Open Letter to the Linux Foundation - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2019/11/08/OpenLetterLinuxFoundation.html <comment><USER2> Here is the thread for more context: [https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976](https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976)

I spent maybe 40 minutes last night trying to find out what Charles did that violated the CoC. The best I could do was find this: [https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1187181890920312833](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1187181890920312833)

It seems like he was kicked from the conference for having the nerve to make a youtube video with his opinion.

If someone can show me something more significant... PLEASE... because i've been searching, I just haven't found it.

<comment><USER3> Sarah Mei has been involved in this type of attack before, so this raises alarm bells to me that she's at the center of another. I fear she's becoming a massive influence towards this kind of Stalinistic attack.

<comment><USER3> Let me give an example of the kind of 'motive imputation' attacks she leads on a regular basis: [https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304)

This is exactly parallel to her current tweet which LF responded to.

Live by Twitter, die by Twitter.

<comment><USER4> oh my god, they are complaining about an acronym DDD, because it somehow sexual (not being a native english speaker, I fail to spot the innuendo). If there's anything to complain about ddd is the name clash with Data Display Debugger, a really cool debugger for linux.

I wonder about the callous ignorance of Sarah Mei, who purports to be a feminist but ignores such an important program written by another woman.

<comment><USER5> > because it somehow sexual (not being a native english speaker, I fail to > spot the innuendo).

In the US, DD is a cup size for a brassiere, and thus indirectly refers to breast size on women. DD for sometime has been considered to be an uncommonly large breast size for a woman, especially a woman of otherwise more common proportions. DDD, being the next cup size up for reasons I don't understand (instead of cup sizes going E, F, etc), would therefore imply a woman even bustier than the supposedly uncommonly-busty DD-breasted woman.

Yes, I think it's silly, too. Human mammary tissue has exactly fuck all to do with programming.

<comment><USER6> That's an unreasonably huge leap for the audience to make that connection.

<comment><USER7> As somebody else pointed or, that's the explanation Sarah Mei gave on Twitter in the past.[0] The tweet about them discovering "3D" is on point.

[0] [https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahmei/status/10732511533604823...](https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahmei/status/1073251153360482304)

<comment><USER6> She's not going to care about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has some very interesting parallels to the current drama at Stack Overflow w/Monica Cellio. Someone is accused of breaking the CoC. The governing body expels this person in a public an explicit way. Looking into the details shows that really that person was just not following $GROUP_THINK.

In Stack Overflow's case this seems to be headed towards a Slander/Libel. I hope we don't end up in a world where this is the only way to follow $GROUP_THINK.

<comment><USER9> > Someone is accused of breaking the CoC. The governing body expels this > person in a public an explicit way. Looking into the details shows that > really that person was just not following $GROUP_THINK.

Note that this is pretty much what you would predict if CoC's were _inherently_ politicized statements, as much as a MAGA hat. Which is exactly what opponents of CoC's have been contending for a long time.

<comment><USER10> > if CoC's were inherently politicized statements

Aren't they, though, if it happens that what CoC's say align much, much more with one political group than another? This obviously implies that the latter group believes in conducting themselves quite differently than the code mandates, and they need to suppress those beliefs (or at the very least, not act on those beliefs) while engaging with the group whose code it is.

<comment><USER11> The problem is, Does the majority of the developers contributing to Linux believe in this code? Or is it forced upon them by political activist that doesn't do much coding because they spend much of their time on 'social justice'?

<comment><USER10> Even with a majority, you've got some percentage having to deal with what the majority wants, which is a heavy dose of irony if the point of the CoC is blanket inclusion in the first place. The conclusion is that inclusion itself excludes those who don't like inclusion, and excluding that group is warranted, isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Hi all, We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code of Conduct was violated and his registration to the event has been revoked. Our events should and will be a safe space

Could we try to be less orwellian? Are we really banning people who say things we don't like on YouTube?

<comment><USER13> If someone says they're going to bomb an event on Twitter should they be banned? Yes, everyone agrees.

If someone says they're a race realist and that they're going to make fun of all the black people in tech should they be banned? Not everyone agrees.

If someone analyzes IQ studies about race realism to highlight the flaws in methodology but doesn't outright condemn race realism should they be banned? No, everyone agrees.

To claim that its 1984 because we're trying to work out the fuzziness in the middle is absurd.

<comment> 08-15 > If someone says they're going to bomb an event on Twitter should they be > banned? Yes, everyone agrees.

What? No, not everyone agrees! That someone should be arrested, but keep his Twitter account. We have laws and law enforcement for a reason, and we don't need companies to play speech police, which, incidentally, in this particular case, would make law enforcement _more difficult_.

> If someone analyzes IQ studies... everyone agrees.

Unfortunately, you're wrong again. Some radicals would want you banned for merely using the word "race", regardless of context.

<comment><USER14> > What? No, not everyone agrees! That someone should be arrested, but keep his > Twitter account. We have laws and law enforcement for a reason, and we don't > need companies to play speech police, which, incidentally, in this > particular case, would make law enforcement more difficult.

Exactly what I was thinking. And frankly, I'd rather have someone post "Imma shoot up ur confrence" _and get arrested_ because of that post than have them avoid Twitter and instead, yaknow, _actually shoot up the conference_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This SJW policing really sickens me. Brendan Eich, Curtis Yavin, Donglegate, "sexist" t-shirt astrophysicist, RMS, now this guy and who knows how many less prominent ones. And the problem is that it's so widespread. I don't know of any community which isn't infected by it.

And really, what can you do about it? If you are not already set for life you can't afford to step out against it unless you are willing to risk your livelihood.

<comment><USER16> Just curious, are you set for life? If not, do you think you are risking your livelihood by leaving this comment?

<comment><USER17> My intuition is that Cancel Culture operates a lot like the Drug War. The vast majority of non-PC speech and illicit drug use skirts by the Eye of Sauron without getting caught. But every now and then some poor bastard has his life ruined because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Saying that Cancel Culture doesn't do harm because people aren't afraid to wear a MAGA hat, is like saying the Drug War doesn't do harm because people aren't afraid to drop acid. Regardless of what percentage of people are caught, it's unjust to destroy someone's life because they put the wrong substance in their body or the wrong idea in their mind.

<comment><USER16> I was in no way suggesting that cancel culture isn't harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My personal opinion - keep politics and religion the fuck out of the IT community.

I personally love building, coding, etc. I rather watch two people argue about emacs vs. vim; I vote vim. Or spaces vs. tabs; I vote spaces.

Remember the days when you could sit at work building something for your customers without having to hear about someone's political or religious views?

Pro Tip: Treat politics and religious like bedroom talk. Keep it out of the work environment. Leave it for the bar/pub, with your friends or on social media.

Now real talk - tabs vs. spaces? ;)

<comment><USER19> That's the scary thing. He left it on social media and they went out and found it and used it against him. I 1000% agree with how you feel about it but this is a big issue when people go looking for someone's faults in their personal lives or past to try and publicly ruin someone's reputation.

But for real talk - I prefer tabs. They feel cleaner and you don't have to count. It's just one button and you're done. Who want's to push spacebar that many times?

<comment><USER18> Now I'm going to find your github account and comment on every line of code that has a tab! lol

Take back the tab comment and we'll be okay! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hmmm, so exactly the thing that so many people said would happen has happened? Surely not!

CoCs are not laws. The purpose of laws is to define what _is_ allowed by what is explicitly prohibited and by these being all that is prohibited. CoCs on the other hand are an ill-defined subset of what is prohibited that is selectively enforced for political goals. They do not bring any of the benefits of codified laws. They do not clarify what is and isn't allowed since they are so general that none of those who wouldn't grasp these rules intuitively would grasp them after reading a CoC. I see no value added by CoCs, only potential for abuse.

</comment><comment><USER21> When Linux adopted the Contributor Covenant, it's author had this to say

> I can't wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it's been infiltrated > by SJW's Hahahah

> Some people are saying that the Contributor Covenant is a political > document, and they're right.

<comment><USER22> Well the suspicion is that Linus's daughter Patricia got pulled into Coraline's stuff (she's listed as a signatory in [https://postmeritocracy.org/](https://postmeritocracy.org/)).

<comment><USER23> Isn't it more likely that that just is and was her genuine position? Linus's daughter doesn't necessarily have to have the same political views as her father.

<comment><USER22> She likely has very different views. [https://opensource.com/life/15/8/patricia-torvalds- interview](https://opensource.com/life/15/8/patricia-torvalds-interview)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is anyone surprised by this? I certainly am not. It really is inevitable.

When the whole CoC was shoehorned in the Linux Kernel, many people warned that this was going to happen. We were just hand waved with "No such thing would happen" because the people behind the CoC were not racist, etc, despite when the previous events like the whole opal mess indicated otherwise.

The really ironic thing here is that America(and Silicon Valley) was built on historical events like this. A whole lot of geniuses and skilled people were driven to America by similar groupthink lynchings happening in Europe and Asia up until and including WW2. They built America into a powerhouse. If this continues to happen then Silicon Valley is going to get a painful history lesson they could have easily avoided.

<comment><USER25> > It really is inevitable.

Has there ever been an instance of a CoC being used in a reasonable way against an actually unreasonable person? From the history, it appears that CoC's were designed to stop Linus Torvalds, specifically, but he's still around (but he does seem to be afraid of CoC enforcers now).

<comment><USER26> > Has there ever been an instance of a CoC being used in a reasonable way > against an actually unreasonable person?

Yes. Though, most CoC violations are handled privately for those involved so we don't hear much about them.

<comment><USER24> > Yes. Though, most CoC violations are handled privately

That really sounds like abuse of power with extra steps. Either ALL of these violations should be private or NONE of them should be. Selectively enforcing something like this is just bias and vendetta politics

<comment><USER27> I think that a reasonable code would allow the punished party to publicly disclose their punishment, otherwise the punishers (for lack of a better term) would do whatever they wanted. But it should be private by default.

<comment><USER28> So maybe the expected outcome is merging of HR-SJW positions and NDA-CoC so that "everyone" can feel safe

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I used to think The Great Filter as one of the explanations to the Fermi Paradox was just nuts - but sadly the last several years in particular have shown how it's absolutely possible. Apparently civilizations can be _too_ successful.

Then again I suppose one shouldn't be too surprised; it would be easy to argue that Rome fell mainly because it became too successful and turned inward onto itself - much like many parts of our society are - the need for a letter like this to be written is proof there.

<comment><USER30> We don't live in a civil society, we are only at the beginning of a civil society. ~ Jacque Fresco

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Uh, this imho sheds light onto another completely different but bigger issue:

Certain people or organizations, due to their size (organizations) or influence (people/organizations) become some sort of judges in moral topics and the problem here is that they usually have backgrounds in other stuff, have not been elected by anyone (often times they just start screaming louder, and people follow) and do not apply any form of fairness to the accused.

There is no form of due process, no hearings, just attacks.

This is not justice.

And let me be clear: this problem is beyond the specific political tone of this specific case, and happens on both sides of the political spectrum.

People just start throwing accusations at each other, and who screams the louder and/or manages to get more attention wins.

It's scary.

<comment><USER32> I heard an interesting idea today. "Boomers" have been criticizing "young people today" for being "snowflakes". It might be the case that with their fresher perspective on technology and culture, the younger people realized the perilous path involved in taking action now. Older, less savvy people are being caught unaware of the ramifications of certain types of speech and action in the modern world.

<comment><USER33> I think many young people, including those referred to as "snowflakes" are hardly being cautious with their online behavior, or what they say to people.

<comment><USER32> They gave rise to Snapchat, knowing that they'd want to control what went on the record. Now they're the first to figure out the new rules of public communication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There appears to be a sizable segment of society that is unwittingly expanding their definition of politics to encompass civility and human decency. To treat them as if these are somehow merely political opinions, rather than the foundations of professional ethics. We're living in an era of political extremism and populism, and it's going to clash with everyday and professional life. This is not the fault of those holding the line of ethics. It should be seen as a wake up call that the things being touted as opinion and politics are actually far outside the realm of normal. And while this is somehow being tolerated in the political sphere, there's no reason to expect that to be the case in smaller more intellectual areas, such as the Linux Foundation.

<comment><USER35> Have you considered that maybe it might be the other way around? Issues which where formerly just a matter of political opinion are now being presented as moral issues, and that as a result anyone perceived to be on "the other side" (regardless of any nuances present in their actual opinion) must be a dispicable human being who deserves whatever consequences they receive for their iniquity.

(And before you counter with an extreme example of a truly dispicable opinion, consider the context here: is what Mr. Wood said here in any way comparable to the example you're about to give?)

<comment><USER34> No, I'm quite certain that people deserve to be treated with equal dignity and respect regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin, or disability. Perhaps in the past this masqueraded as a political question, but it's too late to put that cat back in the bag. If we're sophisticated enough to hold a conference on the future of open source service orchestration, surely we have it in us to call a spade a spade and keep our conferences safe from bad actors.

<comment><USER23> I agree with you. But if you're going to call a spade a spade, you should be able to describe its spadery. In what way is this banned individual a bad actor?

<comment><USER3> No one has been able to specify any evidence. I'm tracking any dead ends I run into when asking for evidence under the hash tag: [https://twitter.com/hashtag/LinuxFoundationKangarooCourt](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LinuxFoundationKangarooCourt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What privilege to insert oneself into an organization that exists because of the hard work and dedication of others, fix a problem that didn't exist by harassing the powers that be into accepting a set of rules you've imposed, and then begin using those rules to retroactively punish anyone you don't like.

The people who should be blamed for this aren't social justice types. They're just doing what they do. It's the spineless leadership of these organizations that allow interlopers to destroy that which was built by others as an exercise of their new power.

<comment><USER37> Spineless? KubeCon uses a system of racial preferences when giving out free tickets [1]. The leadership isn't spineless, they're evil and they believe in this stuff.

(Hell, they also have preferences for gays, as if they're a marginalized or underrepresented group. That's batshit crazy.)

[1] [https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon- cloudnat...](https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon- cloudnativecon-north-america-2019/attend/diversity-scholarships/)

<comment><USER23> >Cloud Native Computing Foundation's diversity scholarship program provides support to those from traditionally underrepresented and/or marginalized groups in the technology and/or open source communities (including, but not limited to: persons identifying as LGBTQ, women, persons of color, and/or persons with disabilities) who may not otherwise have the opportunity to attend CNCF events for financial reasons.

This is so confusing to me. What if you don't belong to an underrepresented or marginalized group but also don't have the opportunity to attend CNCF events for financial reasons? What if you do belong to such a group, do actually have the money to attend, but lie and say you don't so you can easily get a free ticket? If they're going to help people because of financial issues, why does it matter if they're, for example, homosexual or heterosexual? Just because you may face other difficulties in life due to being homosexual that you may not have otherwise faced if you were heterosexual doesn't mean your lack of money is somehow more real than a heterosexual person's lack of money.

If they want to provide support to such a person, why not donate a percentage of the proceeds to LGBTQ organizations, for example, instead of letting them attend when someone who didn't share their birth characteristics but is otherwise in the same position can't? To use an extreme example, a gay person born to poor parents in San Francisco probably has a big leg-up in life over a straight person born to poor, meth-addicted, petty criminal parents in Idaho (accounting for cost of living differences etc., so the poor SF family has more money in total). Why not make the scholarship uncontrollable-attribute- blind and just make it based on financial need, or a combination of financial need and open source contributions, or something?

To LGBTQ HN readers, how do you feel about policies like these?

(Also, I don't think is at all "evil", as the parent said. Just baffling and ideological.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Regardless of what he did or didn't do (I don't have any information on that), I find the phrase "we have reviewed social and video" concerning.

What does that have to do with the event and its code of conduct?

<comment><USER39> [https://events.linuxfoundation.org/about/code-of- conduct/](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/about/code-of-conduct/)

> Individuals who participate (or plan to participate) in Linux Foundation > events should conduct themselves at all times in a manner that comports with > both the letter and spirit of this policy prohibiting harassment and abusive > behavior, whether before, during or after the event. This includes > statements made in social media postings, online publications, text > messages, and all other forms of electronic communication.

<comment><USER38> Thank you for providing the source.

That sounds incredibly far-reaching.

<comment><USER40> It sort of is but it basically just means they can ban anyone from their events at any time for any reason--and they pretty much have that right anyway CoC or no CoC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I regularly see posts that are...intense...on this forum, and many others. They make anything that Wood did seem pretty tame.

I guess any organization has a right to do whatever they want with their hosted services, but you might ask a certain Ms. Streisand about how certain small issues can blow up.

There's a good chance that Mr. Wood will suddenly see a great deal of rather...strident...support, as a result of this. Robert Martin is pretty cool, but not everyone is Uncle Bob.

<comment><USER42> Now I know a thing about this Wood guy that I would never have known without UB's complaint. It does not, in fact, inspire me to lend him support, or even the clean socks I am led to guess he lacks.

Another result of UB's announcement is that I have noticed Uncle Bob, appropriately or ironically, shares initials with the infamous Undefined Behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> One of the features I really want in both Facebook and Twitter is the ability to mark people as enemies. Starting with a small number (eg 100x) of friend/enemy labels, they can use graph analysis algorithms to infer my level of friendship or antagonism towards everyone in the network, following the ancient principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It would be very helpful for me to be able to click on a new person's profile and see how aligned we are. After all, I don't want to go to parties with my enemies, I don't want to work for companies run by my enemies, I don't want to contribute to projects initiated by my enemies, etc, and I assume my enemies feel the same way about me.

<comment><USER44> In Steve Jackson Games' card game Illuminati (probably the most accurate model of online communities today) the fanatic is the opposite of the fanatic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This, btw, is why I have separate twitter accounts for my silos of interest: my fellow programmers don't care about the non-tech podcasts, I follow, my politics, my religion, my hobbies, and especially my views on Star Wars -- I have separate accounts and separate social circles for each of these topics. I'm surprised so many people use just _one_ account for everything because any two people, selected at random, can find a reason not to like each other. I prefer to keep a tight focus.

<comment><USER30> I keep one account for everything because I want to draw people who are like minded to my circle. I don't want to hide that. I am who I am.

<comment><USER45> But are you, really? As an amateur radio operator my interests and social circle have almost no overlap with my interests and social circle as a programmer, and almost no overlap with my interests and social circle politically, religiously, etc. in a very true sense I am several different people at once and if my hobbyist self manifested at work to the exclusion of all else the best I could hope for is that I be asked if maybe I should take a day off and rest. I don't expect to find people who overlap with more than one of my interests but am overjoyed when I do. I can't imagine being a bigger jackass than to manifest all of my interests to all people at all times and express a "this is who I am, take it or leave it!" attitude. The greatest joy in life is finding a good friend or even best friend who shares three or more of these interests. Heck, our spouses don't always share more than two!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> We, the people, should just make a new Linux Foundation and new FSF. The current ones are clearly broken. Postmeritocracy my ass.

<comment><USER47> Or even a more broad software development community that strives for fairness and well-thought guidelines instead of the current ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's ironic how the excess of political correctness is distancing people more than the original problems PC was aiming to solve.

</comment><comment><USER49> There is a twitter feed where more is discussed, this is a good starting point:

[https://twitter.com/CHERdotdev/status/1190404796924268544](https://twitter.com/CHERdotdev/status/1190404796924268544)

<comment><USER49> This is the person and comments he is discussing:

[https://twitter.com/mimismash/status/1185942308769976320](https://twitter.com/mimismash/status/1185942308769976320)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For anyone who sees this: the link is being flag- and vote-brigaded, rather than being discussed, about an hour after it was listed. The same conduct that spawned the letter is being applied here to attempt to mute dissent.

</comment><comment><USER50> Alright, I've spent a couple hours trying to figure this out. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Asking the "woke" individuals on twitter what Charles did wrong will invoke a response of "F you do your own research it's obvious what Charles did wrong."

Man A said something racist to Woman B, Charles then stepped in and said "let's have a reasonable phone call and sort this out civilly." What gets more interesting is Woman B has at least one tweet saying "White men in tech ain't shit." So she's definitely racist. edit: (could be wrong about who is who here, but someone involved in getting him banned definitely said the white men in tech comment.)

Charles is getting this hate because by saying to the "Obviously racist" man A, "lets have a civil phone call about this," He's obviously siding with racists instead of siding with the marginalized minorities. (sarcasm)

Charles is getting tons of comments that he should shut the F up and listen to these marginalized groups instead of trying to butt in and make himself look good. Charles is Mormon, 9 Mormons were just burned alive in Mexico, so obviously Charles has no idea what it's like the be a part of a hated, marginalized group.

edit: Sorry it's hard to tell, I'm definitely being sarcastic in parts of this post.

Opinion here, I think people on twitter are working very hard to turn "differing politics" into "unacceptable bigotry." And it's definitely working. It seems the original racist guy mainly has a problem with affirmative action. And he definitely doesn't use current politically correct speech around gender either. But is that grounds for banning a dude just for associating with the "racist guy". I'll leave that up to the reader to decide.

<comment><USER51> Is there any way to have evidence for what you're saying?

I've been looking for at this HN thread and there still hasn't been any evidence of the original tweets.

Why would people be mad at Charles for "let's have a reasonable phone call and sort this out civilly."?

There seems to be some missing information including a video that no one has posted.

<comment><USER52> That was actually their stated reason: "tone policing":

[https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20](https://twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1192261086810116096?s=20)

<comment><USER3> So that means they fully accepted and swallowed Mei's fabricated, ascribed motivation.

Wonderful. Another big score for Mei's list of successful reputation attacks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Saying that making a complaint public and it's answer public constitutes harassment just sounds trollish. If it all happened privately he would have complained about that as well. Actually he does when he says the exact motives are hidden.

I find it funny that the tech community, here like in many instances, is struggling to reinvent the wheel.

Processes to handle violation of rules and complaints exist, they are called tribunals. They are based on a few things that are there for a reason:

\- clear written rules

\- independent judges and executives

\- appeal procedures

\- public process

\- contradictory procedure where plaintiff and defender are heard

If you are going to enforce rules without these, you'll always be called tyrannical

<comment><USER54> > Saying that making a complaint public and it's answer public constitutes > harassment just sounds trollish

Have we really reached the point where people think it's normal to run every proceeding live on Twitter? Imagine if this was at an event, and a person was wearing a "I love HN" hat", if another attendant stood up on a chair and started screaming from the top of their lungs "This makes me feel uncomfortable!!! It's a violation of the CoC!!".

Would your first thought be "this is a great process" or "perhaps we should tell the screamer to stop yelling and talk to the officials".

It constitutes harassment because the aim here was not a proper review of a potential Violation, but an attempt at instilling mob mentality against an individual and forefinger due process in evaluating the case.

As for the complaint about exact motives being hidden. The argument is only that since the rest was conducted in public, the public should have transparency into the motives and review. Which seems reasonable as a response to this case, not as a general rule.

<comment><USER53> First, twitter is one of the many public medias. If something is appropriate publicly, then it is appropriate on twitter. It all depends on the rules.

> if another attendant stood up on a chair and started screaming from the top > of their lungs "This makes me feel uncomfortable!!! It's a violation of the > CoC!!".

First, you'll have to admit, putting on twitter would be far less disruptive.

Then, if people in the community value a CoC (I personally am on the fence over that tbh) they should value a fair process and examine the complaints they receive.

"No, that complaint is frivolous" could be the judges answers. And quickly they'll discover why there are penalties for frivolous lawsuits.

> It constitutes harassment

Exactly. And its great that there is a process to file your complaint!

> Which seems reasonable as a response to this case, not as a general rule.

Yeah, so what is the problem again?

But generally, you want as much of the judicial process open. You want to know what was done, what the witnesses confirm, how the defendants pleaded and how the judges reasoned on the conclusion.

Closing one of these parts has to be done only consciously for protection reasons, which in that case, I see none.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think back to the epic flame wars of the 1990s and wonder why nobody has retroactively applied CoC infractions on all of the offending parties of the past. Would there even _be_ a Linux Foundation left if we did that?

</comment><comment><USER55> Who is honestly suprised? This is the inevitable outcome of all these modern CoCs.

</comment><comment><USER56> Through the history, we've learned that the trial shall be hold at open court. It's not that open court is best to protect the plaintiff/defendant, but it's least harmful way to ensure fair trial.

The history proved countless times that the secret lawsuit filling, followed by the secret court judgement was not gone well.

Even in the world where be judges, prosecutors and lawyers requires years of formal training and qualification, we had and are continuously having so many harmful judgement and only after decades if not centuries later, when complete third parties who doesn't share the outdated moral of that time can have the truly fair view of that event.

Even worse, in the context of OSS community, the people who judge are not lawyer, probably no formal training on law and moral. They are in the current position because they had been contributing the OSS for long time.

So. I think it's best to handle these situation to the traditional court rather than private decision from self-elected OSS chair.

<comment><USER57> If a well-known white supremacist political commentator got into Linux and wanted to do an introductory talk on some Linux aspect at the conference, should the conference be obligated to accept them just because they haven't been found guilty of ... what?

If I hosted a party (or a conference), and a large fraction of the people I talked to at the event told me that person X at the event was creeping on them and they weren't coming back if person X was there, do I need to wait for person X to be found guilty of being a creep to ban them from the next event?

Event organizers should have more leeway over their events than just "keep convicts out".

Not saying that the conference organizers necessarily made the right call here with Charles Wood, just arguing that they have the right to make such a call. And people have the right to argue that it was the wrong call. I'm just disagreeing with the concept that it wasn't even their call to make. It especially doesn't seem to make much since to expect that the current court system can handle this call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Summary:

> In summary, it appears to this humble observer that The Code of Conduct > process at The Linux Foundation went very badly off the rails with regard to > Charles Max Wood. That LF owes Mr. Wood, and the Software Community at > large, a profound apology. That LF should keep all future Code of Conduct > complaints and decisions personal and confidential. That LF should publish > and follow a well defined process for accepting, reviewing, and adjudicating > future Code of Conduct complaints. And that some form of reparation be > provided to Mr. Wood for the public harm that was done to him by the > careless and unprofessional behavior of The Linux Foundation.

> Yours

> Robert C. Martin.

<comment><USER59> > That LF should keep all future Code of Conduct complaints and decisions > personal and confidential. That LF should publish and follow a well defined > process for accepting, reviewing, and adjudicating future Code of Conduct > complaints.

How any organization of any significant size can adopt a CoC without having these types of policies in place is madness. Especially handling it in private first!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> As someone not from the USA, I'm mystified by the implication that wearing a political party hat (the currently elected political party at that) makes a place unsafe. And not even wearing it at the event, but at some place else, some time in the past.

I'm glad that brilliant people like Uncle Bob mention how... strange this stuff is.

</comment><comment><USER61> There are people who end up conservative for predetermined reasons, like where they were born or what religion they were born into. Statistically you inherit your politics from your parents. Some of those people will become good developers and engineers. Should they be forced to stay in the closet or be ridiculed or fired? Should they scrub toilets instead?

<comment><USER62> In other words-- a hiring process would look at things like team cohesion, but also take into account that an applicant's potential difficulty in that area may likely be due to circumstances that were outside of their control.

I've always found that a fair idea. Oddly, this is the only reference to that idea I've seen on HN that didn't have a bunch of child posts attacking it.

<comment><USER63> There is a reason it's illegal to ask about political affiliation during job interviews in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Aside from employing Torvalds, LF has a lot of really muddy business. The whole OpenAPI gang is a shame on FOSS, and this is just something I touched professionally.

<comment><USER65> What's the backstory on OpenAPI for someone completely unfamiliar?

<comment><USER64> Er.. in short, tech-blind industry representatives are using the LF brand to advance their careers, and LF insiders are helping them out of sheer kindness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Context!

Here's John's side of the story.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx- jWg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HvjQ3Mx-jWg)

Main thread from cmaxw weighing in. No issues with him): [https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824](https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824)

Kim Crayton's oh so enlightened response (scroll to the top): [https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504](https://mobile.twitter.com/e_p82/status/1187175306010005504)

Personally, I find the behavior absolutely unacceptable. Two people can agree to disagree, but if someone flat out rejects coming to the table in the first place, you are in the wrong, which seems to be the MO of John's accusers. Sarah Mei at least is one of the same folks who was involved with the "cancelling" of Richard Stallman.

<comment><USER67> I probably missing context (I for sure haven't spent much time on looking into it, and don't plan to), but it seems to be a call to come to the table with someone who's self-described actions are:

> _" Because this, my friends, is how you deal with SJWs. You troll the hell > out of them and they have no weapon they can use against you.

Stop fighting them with logic. Just say inflammatory, illogical things to them."_

[https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/11861277413907415...](https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/1186127741390741505)

I don't think you should assume people are in the wrong just because they do not want to spend time playing nice with that.

<comment><USER42> This is the most enlightening post I have seen on this page. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> So outside this individual case, how open or public should these types of decisions be made? For transparency, shouldn't people that are part of the community know when these actions/accusations take place and what/how decisions were made?

</comment><comment><USER69> > First let me say that I find it highly problematic that the complaint and > the decision were public. Indeed I am surprised that LF would accept a > publicly submitted code of conduct complaint. I am much more than surprised > that LF would ever consider publicly responding to such a complaint.

Transparency is good though.

<comment><USER3> There is nothing less transparent than giving a public judgment without any of the reasoning that led to that judgment.

<comment><USER34> "Our events should and will be a safe space."

Seems like a pretty clear reason. He demonstrated that he promotes a hostile attitude toward marginalized individuals who they want to attend the conference.

<comment><USER3> How? There's been a lot of motivations ascribed to him, but where has he concretely promoted or performed in a hostile way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I'm not surprised by this. Kubernetes specifically got a very left activist community. Anyone even slightly disagreeing with the vocal minority is being shamed on Twitter under the excuse to keep it an "inviting" and "open" community. I hope everyone can see the irony here.

</comment><comment><USER30> This part loses me:

"Indeed I am surprised that LF would accept a publicly submitted code of conduct complaint."

Of course they should accept a public complaint, this isn't a secret society, it is an open source society, not a secret box where you can only complain in private.

<comment><USER33> Public complaints such as these are a form of public harassment, which is forbidden by the CoC.

If there's going to be a public show of it, then the decision making process should likewise be transparent and open. That it wasn't falsifies your claim about it being an "open society".

These points were of course addressed in the letter.

<comment><USER30> Your statement that a public complaint == public harassment is an inference.

<comment><USER33> A pretty reasonable one, since people got Wood kicked out of a conference _for trying to help and be civil_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This whole discussion thread has really made me disappointed with the HN community. Almost every reply is expressed in the same, alt-right terms ("SJWs", "free-speech", and mock outrage, as evidenced by the outsize number of f-bombs). Inexplicably, the scapegoat throughout seems to be a woman.

Take stock of your anger. Our industry is dominated by men, in a culture that has repeatedly shown to be hostile to minorities of all kinds, women, and people of color. Is this the best you can do? Even if this particular incident is unjust in your opinion, you are certainly not the victim here. At most you are asked to moderate your already dominating voices, slightly.

I never saw nearly as much engagement with posts that document actual abuses of financial or professional hierarchies: systemic rape, discrimination, harassment. But god forbid someone got reprimanded for being a bigot in public (or whatever this story is about). Conferences are well documented source of toxicity in our profession. The means to remedy the problem may be clumsy, but instead of punching down, try understanding what these policies mean to address and suggest something constructive.

</comment><comment><USER72> No refunds for canceling KubeCon registration after November 4th.

</comment><comment><USER73> I understand the title used on HN tries to follow what the article title is, but it is thoroughly useless in giving me any information on the link. Why should I even open this link?

<comment><USER24> I don't see whats wrong with the title? The article is exactly what the title suggests - An open letter to the linux foundation

<comment><USER74> > I don't see whats wrong with the title? The article is exactly what the > title suggests - An open letter to the linux foundation

The problem is the title gives you _no_ information about what the letter is actually _about_. An open letter could do anything from raising an important for the community...to something that's tedious and irrelevant (e.g. "An open letter to the linux foundation about the lack of vegan food in the cafeteria").

<comment><USER75> That seems to be general policy. I track title edits and they are frequently (though certainly not always) made less informational: [https://hackernewstitles.netlify.com/](https://hackernewstitles.netlify.com/) .. there are pros and cons so it's not a clear cut good or bad thing.

<comment><USER76> Fascinating! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Is Linus going to be banned from LF conferences for the ugly words he said about people?

</comment><comment><USER44> Okay I went digging for context.

There are some comments here about 'ddd' but AFAIK that drama is not part of the sequence of events in this drama. (instead that appears to be a separate issue worth it's own facepalming)

It appears to me that the sequence of events goes something like:

A person tweeted that she's glad she's not getting into tech today because the violent language used by people promoting diversity would have scared her away (actual tweet is removed, but here is the proximal discussion:) [https://twitter.com/Aimee_Knight/status/1185755719762620416](https://twitter.com/Aimee_Knight/status/1185755719762620416)

People piled on and responded abusively.

An acquaintance of hers, John Sonmez a lifestyle vlogger (who's shtick is apparently telling people how to be a man) waded into twitter and aggressively told off everyone who was attacking in an effort to deflect the attacks, here is his video talking about what he did: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjQ3Mx- jWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjQ3Mx-jWg) He was about one notch more civil than the sterotype of a foul mouthed 13yr/old boy playing a first person shooter on xbox. (or at least I don't think he actually told someone that he *ed their mother... but you get the idea...)

Predictable consequences were predictable and included getting his books pulled by publishers and other serious fallout.

Charles Max Wood (cmaxw), subject of the open letter, was friends with Jonh Sonmez and was pressured to disassociate with John. He said he didn't approve of John's remarks but declined to disassociate, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jY1FQHLdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jY1FQHLdk) and tried reaching out to people to insert himself as a mediator. [https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824](https://mobile.twitter.com/cmaxw/status/1187108668606541824)

This was not welcome by some people who described his calls for civility as tone policing. (and worse: [https://mobile.twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/11871112486783...](https://mobile.twitter.com/KimCrayton1/status/1187111248678326276) )

A 2016 picture of cmaxw visiting the trump tower wearing a MAGA hat, was found and was used to support an argument against cmaxw: [https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976](https://twitter.com/nebrius/status/1191821800302206976)

The events covered in the letter pick up from there.

[If I'm entirely off place, lemme know quickly so I can fix or nuke this post. I freely admit that I am entirely incompetent at sorting out twitter dramafests, I try to never use twitter: It says right in the name what it's for: Twits. And who has time for twits?]

</comment><comment><USER26> I remember sitting in a session at a linux foundation conference where someone on staff at TLF was the speaker and took a shot at President Trump and his supporters. It was subtle but unmistakable. I think the shot likely violated the CoC but nothing ever came of it. I can't find a session video or I'd link it.

I remember hearing it and thinking, statistically speaking there are supporters of Trump in the audience. Later, when I brought this up with others, I found someone who was a Trump supporter who is uncomfortable about that attacks on Trump and Trump supporters are allowed. The CoC notes unacceptable behavior includes, "offensive or degrading language".

I share this because the linux foundation is over a global community of people from various countries. People have different opinions on politics and other beliefs. Open source is a place where people of many differences can come together.

Having personally seen a bias against Trump supporters makes me want see this be handled above reproach.

<comment><USER78> You have misunderstood this movement. It's not about fairness or stopping discriminatory behavior. It's about banning all opinions except the sanctioned one.

"Do not speak unless you are one of us, do not think unless you have been told how to, do not hold us to the same standards as we hold others."

Those should be the mottos of these idiots.

<comment><USER42> Just keep telling yourself that.

<comment><USER79> Actions speak louder than words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Charles Woods was denied a pass to Kubecon on the basis of his podcasted support for attacks on women and black people in tech by Mr. Somnez. It had absolutely zero to do with MAGA hats.

</comment><comment><USER81> War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery— and Witch-hunting is Tolerance.

</comment><comment><USER82> >The timeline of events, as far as I can determine them, is as follows:

-content that has a lot of missing context-

Is what is described what actually happened?

It seems like the writer might not know either.

<comment><USER3> That's why the letter is a request for clarity in light of seeming impropriety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Good thing illumos implemented the CoC a few weeks ago, we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the cancel culture!

[https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/developer/T89a037970789a...](https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/developer/T89a037970789ab29)

</comment><comment><USER84> Those of us who warned against the CoC's who were lambasted are over here saying "I told you so" but will continue to be ignored. I have had multiple very liberal hacktivist type friends approach me asking how we are going to avoid these things being used to weaken the FOSS community, and I don't have a very good answer other than we need to fork the orgs... but now that even our former arch enemeis (microsoft) have become funders and influencers in those orgs, it's a large uphill climb to get any org-fork to relevance. Certain people and orgs who have always hated FOSS are probably giggling in the corner as we all turn on ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER85> Does the CoC even apply to conferences? Or the rest of the foundation? I thought it was just for the Kernel development process?

<comment><USER86> it's probably not the same CoC. Lots of conferences have CoCs, and the CoC aren't always the same as any related software projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> COC's being used as a weapon to purge political opponents? Shocking, who could have predicted it.

</comment><comment><USER88> Damn, this letter really highlights the sad state of things :/

</comment><comment><USER89> It appears that someone who wore a pro-Trump MAGA hat to a software conference is being punished for violating an event Code of Conduct. Unless there is a general ban on hats and clothing with political statements at software events, this is clearly discriminatory.

"The Linux Foundation received a public tweet sent to the @KubeCon twitter address. That tweet recommended that Kube Con discontinue their association with Charles Max Wood. The reasons given in this complaint were his request for an open and civil phone call, and a picture of Mr. Wood wearing a MAGA hat.

The Linux Foundation publicly replied from the @linuxfoundation twitter account as follows:

Hi all, We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code of Conduct was violated and his registration to the event has been revoked. Our events should and will be a safe space."

<comment><USER90> > It appears that someone were a pro-Trump MAGA hat to a software conference > is being punished for violating an event Code of Conduct. Unless there is a > general ban on hats and clothing with political statements at software > events, this is clearly discriminatory.

You don't know (and this letter's author doesn't know) that wearing a MAGA hat was what they considered a violation of the code of conduct.

<comment><USER91> > The reasons given in this complaint were his request for an open and civil > phone call, and a picture of Mr. Wood wearing a MAGA hat.

It is the only possible conclusion given this information. Is there more?

<comment><USER90> This is what they said:

> We have reviewed social and videos and determined that the Event Code of > Conduct was violated

It could have been "he wore the wrong hat" but it also could have been "we looked and he was harassing people on Twitter".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> Whenever I saw news like this, I feel the system designed for USA might be close to expire, mean it is no longer working for the goodness of the people.

Left and right can no longer tolerate different opinions at all, left controls most of the media and universities and to some extent, the social media, so in most cases, it actually is the left bullies the right, to the point some of the left just lost their mind when they spot a MAGA hat, this is insane.

the left combined with socialism agenda looks great on paper or ideology, but it will kill the society for good. I have long been thinking that we're doomed, the current system is an version out of date, and there is no new release on the horizon, chaos is the only step next.

</comment><comment><USER93> So what did this person do? Just wear a MAGA hat? What kind of world do we live in where we consider supporting a democratically elected political candidate a code of conduct violation?

I was at the KiwiCon where Ranty Ben got kicked out. I want to be fair: I thought his talk was stupid and not very useful. But I don't think he should have gotten kicked out. The organizers wouldn't even say why he got kicked out. They didn't say how he specifically violated the Code of Conduct. Was it the ASCII art Goatcx in PGP signing art? Was it the comment about how if you did x to secure yourself you'd be "about as inconspicuous as a tr __ __ __* Polynesian girl in the desert " or "lesbian f __ __* porn " ?

Hackercons have never really been professional. Later on in that same conference, a Mac kernel hacker did a talk on gdb where he said it was so terrible it'd be like grabbing pig balls. He had a Photoshoped image of the organizer holding some pig balls. The organizer came out, looked at it as the audience laughed and walked off. Obviously they were friends; it was a joke, but I ask you ... what if he had chosen one of female organizers instead?

In such an environment, where is the line? We do we even consider kicking someone out because one person was offended? I realize non-hackercons need to be more professional. Yet, we don't throw people out for preferring emacs vs vim, and we shouldn't throw anyone out for their political beliefs.

<comment><USER53> I used to take principled free speech position in these kind of arguments. I have for Maybe 10 years.

I stopped when I realized that not once, in all the hotly debated discussions I had, I found anything of value in the person being censored. Actually in most cases, removing them provided a smoother environment/community/event.

I stopped caring about hate speech removal when it is actually about hate speech. Now I worry about state censorship more and stop defending trolls and Nazis.

<comment><USER94> > in all the hotly debated discussions I had, I found anything of value in the > person being censored

I think history is a better guide because we can more clearly see what was valuable. Things that were censored in the past:

* Heliocentricism

* Evolution, esp of humans from other apes

* Capitalism/market economics (in socialist states)

* Currently mainstream views about biology (e.g. Lysenkoism)

Free speech is a "hits" business: most of the value comes from a few incredibly valuable ideas that someone powerful is trying to censor. The damage done to Russia and China under communism easily exceeds all the extra "smoothness" that they got out of censoring those who disagreed with them.

<comment><USER53> Yes, which of these views would have been shut down by a policy forbidding hate speech?

I am now mostly worried about state censorship, which do remove things like the items you list.

Censoring hate speech and people who promote exclusion of minorities? I have not a single example of it being detrimental to a healthy debate.

<comment><USER94> I'm pretty sure that all of those views were censored because they were immoral according to the dominant ideology of the day, and in every case it would have been argued that this time the censorship was good because the dominant ideology was good, whereas previous instances of censorship were bad.

How would someone in the USSR know that censorship of opponents of Lysenkoism was bad? As far as they were concerned, the people being censored were evil counter-revolutionaries of whom nothing good could come.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't "only censor/condemn hate that's tied to a protected class" be a decent test? Where protected class is defined as the stuff people cannot change about themselves. This test seems quite timeless and orthogonal to the problematic "immoral."

<comment><USER95> White male is decidedly a protected class with that definition.

Disclaimer: I am Asian and like to point out irony, don't lynch me.

<comment><USER53> Yes and? Hate speech against white male would be brought down as well.

<comment><USER3> Let's dive into that: here are tweets made by the accusers leading to Linux Foundation's judgment. [https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dtnamp/linux_foundat...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/dtnamp/linux_foundation_revokes_attendees_registration/f6xvd46/)

<comment><USER53> Well, have clear rules, clear penalties and due process, saying crap about any skin color is hate speech. You have no shortage of that in the US right now.

That's not my country and not much of my business but if half of your country is fine using its free speech defending KKK apologists and the other half only meets that with apathy, don't be surprised if some Black Panthers come back to life and use their own free speech fighting back.

And maybe I am less shocked by this affair because in many European cities, wearing a MAGA hat would be seen pretty close as wearing nazi insignia. Under it, lies either someone very racist or someone very confused. And either way probably someone that is not going to have a constructive participation.

So yeah, probably lack of clear rules, lack of due process, I hope that's the takeaway they'll get from it.

Arbitrary enforcement of vague rules is authoritarianism, but you can have clear rules and due process to limit hate speech. It has been done successfully in several places.

<comment><USER96> What you think MAGA stands for is not what it actually stands for. You're stating all kinds of extremist positions that 99% of people in the US do not hold.

Anyone can stir up outrage against a made up situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Just... don't. use. Twitter.

I mean, dear god, it's a cesspool of incivility. It's very structure discourages civil discourse because everyone is trying to be the most pithy.

And clicking on the links that are supposed to be the 'context' around this shit show.... how on earth is anyone supposed to navigate that mess?

No, just stay far, far away.

<comment><USER61> Every day someone somewhere gets fired for something they posted on Twitter. I've never heard of anyone getting hired for a tweet.

<comment><USER98> I got, sent out a tweet looking for work and got an interview the next day in my city. ended up working there for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> @ mods I 100% understand why this is flagged and it is already being a mess but it has 100+ upvotes in <1 hour. If possible I think this issue is important enough to some such as myself in the community that this post should be allowed on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER100> I don't understand. Are people mad because he posted a picture of himself in a maga hat? That seems awfully milquetoast. You know you live in a bubble when you want to black-list half the nation for a common political view.

Edit: it seems that people are annoyed because he's tied to a guy named John Sonmez. Any context on why this guy is bad? It looks like he caters to the same crowd Jordan Peterson does, but hasn't said anything offensive? The most I can find are references to "SJW"s, which doesn't sound particularly bad (especially when you consider what people on the "other side" say/do).

<comment><USER65> From the most recent controversy - he seems like a pretty odious person?

[https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/11860996963909632...](https://twitter.com/simpleprogrammr/status/1186099696390963200)

<comment><USER100> I agree that guy sounds like a jerk, but he's not the guy who got kicked out of a conference. It was someone associated with him. And I believe the rationale for that guy getting kicked out was wearing a maga hat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Please let the Linux foundation know how you feel directly:

email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER102> I like the open and public way of handling such matters. You won't have much transparency in private and that is dangerous. However, i am against their decision. All these "community guidelines" and "code of conduct" bullshit just get abused to attack and censor people.

</comment><comment><USER103> Two men walk into a bar one wearing "si se puede" and the other "make America great again". The bar happens to be in Silicon Valley......

</comment><comment><USER104> Article flagged, because despite the relevance to a tech community, and the high profile of R Martin, some people in HN can't help abuse "flagging" for things they disagree with.

<comment><USER104> To be clear: The article _was_ flagged, not that I flagged it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> To call something like this orwellian is to misunderstand and disrespect the whole concept of what orwell was warning about in the first place. Im not going to reply because the quality of theses conversations are simply apologist at best and I dare not say what they are at worst, if you think this is a left right thing you've not been paying attention. With that said, I think as usual an xkcd sums this up better than I could in many paragraphs.

[https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

<comment><USER3> Can you explain how that comic applies in this circumstance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> What grinds my gears about situations like this is that the people inventing and enforcing these so-called CoCs are never actual engineers, just individuals who have somehow infiltrated the engineering community and are dictating to its authentic members.

<comment><USER49> That's an interesting point. Can you share more about who is an actual engineer and who isn't? Is this a certification? Do you consider yourself part of the engineering community, and if so, how does someone get admitted, either by your standards or the standards of the community?

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> The really troubling thing is how people like this "Sarah Mei" are allowed to call shots. Why does anyone even give credence to what she says? She's clearly a power-hungry megalomaniac who spends all of her time "calling out" people who violate her religious beliefs (Intersectionalism / Foucaltian Power Dynamism).

Sorry, not everyone is a member of that religion, so we should not be policing based upon your own personal religious beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER16> So his complaint is they accepted a public complaint and responded publicly, he thinks this is evil incarnate, _but_ he is going to justify publicly posting his lengthy complaint about the whole thing based on "This was all done publicly."

My knee jerk reaction is to think of my mother saying: _Two wrongs don 't make a right._

(To be clear, if this were framed differently, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it. But as it is, it just reeks of "Do as I say, not as I do.")</comment>


Summary of Solutions to Climate Change Ranked by Cost-Effectiveness - <AUTHOR> http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank <comment><USER2> I can't say how good their data is, but the descriptions seem to leave something to be desired.

For instance, the #1 most effective method listed is refrigerant management. [http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant- mana...](http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant-management)

> _Refrigerants, specifically CFCs and HCFCs, were once culprits in depleting > the ozone layer. Thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, they have been phased > out. HFCs, the primary replacement, spare the ozone layer, but have 1,000 to > 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere than carbon dioxide._

They seem to suggest that this is an unintended side-effect, but fail to mention that CFCs were no better in this regard (falling into that same range). R-12, the most common CFC, has a global warming potential of 10,900, or 10,900x that of CO2.

> _Through an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the world will phase out > HFCs—starting with high-income countries in 2019, then some low-income > countries in 2024 and others in 2028. Substitutes are already on the market, > including natural refrigerants such as propane and ammonium [sic]._

Propane and anhydrous ammonia are considered "first generation refrigerants." They were phased out in favor of CFCs ("second generation refrigerants") because unlike propane and anhydrous ammonia, CFCs don't explode or chemical burn your lungs if your household refrigerator leaks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Synthesis_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Synthesis_of_Freon)

There _are_ better options, the imaginatively named "fourth generation refrigerants." These include HFO-1234yf (nearly a drop-in replacement for R-134a; incidentally this is used in the Tesla drivetrain chiller/air conditioner), HFO-1234ze, and ironically enough CO2 (aka R-744, which is much cheaper than the other two and runs more efficiently, but requires a system redesign due to higher operating pressures).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFO-1234yf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFO-1234yf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-744](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-744)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does not mention fusion at all. People are so short-sighted. :(</comment>


US FISCR court releases secret ruling compelling telco to release email subject lines - <AUTHOR> http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/secret_court_issues_public_rul.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Email contents, safe; email subjects, unsafe?</comment>


Scientists are working on self-spreading vaccines. What could possibly go wrong? - <AUTHOR> https://thebulletin.org/2020/09/scientists-are-working-on-vaccines-that-spread-like-a-disease-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/#.X2S5v8v7nIo.hackernews <comment><USER2> I can see the spike protein added to all the common cold viruses, if the capsid is big enough, so we would get a dose of capsid with every cold (less if we have a flu shot that hits). They can also use any spreadable virus that does not give long immunity (since we need new spike antigen exposure every year it seems, since that immunity wanes). What could go wrong? The spike alone carries no problems. it is the associated virus executibles that unpack from Covid-19 after entry that do the harm. It is a worthwhile approach but the path will be long as they will have to make sure there is no risk of 'gain of function'

<comment><USER3> The spike protein downregulates ACE2[1], which may make an otherwise benign respiratory infection severe[2].

1\. SARS1 spike protein itself, without any virus, causes ACE2 downregulation which leads to severe lung damage: [https://twitter.com/__philipn__/status/1237588716236898304](https://twitter.com/__philipn__/status/1237588716236898304)

2\. When mice are engineered to be deficient in ACE2, the otherwise non-severe RSV causes severe disease: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728398/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728398/)

(This may be why COVID is bad. Check out my twitter above for a lot on this)

<comment><USER2> My impression of spike attachment, via mediator, to the ACE2 is for cellular entry. I am not sure if this will exhaust the other ACE2 on other cells. That said a saturation level of spike in the blood so all cells lose spike in all areas is very unlikely, as this would, in all certaintly, be lethal?? A full blown infection - does it ever reach the level of ACE2 exhaustion - or are there many cells no reached? Heart cells - death of many heart cells would be a problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apocalipsya zombie coming!!</comment>


Reddit's Head of Community Has Left the Company - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/07/27/two-weeks-after-content-policy-update-reddits-head-of-community-jessica-moreno-has-left-the-company/

<comment><USER2> I've always felt like "Head of Community" is a weird job title. I mean, isn't a community, by definition, imply joint ownership by those in the community? Or if there must be a leader, then they have to be elected by the people to represent/lead them.

The whole thing just feels like you're being taken advantage through marketing. They foster that "community" feel without actually giving any control that a community collectively should have.

<comment><USER3> Head of Community is simply the messenger between the King and the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Don't do [a bunch of things that admins won't listen to proof of even if they were happening] or we'll ban you. Oh, and here have an ad-free badge of honour for being terrible subs, we'll subsidise you! Hey Jessica, please start handing out the badges."

</comment><comment><USER5> Are the children of Reddit going to throw another tantrum?</comment>


Pricing Comparison: Cloud Hosts - <AUTHOR> http://welcome.linode.com/pricing-comparison/?r=6b44fd00604f7059c77db8cb6e821a8c91fa5f8b <comment><USER2> I quite like linode and have used them for years but it seems a bit disingenuous to not include competitors like digitalocean[1] and vultr[2] in this comparison. They have very similar pricing.

[1] [https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/#droplet](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/#droplet) [2] [https://www.vultr.com/pricing/](https://www.vultr.com/pricing/)

<comment><USER3> That would be pretty poor marketing, since Vultr is better value for blazing fast servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent customer confusion marketing mastery example.

Why not to increase bandwidth to 10TB to make the numbers even higher ?

Why not to include OVH or Scaleway ?

[1][https://www.ovh.com/us/](https://www.ovh.com/us/) [2][https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/](https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/)

EDIT: To put to perspective Scaleway is on $3.2 USD/mo, while Linode $10 /mo

(not affiliated with Scaleway)

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Those cheap Scaleway ARM server looks very interesting.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind, they do not use ECC RAM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great marketing on Linode's part by adding in the Bandwidth to the cost. It is kind of the opposite of Tesla factoring in the rebates and other cost savings in their pricing. Linode is instead inflating competitors pricing assuming maximum bandwidth usage which wouldn't happen in most normal scenarios with a vm that size.

<comment><USER7> Agreed - essentially in the new age of single page apps where the biggest payloads (static assets) are being offloaded to CDNs and the apps running on VPSs are simply providing lightweight APIs (in terms of bandwidth). Memory and CPU cores are a far more relevant metric of value for an api deployment.

<comment><USER8> For huge sites - perhaps. But do you do that for your own site ? For small business sites ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In general, Linode and DigitalOcean have been very competitive in terms of customer satisfaction for VPS.

In this case, Linode offers only 125 Mbps which could be less compared to other cloud providers.

From what I have seen in the startup world around me, small sized companies use AWS/Google/Azure for production systems and tend to use DigitalOcean/Linode for staging / developer environments given they manage their own Devops.

</comment><comment><USER10> Love Linode or Digital Ocean's style who put storage and bandwidth clearly in the pricing chart!

I can't never figure how to calculate Google, AWS's storage, bandwidth cost. They seems to do that on purpose to confuse potential users.

<comment><USER11> There is a table here which explains exactly how to calculate Google's bandwidth costs. Incoming network is free; outgoing costs between $0.08 and $0.23 per gigabyte, depending on where it is going.</comment></comment>


Ebola cases pass 2k as crisis escalates - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01735-0 <comment><USER2> I am amazed at the bravery of the medical staff, health professionals and volunteers who are trying to contain Ebola in the DRC.

Not only are they potentially exposed to the deadly disease, they have to content with violent attacks from the population they're trying to help.

It sounds incredibly complex - a mix of political mistrust, lack of education and difficult terrain making containment difficult.

While spreading to populous areas would be a major concern, I imagine that nations blessed with more resources may be in a better position to quarantine, contain and prevent the spread of Ebola.

<comment><USER3> How likely is that most Nurses working there do are not able to comprehend risk in real terms?

<comment><USER4> Extremely unlikely, that it's not even an edge-case. I dare say that anybody who has seen directly or indirectly the effects of Ebola, would be more than aware of the risks and if anything, be more inclined to over-react (look at how leprosy was treated socially historically or even AIDS).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To those of you worried about a global outbreak: USAMRIID is closing in on a highly effective (near 100%) treatment for Ebola. So far it is 100% successful in macaques, which is a good animal model for the disease in humans. The project lead spoke to my research group - his talk about Ebola, and some of the cultural and geographic challenges in fighting it, was fascinating.

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate on those challenges?

<comment><USER7> The doctors and medical staff are mostly white, while the people they are treating are mostly black. To the ignorant, this would appear like an attempt at a genocide or recolonization.

<comment><USER6> Is that actually the case on the ground, some type of "the doctors are actually the ones making us sick" scenario?

<comment><USER8> That's absolutely the case: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/congo-s-ebola- response-th...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/congo-s-ebola-response- threatened-conspiracy-theories-rumors-n994156)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The WHO reports are very informative as well: [https://www.who.int/ebola/situation- reports/drc-2018/en/](https://www.who.int/ebola/situation- reports/drc-2018/en/)

The latest report (4 June 2019): [https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325126/SITR...](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325126/SITREP_EVD_DRC_20190602-eng.pdf)

Figure 1 on Page 3 is a good-ish overall representation of the situation. Ebola is sustaining itself. It hasn't gone geometric yet, but it could at nearly any time, if not already.

One important thing to note is that though it may seem that in the last 3 weeks the epidemic has been tapering off, that is an artifact of the reporting situation there. There is a significant lag in identification of deaths and causes. Feel free to look back over the other reports to see this reporting lag effects.

Another thing to note is that North-Kivu province is about the same size as West Virginia with about 2.5X the population. Goma, the capital there, has a population of about that of San Jose proper.

Combined with other sources that other HNers have linked, the Nature article is correct to sound the alarm here. The Ebola fighters are trying their best (despite the complicated social situations, weather, gear, humidity, and resource limitations), but Ebola is not quitting either. This situation is not something to wave away and is very deserving of international attention.

</comment><comment><USER10> As always when an Ebola discussion happens, I want to recommend people interested in the origins of the disease read Richard Preston's 'The Hot Zone.' It details the history of the disease (as well as some related filoviruses, like Marburg), specifically following several doctors and researchers as they track outbreaks and treat victims.

It was turned into a 6-episode miniseries on National Geographic (just aired last week), but the book is 100% worth the read if you're interested in the topic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could someone explain the graph used in the article where the y-axis is labeled as "cumulative" \-- does this mean that each bin includes the sums from the previous bins? If so, then this will always be a non-decreasing graph. Ebola outbreaks are horrible, but it doesn't do any good to use stupid graphs like this to make it look worse than it is.

<comment><USER12> If they're using the same data source I am at work it's because that is what the ministry of health for the DRC is releasing daily. They don't track active cases but rather cumulative cases in a health zone.

<comment><USER12> Also if you want to explore the data UN OCHA has it here: [https://data.humdata.org/dataset/ebola-cases-and-deaths- drc-...](https://data.humdata.org/dataset/ebola-cases-and-deaths-drc-north- kivu)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do these ebola outbreaks give the virus substantially more opportunity to evolve? Or is that not a significant risk?

<comment><USER8> They do: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580494/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580494/)

But the jury is still out on what evolutionary processes are ongoing. Is the virus adapting to its new host and consequently evolving more slowly, or is it quickly developing increased transmissibility? It's not quite clear.

<comment><USER14> The best evolutionary path from virus point of view is to reduce lethality so the host can spread it longer. I thought I read that HIV did something similar and used to be more deadly - even without modern treatment.

Problem with Ebola is that its transmission among humans is via the same thing that kills humans.

<comment><USER8> It depends on the environment. Mortality of cholera is high (~ 60 % if untreated), but by spreading abundantly the bacterium finds a supply of new victims.

I seem to remember a study from ages ago where they compared strains of HIV from South Africa and Japan. Condom usage in South Africa is low, so the virus evolved to develop a high viral load quickly. In Japan the opposite was true, condom usage was high, the strains that caused the victim to die early became extinct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> seems like a role of UN troops to maintain peace so that WHO workers can do their jobs

<comment><USER16> That is part of what the UN troops are attempting to do, but it's an impossibly difficult task. There are far too few troops for the size of the area and population size they need to defend, and that's before you take into account issues like logistics, the unwillingness of some national contingents to deploy far from bases, etc.

To provide some context, just the eastern provinces of the DRC, where most of the violence is concentrated, have a population of more than 20 million people and a land area larger than Germany. The UN mission in the DRC, MONUSCO, has just 15 000 troops. A figure which shrinks annually as a result of US-forced budget cuts.

Those budget cuts (which the Trump administration has loudly boasted about, FWIW) have also severely depleted the aviation budget, preventing MONUSCO from being able to deploy as many attack helicopters as its commanders say it needs to go after armed groups and reducing its ability to transport troops by air. This forces them to take long, slow journeys on the country's dilapidated road network, even in cases of urgent responses. During the rainy season it can take hours to travel a few kilometres despite having specialised vehicles.

Add to that the fact that government troops are often corrupt and local commanders can be in league with some of the rebel groups, and it's a pretty difficult mission at the best of times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The june 2 WHO bulletin about the outbreak, which I believe is the source data for the article. It contains more data including a graph of number of cases by date of illness onset, which I think gives a better idea of the progression of the epidemic : [https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325126/SITR...](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325126/SITREP_EVD_DRC_20190602-eng.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting to note how we can have consensus on 2,000 individual cases being called a true crisis, but we still cannot agree ~76,000 monthly border crossing[1] is a true crisis.

Perhaps it's because Ebola is deadly and it's easy to remain ignorant of the humanitarian crisis plaguing many of those 76,000 monthly refugee/asylum seekers... both before and after crossing. Perhaps it's because we all fear catching Ebola from an airport or shopping mall, but none of us fear catching "run-for-your-life-itus", or have to wonder how we'll feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves in a brand new country where we don't speak the dominant language or understand the culture, but we know it's safer than where we came from?

Or perhaps it's simply because it's not a political punching bag issue? ... that's probably the real truth neither "side" wants to admit.

Ebola isn't going to run rampant through the US - we have a great medical system that wouldn't be trying to treat patients in a field in the middle of a war zone. We should lend all the support we can to DRC to help prevent the spread of this terrible virus - not out of fear of it spreading to our home nation, but out of compassion to the people of the DRC.

At the same time, we should really step back from our trenches and objectively examine our own domestic problems - not through the lenses of political ideology, but through the lens of a decent human being.

(ya, this is a throwaway... advocating we stop being political about our own domestic crisis is sure to attract a lot of negativity, unfortunately).

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/border-crossing- increa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/border-crossing- increase.html)

<comment><USER19> > Ebola isn't going to run rampant through the US

This insular, isolationist attitude is precisely what is currently eroding the United States' soft power in the world today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The internet was supposed to create an educated society with information at your fingertips, instead we got fake news and echo chambers spreading extreme thinking

We have huge groups of actively ignorant people supporting the growth of climate change, anti-vaccination, and a host of other dangerous actions.

Now those fighting Ebola outbreaks are getting attacked.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like rationality is fast disappearing from this world. It's only a matter of time before we destroy ourselves.

I realize this type of gloom and doom stuff has always been predicted throughout history, it just seems "this time is different" for real with the intersection of technology and ignorance reaching levels we've never seen.

<comment><USER21> I would really love to know if this phenomenon is limited to Britain/Canada/USA and the rest of the world wonders if we have collectively gone insane, or if each demographic region is experiencing similar paranoia.

<comment><USER22> Stupid people live everywhere. It's not a uniquely North American thing unfortunately.

They may face other issues and we just aren't aware of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's just a question of time before it reaches the US. We were lucky with Dallas. It likely will escape the next time into the general population since many people without health insurance are unlikely seek medical care in time and when they do at the last minute, it will spread.

<comment><USER24> Ebola should actually be easier to contain in any civilized country such as the US. Quarantine measures and disposing of infected bodies properly would limit the pandemic.

In Congo Kinshasa, it's just the chaos politically, there is no real government in many parts of this country, the real danger is that it is not a small country at all, 80+ millions of inhabitants, many can't be reach by the WHO because of the wars and infighting between the "government" and militias. So the crisis there has great chances of getting worse, not better.

Furthermore, many many many people locals despise foreigners and particularly white people, for historical reasons, or just ignorance, and the culture is extremely unsanitary (touching and living with the dead, consuming bush meat or worse, ritualistic cannibalism, and what not), some straight out think Ebola is a white conspiracy.

This isn't a problem only money can solve this time.

<comment><USER25> >Ebola should actually be easier to contain in any civilized country such as the US. Quarantine measures and disposing of infected bodies properly would limit the pandemic.

I would be careful of the use of the word 'civilized' in this context. You're implying DRC and/or other African countries are uncivilized. Which is just not true.

<comment><USER24> > I would be careful of the use of the word 'civilized' in this context. > You're implying DRC and/or other African countries are uncivilized. Which is > just not true.

No, I stand by what I said and by the following definitions of the word "civilized", and never talked about "other African countries":

> easy to manage or control; well organized or ordered:

> having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc.

Given the tragedy that has been going on for more than half a century in that part of the world, I couldn't care less about euphemisms and political correctness, they have not solved anything.

The culture absolutely needs to evolve if locals want to survive Ebola, there is absolutely no way around it, I'm not a cultural relativist. It's a matter of life and death.

<comment><USER25> > easy to manage or control; well organized or ordered: > having an advanced > or humane culture, society, etc.

So the US meets these characteristics by your logic but DRC does not? Have you traveled much in rural/poor US? Have you been to puerto rico? Are those areas equally uncivilized? Would you characterize south chicago as uncivilized as well?

In anthropology (maybe specifically american anthropology), the descriptor 'civilized' was pretty much thrown out during their reformation (I think it was 1970s?). At best, today it's pretty much considered a coded term for 'not conforming to my view of what a society should look like'(aka it's ethnocentrically viewed as inferior). At worst, you can tie the usages of the descriptors 'barbaric' and 'civilized' back to the biological determinism and eugenics movements.

>Given the tragedy that has been going on for more than half a century in that part of the world, I couldn't care less about euphemisms and political correctness, they have not solved anything.

What tragedy? and which part of the world? DRC is not near Liberia or Guinea where the other more recent highly publicized Ebola outbreaks have been. Are you referring to the civil war in DRC? It's really complicated and at the end of the day has root causes that tie back to neocolonialism and colonialism constructs created by so-called civilized societies.

I'm not trying to be politically correct. I wasn't even being all that critical of your original statement. I was trying to point out that word choice matters. While most of what you wrote originally is valid, my family (which is Cameroonian) would not listen to anything you had to say because you used the term 'civilized.' It would immediately shut down discourse.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Last.Backend becomes open-source - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lastbackend.com/post/opensource/ <comment><USER2> How does this compare to Deis? [https://deis.com/](https://deis.com/)

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm one of Last.Backend maintainers. We are cloud, not only PaaS. Cloud with CI/CD included by default.

But Deis is solution you need to deploy on your servers. With LB you don't need to use another hosting, setup it, deploy another solutions to get our features.

<comment><USER4> If a private self-hosted PaaS is what I want, then how does it compare to Deis Workflow?

<comment><USER3> Last.Backend a bit more complex solution. In main idea, with LB you'll can build, deploy and auto-deploy your apps from git repos, via push-2-deploy, or by hook from docker registry.

We are creating now our registry with approved apps templates, which you can deploy with 1 click.

This is a complex solution in the box. If you have more questions, I'll try to answer. BTW we are preparing our documentation to cover more possible questions.

<comment><USER5> Deis also does push-2-deploy. Still I'm not sure how they compare. From my experience with Deis I expect it to serve in pretty much the same niche like LB, but to be more mature and feature complete.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, Deis is good.. We inspected it all. We are a quite young, but have a big motivation to create a new good cloud solution. So we are always open to discuss and would like to hear your ideas and features you need in modern cloud.

<comment><USER6> I think a comparison page with other solutions out there would help point out the differences, because most people can't tell what the features are that you're providing and how they compare with the same feature with a different provider. Think a 3 column, 10 row table with the other 2 main competitors.

<comment><USER3> This will be the first we'll add on our home page. We'll be at next release. Thx!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just to get this straight: Do you still need to host with lastbackend or will it be possible to provision some servers with aws, or bare metal with Hetzner and use this opensource tool to somehow manage kubernetes on top?

<comment><USER3> You can use open-source version on any servers you want. But if you'll use LB servers, you'll get a bit more )

<comment><USER8> Does LB give you a separate instance of LB, or are you on a shared instance with other customers?

<comment><USER3> We have many options. Shared instances and private instance. you can choose what you prefer

<comment><USER8> Interesting. So you would support a private instance running a customized LB, and potentially give that person (if they were a contributor) a 20% discount?

<comment><USER3> Why not. Dedicated cloud option. We prefer to run our LB version on it, but why not. If you'll need it - we try to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that everyone and everyone's mums have their own Kubernetes PaaS platform these days. It's such a competitive area.

That's actually quite surprising considering how complex the technology is.

<comment><USER10> >That's actually quite surprising considering how complex the technology is

I tried installing Kubenetes on my own set of VPS instances to play around with it and learn, and initially failed. I'm sure I could have figured it out eventually, but installing k8s isn't simple.

I found stackpoint.io, and was pretty impressed. Though they support other backends, like AWS, Google Cloud, and so on, they also support Digital Ocean. So, I was able to spin up a kube cluster with almost zero effort, and the low runtime cost of 3 DO VPS instances.

I'm not sure I would use it for production, since it has dependencies on their infrastructure. But, for experimenting and learning, it was a huge help. It's also, at least for now, free.

Disclaimer: No association with stackpoint, just a happy customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The docs say that RethinkDB is a requirement. Is anyone maintaining RethinkDB in a sustainable way at this point now that they've shut down? Seems questionable to rely on it for infrastructure if nobody is on the hook to keep it viable and updated.

<comment><USER3> RethinkDB now maintained by community. If it something will be bad with it, we'll change it to something. I guess we'll add ability to support custom databases by choice a bit later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Last.Backend provides some benefits for active contributors, via 20% > discount for our cloud resources.

That's interesting - this is the first project I've heard of that does something like that.

<comment><USER3> This is only a first our benefit. We have resource - we're ready to share it. Why not?) I hope, we'll can offer much more soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hello my Russian friends, it would be really nice if you can find someone who can write down more details about lastbackend

[http://thenewstack.io/kubernetes-not-scary-complex-even- conf...](http://thenewstack.io/kubernetes-not-scary-complex-even-confusing/)

Starting from this [https://github.com/lastbackend/lastbackend/wiki/Getting- Star...](https://github.com/lastbackend/lastbackend/wiki/Getting-Started)

<comment><USER3> Hi) Yeah. We'll starting today ))

<comment><AUTHOR> how are you deploying lastbackend itself ? it seems you are not using any of the popular tools like kops or kargo.

It would be interesting to know how you are managing storage (statefulsets, etc)

<comment><USER3> We are manually deploying it. We'll describe this process a bit later in our docs. And provide scripts for ansible.

All information about how we managing storage, we'll describe in separate blog post. I think it will be interesting for devs and ops )

<comment><AUTHOR> it would be great if you could fit in with the kargo or kops ecosystem (P. S. kargo is built on top of ansible).

Even if you dont consider the fact that it will be easier adoption for the community... it will help you in the long run because of the momentum behind these cluster ops tools.

<comment><USER14> For anyone else having trouble finding Kargo, it looks like it's now called Kubespray.

<comment><AUTHOR> umm.. thats not entirely true. kubespray is the org that created kargo. its not a kubernetes incubator project.

[https://github.com/kubernetes-incubator/kargo](https://github.com/kubernetes- incubator/kargo)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for clearing that up. It's not at all clear from their website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know you guys know this, but just so you hear it again, documentation documentation documentation! :)

I remember seeing this in beta when it was posted here — the design was beautiful. It's just as nice now, though less tech-y.

Really looking forward to seeing some Ruby examples.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. We are focusing on it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sorry, this is a little off topic but I'm curious, what's the startup/tech world like in Russia? My wife's Russian and I'd love to live there, I just get the feeling the job market for engineers isn't that great.

<comment><USER3> Hmm.. Our servers are around the world. Our team is distributed around the world. There is 21 century now and from my opinion tech startups now are focused globally. Thx to the internet and another technologies. You don't need to be in Europe to create cloud in Europe. And you can always jump to the airplane and be anywhere in a day. But there is a big plus - here we have great engineers and low cost ecosystem to live and make great things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So what is the relation with deployit.io ?

I see lots of similarities in concept, website and prices.

<comment><USER3> It was our project all time. But not a few month ago we decided to combine all technologies and make one good open source project. Thx for be the first who starred us )

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can Last.Backend deploy LB clusters (ie. is it self hosting)?

</comment><comment><USER18> Is there documentation on how to make your own template?

<comment><USER3> What do you mean template? Apps template? We are describing our templates registry and publish it soon. So it will be section in main doc, and how to contribute and add own templates. BTW we are planning to realize deploy templates from git and gists.

<comment><USER18> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Half way through, I realized I wasn't reading about last.fm's backend being opensource :)</comment>