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posted by martyb on Friday May 04 2018, @08:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the Nice-Big-CoC dept.

Rafael Avila de Espindola, one of the top contributors to the LLVM compiler toolset, has cut ties with the open source project over what he perceives as code of conduct hypocrisy and support for ethnic favoritism. In a message posted to the LLVM mailing list, de Espindola said he was leaving immediately and cited changes in the community.

LLVM project founder, Chris Lattner responded; "I applaud Rafael for standing by his personal principles, this must have been a hard decision." Lattner also insisted that "it is critical to the long term health of the project that we preserve an inclusive community."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Friday May 04 2018, @10:04AM (42 children)

    by coolgopher (1157) on Friday May 04 2018, @10:04AM (#675563)

    Indeed good on him! Personally I stay the hell away from any project with an exclusion policy (aka CoC'ed up project). I don't care if you're a dog or a martian as long as your code (or doc, or releng, or whatever) contribution is good. You can tell me bluntly that my stuff sucks, if you can back it up with facts, and allow me to do the same to you. I don't mind if English is your nth language as long as the code (etc) is solid - we can work on the language barriers from both ends, that's fine. if you're gonna wave your oooh-but-think-of-the-[children|PoC|dems|reps|mass-murderers|whatever] flag around however, I'm gonna stay well clear. My time's too precious for that bullshit. Never argue with idiots etc etc.

    (If you're waving the "think-of-people-with-disabilities" flag, it's the same as any other feature request - patches please, and we'll work on it!)

    Damn shame for the project to lose someone like him, but that's the cost of adopting such policies.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @11:02AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @11:02AM (#675585)

    No doubt they will find a person with a more appropriate skin color or bits between their legs or whatever to replace him

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 04 2018, @06:21PM (3 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 04 2018, @06:21PM (#675794) Journal

      Shouldn't their primary consideration be that they have the appropriate bits between their ears?

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @10:26PM (2 children)

        Of course not, you racist scum!

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:54AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:54AM (#675996)

          What's that got to do with it?
          Place I know put in a blind selection policy to remove discrimination bias in resume selection for job positions. It worked. The selection bias was removed. They yanked it because they found that people were discriminating for women and minority groups. When blind resume selection with sex, age, race and background were removed less minorities and less females were selected. The percentage of white males selected increased.
          Go figure.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @08:27AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @08:27AM (#676021)

          He needs to do gender diversity and sensitivity testing. Err training. Again. This time with electrodes strapped to what's left of his balls. After that he can walk around for a week with a cloth wrapped around his head to gain a true appreciation for diversity. In Afghanistan.

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 04 2018, @12:56PM (30 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday May 04 2018, @12:56PM (#675625)

    What if a colleagues code contributions are good but are full of hateful comments, like comments insulting everyone from *some gender* or *some race*? Is that okay for you?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @01:24PM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @01:24PM (#675634)

      So you mean like a feminist who might cite any number of feminist authors who have written volumes dripping with homophobia, transphobia, misandry, transmisogyny (and probably works championing transmisandry and the idea that trans men are traitors), sexism, and cissexism?

      I will admit though that I have sympathies for a black person who might buckle under our massively unfair system and turn to racism. I reject identity politics completely. We will find, however, that when we find the basis for the problems blacks are statistically more likely to face, we will find a preponderance of blacks in the working class--the working poor specifically.

      I hope that feminists find their feminist programming language. Seems to me that LLVM is an ideal project for such a pursuit. I just don't think that anybody who is not a cisgender woman should help them with that. That's not because I wish harm to cisgender women, but it's because anybody who is not a cisgender woman, sooner or later, will be utterly fucked over by them in any space where cisgender women have ultimate political authority. Cisgender women need their own spaces, and we should let them have fun with that.

      Meh, I don't feel like logging in. Y'all know who I am.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @02:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @02:44PM (#675674)

        We will find, however, that when we find the basis for the problems blacks are statistically more likely to face, we will find a preponderance of blacks in the working class--the working poor specifically.

        We are working on replacing them - the illegals from south of the border are more compliant workers.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 04 2018, @03:43PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 04 2018, @03:43PM (#675703) Journal

        Meh, I don't feel like logging in. Y'all know who I am.

        k

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday May 04 2018, @10:56PM (7 children)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday May 04 2018, @10:56PM (#675900)

        > So you mean like a feminist who might cite any number of feminist authors

        Yes, I completely mean that; if someone is full of poison against *some gender* or *some race*, that's a problem. Could be a woman who is full of poison against men, or vice versa, or race or whatever. CoC is there to justify whatever action is taken against that person.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 05 2018, @10:06AM (6 children)

          Works in theory. In practice it's used to discriminate against anyone not waving the intersectional feminist flag hard enough, because practically every CoC except our proposed one [github.com] is written and interpreted by an intersectional feminist. Thus, any hate or discrimination directed towards white people or men is perfectly hunky dory and asians are starting to feel a bit of it as well.

          In any case, you do not need a Code of Conduct to tell someone "You're causing more trouble on the team than you're worth. Beat it.". People have been giving others the boot without one since people have existed.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday May 05 2018, @12:03PM (5 children)

            by PiMuNu (3823) on Saturday May 05 2018, @12:03PM (#676042)

            > In practice it's used to discriminate against anyone not waving the intersectional feminist flag

            I can't comment on that. It depends on the project.

            > In any case, you do not need a Code of Conduct to tell someone

            Disagree.

            In UK at least, you are liable to damages if you exclude people from an activity on basis of various things like race and gender. The Scout Association recently got successfully sued for excluding someone on basis of disability (specifically autism). So you have to be careful. Something like a CoC protects the organisation from being sued because it allows much better defined logic for kicking someone out for "HR reasons" (i.e. they are an asshat).

            I think it is quite common across Europe, but maybe not so in US.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 05 2018, @01:19PM (4 children)

              If you live in a society where people can play the SJW reasons card when fired for a perfectly valid reason and win, I'd advise picking another society on the grounds of yours sucks.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:39PM (3 children)

                by PiMuNu (3823) on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:39PM (#676071)

                I'm okay with it. Anecdotally, I know more people that have been in a situation to have been protected by such legislation than to have been hurt by it (but I do know instances where people have, to use your horrible wording, "played the SJW reasons card").

                I don't know any situations where it really hit the lawyers, so I can't make stronger statement.

                To turn it around, "If you live in a society where people can use gender, race, etc as an excuse to treat people badly, I'd advise picking another society on the grounds of yours sucks". Swings, meet roundabouts. It comes down to personal preference and ability to move.

                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:55PM (2 children)

                  That's not turning it around. Actual discrimination is an entirely different issue than false claims of it. It's entirely possible to think those practicing either could use a good public flaying.

                  As for the "horrible wording", if you can't tell the difference between an SJW and a progressive/liberal and don't despise SJWs as as much as I do, you need to take a closer look at what they've been doing in your name and the control of your side of the aisle they've acquired. That's assuming for politeness's sake that you're not one of them yourself.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 08 2018, @01:43PM (1 child)

                    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @01:43PM (#677011)

                    > don't despise SJWs as as much as I do

                    The "SJW" thing seems to be a US thing. It seems to be used as a label for people who are pretending to be nice and thoughtful towards minorities/etc but are actually horrid politicos? In my experience that is not a particularly big group, although I have known people like that. It seems, on this site, to be used more as a slur on people who are genuinely trying to be nice, to imply that they are some horrible politico with some sinister agenda. So I find the acronym pretty unpleasant. Sorry.

                    I don't really know what it means in the UK context. For example, we have "champagne socialists" and "political correctness" as memes which might be some aspect of it? But e.g. the leader of the opposition is actually a genuine die-hard socialist in the UK (rather than whatever the democrats are in the US). In the UK the politicians seem less disingenuous in the UK as far as I can tell, and SJW doesnt really map terribly well.

                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 08 2018, @02:35PM

                      It seems to be used as a label for people who are pretending to be nice and thoughtful towards minorities/etc but are actually horrid politicos?

                      Not really, though there are some of those in the SJW ranks for certain. I'll give you a list of their most typical traits of the US ones and let you work out who is one and who isn't for yourself:

                      • White middle-to-upper class college girls. Generally unattractive and with a penchant for wacky colored hair.
                      • Their beta male minions.
                      • Believe $their_nation is beneath contempt both historically and currently.
                      • Cheerlead every culture except the dominant one of $their_nation, which should be dismantled.
                      • Apply none of their standards of belief to other cultures. (e.g. Islamic oppression of women is peachy keen.)
                      • Believe embracing an aspect of another culture is Cultural Appropriation and deserving of platform denial and being socially ostracized.
                      • Believe not in equality but in granting privilege to those historically oppressed. Actual equality is always seen as bigotry.
                      • Define oppression as anyone even holding an opinion less favorable than cheerleading of the group in question.
                      • Define free speech as the freedom to agree with them. All else is hate speech and should be banned.
                      • Where a legal ban does not exist, everyone disagreeing with them should be denied platform and socially ostracized by any means necessary, legal or not.
                      • Primary debate tactic is calling their opponent some flavor of bigot, using as much hyperbole as they feel necessary, in order to end discussion on the matter.
                      • Believe volume can be substituted for reason.

                      That's not a comprehensive list by any means but it hits the high points.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @01:52PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @01:52PM (#675647)

      Comments should explain code. Those comments don't do that. Rejected.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 04 2018, @05:49PM (3 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 04 2018, @05:49PM (#675763) Journal

        Drat!

        Next time, I'll express my vile ideology in the choice of identifiers (variables, functions, methods, classes, etc).

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @10:28PM

          I've been using branch names.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:03AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:03AM (#675956)

          I used to do that.
          Use fat peoples names for reducing variables so I could say decrease Susan, skinny people for counters, Increase Betty, place names for labels. It was always fun to have a GOTO HELL somewhere in the code. Use that crazy chick in accounts name for the random number generator.

          Good times.

          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday May 06 2018, @12:45AM

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @12:45AM (#676208) Journal

            Exception up = new NullPointerException( "foobar cannot be null!" );
            throw up;

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @04:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @04:53PM (#675732)

      i think affirmative action and keeping things professional are rightfully two different issues, even though these dumb @#$5 like to mix them up in their COCs, evidently.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 04 2018, @05:07PM (7 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 04 2018, @05:07PM (#675739) Journal

      Perhaps you read TFA? If so, maybe you just missed the bit about, "When I joined llvm no one asked or cared "about my religion or political view."

      Your post reminds me of the upskirt project. Every_single_thing related to the program was flagrantly sexist. So, uhhhhh - why in hell would any woman, or respectable man even consider joining such a project? I would have to presume that such people were hoping for a sado-masochist relationship if they joined. Not that there's any thing wrong with S&M, but if that was what the new member was seeking, then said member has no right to complain when the abuse is heaped upon him/her.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 04 2018, @10:53PM (1 child)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday May 04 2018, @10:53PM (#675899)

        > Perhaps you read TFA?

        I was responding to GP who said something like "I don't care if the guy acts like an asshat, as long as their work is good". So if the work is good, but the guy is just vile, to the point where people don't want to work on the project, I think that is an issue. I was responding to the discussion, not the article.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday May 05 2018, @01:14AM

          by Arik (4543) on Saturday May 05 2018, @01:14AM (#675930) Journal
          "So if the work is good, but the guy is just vile, to the point where people don't want to work on the project"

          How does he even have the opportunity to be so 'vile' if he's working on code? Where does he even find the time?

          This is not about 'vile' people, it's about socially retarded technically gifted geeks being chased out of our last safe places by people who think their social skills entitle them to rule over us.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:06AM (4 children)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:06AM (#675941) Homepage Journal

        What is, or was, the upskirt project?

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:01AM (3 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:01AM (#675954) Journal

          Sorry I provided no references, I should have in this case. I just read your response, and I'm about to walk out the door. My first web search turned up nothing at all related to software. My second search found this - https://github.com/GerHobbelt/upskirt [github.com] I'm not absolutely certain that it's the same project, but I think it's related. I would have thought that whoever inherited the project would have at least changed the name.

          There was a pretty major scandal some years back over this project. Everything, and I do mean everything, related to the project, had blatantly sexist names, references, the talk among developers was pretty disgusting - it was a major mess. That project epitomized the worst of women's legitimate complaints about male chauvinist pigs in programming, IT, tech, and STEM in general.

          I suppose the next logical web search would use similar terms, but search "news" instead of "the web", then try narrowing down the time. Off the top of my head, this all happened between 2005 and 2010.

          Sorry - gotta get out the door!

          • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 06 2018, @02:57AM (2 children)

            by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @02:57AM (#676233) Homepage Journal

            So if I understand that link correctly, they made a Markdown parser and called it upskirt?

            On this page, http://fossil.instinctive.eu/index.html [instinctive.eu] it appears that Natasha Kerensikova has taken over the project (or forked it) and called it soldout instead.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:16AM (1 child)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:16AM (#676236) Journal

              LOL - good one.

              It wasn't just the name of the project, though. The crew who developed it were quite crude and vulgar on their forum, comments within the code, and elsewhere. Take any boy's locker room, remove all adult supervision, introduce a couple of juvenile delinquints to the mix, and that would be approximately how upskirt was run. Many men would be embarrassed, not to mention women.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday May 05 2018, @04:35PM

      by Bot (3902) on Saturday May 05 2018, @04:35PM (#676087) Journal

      > What if a colleagues code contributions are good but are full of hateful comments, like comments insulting everyone from *some gender* or *some race*? Is that okay for you?

      what if I told you this started happening *after* the socjus movement started organizing itself, justifying it? hello mikeeusa.

      go see usenet archives of the days when the "patriarchy" ruled.
      Possibly from trusted sources, winston.

      --
      Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:38AM (2 children)

      by driverless (4770) on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:38AM (#676247)

      What if a colleagues code contributions are good but are full of hateful comments, like comments insulting everyone from *some gender* or *some race*?

      What, like "fix register assignment bug on multi-op architectures triggered by load/store conflict on ARMv7 code assigned because wenn es dem internationalen Finanzjudentum in und außerhalb Europas gelingen sollte, die Völker noch einmal in einen Weltkrieg zu stürzen, dann wird das Ergebnis nicht der Sieg des Judentums sein, sondern die Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa".

      Yeah, I run into code comments like that all the time.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 06 2018, @10:58PM (1 child)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @10:58PM (#676466) Homepage Journal

        That would be a low-quality comment, ripe for editing, unless that German text actually does have some sensible relationship with the code that was allegedly explained by the comment.

        Perhaps it should even be so edited before a commit to the main development branch.

        • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 07 2018, @12:50AM

          by driverless (4770) on Monday May 07 2018, @12:50AM (#676507)

          It has no relationship whatsoever to the code, it's a random quote from a well-known 1930s German political leader, meant to illustrate how difficult it was to just drop "hateful comments insulting everyone from *some gender* or *some race*" into the middle of a code commit. As you point out, it's a low-quality comment that would be removed because it's low-quality, regardless of whether it insults some race or gender. No need to have a special code of conduct to catch it, just the normal submission editing process would remove it.

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 06 2018, @05:51PM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @05:51PM (#676414) Journal

      I agree with the point that (I think) you are making. Comments, if necessary, are a vital part of the code and if they are not doing their job, then they should be removed and replaced with comments that are meet the requirements. Rejecting a patch for being poor quality code is normal.

      If people want to express their personal views then they can find another outlet for that purpose - expecting me to work on code that is littered with such crap is unrealistic, or you must at least pay me for the extra time it will take to fix it because I am trying to find out what it is doing despite the comments.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by loonycyborg on Friday May 04 2018, @03:15PM (1 child)

    by loonycyborg (6905) on Friday May 04 2018, @03:15PM (#675695)

    Though if we'll all leave all projects with CoC wouldn't soon be no project for us to contribute to? This only delays the inevitable. Only way to counter concern trolls is to formalize and popularize principles of FOSS meritocracy so there would be no opening for imposing "ethical constraints" as if there weren't any.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:43AM

      by jmorris (4844) on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:43AM (#675993)

      That is the idea, no platforming any who refuse to obey the $current_year Narrative.

      If you are out of step with $current_year you may not:

      1. Work

      2. Contribute for free

      3. Exchange money except by physical means ... and they want to abolish that.

      4. Assemble with others who agree with you in a public place

      5. Post to social media

      6. Own an Internet domain name

      I hope a group like this is up on current events well enough that nobody tries the tired "citation needed" crap. There are examples of all six categories in the news within the last few months so I'll not be including links. This thread is about #2 and another one on the front page a few articles up is about #6. I think we all know about the problems with twitter, facebook, google/youtube, paypal, gofundme, stripe, etc. so #3 and #5 should need no further explanation. Ask Milo or dozens of others about #4 and James Damore and Brendan Eich from our own industry typify examples of #1.

  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 04 2018, @06:25PM (3 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday May 04 2018, @06:25PM (#675795) Journal

    Yes! We should boycot all projects that have written Codes [soylentnews.org] of Conduct! [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday May 04 2018, @11:19PM

      by coolgopher (1157) on Friday May 04 2018, @11:19PM (#675905)

      I don't know whether to mod that funny or troll :)

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:57AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Saturday May 05 2018, @02:57AM (#675952) Homepage

      Except Soylent's starts with "Promote Quality, Discourage Crap" and the latest in CoCs can be paraphrased as "Promote Diversity even if it's crap, Discourage White Males regardless of merit".

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 05 2018, @10:19AM

      The difference being, we don't use any of that to no-platform or eject anyone except spammers.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.