your gifts be ripped from the code tree won't make anyone "whole" even if you could show some unfairness (short of fraud).
The CoC is a poison pill.
Let me tell you the story of the Pirate Party in Germany. I was a member, so this is inside perspective:
Once upon a time, a german Pirate Party was founded, and got rapid interest. It growed quickly and the timing was right. New surveilance laws brought public interest to the party topics, and it had some success at elections as well as a media interest far larger than its single-digit election percents would justify.
But it was growing in both success and popularity. Some hopeful observers started to give it chances to enter the german parliament (which has a 5% treshold). It did successfully enter multiple local and state parliaments.
Then the trolls took over. Suddenly all these topics of equal rights and protection of minorities and proper language and genderism and what else you have was on the agenda, and in a tense internal vote even entered the party platform. The original concept of the Pirate Party - digital civil rights - became a side note. A lot of weirdos made career inside the party, and the tools they used to edge out the original pirates was the same as the CoC. Wordings, language, conduct. It was the end of the Pirate Party. Nobody is talking about them anymore, and the last national election got them 0.4 % of the votes, which is their worst result ever and an 82% loss compared to the previous election.
These things have become tools for people with completely different agendas. None of the Pirate Party trolls had any history of making anyones life better. There are certainly causes worth fighting for and there are certainly cases where improper language, prejudices and such are harming people and there are people who stand up for them and help those affected. But the vast majority of social justice warriors have no such history. They have nothing under their belt where their actions actually made the life of an actual person better. Theirs war is in the abstract. "women are harmed by ..." - which woman exactly, when exactly and how exactly?
---
We nerds are susceptible to this kind of arguing because we can think abstractly and don't think it unusual. That is why social justice warriors thrive in the academic environment. In a farming village, nobody would take them seriously, because people are interested in actual milk from actual cows, not milking theory.
Look for actual harm to actual people, or ask for references of where these warriors managed actual benefits to actual people with their demands and actions. If they cannot provide evidence of either, disregard their bullshit and call it for what it is.
It still pains when I think of the takeover and destruction of the German Pirate Party. Please don't let the same happen to the Linux kernel. Keep out the trolls.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org