Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter - <AUTHOR> https://www.drupalconfessions.org/ <comment><USER2> Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we're actually talking about (which wasn't made especially clear otherwise):

 _> > "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."

Even assuming this is Larry's philosophy, it is pretty much the same philosophy shared by many women & men in various conservative religious faiths, including branches of Christianity, Judaism, & Islam—only they add in the idea that it is divinely ordered. Are we now going to expel all who hold such religious beliefs? <<_

I agree this philosophy is hard to swallow, but the commenter's point about religious belief is well made. Apart from the issue that this is in fact a widely-held belief I would suggest communities allow their members to hold _any_ belief in private, as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value, and as long as that person does not _act_ based on that belief during community interactions.

It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty _have_ to work with people who believe all kinds of things, and they have to work with you. Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that it's even feasible to have good relationships and friendships with people we fundamentally disagree with.

In this context, if you're running an open source project, it's expected that people hold an even more varied spectrum of beliefs than would be the case in a traditional company. As long as members can professionally conduct themselves in that environment, firing them is not a productive solution. Presumably the person in question has pledged to uphold Drupal's community values and at first glance it looks like that pledge has not been broken.

<comment><USER3> This is where professionalism is important. Firmly separating your personal life and your professional life.

That said, there's a huge gap between a religion a person is imparted with as a child, and philosophy they chose as an adult and have jumped into with both feet.

Many people come from backgrounds with bigoted ideas like that, but they don't colour their daily lives with it because they're not actively married to the idea - it's just part of the box of stuff they grew up believing passively.

This, on the other hand, is an active _choice_. An active decision that women are our lessers. That's far more serious. I have a lot more trouble with the idea of politely ignoring somebody who actively evangelizes this kind of idea rather than being simply passively being raised with it.

Where do you draw the line? How far do you go in ignoring the fact that key people in your community are, to be blunt: hateful?

Marvel Comics recently fired an illustrator for hiding Islamist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian references in his art. His ideas were "normal" in his country - should that have been ignored? Reprimanded as long as he kept his politics out of his art?

<comment><USER4> I don't think you get it.

It doesn't matter what some guy posts on some message board (unless it's a threat, an incitement of violence, or something along those lines). It doesn't matter if he says he believes in "Gorean philosophy," whatever the hell that is.

What matters are his actions. If he's treating women disrespectfully then, by all means, throw him out. But he's allowed to believe whatever the hell he wants, and the idea that he should face repercussions for his beliefs is wrong, whatever age he was when he came to those beliefs.

Sure, there's going to be some correlation between holding misogynistic beliefs and inappropriate behavior toward women, but we don't punish the beliefs, we just punish the behavior. That's what makes this a free society.

<comment><USER3> I _do_ get it. That's why I started from the important of professionalism, of separating the professional from the personal. But I'm also pointing out the other side: that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing crosses the line. If it was just his _beliefs_ we wouldn't know about them in the first place. But obviously, we know about them, which means it's not just his beliefs it's his statements.

If I went around on some other private forum and said "tps5 is sub-human and should be subservient to me" you'd have reason to say "I will not work with Pxtl and I'm disappointed that this project is working with him, his behavior is seriously not okay".

If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?

<comment><USER4> > If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share > attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that > more or less okay?

Yeah, it's okay.

I would say that, because we are coworkers, you are obligated to treat me respectfully, whatever your personal beliefs. If you treat me poorly, and I complain, the issue is the fact that you treated me poorly, not your whacko belief system.

If this guy behaved improperly towards women, then I have no problem with him being "removed from the community." But posting X whacko opinion on Y message board should not hurt you professionally. That applies equally to racism and holocaust-denial and whatever other fringe beliefs you can come up with.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure it's possible to have certain views and maintain a respectful workplace environment, full stop.

To make an extreme hypothetical: You have a white supremacist coworker and a black coworker. The white supremacist always treats your black coworker with respect, kindness, and compassion. She also openly admits that, nothing personal, but she believes black folks are inferior and should be expelled/exterminated. Ask the black coworker, is he being treated poorly?

What's the resolution in this situation? If he knows how she feels, but she is nice to him, how do you propose resolving that?

<comment><USER6> Why is she openly admitting it? If she brings it to work that's the problem.

<comment><USER5> What if she were out marching with a white power rally on the weekend, and the black coworker happened to see her there?

What's that going to be like on the following Monday? If asked, in this hypothetical, is she supposed to lie?

"So, Jean, I saw you at a white power rally...you were holding an effigy of a hanged black person...what's that about?"

Or, contrive _any_ situation in which her views on her black colleague (i.e. that, although she treats him with kindness and respect, she considers him subhuman and would like to exile/exterminate him and everyone who looks like him) were brought into the workplace.

If the white supremacist coworker doesn't bring up her white supremacist views at work, ever, and treats her black colleague with kindness and respect, at work, but outside the office does not conceal her views, and when asked directly does not lie about them ("Yes, Jim, I'd kill every black person if I could"), how do you resolve the tension that's going to arise from that?

Tell the black colleague, "Jim, don't ask Jean about her white supremacy."? How's Jim supposed to feel about working with her, knowing what he knows about Jean?

<comment><USER6> I think the line is "undue hardship". There's a legal precedent that the accusation of accommodation of religious beliefs causing undue hardship "generally requires evidence that the accommodation would actually infringe on the rights of co-workers or cause disruption of work" [1] -- I'd argue the same goes for any personal belief system. In this scenario Jean is an asshole but I don't think it causes Jim undue hardship if she never discusses it at work. Jim has no legal right to like his coworkers, nor does Jean have to be liked. However, if she hung a Nazi flag by her desk it would be a different story.

1\. [https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2009/religionhandshak...](https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2009/religionhandshakeletter.redacted%20for%20posting.final.html)

<comment><USER5> I would like to find out what people who have been traditionally been the target of white supremacy groups would say to your reply. I would like to know if they would consider it acceptable, given the history and context of white supremacy and the violence toward minorities that it's led to.

I wonder if they would be OK with, "well, Jean marches with a group calling for your extermination, and you know, throughout history, there's been a lot of violence from them to people who look like you, but since she doesn't bring it up at work, deal with it."

I think I'll ask around with my POC friends, in that ham-fisted way white folks always end up asking about these things ("So, I don't want you to speak for all people of color, but ... I'm hashing something out on the internet with some stranger who's probably also a hetero white guy, and ...").

My hunch is, knowing your coworker wishes for the extermination of your people would be considered hostile and unacceptable, especially by those people historically targeted by white supremacist violence, even if she's nice to your face. Like, I imagine you'd have the same tension with a card-carrying nazi and a Jewish colleague who lost family in the holocaust.

<comment><USER6> I like your assumption that I only have this opinion become I'm insulated from it. What if I were a homosexual who's had conservative Christian and conservative Muslim coworkers? It's not a hostile environment as long as each group treats the other with respect.

To be clear: I think card carrying Nazis are abhorrent and would rather not interact with them. I also thinking banning them from an apolitical volunteer group where they do not volunteer their views is wrong.

<comment><USER5> Well, yeah, I did make that assumption, and I will do so again the next time I talk to someone on the internet who defers to rules and tells hypothetical minorities to just deal with hypothetical white supremacists. Based on the conversations I have had in the past, both with people who endure this stuff and people who are insulated from it, it really sounds a lot more like you're insulated from that situation than someone who's had to deal with it. That whole response sounds lacking in empathy for the people who, hypothetically speaking, endure having coworkers wish for their expulsion/death.

Also, in the hypothetical, we were talking about a workplace, not a volunteer group. As for whether card-carrying nazis should be allowed to join apolitical volunteer groups, I think that each group can surely decide for themselves, and this is exactly where a code of conduct would apply, e.g. "nazis welcome" makes it clear up front that nazis aren't going to be uninvited for their views. Then everyone else can make the call whether _they_ want to be involved with the Drupal-with-nazis fork or the Drupal-without-nazis fork.

<comment><USER6> Because a workplace is fundamentally different. In the US an employer can fire an employee for any reason, they also have no obligation do to fire any given employee for their views. It's kind of a moot point.

You know a lot of people who have worked with Nazis? If you do I feel bad for those people but it doesn't alter my views. Claiming your position is the moral high ground doesn't really lend any credence to your argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nothing surprising to see here. This is why I seldom bother getting involved in open source projects and NEVER use my real name. Large, interesting projects are too much like this and groups quickly form using the same BS as in high school only now "wrong brand of shoes" gets replaced with "incorrect values". Whatever that heck that means.

I'm still not clear why anyone would care how he gets off on his own time, in the privacy of his home. If this is really a thing then other "identifiable" groups might want to prepare for when the pendulum swing back and then they themselves are holding "incorrect values".

edit: removed not

</comment><comment><USER8> Some context:

Garfield's statement:

[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi- outing](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing)

Executive Director's statement:

[https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from- the...](https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the- executive-director)

<comment><USER9> > > So if and only if Larry did not violate the Code of Conduct, then > apologize to Larry and rescind your request to remove himself from the > community (if there was a violation, provide the details to Larry and > confirm to the public)

TL;DR : Please continue iff there was a violation we don't know about

> We want to be clear that the decision to remove Larry's DrupalCon session > and track chair role was not because of his private life or personal > beliefs. The Drupal Association stands by our values of inclusivity. Our > decision was based on confidential information conveyed in private by many > sources. Due to the confidential nature of the situation we cannot and will > not disclose any information that may harm any members of our community, > including Larry

> This decision followed our established process. As the Executive Director, > charged with safekeeping the goodwill of the organization, I made this > decision after considering input from various sources including the > Community Working Group (CWG) and Drupal Project Lead, Dries Buytaert. Upon > Larry's request for an appeal, the full board reviewed the situation, all > the evidence, and statements provided by Larry. After reviewing the entirety > of the information available (including information not in the public view) > the decision was upheld.

> In order to protect everyone involved we cannot comment more, and trust that > the community will be understanding

TL;DR : We're continuing, there was a violation you don't know about

Sounds like it's done, then

<comment><USER10> [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi- part-3](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-part-3)

TL;DR : The Drupal leadership hasn't accused Larry of a code of conduct violation publicly or privately but they're happy to imply that a secret violation exists so they can cover up the fact that they ousted him because his lifestyle is icky and bad for PR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> amiga-workbench I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

<comment> vertex-four For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are kinky (and, separately, a large chunk of the kink community agrees broadly with modern feminist views). Nobody I've spoken to within my subset of the social justice community wants somebody to be removed from the Drupal community based on how they go about their personal relationships and sexuality.

<comment><USER9> > For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are ki

Gonna stop you right there - there exists no "record" this needs to be on.

Or rather, were there a need for it to be "on a record", such a community would already be failing their supposed 'without the community needing to know or care' ideal.

<comment> vertex-four I'm just saying, that it'd be entirely illogical for the social justice community at large to be against the practice of kink, given that many of its members practice kink in a wide variety of ways. There's no reason to assume that the SJW community at large will be against the practice of any consensual sexuality, which many people in this thread are doing.

<comment><USER9> And _I 'm_ just saying, the ideal of "don't know, don't care" can't purport to be upheld when analyses like these enter into "people X and people Y do Z to what degree".

You can't have it both ways.

<comment> vertex-four I never said "don't know, don't care" \- though I certainly don't care, even if I do know. I was _only_ attacking the idea that it's a bunch of nebulous "SJWs" kicking Larry out of the community, and pointing out that this is a nonsensical idea from the very start. There is no better way to do that given that many people believe SJWs are literally the devil than to say "we do literally this, why the fuck would we attack someone for it?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the same line, Brendan Eich. I completely disagree with his views on marriage of homosexuals, but disagree that it led him to have to quit his position at Mozilla Foundation.

<comment><USER12> Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough.

That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.

<comment><USER13> > The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability...

It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities.

I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red state be a liability? Republican in a blue state? Evangelical in a secular area? Atheist in a religious one? Scientologists? Mormons?

In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs?

<comment><USER14> > _In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be > CEOs?_

In short, yes.

There are plenty of rational people out there who don't care what someone does in their private life as long as it doesn't have a readily apparent effect on business. It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hold. That is, the fact that a CEO is a Dom in a D/s relationship will resonate so negatively with some people that is can adversely impact business.

Do you remember the Cheerios commercial[0] with the interracial family? People have much bigger skeletons in their closets, and from a business standpoint, that's a liability. It's not right. It's not fair. But it's reality.

[0]: [http://www.today.com/news/cheerios-ad-mixed-race-family- draw...](http://www.today.com/news/cheerios-ad-mixed-race-family-draws-racist- responses-6C10169988)

<comment><USER15> > It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others > who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else > may hold.

In Eich's case, it wasn't a private matter. He used his money and influence to attempt to enforce his religious views on people who do not subscribe to his religion. When you are involving the government in public enforcement of your personal views, they are not personal any longer.

<comment><USER13> The donor list was not public. Some people believe private political behavior should stay private, just like voting.

Saying "this is too important for privacy to apply" affects more issues than just politics advocacy.

In this situation, people apparently _are_ applying the template: "When you X, it's no longer personal anymore".

<comment><USER15> Are you sure it wasn't public? Those kinds of donation rolls often are. In either case, I do think it is reasonable to reject a CEO who is actively attempting to harm their own employees through government enforcement of personal religious beliefs. Especially for an altruistic company like Mozilla.

<comment><USER16> Given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also opposed to gay marriage at that time, would you agree that that they should also have been disqualified?

If not, why not?

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's an interesting comparison, given one is a choice between two "lesser evils" and elected by three hundred million citizens VS the other being a leader of a private company appointed by a board from a pool of presumably many (or at least several) valid candidates. Totally different scenarios.

But yes, it was a big black mark against them and they, too, received lots of public pressure to change their public policy on the matter. And eventually, they did. Eich refused to even say he wouldn't make such a donation again, much less apologize for the harm he caused.

<comment><USER16> Sorry, why should a public official should be held to a lower standard than the director of a private company? I'm not seeing that.

Most observers believe that the passage of Proposition 8 in California had far more to do with black churches turning out for Barack Obama than it did with contributions from people like Eich.

Edit: updating with citation.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/11...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html)

70% of black voters supported Proposition 8, which means that they were _against_ gay marriage.

<comment><USER15> You're right that I didn't answer your question directly. To be explicit, yes, I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents should disqualify you from holding public office. However, when presented with two options that both fail that test, I will vote for the lesser of the two evils presented to me.

I don't think that Mozilla was faced with that dichotomy, and the fact that Eich was relatively quickly and easily replaced backs that up.

<comment><USER13> > I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your > constituents should disqualify you from holding public office.

Should officials be cajoling or forcing people to "convert" (not every religion has conversion as such)? Nope.

Can we divorce all laws from any metaphysical worldview? No. That's not possible. We presume certain things matter, like human lives, freedom of conscience, truth, the health of the planet, etc. Banning murder assumes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist and/or does not require human sacrifice to get into heaven. I can't come up with the right adjective, but that's imposing an (a)theological position on constituents. It's obviously the right position, too.

Point being, even the idea of "inalienable rights" is an (a)theological position. Some people think rights are given by God or the nature of humanity. Others think laws are given by the people and groups that can enforce them.

The goal isn't to have agnostic laws. That's literally impossible. The goal is to find a just baseline worldview we can all compromise on and have tolerant laws that follow from that.

<comment><USER15> I don't agree with your premise, and this isn't the forum to debate that. But even if I did, given that even members of the same religion have disagreements about the morality of gay marriage, I don't think your argument is relevant to this specific situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Code of Conduct. Conduct. CONDUCT!

Not: code of thought, beliefs, sexuality, politics, religion....

All the discussions of philosophy and belief systems in this thread are missing the point. It DOES NOT MATTER how you feel about someone else's beliefs. It is not relevant. How they CONDUCT themselves in the community is the only thing that matters.

<comment><USER18> If that were the case it would be called a "Code of Conduct In the [Drupal] Community". Many people assume they should consider any conduct that they don't like in applying a "Code of Conduct".

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument:

\- Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes

\- Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No

\- Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No

There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over themselves and table-flip:

\- Does a person's private life affect their public views?

\- If a person in leadership has their private life exposed (fairly or unfairly), does that affect their leadership role?

If you quickly come to a 'Yes' or 'No' in the last two questions, then that is why we don't have constructive dialogue between people with opposing views. Again, we're not talking about blatant discrimination. We're talking about a position of leadership and influence.

For example, if a person has religious views that women should not work, should they be part of the open source community? Of course. Should they be a leader of the community and have prominent speaking roles?

It's no different than the 1st amendment. No laws can be made to punish you for speaking, but you can't just say whatever you want without consequence.

I'd hope that people would take a breath and really think about that. Is it discrimination if you ask that person to relinquish their leadership role? Who is excluded because of that person being in leadership? Who has been silenced out of fear that the power of leadership trumps their voice?

I personally do not know the answers to the two questions, but I'm open to hearing both sides. I also understand how difficult it is to have an answer when you're responsibility is to put people in leadership. With open source, it's even more complicated because you could 'become a leader' simply by being great at contributing!

<comment><USER20> This is a truly personal matter that, in my opinion, bears no relevance to his public-facing leadership role and responsibilities. He's into BDSM, so what? If your PornHub/xHamster/whatever search history was exposed, how catastrophic would it be to your career? Would people that you respect immediately feign disgust, knowing very well that they have similar search histories? It's easy to point the finger when it's someone else taking the heat, but I guarantee that everyone who claims to be a member of the opposition would sing a different tune if it was their private life that was investigated and exposed. Pure hypocrisy.

It's GamerGate type shit all over again, chock full of faux outrage and manufactured drama. I think that sensational journalism has rubbed off on society. People are used to having their emotions exploited and being force fed specific facts sans context to steer their opinion and, at large, public consensus.

Instead of it being CNN steering the public opinion of Trump, it's a group of misdirected, misguided, uneducated, incompatible, unaccepting, pig-headed SJW- type individuals steering the dialogue regarding Drupal.

<comment><USER13> > People are used to having their emotions exploited and being force fed > specific facts sans context to steer their opinion and, at large, public > consensus.

It's worse than that. Many actually like it. Outrage is click bait because people _like_ clicking on it. If you're reading it, it's for you.

People like a good two minute hate. It creates all sorts of interesting sensations.

<comment><USER21> > People like a good two minute hate. It creates all sorts of interesting > sensations.

\- Humanrebar, 2017

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Larry Garfield, a long-time, veteran contributor to Drupal was ejected from > the community, allegedly not for breaking the Code of Conduct, but, to quote > your own post on the matter, because "he holds views that are in opposition > with the values of the Drupal project."

At some point, some open source communities will need to decide whether they work on open technologies or they are political activists with a political mission that serves the interests of a specific political side, or political doctrine[1] If I'm into, I don't know, some niche Porn that isn't illegal, can it be considered "offensive to women" and should I be ejected as a contributor because of my personal sexual tastes in order to satisfy those that might be offended by this, even if I never bring up that matter in public? Now, if I'm part of an atheist association, and I publicly question the reality of a mainstream religion, can it be considered offensive to Muslims and should I be ejected of a totally unrelated community because some of its members that are not even of the religion think that what I said is offensive toward Muslims?

1 : one can argue "free software" is political. It is, but it has to do with the protection of users and their right to access and modify source code. It has nothing to do with women's rights or making blasphemy socially unacceptable, especially when positions are taken outside the context of the project community.

<comment><USER23> Plenty of open source communities are political beyond user rights. If you believe NSA should be able to watch everybody all the time, Tor people will kick you out.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal.

Is it possible to simultaneously believe that women are naturally submissive and happiest when they serve and simultaneously see leadership potential in women who is working under you? I dont know and I am glad that the question is not directly relevant to me.

However, if my boss would believe something like that, I guess I would have to either leave the company or accept I will be less likely to be promoted then male college of similar skills.

I have no idea whether Garfield is into Gor for kink or for gender philosophy nor whether that philosophy affected his leadership style. I dont care about whether he comes back or not. But, the more I looked into Gor the more it looked like way more then just another flavor of bdsm.

<comment><USER24> >Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal.

It's a series of fantasy f*#%ing novels, ofcourse it's role-play. Serious role play maybe, and definitively weird, but the author is _still alive_ and his name is not L. Ron Hubbard. Is he participating in political activism with mysogynistic undertones? Is he otherwise projecting gor-related gender views onto non-consenting parties? No. He just wants to do weird stuff together with other people who want to do weird stuff, socially and sexually. To assume that he holds these views to be morally absolute for everyone is a gross misrepresentation and unfortunately typical of persecution of weird people.

<comment><USER16> "It's a series of fantasy f#%ing novels, of course it's role-play."

It seems so to me as well. There probably are people who take it a bit too far, just as there are in most fan groups (e.g., people who get cosmetic surgery to look like anime characters, etc.), but I don't recall hearing of any rash of abuse cases involving Goreans (apologies if that's not the right term).

I'm wondering just how far this goes. I have a friend who participates in Civil War reenactments (again, apologies if I don't get the terminology right). He plays a Confederate, and spends a considerable amount of time and money getting his gear and persona as close to perfect as he possibly can. That doesn't mean he _really_ believes in slavery, or even that the South should have won the Civil War. Quite the contrary -- I'm 100% sure that he _doesn 't_ believe those things. This is just something he does for fun.

<comment><USER24> It seems to me to go just so far as one is willing to believe thought can be a crime in itself.

"Oh so you believe this or that? Well you now embody those beliefs and are complicit in all crimes motivated by them. Your mere presence is oppressive to people who have been slighted by actions or words motivated by the same beliefs. May your career end and your friends abandon you."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting adults in private?

<comment><USER26> >> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."

<comment><USER21> Yes, and?

While I'm not into this kind of stuff, this is 'acted out' in a recreational activity..

As one simple example, this could be his way of coping with the 'reality' that women are evolutionarily 'superior to men' or similar..

If the actual behavior hasn't impacted the community in a way that the community doesn't like directly, the 'problem' is the person making it their business to muckrake and air other people's dirty laundry..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious" standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will suffer.

(Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)

<comment><USER28> I've started to mentally replace the words "inclusion and diversity" with "conformity" on certain places on the net.

<comment><USER29> The key is "tolerance" and "inclusion". Those are, of course, superior to intolerance and exclusion.

To have tolerance, you cannot tolerate intolerance. It is maybe illogical, but necessary.

<comment><USER30> I'd argue allowing some intolerance is required because no system is 100% anything.

Your comment shows the exact sort of thinking the people you're responding to are going off on.

The issue is people are trying to implement nonviolent communication principles in communities without learning how to process the world through the lens of nonviolent communication. And others are using the natural misunderstandings as evidence against nonviolent communication, as though the concept is the problem instead of people interpreting the concept in violent ways society teaches us to.

<comment><USER31> Karl Popper wrote on this subject and I've yet to find a suitable rebuttal. The intolerant cannot be tolerated because doing so would lead to the elimination of tolerance. His justification is whether the intolerant are willing to discuss things rationally or whether they will steamroll you without any concern for intellectual integrity.

<comment><USER30> This is a black and white interpretation. Here's your refutation:

When we try to outlaw people being themselves, we overlook their needs. That isn't a productive framework and will ultimately compile into systemic issues over time. Tolerating intolerance says nothing about timberline, types of intolerance, scale, etc. It lacks make and is therefore a problematic principle for governing human behavior.

<comment><USER31> Ok, but there is very clearly a boundary on acceptable behavior that we classify as not just "being yourself." How are you planning to draw that line? This isn't some unanswerable subjectivity we're talking about, and it's more a testament to the paucity of education in America that we can't recognize rational discussion from irrational anymore.

For most other people, it's a pretty clear line. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> When your private proclivities don't vibe with the dominant culture (postmodernist/intersectional social justice activism) you can expect to be drummed out of open source communities - we've known this to be true for some time. Very pleased to see the open letter from the community come down firmly against this regressive practice, they are firmly on the right side of history.

<comment><USER21> > right side of history.

This phrase to some extent seems to have origins in dialectical materialism which is a marxist philosophy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism)

I mention this because it seems at odds with your opposition to certain attitudes.

<comment><USER32> I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not familiar enough with dialectical materialism to gain much insight. Have I undermined my own point somehow? In reflection I can see how a phrase like "the right side of history" is somewhat unhelpful, since whichever side is "right" is completely subjective.

<comment><USER21> This philosophy is the background philosophy of marxism, and was essentially developed within this school. The gist is that that human progress (assumed to exist) is based on a materialist dialectic (action/response/synthesis) -

e.g. a sort of historical predeterminism that humankind is unstoppably destined for socialism once society 'evolved' to a certain level of productive capacity -

This view of progress is what leads to there being a 'right' and 'wrong' side of history, and as best I can tell the phrase it comes directly from marxists, and is rooted in in their philosophical view of society and progress, which doesn't mean one cant use that same sort of philosophy but leading to another in context, necessarily..

just a mention, since it seems like you might not like sounding marxist, not that that would in some cases be inherently a bad thing either.

<comment><USER32> Thank you for the explanation. Makes sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It sounds to me like some other asshole discovered that this guy was into some unusual stuff in his personal life, and decided to go out of his way to be offended about it, make a big stink about it and stir the pot.

Given the choice, it's the pot-stirrer I would kick out of my community. You know, if I had my own community. With blackjack...

</comment><comment><USER34> > illegally obtaining information from members-only websites (by violating > their terms of use)

IANAL, but since when have arbitrary website terms and conditions been automatically enforced by criminal law?

<comment><USER35> Aaron Swartz case...

And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS).

And a bunch of other cases... In US breaking TOS is literally a crime if you keep using the site (it is akin to virtual trespassing).

I think such law is bullshit... but it does exist. (CFAA I think is the law name)

<comment><USER36> _And a bulling case I forgot the name (they used the same law that was used in Aaron Swartz to argue that the bullying people were criminals because they broke MySpace TOS)._

Lori Drew, who was acquitted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > We know that you have no desire for more press coverage, Dries. The last > thing you want is to prolong the media parade that has drawn so much > attention to the problems with Drupal governance.

That must be why they chose to do this in public rather than in a private letter.

As much as I agree with the contents of the letter I reject the way in which it was delivered, it is essentially blackmail. If you don't do 'x' we will leave would have been strong enough without making this yet another public spectacle because it pulls in the world at large to witness whether or not these demands are met.

I can't stand Drupal for many reasons (backwards incompatibility by design being the major one) but this is not a nice thing to do.

<comment><USER38> Allowing or organising a witch-hunt and irreparably damaging a career because you disagree with someone's sex life is "not a nice thing to do".

Posting doxxed information across the internet, along with euphemistic insinuations that he is an irreparable pervert, attached to his real name, forever to show up as the first result when you Google him ... is "not a nice thing to do"

Trying to hold your community leaders up to a higher standard, and refusing to partake in the same backroom whisper campaigns that you're angry about? That's just not even on the same level of "not nice".

<comment><USER37> All agreed upon. Still no reason to resort to a veiled version of public blackmail.

Buytaert is wrong, there is really no doubt about that. But if you want to make a point you simply send the letter to its intended recipient and follow up on the threat to leave if you are ignored or unhappy with the outcome.

If you want to increase the spectacle you do so publicly, with the direct result that Drupal gets hurt even further in the process _no matter what the outcome will be_.

<comment><USER39> Does Drupal get hurt even further? Or does Drupal look like a project with a strong community that stands up to perceived errors of its leadership by demanding better justifications? FWIW, I think many other communities would have imploded by now, and at least the posts that have been linked here have been surprisingly civil.

I might agree with you if it were a call to resign or similar, but they aim at getting (to them very relevant) information that has been demanded in public (and I have to assume in private as well) before, without result, not necessarily at a reversal of the decision.

<comment><USER37> Some of the signatories call for his resignation.

The problem here is that the producers of drupal are a _much_ smaller set of people than the consumers of something like drupal. It's the consumers that will have to decide whether they want to base their next project on Drupal or not and all this infighting is giving of an aura of extreme instability. So as a result the drupal project as a whole will suffer because some fraction of that audience will decide to move on from Drupal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think free software is to some extend political. We try to work by a higher "inclusive" standard than what is found in society.

The letter to Dries writes:

> It is unacceptable to judge people based on unspoken, secret rules that they > have no say in and cannot know.

Unacceptable? Tell that to the pope (pedo trials) and the US gov't (TPP, Guatanamo). They do this all the time. So again, if we agree this is "unacceptable" we say that many of our governing institutions are unacceptable, and thereby set a higher moral community standard then what we are governed by. I for one believe it is very important to do this.

> Ensure people carrying out illegal acts related to the conduct of others are > reported to the proper authorities.

Here again it shows. "Illegal acts" are here scoped by their "relation to the conduct of others", yet are ultimately are defined by gov't. Possession of pot has been illegal, but hell no I'd turn someone in for that: I do not consider is punishment-worthy.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm really struggling to figure why I should give a fuck about what, who or how Larry Garfield fucks.

</comment><comment><USER42> A lot of people are taking either stance: that a person's beliefs squarely should or should not affect their involvement in the project.

However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the _material effect_ their beliefs may have on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" might execute poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

<comment><USER43> But who does the assessing? What measure do we use to determine which beliefs will create which affects? Is a Gorean belief system more or less likely than an Abrahamic belief system to execute poor judgement with regards to female collaborators?

I think the problem with many of these approaches is this notion that we can predict ahead of time. I would agree with your third approach if you just changed the tense of the sentence:

> However - the third stance is that one needs to assess the material effect > their beliefs _have had_ on their day-to-day involvement in that project. In > an industry with serious, systemic issues with gender balance, is it not > reasonable to suggest a person promoting "Gorean philosophy" _might have > executed_ poor judgement in the context of work with female collaborators?

We can't assume behavior from stated beliefs, but past behavior and beliefs may factor into a case where wrong-doing has occurred. If I'm a satanist, that doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice babies... but if you find me connected to a bunch of baby-sacrificing, then you better believe my stated Satanic beliefs will factor into the "motive" part of my prosecution.

Not only is this the "innocent till proven guilty" ethos applied generally, it's also going to be far more efficient to judge people case-by-case on observed actions/offenses than by trying to extrapolate potential actions from the subjective interpretations of their words.

<comment><USER42> You're right, and I probably should've worded it that way (I can no longer edit). I was using the term "might" in a suggestive, rather than speculative, way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> From the outside it's been hard to judge who's wrong or right here, the whole thing stinks to high heaven.

All I know is I wouldn't want to get involved with a similar big project these days. I guess you could just use a fake name, but that probably wouldn't hold up if you wanted to have any sort of leadership role.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't see a positive outcome in this unless Dries steps down. This is vote of no confidence and Dries should really see that. (Note: I don't follow drupal and this is the first I've heard of this, so... this is just from an outsider perspective.)

</comment><comment><USER46> sorry but how does that work to be for tolerance and anti discrimination in the first place ? anti discrimination means you Do NOT tolerate people who discriminate, so you cant be tolerant at the same time. I always see this kind of contradictions in principles.

<comment><USER34> Totally agree. I'm fed up of the argument that goes "if you preach tolerance, you must be tolerant of intolerance", for my own understanding of tolerance. Yes, you shouldn't commit a violent act against someone because they are intolerant. No, you shouldn't have to accept their intolerance unreservedly.

I also have an issue with the part of the statement that reads along the lines of "we are against discrimination based on someone's race, gender ... _or personal beliefs_ ". Sorry, that's ridiculous. If someone believes Jews are parasites, I'm discriminating against them. If someone thinks women are inherently inferior to men, I'm discriminating against them. If I'm not allowed to react differently to someone because of what they believe in, go ahead and unplug me now because i cease to be a thinking human being.

<comment><USER9> So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do you shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be your next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them?

Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown no signs of changing. How would your solution address that? Indoctrination? Building an ideological "wall"? Killing those who do not meet your ideology, or wait and hope it 'dies out'?

What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?

<comment><USER46> > So then how do you deal with people with such beliefs in your society? Do > you shun them, throw slurs at them? What happens when one moves in to be > your next-door neighbor? Do you try moving to places without them?

As long as they do not impede on my or anyone else Freedom's, it's fine for them to have their own beliefs about the world or whatever. Why should we ALL have the same beliefs anyway?

> Intolerance of beliefs is incompatible with society, and society has shown > no signs of changing.

Sorry but society as a whole has NEVER collapsed no matter how many disharmonies there are or were amongst us - even civil wars do not bring down entire societies. There's a lot more harm to be done by putting limits on how people should think, and this kind of line of thought is actually what leads to conflict more often than not.

> What happens when they elect someone with such beliefs to lead you?

So what? Leaders who do not represent folks have been elected for centuries already, it's hardly something new. You know, live with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> While, in reading this thread, I understand how people might take offense to someone being excluded based on a privately-held belief, especially one which has not manifested into an actual issue of conduct.

But I'm not sure I mind when different standards are applied to any given community's "leaders" vs. its participants. Leaders ultimately represent what a community believes it should stand for. We have, perhaps unrealistically in some case, but justifiably always prosecuted leaders, in any context, for behavior, beliefs and statements that we would absolutely forgive/ignore for the "public".

<comment><USER48> It's one thing if we are talking about their actions that are part of being a community leader. IE: if a Drupal leader showed porn during a talk at a Drupal conference. It's another to say that their personal actions outside of this official role represent the community. This is why people say that their Twitter views do not represent their employer etc. because there can and should be a separation between the two.

<comment><USER47> My point was that "leaders" can not compartmentalize the same way a participant, employee or guest can. Leadership roles are generally, in our society, held to higher standards.

I'm also keeping in mind that had this person held views not that women are inherently inferior to men, but that blacks were inherently inferior to whites, there'd be absolutely no discussion about whether they should be removed.

You simply cannot hold that type of view and have any credible moral claim to a leadership role, even if your actions as a leader are spotless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> If you don't want to work with Drupal, then work with something else instead.

Open invitation: If you are looking for something to work on (i.e., the project is still pre-alpha quality), check out my work in progress: [https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant](https://github.com/coreyp1/defiant) .

I'm an 11+ member of the Drupal community, who wanted a fresh take on a framework. As developers, we have newer tools with different strengths than PHP. That is what I'm working on leveraging. Message me if you want more info.

</comment><comment><USER50> "We believe that tolerance reserved only for people who think and act exactly like we do is no tolerance at all."

Oh my god. Then act like it.

<comment> atom-morgan Then let communities be communities. Remember LambdaConf and Moldbug?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Not taking sides, but I found this analysis by an experienced community manager interesting: [https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal- governanc...](https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance- decisions/)

"it's complicated"

<comment><USER48> It's complicated if you are driving an agenda. Otherwise you can conduct things in the open. In my experience the secret tribunals enable bad behavior and bullies.

<comment><USER51> It's about respecting the privacy of people that could have been harassed by Larry (and Larry's own privacy). How is that an agenda?

I don't see a "secret tribunal" here, more a `behind closed doors` trial ([https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_huis_clos)). Nothing wrong with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Google cache:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUD...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Nw6rUDO9M64J:https://www.drupalconfessions.org/)

</comment><comment><USER53> This is big departure from the blow back after Dries made a comment years ago at Drupalcon about encouraging women to enter the Drupal community as graphic design artists. Good for these women today.

</comment><comment><USER54> I hope the community and project can be reconciled. Not for the sake of Drupal, but for everyone involved however tangentially.

</comment><comment><USER55> Offtopic... Someone here actually develops software in Drupal? Most people i knew abandoned drupal years ago for Joomla or something in python like Django, its kinda weird/cringeworthy hearing news about Drupal the Community more than the Drupal project.

</comment><comment><USER56> It convinces me Code Of Conduct are basically sticks that will not harm you when you are on the right side of them.

Do communities needs sticks to be driven one sided way like cows?

At this point it feels like they kind of defy their reason to be and are pretty misused.

<comment><USER57> My experience says that codes of conduct are written with the express desire of keeping all open source communities left-leaning.

I've talked to many people about the matter and some of them say that open source is supposed to be left-leaning, and that those are its principles. That ignores that right-leaning users should also be able to benefit from open source values (privacy, for example) and contribute code, and that not everybody who uses open source has to be a supporter of the open source principles (for example, I use an open source browser because it's the best, not because I like open source better than closed source).

<comment> IGI-111 As usual, depends on the contents of the code. That kind of legalese is just tooling to organize discourse.

You won't build an open minded community if its rules mandate righthink. Doesn't mean you can't try and protect people from the kind of stalking and abuse that has happened here.

It's a shame that we have to have more than "be professional and don't be a dick" as community guidelines, but if we have to might as well do it correctly.

<comment><USER57> Someone who doesn't know that he has to "be professional and don't be a dick" is likely to disregard the code of conduct. And you don't need a code of conduct to kick someone out of a project because he's being unprofessional and/or a dick. Therefore codes of conduct are useless.

<comment> vertex-four > And you don't need a code of conduct to kick someone out of a project > because he's being unprofessional and/or a dick.

Unfortunately, my experience is that you actually do need to be able to point to something (a) precise and (b) that the community broadly agrees is a valid reason, in order to kick someone out without practically dissolving your community. A code of conduct is simply an agreement which states the community's beliefs on what are valid reasons to kick someone out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Completely turned off by the Drupal project. Don't you people have code to write?

</comment><comment><USER59> TLDR?

</comment><comment><USER3> You know how we always complain how the tech community is treated unfairly about women? How they think we politely ignore the gendered problems our industry faces? How we're not all sexist and we're genuinely trying hard to embrace and include female geeks and coders?

This thread. This whole thread right here.

<comment> atom-morgan Mind elaborating?</comment></comment>


How Go uses Go to build itself - <AUTHOR> http://dave.cheney.net/2013/06/04/how-go-uses-go-to-build-itself

<comment><USER2> The last time I've looked there were a lot of C code needed to be compiled with C to build Go, and definitely it was not for the bootstrapping purposes as the part of standard libraries were written in C. Is it still the case?

<comment><USER3> Most of the standard library is written in go.

a large part of the runtime package (within the standard library) is written in c and asm. This c code compiled with one of the 5c, 6c or 8c compilers.

gcc is only used for bootstrapping (I believe... tho I am still trying to get my head around what happens).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm the naive one here, but is "Go using Go to build itself" much like what Paul Graham talks about re LISP?

<comment><USER5> Most languages can be used to built themselves, in a process known as compiler bootstrap.

The main reason why some compiler developers don't do it is mostly a question of using existing tooling instead of redoing all required stuff in the new language.

Additionally porting to new platforms by bootstrapping usually requires cross- compilation, which for some developers might not be worth it, depending on the target audience of the language.

<comment><USER6> The Go developers have said they deliberately didn't try and write Go in Go because they've done that with other languages, possibly Alef, I forget, and a bug can arise where the fix is obvious if it wasn't that the bug exists and would be triggered by the fix. Instead, a more awkward fix has to be figured out that doesn't trigger the bug. Of course, once the bug is fixed the original straightforward fix can be substituted but it's all unwanted hassle.

<comment><USER7> How often does this come up? Under normal circumstances, wouldn't you be able to revert to a version of the compiler from before the bug was introduced? If your still in initial development, then you have the old, foreign, compiler to fall back on.

<comment><USER6> Seemingly often enough that it deterred them with Go. No, you may not be able to revert to before the bug was introduced as it may be the bug was there ever since that feature was added. As soon as it is self-hosted, the old compiler becomes quickly irrelevant, i.e. the code rapidly diverts from what it can compile.

<comment><USER5> That is why bootstraping done properly is always done in stages.

You have a compiler that can only compile a specific subset and use that subset to write the real compiler. There are endless book examples how to do it.

Given who Go designers are, I think they don't have any issue keeping the C code around.

<comment><USER6> That's not how the books say to do it, and you're right, given who created Go you'd think they'd know this stuff. :-)

Many generations of the compiler are created. Let's say the compiler-in-C is worked on until it compiles subset Gosub1 which is just enough to write compiler-in-Gosub1 that duplicates compiler-in-C's behaviour. From now, compiler-in-C atrophies. G-2 features are implemented in G-1's compiler, though nothing uses them yet. The compiler's source then uses these, making it G-2 source, only compilable by a G-2-grokking compiler.

Weeks later we have a G-40 where a bug is discovered, introduced in G-20. It wasn't in the compiler-in-C so that's not useful. Choices include fixing it at `head', which can sometimes be awkward as described earlier, or fixing the initial G-20 implementation and then rolling forward all changes from there assuming the fix doesn't break code that was depending on the errant behaviour.

<comment><USER5> > That's not how the books say to do it, and you're right, given who created > Go you'd think they'd know this stuff. :-)

Given that compiler design was one of my three main focus on my CS degree, I read a few books along the way. :)

> Many generations of the compiler are created. Let's say the compiler-in-C is > worked on until it compiles subset Gosub1 which is just enough to write > compiler-in-Gosub1 that duplicates compiler-in-C's behaviour. From now, > compiler-in-C atrophies. G-2 features are implemented in G-1's compiler, > though nothing uses them yet. The compiler's source then uses these, making > it G-2 source, only compilable by a G-2-grokking compiler.

It is not required to do this so fine grained.

The first version of the primitive language can already be good enough to offer the minimal set of features to compile itself.

Afterwards the full language compiler gets implemented in this minimal version and used for everything else.

There aren't thousand versions of the compiler, you just need to be restrictive of what is used in the base compiler.

> Weeks later we have a G-40 where a bug is discovered, introduced in G-20. It > wasn't in the compiler-in-C so that's not useful. Choices include fixing it > at `head', which can sometimes be awkward as described earlier, or fixing > the initial G-20 implementation and then rolling forward all changes from > there assuming the fix doesn't break code that was depending on the errant > behaviour.

As I explained this is not required because you only have G-2 as starting point, which is able to compile whatever is the current version of the language.

Additionally you get the benefit to eat your own dog food and as compiler designer check if you are doing the right design decisions on how the language works.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I don't understand. You seem to be saying there's only two versions of the compiler, one written in a foreign language, e.g. C, the other in a subset, e.g. Gosub, called G-2. But then there's "whatever is the current version of the language", which suggests to me incremental improvements, e.g. the language develops as experience is gained rather than being fully planned on day one. So doesn't G-2 undergo changes to implement these? You may keep calling it G-2 but there are many (I never said thousands) of versions of it.

<comment><USER5> Lets use Go as an example.

Now that Go 1.0 release exists and is stable. One could write a Go compiler using Go 1.0.

Eventually the compiler will reach a state that it can fully compile Go 1.0.

Now replace the C implementation of Go 1.0 by this new compiler and use it to write Go X.Y using only Go 1.0 features.

When the need to target a new OS or CPU arises, add a new backend that generates code for the desired target system in the Go 1.0 compiler.

Use the cross-compiler to compile itself with the new backend. Copy the binary to the new system, now use the Go 1.0 compiler to compile the Go X.Y version, whatever X and Y are.

You don't need to use multiple versions of the language and by keeping the feature set of base compiler small, it makes it easier to write cross- compilers.

<comment><USER6> This is flawed AFAICS. It assumes that because 1.0 is fixed in specification that there are no bugs in the implementation. To return to my original point, these smart guys are on the record stating that's why they didn't do a self- hosting compiler; good enough for me. :-)

<comment><USER5> How is this different than having bugs in the C compiler used for the language implementation?

<comment><USER6> Yes, because of the stableness of the C compiler, bigger test audience, etc., compared to a new language under rapid development.

<comment><USER5> Except that is a false assumption.

Have you ever done multiplaform C development across using OS vendor specific C compilers?

There are lots of nice bugs to be found, just check the available bug databases of any C compiler.

So this does not make it any better.

<comment><USER6> Yes, C across AIX, Suns, Silicon Graphics, whatever those HP ones were, and others. Platform differences were common, bugs rare because many had been before me and they could always be worked around; I didn't have to fix a C compiler. When writing a compiler the aim _is_ to fix the compiler.

This isn't getting us anywhere. We disagree. I value the opinion of that lot given their many decades of experience. I used to have your opinion, based on textbooks. They've made a good point, one I can see has considered thought behind it.

<comment><USER5> > I used to have your opinion, based on textbooks.

I do have compiler development experience, but alas as you say this is not getting us anywhere.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crowdtilt Raises a $23M Series B Led by A16Z - <AUTHOR> http://blog.crowdtilt.com/led-a16z-crowdtilt-raises-series-b/

<comment><USER2> This is the original Groupon business model, interesting that it ended up being successful.

 _It started as ThePoint.com, a site launched in November 2007 that lets you start a campaign asking people to give money or do something as a group--but only once a "tipping point" of people agree to participate._

 _Founder Andrew Mason and his investors soon realized The Point was headed toward failure, and fast. The founders worked on it a year and they went through about $1 million but got no traction. Its business model was not working._

<comment><USER3> First, a comparison to Groupon is inappropriate since the markets served are significantly different (CrowdTilt is more like Kickstarter).

Second, that a concept supposedly failed (not clear that the concept was ThePoint's main problem) does not weigh heavily on if the concept works with a different team in a different way, etc.

<comment><USER2> ThePoint _was_ like kickstarter. I wasn't trying to slander crowdtilt, just found it interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congratulations James! I keep kicking myself for not helping revamp your PHP code base to become employee #3 four years ago.

I do hope you blog about the failure of your micro loan venture one day - it's incredibly inspiring how you ended up turning it around (especially in the light of your current success).

</comment><comment><USER5> Execution matters and when you're the official crowdfunding platform for reddit , I'm sure that helps.

[http://blog.reddit.com/2012/08/new-fundraising-options- desig...](http://blog.reddit.com/2012/08/new-fundraising-options-designed- just.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> A16Z is on fire this week. Led rounds of $25mil in Coinbase, $75mil in Oculus, and now $23mil in Crowdtilt.

<comment><USER7> must have been a fun capital call to make

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats guys!

Looks like pg needs to update his tweet: [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/411213292330164224](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/411213292330164224)

<comment><USER9> Pretty sure they were already included in that list, they raised a $12 series A like 9 months ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats James, Khaled, Ajay and team!

</comment><comment><USER11> Congrats to the the Crowdtilt team!

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats, Crowdtilt!

</comment><comment><USER13> Congrats Crowdtilt!

</comment><comment><USER14> congrats!</comment>


Show HN: A browser based JavaScript debugger - <AUTHOR> http://appshare.co <comment><AUTHOR> I was inspired by Algojammer to build a browser based debugger in Javascript. Let me know you feedback</comment>


Show HN: Paint yourself in the style of classic art, right in your browser - <AUTHOR> https://reiinakano.github.io/arbitrary-image-stylization-tfjs/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18485657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18485657)</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup Sharepad (Collaborative contacts/email for Gmail) - <AUTHOR> http://gosharepad.com

<comment><USER2> I love the robot bird. It looks awesome. Your homepage is a little bit too busy. I was never sure what to look at and found myself jumping all over the place. I wish your screencast was bigger too. I found it hard to tell what was going on.

<comment><USER3> Also, once you get to the FAQ it's not obvious how to jump back to the landing page. Do you really want to send me to the posterous home page after I just read up about you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you both for the feedback. I think what I'll have to do is to keep the FAQ on the site instead of at Posterous. Also, I'll try to focus the message more on the landing page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Updated design can be found here:

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3814804/Sharepad_UI_21.png>

If the project gets enough attention I'll put this design into effect.

</comment><comment><USER4> IMHO Friday afternnon is not the most effective time to announce a startup

<comment><AUTHOR> You found it right? ;)

This is a light release. Going to post again next week after some uodates.

<comment><USER4> Of course I did. But you weren't reaching a wide audience positing it on a Friday afternoon.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pgsh branches your Postgres database like Git - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sastraxi/pgsh <comment><USER2> it's very cool. But could you improve the docs a bit? hard to understand

<comment><AUTHOR> Good shout; the README is kind of a brain-dump of usage instructions and motivation right now. Anything giving you trouble in particular?</comment></comment>


Evidence Builds Linking Anticoagulation to Covid-19 Survival - <AUTHOR> https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930165?src=soc_fb_200508_mscpedt_news_mdscp_anticoagulant&faf=1&fbclid=IwAR1qSS-rwHOrNdBthi5Kan9Ib5Wd37uRS4xqnIZxfUDcgVQX6bu6DR3ShKE <comment><USER2> I find this interesting, as at least one expert in my country was vocally unconvinced of the whole thing (he called it "baloney") when doctors reported thrombosis in 50 autopsies they had carried out and had suggested the use of heparin.

Prior to this study there was a preprint by a Brazilian group but it was so poorly designed that it was impossible to gather any useful information.

The actual paper is a bit light on details, and as the authors say, there are a lot of confounding factors, but it is a good step forward that requires further investigation.</comment>


Uber to develop flying taxis in Paris with new €20m research centre - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/uber-develop-flying-taxis-elevate-paris-research-advanced-technologies-centre <comment><USER2> Clickbait wording.</comment>


US GAO post-mortem report on Equifax hack [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/694158.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Immediate takeaway:

It took attackers 76 days to download the data (from 51 databases) on 145.5 million Americans, in small increments to avoid detection.

</comment><comment><USER2> What I'm reading doesn't seem to rule out SQL injection, and that being used to directly extract the data - am I wrong?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is internet access so expensive in Germany? - <AUTHOR> Their neighbors crush them in access per dollar.  Why? <comment><USER2> Writing this from Germany:

The question at hand was not for wireless internet access, but for internet access. That includes all forms of carriers. Not so long ago, I found wireless internet access to be very steep in price, too, but since it has changed a little. Wired access is usually carried over either ADSL or VDSL or cable here. In some areas (metroploitan, mostly) the introduction of fibre has begun.

Prices range from 20€-50€, with speeds ranging from 16mb/s to 100mb/s in the downstream and 1mb/s to 40mb/s in the upstream. Most of these offers include unlimited landline calls within Germany (flatrate), some of them add extras, like WiFi on the go or IPTV.

I don't find this to be expensive. Especially, since there is seldomly horror- stories like the ones coming from Verizone customers, etc.

On the mobile-side, pure data-flatrates can be had for below 10€, including 3GB of bandwidth. All-Net-Flats, which include a flatrate for national calls into all networks, 4GB data (>40mb/s), flat SMS, are to be had at a starting 30€/month, when contracted for 2 years.

And, in the end, let's be honest: Most people do not need more than 5mb/s. At least not per person. Small multi-user households may be fine with 16mb/s, people reading HackerNews, however, obviously need much, much more ;-)

<comment><USER3> Well, we probably live in different Germanies :)

I am writing this comment from an S-Bahn train going through the Berlin center right now, on iPhone SE, no cover cases, no jailbrake.

My mobile operator is contract Congstar and at the moment connection status is switching back and forth from "no service" to Edge to 3G. 3g is present only about 60% of the time.

I had similar quality problems with T-Mobile as well before I quit it.

Their LTE was present only in the city center, but not inside buildings.

And I tested it with few different phones.

Everyone I know complains about mobile internet quality.

My friends back in Ukraine have been making video calls on their phones for at least 3 years now and me, living in the center of Europe, cannot load a HN page sometimes.

<comment><USER2> No we don't. But, as it seems, we talk about two completely different topics ;)

The question at hand (see the title) was not about mobile-internet-quality, but about _high_ _prices_ for internet in Germany in general. That is two different topics. Just now I read on Golem.de, that 1&1 Versatel offers 200MBit/s for 30€. I don't think that is expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are you speaking about mobile or internet to the home? Also, which neighbors and do you have a specific comparison?

As @zmix states, my experience with internet to the home is pretty good and reasonable (to me anyway). It's even a little faster in FFM (120 down from Unity and you actually get that whens speed testing too) for the same price. I've lived in Austria and Switzerland and I don't find that they are "crush"ing Germany. Switzerland offers a tantalizing 1gb down service, but when you actually plug in an address it's hard to find buildings that are wired for that (and they seem to know it because the plans that step down from that are only nominally less even though the speed is massively different).

Speaking specifically of mobile, I don't find access to be that expensive (unless you go with Telekom), but I will second (or third) the lack of coverage. I have O2 and find that it basically doesn't work outside of cities. The train ride between FFM and Mannheim is a signal desert for me which is crazy because this is a very busy corridor. If this is what you meant by access, then I would probably agree since mobile data coverage outside of cities seems to at least exist in other places.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wireless internet access is so expensive because Germany made an auction for all mobile providers to buy the 3G frequencies needed for operating a 3G network. The problem was the providers bid insanely high amounts of money for these frequencies, all together they have been sold for 50.8 billion euros (today this would be 54 billion USD).

But the huge cost for 3G did not end with this. Every provider was required to use it's frequencies and deliver 3G to a specified percent of the population. So on top of the high auction prices they had very high costs for actually putting many transceivers.

And this is, why wireless is so insanely expensive in Germany. It all started with an auction and companies paying too much...

<comment><USER6> Interesting. It's the government's fault in Canada too but for a different reason (protectionism). I know the right in the US sound crazy to some people but they do seem to have at least half a point about this stuff.

<comment><USER7> Well, in the US you have incompatible networks and poor coverage outside cities. I know the US is _yuuuge_ , so that adds to the problem, but from outside it seems they've got a cartel issue...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much is that?</comment>


Validate your HTML/CSS email code with Fractal - <AUTHOR> http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/3505/validate-your-html-css-email-code-with-fractal/ <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2705743></comment>


I significantly underestimated the power of Jeff Bezos - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-significantly-underestimated-power-jeff-bezos-franklin-foer <comment><USER2> Well, media has the ability to make or break a company. This seems like the other side of the coin. Is a company obligated to try what it can to keep a good image or side with moral values? I don't see a clear answer here.</comment>


Ask HN: Best book to gift someone for getting into software engineering? - <AUTHOR> It's easy to find a book about a specific programming language, but I'd be thrilled to know of a book or resources that will provide someone with a solid foundation for good software engineering principles, regardless of the language being used. <comment><USER2> Another vote for Code Complete. But coming from someone who's bought and gifted a few books, I'm thinking instead of the quote ...

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

<comment><USER3> And how do we make that happen?

<comment><USER4> get them dreaming about what they could build if they have the skill!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Print out all the papers from MIT's grad level credit of 6.034: [https://ai6034.mit.edu/wiki/index.php?title=6.844_Info](https://ai6034.mit.edu/wiki/index.php?title=6.844_Info) or Sussman's version [https://ai6034.mit.edu/wiki/index.php?title=6.S966:_A_Gradua...](https://ai6034.mit.edu/wiki/index.php?title=6.S966:_A_Graduate_Section_for_6.034) and bind them together in a book, with the instructor notes and include these papers [https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/schedule.html](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/schedule.html) too

They are all classic AI papers, that try and encourage the reader to think about unsolved problems.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pragmatic Programmer is still a good book, not as revealing as before but still has lots of good advice.

Code Complete is a problematic book. It has some good ideas but also has some very bad ones (cone of uncertainty, 10 times productivity in good programmers, etc).

Design Patterns is mostly obsolete. Functional programming techniques made a lot of Object Oriented techniques irrelevant (e.g.: observer pattern vs callbacks with lambdas).

Art of Computer Programming is the book everyone mentions but no one reads. A classic that people actually read is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

My recommendations: "Code" by Charles Petzold,"Don't make me think" by Steve Krug, Working Effectivelly with Legacy Code, by Robert Feathers, Clean Code by uncle Bob,..

<comment><USER7> I'm curious about your heartburn with the "cone of uncertainty" from Code Complete. I think it's a very reasonable model for understanding software estimation uncertainty. What don't you like about it?

<comment><USER6> It is a dream situation, an abstraction too simplistic and dangerously optimistic. In all projects I've been the project takes "one more month to finish" for the next 15 months. The cone metaphor simply ignores all unknown unknowns.

For a more deep criticism check "The Leprechauns of Software Engineering": [https://leanpub.com/leprechauns/read_sample](https://leanpub.com/leprechauns/read_sample)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Pragmatic Programmer was a good broad spectrum intro 20 years ago, I don't know how well it's aged, but they have just released a 20th anniversary update so maybe check out reviews for that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Warning: Software engineering can be quite boring to someone who has done little programming. In my opinion, when your starting out it is better write anything that compiles and runs, then to write incomplete "proper" programs. Software engineering principles make more sense after you've hacked yourself though a bunch of badly written code.

</comment><comment><USER10> Grokking Algorithms ([https://www.manning.com/books/grokking- algorithms](https://www.manning.com/books/grokking-algorithms)), preferably on paper.

</comment><comment><USER11> It might be a good thing to define what you think Software Engineering means. The comments section shows that there is little agreement between HN readers. Software Engineering, particularly for large and complex systems, seems to focus on human management and interaction issues almost entirely. The technology of programmed systems plays a minor how those systems get put together. Mel Conway got it right: systems (recursively) mimic the organization that built them. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Conway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Conway)

</comment><comment><USER12> The best gift given you requirements would be `Elements of Computing Systems` [1] aka `Nand2Tetris' and a better gift would be if you can mentor that someone while he works through it.

Also any book that covers soft skills aspects while emphasising the importance of having good career plans and good mentors is critical.

[1] [https://www.nand2tetris.org/book](https://www.nand2tetris.org/book)

[2] [https://www.nand2tetris.org](https://www.nand2tetris.org)

</comment><comment><USER13> People seem to forget that Software Engineering is a social endeavor as much as it's an engineering endeavor. Successful engineers have to be able to sell their ideas to their peers and management as much as they need to be able to create software. This is why I always recommend that engineers read, "How To Win Friends And Influence People." Reading it and practicing what it says will do wonders for anyone's life and career.

<comment><USER4> while I agree that it's a useful book for existing engineers who lack those skills, it's not something I'd recommend to people just learning to build stuff

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _The Art of Computer Programming_

It's a great book simply as a book. It's something people tend to rationalize not buying. That makes it a good gift. It will provide a lifetime of reading and learning (just as it has provided Knuth a lifetime of writing).

And it meets the spec: there's no more solid foundation and it is language independent. It's plausibly one of the most important books of the 20th/21st centuries.

<comment><USER15> It's a great gift but I'll surprised if they read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A good and concise (albeit old) SE book is "Fundamentals of Software Engineering by Ghezzi, Jazayeri and Mandrioli".

For more background; "Software Fundamentals: Collected papers by David L. Parnas" is a great resource.

For a tour of the CS aspects; see "Specifying Software: A Hands-On Introduction by R.D.Tennent"

</comment><comment><USER17> Coders At Work is fun, inspiring, informative, and serves as a useful reminder of the large number of ways to skin a >cat

If you're after something more technical / textbooky, SICP, for its combination of rigor and playful enthusiasm.

</comment><comment><USER18> Gifted to all new hires, lent to all interns (gifted if finished ;-) : Why Programs Fail, by Andreas Zeller. [http://www.whyprogramsfail.com](http://www.whyprogramsfail.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> If there is anything on a separate subject that you feel relates closely to software engineering might be useful. Personally I found software engineering boring until I saw how it could be used in other industries

</comment><comment><USER20> Microserfs - by Douglas Coupland

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2748.Microserfs](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2748.Microserfs)

</comment><comment><USER21> A subscription to Safari would be the equivalent of a focused gift card. You would give access to thousands of books. I usually read 4+ at a time when trying to understand a particular concept.

Other than that, The Art of Computer Programming set. ;)

<comment><USER22> I always thought TAOCP was for showing off on the bookshelf and not actually for reading. Whenever I make comments about it when I see it on someone's bookshelf they say they haven't read it.

<comment><USER23> I think this is the natural outcome of having free money but not enough free time. I find myself buying up supplies for a new project idea as step 1, but not having the time to ever complete them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It by Andy Oram & Greg Wilson

Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

Our standard text for SE was Software Engineering by Ian Sommerville.

</comment><comment><USER25> _Hacker 's Delight_ contains recipes for common problems.

<comment><USER11> Amazing book, but it's mostly about programming in the small (using properties of the number system). Software Engineering is more about large programmed systems and the people who build them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Code Complete would be a great gift. This is the book I read when I first got out of college and it has had a very important influence on my coding style and thinking.

</comment><comment><USER27> Software Engineering Body of Knowledge for a thoroughly broad-based view of the discipline of software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER28> The Rust Programming Language

</comment><comment><USER29> "Coding - on software design process" by Jonathan Locke.

</comment><comment><USER30> c0d3.com/book

I'm still trying to get this off the ground, so they get free support from me (ex Google / Fb / startup -> acquisition engineer with 12 YOE)</comment>


What makes a constitution endure? - <AUTHOR> http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20100920_constitution.shtml

<comment><USER2> _Successful models include the precise Mexican constitution of 1917, which has survived through periods of dictatorship and democracy, Ginsburg notes._

If a written constitution can actually endure "through periods of dictatorship and democracy", it may be notable in that the document itself survived and remained, nominally, in legal force for a very long time, but it's somewhat failed at providing a stable form of government, hasn't it? I'd rather have something like, say, France, where they've rewritten the constitution enough times to be on their Fifth Republic but at least they've had _a_ republic of some form for over a hundred years (not counting foreign occupations and puppet states).

Also, judging by the explicit and implicit amendments and interpretations, the US is arguably on its third Constitution--the first being the Articles of Confederation, the second being the antebellum Constitution, and the third being the present Constitution.

<comment><USER3> I would add the Great Depression Constitution. With changes in things like turning the Commerce Clause on its head that lead to cases like Wickard v. Filburn (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn>) I can't really say we're living under the same constitutional order as the post-antebellum one.

The Progressives also made some significant changes (popular election of Senators, income tax), but one can at least argue that was done through the system by the amendment process. By the time of FDR, only fig leafs were required (e.g. the effective ban on private ownership of machine guns through a $3,250 "tax" (in today's dollars, or "The switch in time that saved nine" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_in_time_that_saved_nine> )) ... during the Great Depression). Now, D.C. doesn't even bother with the fig leafs ... one might seriously question how much we really live under the rule of law today, but its pretty clear that's long been an issue (one could start with e.g. the frankly unconstitutional and very early Alien and Sedition Acts, although they didn't last very long).

Mexico is also a ... strange case to cite, when one party held power for more than 70 years starting in 1929 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Revolucionario_Instituc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Revolucionario_Institucional)) ... it's name, in English, is rather suggestive: "Institutional Revolutionary Party". That said, starting sometime around then didn't it/the party provide a fairly stable form of government, and most notably they were willing to give up power peacefully (more or less) fairly recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personally? I think its because the US Constitution wasn't written to solve every problem of the day. It was written as a framework, to let lawmakers solve problems as they came up. And the framework is malleable enough so that it can be changed as needed, if it becomes a problem, rather than a solution.

<comment><USER2> Depending on how you interpret it, it's also duck-typed on the moral and social norms of the society it governs. Consider some of the amendments--"cruel and unusual punishment"? The standards of punishment, including capital punishment, in the 18th century don't meet with current standards. Un-enumerated rights? The society of James Madison was _not_ one where the fundamental right to privately use contraception and engage in homosexuality was recognized as a moral imperative, ours is, yet the same Constitution works for both.

<comment><USER4> The eigth amendment doesn't go as far as to define "cruel and unusual punishment" is. The nineth amendment doesn't define what rights should or shouldn't be protected.

Yes, there are some basic rights that are protected. But largely, the Constitution much more of a guideline about how the legal system should work than it is an absolute set of laws to be followed forevermore. Ambiguities are _good_ in this case. Even if it did get Hamilton shot by Burr.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why should duration be considered a measure of a constitution's success? The goal is to "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare," etc. If it achieves this for 50 years, then is replaced by another that also succeeds for 50 years, is the result in any way worse than a constitution that lasts for 100?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think scraping a constitution and writing a new one inevitably brings about political turmoil precisely because the stated goals aren't being accomplished.

You're right in that duration shouldn't be the only measure, but I think the longevity says something about how society feels in general about the constitution's efficacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Culture. Law and culture are symbiotic and complementary. One supports and sustains the other, if they are in conflict then either one dominates the other (resulting in anarchy or a police state, for example) or society pays the ongoing cost of that conflict (see the drug war, modern copyright law, etc.)

You can't just magic up a few pages of text and transmogrify it into "law" or a constitution. Constitutions that work are born from cultures with a history of the rule of law, and they represent a distillation of firmly held principles of the people. A good constitution represents a cheat sheet for the ideals of the people, and something that if all law were taken away a keen observer would still be able to identify the constitutional bullet points as extant aspects of society.

</comment><comment><USER7> The virtue of her people.</comment>