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."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Friday May 04 2018, @11:43AM (15 children)
What kind of bullshit is this? "Up until now this industry has been prejudiced in favor of white heterosexual men. We are going to institute programs to give advantages to people that are not white heterosexual men to bring the industry back into balance."
White heterosexual male crybaby: "Reverse discrimination! Waaah! So unfair! How dare these women and brown people enjoy the same kind of unfair advantages over us that we had over them until today! Fuckers!!!!!!"
Look at it this way. You take two equal people. For five years you pay person A $100,000 a year and person B $20,000 a year. Then in year six you realize you were wrong, and if you simply bump person B to $100,000 a year you will never, ever offset the $400,000 advantage person A unfairly had. So you pay person B more than $100,000 a year until the gap is closed, or give them a $100,000 salary plus a $400,000 lump payment. Is that immoral? According to you and to Rafael Avila de Espindola it is.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @02:10PM
Where muh reparashuns? I wants me forty acres and a mule.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
In this instance giving person B the $400,000 appears morally justified. There was a specific harm inflicted on person B and we can even put a dollar value on it. I think many people would agree and there is not too much to question about it.
The moral arguments start when you give an unrelated third person ("person C") $400,000 because person C happens to have the same appearance as person B or whatever the situation may be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Friday May 04 2018, @08:25PM
Your argument only stands if the current market is a nearly perfect meritocracy. But it's not, so all available evidence is that persons C, D, E, and F are going to get the same shitty treatment that person D did.
And I don't see the Anti-SJW Crusaders arguing that we should look up every woman, black, Latino, or otherwise that specifically got shit on by the tech industry and giving them money or assistance on a second chance.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @05:04PM
two wrongs don't make a right.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 04 2018, @05:17PM (5 children)
Yes, that would be immoral. For starters, you have forgotten that your company doesn't depend on just those two people. You have also forgotten that your company isn't in the business of social justice warrioring.
In year six, you SHOULD BE paying everyone in the company precisely what they are worth. The asshole that you overpaid for the first five years? You can always fire him. Get rid of him somehow. But, you might just get rid of yourself, too.
After all the handwringing, confessions, apologies, etc, everyone should be getting the pay they are worth. Your drama scenarios aren't even worthy of consideration.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Friday May 04 2018, @08:29PM (4 children)
The point is that the industry hasn't been paying non-whites and non-males what they're worth for decades, when we didn't have these Codes of Conduct and assistance programs. So if the problem was going to fix itself naturally, it would have done it already.
There is this crazy fantasy that the tech industry is a near perfect meritocracy. It's a game of chance, and being a white male - and I am one - up until now has meant you're playing with loaded dice. You can either dig up everyone that the industry screwed over that isn't white or isn't male and then give them lots of money and offer them another job, or you can help the next generation. Arguing against both is just: "It's your fault not being born a white man, don't blame me if your tech career didn't take off as a result. Choose better next time."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Friday May 04 2018, @08:56PM
There are ways to help those who are underserved by the current system without outright discrimination. Go rally support around those and you'll get a lot of takers. Or you can try to fight racism/sexism with more racism/sexism, but don't expect those you are discriminating against to help you do so.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 04 2018, @11:10PM (1 child)
What slinches said. You can't beat racism with racism. War lies in that directions. And, you are justifying assholes like Richard Spencer.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday May 09 2018, @10:59AM
Every cause on every side has a ton of assholes. So the fact that Richard Spencer may be a dick is irrelevant.
And the point I keep making, which you and slinches keep sidestepping, is that the current environment fundamentally gives white men an edge, even today. So an extra scholarship, extra mentorship, and so forth for other people levels the playing field.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday May 07 2018, @12:30PM
One of my former colleagues at Cambridge ran summer schools to give 16-year-old children an opportunity to learn computer science outside of school. He contacted a number of schools and each was allowed to send up to two children along. The first years was around 95% male. He asked the schools why this was, and received 'girls can't code' as a reply from more than one. The second year, he said that each school must send at least one girl if they sent anyone (so they could send one girl, two girls, or one girl and one boy). That year, the gender balance was around 60% female and there was no noticeable change in ability. The vast majority of the girls who attended would simply have been deselected by their schools on the grounds of gender without this policy.
Programmes like Outreachy are attempting to provide a counterbalance to this. They can't provide girls with the same opportunities that the boys got, but they are attempting to provide some equivalence. Unfortunately, equality of opportunity isn't something that everyone agrees is a good idea.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @10:02PM
FFS, ir's not about salary. It's about wasting contributor's donations building transgender washrooms when the money should be going towards new computers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @10:34PM
Support that claim, please. Statistics will not do the job. Neither will anecdotes. You want to claim either organized or homogenous prejudice on behalf of the entire industry around here, you better be able to prove it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday May 05 2018, @07:05AM
I wasn't aware that anyone had started checking skin color or what was in your pants when you joined a mailing list and contributed code to a project. Who knew?
So everyone is just imagining all the Asian, Indians, Paks and other decidedly non-White people in our industry because bobthecimmarian says it is a white male privilege zone. Nope, it is one of the last meritocracies left, if you can do the work you can probably find a job in the tech game somewhere. Until quite recently you could most certainly find a place in the Open Source community. You will only get VC to found a new company if you are politically "safe" but that is all part of the fake economy anyway, everyone knows this.
Go elsewhere and wank endlessly about why some groups are underrepresented, lots of theories you could propose but why should we care? I gather it isn't as easy to break in without a degree anymore, but again that is a debate for elsewhere. It doesn't, in fact, require much to get into the industry. Anyone, repeat anyone, in the first or even second world can afford a PC powerful enough to learn to program. Anyone can contribute to Open Source, develop their skills, establish a reputation, and lever that into a paying gig, double so if they are from a "disadvantaged group" because of the open discrimination most companies practice to avoid being sued for discrimination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @07:08AM
Depends on the shit being flung.
I work with a bunch of Indians. From India. Some of them are so happy to have a wage good enough to buy a house. Some are pissed that they don't earn 6 digits. Most of them are not worth the wage. Underperformers the company can't get rid of. People who would be earning 30K in India. Yet they complain. Yet they are still here. They want more. Go back home then. Go to India and see what you get there.
They don't. They stay here. Enjoying the shorter hours. The higher wage. The inane protection their brown skin gives them.
Want to earn more? Start your own company. Build it up yourself. Pay your own wage. Join us. Do what the white people did. It's hard work but worth it.
Stay and complain or leave. Simple choice really.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday May 05 2018, @09:24PM
> Look at it this way. You take two equal people.
Impossible. Use cars.
> For five years you pay person A $100,000 a year and person B $20,000 a year. Then in year six you realize you were wrong
and you should get fired. The end.
In fact yours is a great analogy because it's the same people who played with races and immigration earlier that are using race to divide people unto themselves. Why do they do that? because communism vs capitalism is getting stale and the sheeple needs someone to blame when things go wrong. Socjus are slaves of the real power as much as the white male leading a corporation.
Account abandoned.