
Sex and Gor and open source - healsdata
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/26/sex-and-gor-and-open-source/
======
netaustin
I spent a good portion of my early career working with Drupal on large-scale
media sites and got to know some folks central to the movement. I liked almost
everyone I met, including Dries, but after starting my own agency, left the
platform and the community. Not because of individual conflicts, but because I
concluded that I did not want my agency to orbit Acquia. This is what happens
in commercially mature open source communities, and a huge source of mundane
conflict. The founder and BDFL of the movement becomes the founder and BDFL of
a venture funded, IPO-bound startup, and incentives start to become crossed.
Or in the case this case, incentives become entirely perverted.

So I have a darker take on this: Dries banned Crell as a face-value reason to
strip a competitor of a seat at the core contributor table. Crell works for
Platform.sh, a challenger to Acquia's main hosting platform product. Drupal
has lots of very senior architectural voices already, so losing Crell isn't
going to jeopardize the platform, and it's more convenient for Acquia for them
to work in the same place.

According to Crell's post about this [[https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-
outing](https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing)], the Drupal Association
apparently attempted to apply their code of conduct and found repeatedly that
Crell had done nothing wrong. But then Dries decided to ban Crell with little
fanfare. Hard to believe that Dries cares that much about Crell's sex life.
Easy to believe that he's become a cutthroat opportunist who would use the
Code of Conduct to optimize Acquia's outcomes. What would have happened if
Crell had worked for Acquia?

That's the thing about a BDFL. Give him enough VC money and ultimately all
that's left is a giant D.

~~~
nearlythere
There's an appearance of conflict of interest, and you are not the only one to
make this accusation. But this is a red herring.

It was also brought up on the related Reddit thread. Someone surmised this
might be "motivated by the direct competition."

To which rszrama (Ryan Szarma) said "As a co-founder of Platform.sh, I know
with absolute certainty this is not the case."

Assuming Ryan knows more than both of us, and he would be in a position to
gain from making such a claim -- it's important to note he emphatically said
NO.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/dfcg0n8/)

~~~
netaustin
I'm with you 100% here, yeah, and I agree entirely with the points made here
[[https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-
governanc...](https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-
decisions/)]. But I don't think Dries has the credibility to act in the
community's best interest and also in the best interest of Acquia. As an
officer of Acquia he has a fiduciary responsibility; his responsibility to
Drupal is purely ethical.

I'd argue that Ryan can't really gain from making a claim that Dries is trying
to damage his business, because then he's admitting that his business has been
damaged without any real recourse. But I do agree that he knows plenty that we
don't!

My thesis is not that Crell's behavior was acceptable. I know I don't have the
standing to opine on that. My thesis is that Dries isn't accountable for this
conflict of interest and the demands of running a venture-backed startup are
largely at odds with the demands of running a community worthy of its code of
conduct.

Of course, Dries is not the only BDFL with this kind of a conflict of
interest. Many of us who have a career on the Internet live in the shade of
one tree or another...

------
SexyCyborg
I'm not at all surprised by this. I'm not a BDSM enthusiast, but in my
personal life I wear clothes and have body mods that while legal and socially
acceptable in my country, many Westerners find outrageous and deeply
offensive. I have always complied with the standards and dress code of any
business event I attend. It's simply what I wear in my personal time.

It's been a huge obstacle to getting recognition when dealing with Western
tech media. Even when I don't appear at all with the project, simply the off-
camera creator's appearance being offensive has been sufficient excuse for
exclusion. I have no doubt that BDSM enthusiasts, or Furries, or many others
face similar issues even when they check all aspects of their lifestyle at the
door and it has no bearing on their projects.

As part of a knee-jerk reaction to community problems with sexism, parts of
tech are now deeply, deeply conservative and judgmental about anything even
vaguely sexual.

You can very easily have permanent damage done to your career prospects by
appearing or acting in some way different from what they feel is the norm.
Once that's done, there's no appeasement or washing away the stain- you might
as well embrace your eccentricity and resign yourself to whatever fringe niche
will have you.

------
tptacek
This article is written from one side of a complicated conflict.

It's the perspective of the ousted Drupal member that his beliefs are entirely
packaged up in the BDSM subculture that he takes part in, and that to have a
problem with his beliefs is to persecute his BDSM subculture.

It's the perspective of the other Drupal members who ousted him that his
beliefs are not in fact cabined in that subculture, but in fact bleed out of
it into his interactions with the broader world. They cite evidence.

Since the beliefs that we're talking about could be broadly and probably
inaccurately but by how much I don't know described as "females are subhuman",
it's the perspective of the Drupal members who did the ousting that those
beliefs matter very much to the project.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that this TechCrunch
article basically defined away the controversy. That doesn't help anyone make
sense of it. I'm happy letting the Drupal community work this stuff out for
themselves though, and also flagged this story, which is, after all, really
just drama.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
Community governance in a world where open source is increasing and privacy
decreasing will necessarily require drama as long as emotions are involved.

The article raises questions in the controversy worth exploring in countless
open source projects.

I didn't encounter evidence cited by the ousting members in the article. Can
you link to your sources?

~~~
tptacek
You didn't encounter pretty much any of the other side in that article, which
is not an accurate summary of the controversy. I'm not sure this article makes
a good starting point for discussing this issue, and I'm not sure the issue
itself is really worth mining to find a good starting point.

~~~
ajsalminen
In a way it looks very much like just the same issue that has come up before
with people getting banned from tech conferences for example: Should the
beliefs a person holds that are unrelated to the community in question be
grounds for ostracizing him from said community. I don't really understand why
you think that isn't an issue worth discussing.

~~~
tptacek
I didn't say it wasn't an issue worth discussing. I said that the article
we're commenting on is highly misleading. It would lead one to believe that
the community is penalizing consensual sexual behavior, when in fact the
concern has virtually nothing to do with his BDSM subculture.

~~~
ajsalminen
I don't think the article is that one-sided. It also raises another issue
which is that the total lack of transparency even to the person being
prosecuted is problematic.

The comments from the DA side about this have been few and self-contradictory
so that partially the reason the article is the way it is.

------
losvedir
Sad. I definitely agree with the article's "yes (no), hell no, hell no"
answers. But I wonder how many people would answer the same here as with
Brendan Eich being forced to resign or Curtis Yarvin being dis-invited from
LambdaConf.

Edit to be more clear: I can understand either position as long as it applies
consistently. I also think I may have pattern matched this incorrectly as
"person unfairly ostracized for his personal sexual preferences", when perhaps
the part that will get play in the tech community is "woman hating white
male", in which case this will fit right in with Eich and Yarvin.

~~~
tptacek
Yarvin was not disinvited from LambdaConf. LambdaConf was boycotted because
Yarvin presented there.

(To your edit: so far as I know, the issue with Yarvin has more to do with
outspoken racism than with gender equity).

~~~
tedunangst
Disinvited from strangeloop I think? It's hard to keep track of it all.

~~~
mcphage
Right, disinvited from strangeloop. When he was invited to speak at
LambdaConf, pressure was brought to bear to get him disinvited. When that
didn't work, people instead brought pressure against LambdaConf's sponsors,
speakers, and attendees, in an effort to get LambdaConf cancelled.

~~~
tptacek
That's a lurid way to describe people boycotting (pretty successfully) a
conference.

~~~
mcphage
Which claim are you objecting to? That people attempted to get him disinvited?
That people pushed LambdaConf's sponsors to pull out? That people pushed
LambdaConf's speakers to pull out? That people encouraged LambdaConf's
attendees to switch to MoonConf? Calling that "attempting to get LambdaConf
cancelled" doesn't seem particularly lurid, especially not compared to things
like "You chose to die on this hill."

~~~
tptacek
Again, all you're doing is rattling off a description of a boycott.

~~~
mcphage
Right, which is why I'm confused that you objected to it.

------
alexandercrohde
At first I thought this article would be linkbaity-gossip about a tech
individual's private matters. However I think it raises a good point:

Generally our attitude toward different sexual preferences (previously labeled
'deviant') is that it is _illegal_ and _wrong_ to use them to hold back
somebody's career. However fetishism thus far hasn't been approached the same
way as homosexuality, nor has the debate even begun in any public fashion.

I think this debate will have to happen and it's very nuanced.

~~~
di4na
Disclaimer : i am a dom/top/whatever you want to call it in my private life.

Even more interestingly, the majority of the fetish/BDSM community is heavily
feminist and open minded. (There are always grey nuance and complex case but
still) It is a community that is deeply rooted into consent and people that
submit making a conscious and informed decision.

You tend to meet people that accept someone else opinion or lifestyle, that
are team player and adapt to others, more than proselyts or zealots.

Interestingly, the legal implications are complex, and most of the time, in
the US, would not support the lifestyle that much. Consensual non-consent or
violence is a strange place legally.

But from the public information so far, it seems hard to believe that this was
about proselytising or promoting anything.

Just a witch hunt. Which, to be honest, do not surprise me.

I am semi public about my personal involvement since 50 Shades, because i
accept the problem i could get in exchange of informing people that need it
(50 shades is hated in a lot of the community for good reasons) It is not easy
and you get a lot of anxious/uneasy look.

~~~
tptacek
To be clear: the claim here --- not that you'd know it from the article --- is
that proselytizing was in fact an issue.

~~~
di4na
Well proselytising what ? Because once again, the fact he plays as a Gorean
master does not mean he believes women to be subhuman.

This tends to be the problem with most of these things. But in any case we
really lack information here.

~~~
aries1980
Regardless what he believes, whether it is in line with the mainstream western
values or not, it hurts the inclusion and tolerance to expel members based on
that. One's taste, political views (regardless how extreme it is) should not
be a subject of investigation in a professional community.

------
slang800
> More generally, is it OK for an open-source community to ban/ostracize a
> member purely because their “belief system” — perhaps better described as a
> complicated fantasy milieu in which they happen to spend their personal time
> — was doxxed? [hell no]

It's interesting to compare this with the TechCrunch article written after
Brendan Eich was ousted for his “belief system”:
[https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-
mo...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-ceo-
following-criticism-of-his-support-for-prop-8/)

------
WillyOnWheels
[http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/](http://www2.rdrop.com/users/wyvern//data/)

------
mgbmtl
The Techcrunch article has a broken link to Dries' blog post:
[http://buytaert.net/living-our-values](http://buytaert.net/living-our-values)

The Techcrunch article focuses too much on BDSM in general. If I understand
correctly, the problem here is on the specific aspect of viewing women as
inferior and the fact that this contributor wields significant influence in a
community where (like many free software communities) gender is a problem.

This isn't very different than being anti-gay and being the lead of a big free
software project. Some people can pretend that their personal opinions have no
impact on their work, but that's very rarely the case. If there was more
diversity, this would probably be less of an issue.

~~~
tnones
It is both notable and unsurprising that the Drupal code of conduct [1] makes
zero mention of any of the topics in this debate. Nothing about sexuality,
nothing about feminism, or equality, ... Yet every discussion about this
immediately turns to gender politics. I think this shows the duplicitous
nature of COCs: no matter what the letter says, the intent, as understood by
nearly everyone, is to apply it to filter by reigning morality, under the
threat of public punishment.

When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who keep
manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights, even when the people
involved don't mind. Case in point, the Drupal Association member who resigned
because he called his friend a pussy, who in turn didn't mind it.

It is disingenuous to uphold a code of respect, diversity and inclusion while
simultaneously expecting everyone to conform to the wishes of the most easily
offended. More so to act like the only way to be respectful to women is to
treat them like fragile flowers. Some people prefer traditional gender roles,
in or outside the bedroom, and some are women.

The last thing these inclusion activists want is diversity, it would expose
them as the sheltered and privileged upper class they are.

[1] [https://www.drupal.org/dcoc](https://www.drupal.org/dcoc)

~~~
mgbmtl
> Nothing about sexuality, nothing about feminism, or equality, [...]

From the DCOC: "The Drupal community and its members treat one another with
respect."

> When it comes to Drupal, the only gender problem it has is the people who
> keep manufacturing major incidents out of minor slights [...]

I don't know for Drupal, but gender is an issue in most computer-science
related fields, I doubt that Drupal is immune to this. Free Software has a
lower % of women involved than computer science in general. In any case, until
there is near parity, there is a gender problem.

I agree that 'we' are pretty bad at handling incidents. Damned if we do,
damned if we don't. There's been an evolution in the last 10 years, but
clearly more work to be done.

~~~
aries1980
> “The Drupal community and its members treat one another with respect.”

Frankly, the DCOC is vague. If we want to kick out people with a reference to
the DCOC, we have to define with mathematical precision what is “respect”,
“poor manners”, “people outside the Drupal project”.

> I don't know for Drupal, but gender is an issue in most computer-science
> related fields, I doubt that Drupal is immune to this. Free Software has a
> lower % of women involved than computer science in general. In any case,
> until there is near parity, there is a gender problem.

You can always find an aspect which is underrepresented. Gender, ethnicity,
solved tickets, religion, eye colour… Can we just focus on getting things done
and being a welcoming toward everyone who would like to donate free time until
that person does not restrict others to do so?

