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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the don-asbestos-garments dept.

[Updated 2018-09-26 20:30:00 to show the CoC is already in effect. --martyb]

[Ed Note: Given Linus Torvalds' recent decision to step down as head of Linux development for a while, and news of an attempt to install a a new CoC (Code of Conduct) on Linux development, I believe it important to communicate this to our community. It does, however, offer an opportunity for more, ummm, fire, flame, and feelings than the usual stories posted here. Let's try and keep things civil and discuss the merits (or lack of same). To quote Sergeant Joe Friday "All we're interested in is the facts, ma'am."

If you are not interested in this, another story will be along before too long... just ignore this one.

As for the code of conduct itself, take a look at: code of conduct and the kernel commit.]

Eric S. Raymond speaks in regards to the Linux CoC:

From(Eric S. Raymond)
SubjectOn holy wars, and a plea for peace
DateSun, 23 Sep 2018 16:50:52 -0400 (EDT)

Most of you know that I have spent more than a quarter century analyzing the folkways of the hacker culture as a historian, ethnographer, and game theorist. That analysis has had large consequences, including a degree of business and mainstream acceptance of the open source way that was difficult to even imagine when I first presented "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" back in 1997.

I'm writing now, from all of that experience and with all that perspective, about the recent flap over the new CoC and the attempt to organize a mass withdrawal of creator permissions from the kernel.

I'm going to try to keep my personal feelings about this dispute off the table, not because I don't have any but because I think I serve us all better by speaking as neutrally as I can.

First, let me confirm that this threat has teeth. I researched the relevant law when I was founding the Open Source Initiative. In the U.S. there is case law confirming that reputational losses relating to conversion of the rights of a contributor to a GPLed project are judicable in law. I do not know the case law outside the U.S., but in countries observing the Berne Convention without the U.S.'s opt-out of the "moral rights" clause, that clause probably gives the objectors an even stronger case.

I urge that we all step back from the edge of this cliff, and I weant[sic] to suggest a basis of principle on which settlement can be negotiated.

Before I go further, let me say that I unequivocally support Linus's decision to step aside and work on cleaning up his part of the process. If for no other reason than that the man has earned a rest.

But this leaves us with a governance crisis on top of a conflict of principles. That is a difficult combination. Fortunately, there is lots of precedent about how to solve such problems in human history. We can look back on both tragic failures and epic successes and take lessons from them that apply here.

To explain those lessons, I'm going to invite everybody to think like a game theorist for a bit.

Every group of humans trying to sustain cooperation develops an ethos, set of norms. It may be written down. More usually it is a web of agreements that one has to learn by observing the behavior of others. The norms may not even be conscious; there's a famous result from experimental psychology that young children can play cooperative games without being able to articulate what their rules are...

Every group of cooperating humans has a telos, a mutually understood purpose towards which they are working (or playing). Again, this purpose may be unwritten and is not necessarily even conscious. But one thing is always true: the ethos derives from the telos, not the other way around. The goal precedes the instrument.

It is normal for the group ethos to evolve. It will get pulled in one direction or another as the goals of individuals and coalitions inside the group shift. In a well-functioning group the ethos tends to evolve to reward behaviors that achieve the telos more efficiently, and punish behaviors that retard progess towards it.

It is not normal for the group's telos - which holds the whole cooperation together and underpins the ethos - to change in a significant way. Attempts to change the telos tend to be profoundly disruptive to the group, often terminally so.

Now I want you to imagine that the group can adopt any of a set of ethoi ranked by normativeness - how much behavior they require and prohibit. If the normativeness slider is set low, the group as a whole will tolerate behavior that some people in it will consider negative and offensive. If the normativeness level is set high, many effects are less visible; contributors who chafe under restriction will defect (usually quietly) and potential contributors will be deterred from joining.

If the normativeness slider starts low and is pushed high, the consequences are much more visible; you can get internal revolt against the change from people who consider the ethos to no longer serve their interests. This is especially likely if, bundled with a change in rules of procedure, there seems to be an attempt to change the telos of the group.

What can we say about where to set the slider? In general, the most successful - most inclusive - cooperations have a minimal ethos. That is, they are just as normative as they must be to achieve the telos, *and no more so*. It's easy to see why this is. Pushing the slider too high risks internal factional strife over value conflicts. This is worse than having it set too low, where consensus is easier to maintain but you get too little control of conflict between *individuals*.

None of this is breaking news. We cooperate best when we live and let live, respecting that others may make different choices and invoking the group against bad behavior only when it disrupts cooperative success. Inclusiveness demands tolerance.

Strict ethoi are typically functional glue only for small groups at the margins of society; minority regious groups are the best-studied case. The larger and more varied your group is, the more penalty there is for trying to be too normative.

What we have now is a situation in which a subgroup within the Linux kernel's subculture threatens destructive revolt because not only do they think the slider been pushed too high in a normative direction, but because they think the CoC is an attempt to change the group's telos.

The first important thing to get is that this revolt is not really about any of the surface issues the CoC was written to address. It would be maximally unhelpful to accuse the anti-CoC people of being pro-sexism, or anti-minority, or whatever. Doing that can only inflame their sense that the group telos is being hijacked. They make it clear; they signed on to participate in a meritocracy with reputation rewards, and they think that is being taken way from them.

One way to process this complaint is to assert that the CoC's new concerns are so important that the anti-CoC faction can be and should be fought to the point where they withdraw or surrender. The trouble with this way of responding is that it *is* in fact a hijacking of the group's telos - an assertion that we ought to have new terminal values replacing old ones that the objectors think they're defending.

So a really major question here is: what is the telos of this subculture? Does the new CoC express it? Have the objectors expressed it?

The question *not* to get hung up on is what any individual's choice in this matter says about their attitude towards, say, historically underepresented minorities. It is perfectly consistent to be pro-tolerance and pro-inclusion while believing *this* subculture ought to be all about producing good code without regard to who is offended by the process. Not every kind of good work has to be done everywhere. Nobody demands that social-justice causes demonstrate their ability to write C.

That last paragraph may sound like I have strayed from neutrality into making a value claim, but not really. It's just another way of saying that different groups have different teloi, and different ethoi proceeding from them. Generally speaking (that is, unless it commits actual crimes) you can only judge a group by how it fulfills its own telos, not those of others.

So we come back to two questions:

  1. What is our telos?
  2. Given our telos, do we have the most inclusive (least normative) ethos possible to achieve it?

When you have an answer to that question, you will know what we need to do about the CoC and the "killswitch" revolt.
--
                Eric S. Raymond

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1787

LKML URL: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/23/212

Possibly in reference to: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/20/444


Original Submission

Related Stories

Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership 181 comments

Linux 4.19-rc4 Released As Linus Temporarily Steps Away From Kernel Maintainership

Linux 4.19-rc4 is out today as the very latest weekly development test kernel for Linux 4.19. It's another fairly routine kernel update at this stage, but more shocking is that Linus Torvalds will be taking a temporary leave from kernel maintainership and Greg Kroah-Hartman will take over the rest of the Linux 4.19 cycle.

Following the recent decision to change the location of the Linux Kernel Summit after Torvalds accidentally booked his flights to the wrong dates/location, plus other discussions happening recently, Linus Torvalds is taking a temporary leave. "I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately," he wrote as part of today's 4.19-rc4 announcement.

So it begins.

Also at ZDNet.

The Linux kernel has adopted a new code of conduct. The link to the code of conduct is here.

It seems Linus Torvalds is also taking a break from being the top kernel maintainer.

The short story is Linus screwing up his scheduling to the Linux maintainers conference which was entirely rescheduled around his mistake. Then he was approached by people who are concerned about his blunt (or some consider rude) comments on the kernel dev mailing list.

I, personally, will miss Linus and I hope he gets things figured out.

More on Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership 111 comments

The New Yorker has its own story about Linus Torvalds temporarily stepping down from his post as maintainer of the Linux kernel:

After Years of Abusive E-mails, the Creator of Linux Steps Aside (archive)

Torvalds's decision to step aside came after The New Yorker asked him a series of questions about his conduct for a story on complaints about his abusive behavior discouraging women from working as Linux-kernel programmers. In a response to The New Yorker, Torvalds said, "I am very proud of the Linux code that I invented and the impact it has had on the world. I am not, however, always proud of my inability to communicate well with others—this is a lifelong struggle for me. To anyone whose feelings I have hurt, I am deeply sorry."

[...] Linux's élite developers, who are overwhelmingly male, tend to share their leader's aggressive self-confidence. There are very few women among the most prolific contributors, though the foundation and researchers estimate that roughly ten per cent of all Linux coders are women. "Everyone in tech knows about it, but Linus gets a pass," Megan Squire, a computer-science professor at Elon University, told me, referring to Torvalds's abusive behavior. "He's built up this cult of personality, this cult of importance."

For a research project, Squire used e-mails from Torvalds to train a computer to recognize insults. According to Squire's tabulations, more than a thousand of the twenty-one thousand e-mails Torvalds sent in a four-year period used the word "crap." "Slut," "bitch," and "bastard" were employed much less frequently during that period. Squire told me that she found few examples of gender bias. "He is an equal-opportunity abuser," she said. Squire added, though, that for non-male programmers the hostility and public humiliation is more isolating. Over time, many women programmers leave the community. "Women throw in the towel first," she told me. "They say, 'Why do I need to put up with this?' "

[...] Many women who contribute to Linux point to another open-source project, Python, as a guide for Linux as its faces its #MeToo moment.

Two Linux kernel developers turned diversity consultants are quoted in the story: Sage Sharp and Valerie Aurora. The New Yorker points out that the Linux Foundation's ten-member Technical Advisory Board will hear behavioral complaints, and all of the members are male.

Meanwhile, many people in the Linux community are upset about the move to adopt a Code of Conduct (CoC). Some of that discussion is taking place on the GitHub commit page for the CoC.


Original Submission

Linus Torvalds is Back in Charge of Linux 105 comments

ZDNet:

At Open Source Summit Europe in Scotland, Linus Torvalds is meeting with Linux's top 40 or so developers at the Maintainers' Summit. This is his first step back in taking over Linux's reins.

A little over a month ago, Torvalds stepped back from running the Linux development community. In a note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Torvalds said, "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately."

That time is over. Torvalds is back.

He's a quick study if it only took him a month to learn how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately.

See also: Linus Torvalds is back at Linux while GNU's Stallman unveils a "kindness" policy

Previously: Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership
More on Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership
Eric S. Raymond Speaks in Regards to the Linux Code of Conduct [Updated]


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:18PM (163 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:18PM (#740150)

    I have no idea what that was, sounded like pseudointellectual babbling. It seems to me Linus probably bought the wrong plane tickets on purpose, maybe he got an NSL or something, who knows. This is just part of the overall tech industry being ruined by people who care more about politics/money/power than creating things infestation. I guess it was inevitable.

    • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:27PM (64 children)

      by epitaxial (3165) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:27PM (#740155)

      The bottom line is words have consequences and these groups need to insulate themselves from lawsuits.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:44PM (13 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:44PM (#740164)

        And thats something new starting a month or whatever ago? Youre going to need a much better explanation than that...

        • (Score: 0, Insightful) by epitaxial on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:46PM (12 children)

          by epitaxial (3165) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:46PM (#740213)

          Yes it's a recent development. Now that you can be a different gender daily (or possibly more frequently?). It's only a matter of time until someone lawyers up because someone else couldn't keep their mouth shut.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:11PM (11 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:11PM (#740280)

            Really? people have been rude, disrespectful and even trolls for millennia, but you want to blame accountability for douchiness on gender identity?

            Dealing with people in a respectful manner is pretty simple:
            1. Don't be a dick.
            2. All you need is #1.

            • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:51PM (9 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:51PM (#740307)

              These trolls are beyond worked up, wrll past the "they are gonna take our guns!!!" level of anxiety.

              Look on the bright side, the trolls can now use these guidelines to file complaints when they are harassed for being straight white males.

              • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:08PM (2 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:08PM (#740350)

                I'd agree except they've already used CoCs to take over projects and start bullying people.
                If anyone has some projects they'd like to list here for this gentleman I think it might be good. I personally can't remember which ones.

                • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:17PM (#740400)

                  Kind of like license agreements every CoC is its own beast. Some may allow for abusive implementations but after re-reading the new Linux CoC I just can't get myself worked up and worried about it. I see these are very good things, it will create a better culture and any abuses such as the ones you mention are the sort of bugs you'll find in every new organizational method and we will work through those issues.

                  I predict in a few years this PC freakout will settle down. Personally I look forward to some nice straight white male getting abused and being able to file complaints via the CoC, will make for a lovely story to balance out this hysteria. All prejudice sucks, but apparently working towards equality is more of a pendulum path.

                  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:51PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:51PM (#740423)

                    You don't understand the new formulation for racism: because all white males are privileged and powerful, it is impossible to discriminate or be racist against them.

                    The current sociological definition of racism (and, in fact, most discrimination) only applies when institutional power (or privilege) is involved. Since White people have the most privilege in this country, it’s impossible to be racist against a white person. Or rather, "nearly impossible.” Perhaps that’s what I should have said.

                    http://raptorific.tumblr.com/post/11932699900/it-is-impossible-by-definition-to-be-racist [tumblr.com]

              • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:21PM (5 children)

                by Sulla (5173) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:21PM (#740355) Journal

                Whether legitimate or not, their complaints will be made public, laughed at, and thrown out. So making a complaint along these lines is pointless. This is pretty obvious everywhere else you look around you. You can't have a meeting alone with a woman without being concerned that she will file one of those 5% of false claims in order to get ahead. You can't work your hardest to be the best you can be without people assuming you are doing it to put others down (I got written up by a Union for being too effective and making other workers feel bad). A meritocracy is easy, all you have to do is be great and you get your name out there. Now there is weights added to your merit to determine if your work is actually of merit. Yeah sure that code was pretty great, but people of his color have done a lot of great code, so was it really that good?

                From the other side. When everything is based on merit and you write great code as someone who is not expected to, you are seen as great and on the same level as everyone else (if you can take the bantz). If you write the came code but the assumption of your greatness is increased because you are that same person who was not expected to, it will be called into question why your work was regarded as great.

                Would you rather get to the place you are because of your abilities, regardless of who you are. Or because of who you are, regardless of your abilities?

                I don't know about this case in particular, but I have seen it elsewhere. Worked on a group project at a former employer with a team of three people, all of us of different backgrounds. We did a great job, two of the people got a ton of recognition because they were not expected to be able to do that because of their background. I was given no credit because I am an average white guy who was expected to be able to perform the task. From my perspective we all did great because we performed a great task, under the system I was in they did great work because of their background and I did not because of my background even though the work performed did not change. A system based on system is the only system that is fair. Arguments that there are barriers to getting into the merit system should be addressed, but trying to adjust the outcomes of the system should not be forcefully adjusted.

                --
                Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
                • (Score: 4, Funny) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:49PM (2 children)

                  by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:49PM (#740383) Journal

                  Now there is are weights added to your merit to determine if your work is actually of merit.

                  -.1 weight applied to your overall score according to the "offensive mangling of English" Code of Conduct rule.

                  Be more careful in the future, worker. We wouldn't want to have to hurt your grammar. We know where she lives.

                  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM (#740446)

                    We wouldn't want to have to hurt your grammar. We know where she lives they live.

                    -.1 weight applied to your overall score according to the "offensive assumption of pronouns" Code of Conduct rule.

                    Be more careful in the future, worker. We wouldn't want to have to send you to social justice re-education camp.

                • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:34AM

                  by Sulla (5173) on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:34AM (#740551) Journal

                  I guess it shows the state of the left where you get troll modded twice for
                  1. Stating that everyone should be equal and barriers should be removed to entry
                  2. Everyone should compete based on their ability
                  3. You shouldn't judge people or give advantages based on the color of their skin
                  4. Having thin skin is not a reason to repress the freedom of others

                  If your own thin skin is holding you back from being all that you can be, that is your problem and not the problem of the people around you. In general people should not be jackasses, but when you are online nobody has to know that you are descended from Africans, or from India, or from China, or a Woman. I don't know the specifics of how things work in the Linux community, but if they are like other online communities then the ability to be anonymous is the absolute greatest thing possible for a society based on merit. Occasionally people will say an idea and claim that they know better because they are from X group, that is insane. The argument made stands on its own merit, and whether or not you are one group or the other should never matter.

                  --
                  Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
                • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Blymie on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:09AM

                  by Blymie (4020) on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:09AM (#740711)

                  The real problem is that this is simply another way to break down Western civilization.

                  Feminists are one thing. Excellent goals, they had. Neo-feminists? That's the bad type.

                  Same for civil rights activists. Both simple wanted equality, fair treatment, that sort of thing. Yet the "new breed" is confused by what the last generation did, and why.

                  Each of these groups, and others, are tearing away at what social fabric holds together society.

                  I'll put this another way, there are honest and dishonest politicians. Often greed is the big separator here, greed and a desire for power. Yet, that sort of personality does NOT cease to exist simply because someone is not a politician. Many group leaders, and many of the most vocal amongst these group leaders, receive funds and donations from all sorts of places. Just like the politician that doesn't care about the state of their country, or they that are betraying a trust to act against the public's interest -- some activists (not all!!) act only for their own interests.

                  That is, money and power.

                  On top of that, some groups receive donations. Anonymous donations. Great. Now a group doesn't need to be led by a morally corrupt person, but just a *deranged* person. And that group can be a calling ground for other deranged people... with money for advertising, travel, funding drives, and more -- all donated anonymously, such as from a foreign power via sock-puppet like bank accounts and corporate fronts.

                  So, you tear down the fabric of your competitor's society. You use honest, good, innocent citizens that are naive about how the world works, and you target protest, on purpose, against the wrong people.

                  In this case, you see them equating equality with "not caring if the work done is of value". Think, just think how that sort of thought process will utterly destroy the social fabric of a nation. Of a society.

                  Imagine it in the physical. Imagine a massive structure with 100s of engineers, say building a huuuuge dam. Now imagine that you get yelled and screamed at, because you're leading the project, and you say that one engineer's work is sub-par, and you MUST use it, and you CAN NOT reject it, because they're .. well, whatever "special" attribute they have.

                  Can you imagine? Thousands dying 10 years later, because of the flood and resulting damage? But, that's *ok*, because *feel good*?

                  No, this is merely another way to destroy the fabric of Western society. Most people are dupes in movements. Take any political party, look at the main US parties. You have endless followers, that no matter what you say or do, on EITHER side, will never ever even admit that something wrong has happened. Yes, there are people that think and are thoughtful on both sides, but the VAST majority just enter the polls and vote one way or the other, endlessly.

                  So many followers of any of these movements, instantly and wholly believe whatever their leaders say. Support the movement endlessly.

                  The ability for foreign totalitarian/strongly controlled powers to influence democracies, is what this is all about. The US/CIA has been doing this for literally .. forever! They do these very same things to small, Central and South American countries they want to control. They use these very same tactics to overthrow even democratic countries, and instill leaders .. totalitarian leaders, that will act in their best interests.

                  Now, these very same tactics are being used against the US. They have been, really, for decades -- but it all seems to be coming to the fore.

                  Let's look at the US in the last decade or so:

                  - Destroy the ability for the left and right to communicate on anything. Polarize as much as possible. Make conversation between the sides impossible.

                  - Destroy the ability for the rich and poor, the have and have nots, to communicate. (Right now, the rich are seen as greedy assholes, not people that worked hard to accumulate wealth. I'm taking people that just live in slightly nicer houses, not billionaires here..). In Western society, the "barely wealthy" are those that have often worked very, very hard, and used their intelligence and work ethic to build a small business with say.. one store, into a business with 10 stores. They aren't Bill Gates, they aren't the Walmart clan, no -- they're those that employ local people, provide services a community needs (that's why people shop there, use their services), and do it well. But now these people are "the haves", and they only have it because "privileged".

                  - Ensure that those that do real, meaningful work are discredited, disenchanted, and feel like their contribution is meaningless. Even when not for wealth. (This thread/article is an example of that -- there are MANY others.)

                  There are other examples of things like this, too.

                  So this, like many other things, is an attack on the "West". Because like it or not, the freedom to develop something like the Linux kernel, the idea of "information is free" is a very Western thing.

                  What I have to wonder is, where is the NSA and CIA in all of this? You don't shut down the movement, but you certainly want to shut down (for example) a foreign power funneling money to a movement. To be truly democratic, you attack any source of foreign interference in your internal political and social fabric. You don't attack a group, but you do remove any source of "outside" influence on that group.

                  Yet, I don't see that. And this is truly bizarre.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:50PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:50PM (#740771)

              Then why didn't they leave the fucking Code of Conduct at that, hmmmmmmmmm? Oh yeah, because it's a trash fire entryism tool and a political weapon, [youtube.com] that's why. Anyone trying to frame the CoC as "you just don't want your ability to be horrible to other people" is a flat-out liar.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:47PM (48 children)

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:47PM (#740167) Journal

        [...] these groups need to insulate themselves from lawsuits.

        Which is the opposite of what's happening now.

        The way it's unfolding, the kernel could lose out big time. Companies and developers could sue over this. There was an unwritten contract that has been yanked out from under the senior contributors and maintainers. If the SJWs lynch enough senior developers, the rest will simply withdraw their code. The GPL v2 allows for that.

        M$ and even Google have a lot to gain from the destruction of the kernel. M$ is always up to the same tricks. Google, however, just got nailed by M$ proxies in the European court over Android and will be switching to Fuschia soon. they have enough of the mobile and tablet market to bootstrap that already. The exodus of developers and companies from Linux can only help further with the adoption and kill of legacy Android. The SJWs might think they are being clever but they are being used.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:17PM (47 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:17PM (#740190)

          They can withdraw their ongoing support, but where exactly in the GPL does it give the ability to revoke the license you've already granted?

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:26PM (8 children)

            by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:26PM (#740198) Journal

            Where does the GPL give permission to retroactively change the terms under which code is developed and distributed?

            • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:01PM (5 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:01PM (#740227)

              IANAL, but the GPL is a license governing distribution. The creator of the code retains an inalienable copyright, i.e. they can't be forcefully "disowned" of their creation. How these rights weigh against one another should be an interesting excercise for the armies of "IP" lawyers and courts.

              Let's hope it doesn't come to this, it would be (by far) the most destructive consequence of SJW interventionalism as of yet. Maybe it will strengthen the BSDs. but that's about the only positive outcome I can imagine.

              • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:38PM (2 children)

                by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:38PM (#740252) Homepage Journal

                It's long overdue we created an anti-SJW alliance. And seriously protest it.

                That being said, this copyright issue poses a serious problem. We can't let the representatives get away with leaving this alone. If anyone wants to save Linux, we need all commit at least 8 hours every weekend to fighting against this evil and reforming copyright to be compatible with open source.

                --
                The Government is a Bird
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:23PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:23PM (#740403)

                  "It's long overdue we created an anti-SJW alliance. And seriously protest it."

                  So you're gonna make an alliance and then protest your own thing? You're crazier than I thought!

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:30PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:30PM (#740483)

                    We are SJWs. We are legion. Expect us. (Serioiusly, ESR? Shouldn't you be in a Patreon somewhere?)

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:02AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:02AM (#740610) Journal

                The creator of the code retains an inalienable copyright, i.e. they can't be forcefully "disowned" of their creation.

                And that was implemented via the GPL license, which gives one the right to fork that code.

              • (Score: 2) by EETech1 on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:55PM

                by EETech1 (957) on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:55PM (#740758)

                Time for a new COC Theo!

                Fuck off...

                Looks like you could use some anger management Theo!

                Fuck off...

                I don't like it when you act like that Theo!

                There's the door...

                You can't exclude us Theo!

                Fuck off...

                You need to listen to us, and care about us Theo!

                I never will, and by the way, Fuck Off...

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:34PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:34PM (#740448)

              Section 17.2(b)

            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:28AM

              by Immerman (3985) on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:28AM (#740595)

              Who's doing that? Nobody's talking about changing the license - just the community code of conduct.

          • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:40PM (17 children)

            by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:40PM (#740206)

            When you write open source code for free, my understanding for many licences you grant the project you submit the code to a licence to use such code. But this licence can be revoked at any time.
            When you write code for free, unless you explicitly signed away all of your rights, you own that code and can decide who can and cannot use such code and can change your mind at any time.
            AKA: Open Source Code is all copyrighted. Someone owns it. And they can decide how it is used.

            • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:22PM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:22PM (#740238) Homepage
              Disagree in absolute black and white terms. Whoever received code with a GPL license will always be free to use and redistribute it to others under the GPL. All of the clauses in the GPL that are written in an unbounded present tense - viz. "you may"s conditional only upon clauses that have nothing to do with any later whims of the author. There's nothing that can change the fact that the permissions have been granted. Authors can't change their mind about cats already out of the bag. The whole license would be *pointless*, a bait-and-switch minefield that noone would want to go anywhere near under any circumstances, were that the case.

              Given that the guy who wrote the GPL in the first case agrees with this this stance, "However, this doesn't force others to delete that code from their own versins[sic] of the program." - i.e. Linux can still contain your code, no matter what misguided mass anti-SJW hissy fit you engage in, I think I'm on pretty solid ground.

              There are better ways to fight rampant SJW-ism than destroying the village in order to save it. If the SJWs are merely useful idiot puppets at the hands of the various TLAs who see Linux as something that blocks their big-brotheresque plans, then harming Linux is making things worse.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
            • (Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:52PM (15 children)

              by vux984 (5045) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:52PM (#740265)

              "But this licence can be revoked at any time."

              No.

              The license was granted by you to those you distributed it to. The license you distributed with the code granted those people you distributed it to redistribution rights.

              You can absolutely choose to stop distributing it any time you like. But that doesn't "revoke" the license from people who already received it. They are still licensed. They retain all the rights in their license, including the license to redistribute. Any attempt at "enforcing the license" would be pointless - the license doesn't have any clauses allowing you to claw back distribution rights. Any attempt at "enforcing your copyright" would be fruitless because everyone who has the code, HAS a valid license to redistribute it.

              Lots of projects have gone this route... version 1, 2, 3, were gpl, and then they decided they wanted to go proprietary so they made v4 proprietary. But v1, 2, 3 are still GPL, and even if you take them off your website, discontinue support, and stop distributing them, they are still GPL. And if they have enough momentum, the community may decide to ignore your v4, and just fork v3 and carry forward from there.

              Thus lots of companies go for dual licensing; with new proprietary features that live on top of a lesser GPL product; to try and have the best of both worlds. Since they own the copyright they can do this. And it actually works fairly well, because your competitors can't take your GPL product and do the same thing, because they DON'T have the copyright. So they can take your GPL product, and resell it and support it... but they can't dual license it themselves, or link proprietary features to it, because only the copyright holder can do that.

              • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:42PM (7 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:42PM (#740301)

                Gratuitous licenses are revocable if the grantor wishes to rescind said license.
                You paid him nothing, he is not bound to any non-existent agreement.

                He gave you license out of the goodness of his heart, and can take it away if said heart hardens.

                It may "break opensource", but copyright law was not envisioned with opensource in mind.

                • (Score: 4, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:09PM

                  by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:09PM (#740499)

                  ...You paid him [or her] nothing, he [or she] is not bound to any non-existent agreement.

                  He [or she] gave you license out of the goodness of his [or her] heart, and can take it away if said heart hardens.,/p>

                  The GPL isn't non-existent and will always apply to the code released under it.

                  --
                  It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:41AM (5 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:41AM (#740626) Journal

                  He gave you license out of the goodness of his heart, and can take it away if said heart hardens.

                  You're replying to someone who already explained why that isn't so. Let's read the money quote again:

                  The license was granted by you to those you distributed it to. The license you distributed with the code granted those people you distributed it to redistribution rights.

                  You can absolutely choose to stop distributing it any time you like. But that doesn't "revoke" the license from people who already received it. They are still licensed. They retain all the rights in their license, including the license to redistribute. Any attempt at "enforcing the license" would be pointless - the license doesn't have any clauses allowing you to claw back distribution rights. Any attempt at "enforcing your copyright" would be fruitless because everyone who has the code, HAS a valid license to redistribute it.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:40AM (4 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:40AM (#740697)

                    And he is wrong: you can revoke the license.

                    It is not a copyright assignment.

                    Once you revoke, those "rights" listed in your grant are null. They cannot be passed on.
                    The best you can hope for is an estoppel defense where you may continue to use the software you rely on.

                    Yes, I am a lawyer.
                    Copyright and property law are not nullified by whatever you scribbled in the license memorandum.

                    • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday September 28 2018, @03:08AM

                      by vux984 (5045) on Friday September 28 2018, @03:08AM (#741175)

                      "And he is wrong: you can revoke the license."

                      No, I think you are wrong.

                      "Yes, I am a lawyer."

                      Which at best just means you are prepared to argue any side of any case. :p

                      https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/sep/26/GPLv2-irrevocability/ [sfconservancy.org]

                      But by all means, I welcome your well reasoned and sourced rebuttal. I mean it basically says what you said, except instead of estoppel being the best you can hope for, estoppel just wearing a belt with suspenders; where the legal counsel doesn't believe the suspenders are very likely to fail; and that the license will be deemed irrevocable...

                      https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x11-540007.4 [copyleft.org]

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 28 2018, @04:25AM (2 children)

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 28 2018, @04:25AM (#741202) Journal

                      And he is wrong: you can revoke the license.

                      You have a reason you're going to continue to say that over and over again?

                      Yes, I am a lawyer.

                      Apparently not in a relevant field.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:25AM (1 child)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:25AM (#741713)

                        As has been stated in easily accessible terms elsewhere:
                        "Most courts hold that simple, non-exclusive licenses with unspecified durations that are silent on revocability are revocable at will. This means that the licensor may terminate the license at any time, with or without cause." +

                        Version 2 of the GPL specifies no duration, nor does it declare that it is non-revocable by the grantor.

                        (Also note: A perpetual license may violate the rule against perpetuities in various jurisdictions where it is applied not only to real property but additionally to personal property (and the like), which is why the GPL-3's term of duration is set as the duration of copyright on the program (and not "forever"))

                        +[https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2013/02/the-terms-revocable-and-irrevocable-in-license-agreements-tips-and-pitfalls]

                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 29 2018, @12:35PM

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 29 2018, @12:35PM (#741771) Journal
                          "that are silent on revocability"
              • (Score: 2) by dwilson on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:06PM (6 children)

                by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:06PM (#740432) Journal

                Somewhat off-subject but still on the subject of licensing and the GPL...

                Why is this not the obvious solution to this whole CoC issue? It was added in a git commit, right?

                So assume the worst case, Linus actually has been forced out and isn't coming back. What's stopping him from forking the kernel, renaming it, oh, I don't know, Tinus or something, reverting the CoC commit and... life goes on.

                He can continue to merge in any new code that the linux source gets, if it passes his muster. Right? Nothing legally stopping him, it's all GPL. Once word gets out, the new project will rapidly attract the old core of developers, and a lot of the current users of the linux kernel will at least take a good look at it. As long as full compatibility can maintained with the old kernel, it's a drop-in replacement. Eventually something will come along to break that, but I would expect for a few years at least it can be done. Long enough to get some steam and take off in it's own right.

                It's the code that counts at the end of the day, not the organization that's in charge of development or the name the compiled binary gets. And this code is GPL'd, freely forkable and redistributeable. What could the old project do, realistically? A few years on and it will resemble the openoffice/libreoffice situation. A big deal at the time, but not so much now.

                This whole SJW/CoC thing has sort of blown up in the past few years and is currently rampaging through the IT world looking unstoppable, but it really isn't. It's just blind-sided large organizations that never expected anything like it and didn't have defences in place to stop it. It ought to be quite possible to make a new project/company/organization being formed today impervious to this bullshit. Especially one that isn't dealing with customers and the general public.

                My opinion, anyway. There are probably aspects of the situation I don't know about or haven't considered that make the fork-and-move-along idea unworkable.

                But one thing I do know: You don't win many battles when fighting on your enemy's terms. Or, when you're dealing with a group of people that regularly uses public outrage and social media shitstorms to accomplish their goals, getting angry and engaging in an outraged public debate over their policy choices is a sure way to lose.

                --
                - D
                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:29PM (2 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:29PM (#740443)

                  So assume the worst case, Linus actually has been forced out and isn't coming back. What's stopping him from forking the kernel,

                  The same threat as was used to force him out in the first place?

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:37PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:37PM (#740449)

                    Photos of him sticking it to a penguin? But it was consensual.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:23AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:23AM (#740618) Journal

                    The same threat as was used to force him out in the first place?

                    They would still have to take over enough of the culture in order for the threat to have teeth. Given that the new group would be composed in large part of refugees, it's not going to be as easy as the first attempt was.

                • (Score: 4, Interesting) by chromas on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:06PM

                  by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:06PM (#740461) Journal

                  Linus personally owns the Linux trademark, so if anyone had to rename their project, it'd be the current 'official' Linux.

                • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:14PM

                  by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:14PM (#740505)

                  ...So assume the worst case, Linus actually has been forced out and isn't coming back. What's stopping him from forking the kernel, renaming it, oh, I don't know, Tinus or something, reverting the CoC commit and... life goes on.

                  AFAIK he wouldn't have to rename it at all because HE owns the Linux name.

                  ...You don't win many battles when fighting on your enemy's terms...

                  Because they beat you with experience.

                  --
                  It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:57AM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:57AM (#740688) Homepage

                  So long as Linus owns the trademark, he gets to call his version "Linux". The *other* factions have to rename *their* fork.

                  Otherwise, all agreed.

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:42PM (8 children)

            by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:42PM (#740210) Homepage Journal

            GPL doesn't give this permission. The problem is that the right is arguably default under certain legal schemes. My understanding as a non-lawyer is that you can't revoke a license like this arbitrarily.

            However, GPLv2 DOES contain a prohibition on revocation:

            However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

            So basically the kernel devs, and anyone wanting to use code from people who "revoke" the license, have to be very sure they never ever ever violate the GPLv2. I suggest always including source with every binary distribution to be on the safe side, along with all compilation scripts, steps, and maybe documentation on how exactly they built it just to be safe.

            --
            The Government is a Bird
            • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:12PM (6 children)

              by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:12PM (#740231) Journal

              The GPLv2 also states:

              10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

              The proposed CoC contains conditions which state that code which violates the CoC must be removed and cannot be distributed:

              Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

              That means they are changing the distribution terms of the project, meaning that according to the GPL they must receive explicit permission from every single author in order to remain in compliance.

              • (Score: 5, Informative) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:22PM (5 children)

                by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:22PM (#740239) Homepage Journal

                It doesn't work that way.

                The GPLv2 is a copyright license to the code, not a license to the project. You might be able to argue a breach of implied contract with the Linux kernel project, but that doesn't give you a right to violate the license of GPLv2.

                It's the same reason Red Hat is able to stop people from distributing Red Hat, they have "trademark" ownership. CentOS just re-brands Red Hat and can distribute the modified version after they change the name. Trademarks and copyright are different.

                Likewise, the project can reject any commits they want, without violating copyright. However, you can make the modifications you want, and distribute them yourself. You just can't force anyone to distribute them for you, that's not what copyright is about.

                --
                The Government is a Bird
                • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:08PM (4 children)

                  by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:08PM (#740317) Journal

                  They can reject whatever future commits they want, sure...but the CoC defines new distribution terms which appear to apply retroactively to existing code. You can't just add new terms which already licensed code must adhere to and claim it's not part of the license agreement simply because it's defined in a separate document. It's not about how they handle new contributions in the future, it's about the change to the contributions which have already been made. You can't force them to distribute it for you, but they also cannot force you to agree to new terms after they've already started distributing it.

                  • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:17PM (3 children)

                    by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:17PM (#740322) Homepage Journal

                    The terms don't apply to the source code. Try to make sense. What the fuck are you talking about "applying to old code"?

                    --
                    The Government is a Bird
                    • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:25PM (2 children)

                      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:25PM (#740329) Journal

                      The terms don't apply to the source code.

                      The terms themselves claim that they do:

                      Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

                      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:41PM

                        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:41PM (#740336) Homepage Journal

                        That's not distribution terms, that's a maintenance obligation for a specific project group. There's probably a judge somewhere that you could convince otherwise but they'd be full of shit in their interpretation and it would almost certainly be shot down at the appellate level.

                        --
                        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:43PM

                        by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:43PM (#740337) Homepage Journal

                        That's only with regard to the code accepted in the official Linux kernel.

                        Scope

                        This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

                        So this ONLY applies when accepting commits into the official linux tree, it doesn't stop you from doing anything. Projects are free to restrict how their members represent them, that has nothing to do with copyright.

                        --
                        The Government is a Bird
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:45PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:45PM (#740303)

              The "You" in section 4 is speaking of the licensee regarding sub-licensees, it is not speaking to the licensor/copyright-holder. Re-read the license.

              IE: if the licensee loses his license, through operation of the automatic-revocation provisions, the sub-licensees do not also lose their licenses.

              IE: The language is disclaiming a chain topography for license distribution, and instead substituting a hub-and-spoke topography (all licenses originating from the copyright holder, not the previous-in-line)

              GPLv3 added a no-rescission clause for a reason: the reason being to attempt (_attempt_) to create an estoppel defense for the licensees against the licensor. You will notice that Eben Moglen never speaks on these issues. He knows the weaknesses vis a vis the US copyright regime.

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:09PM (6 children)

            by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:09PM (#740230)

            The right to terminate isn't in the GPL, it's in statute.

            The GPLv3 states that the grant of license is irrevocable, which may be an attempt to get round the termination rights in law (whether it would work or not has never been tested), however GPLv2 in contrast does not. Which implies that the grant of license GPLv2 can be revoked.

            see e.g. this, from 2010: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Shrinking_the_Commons:_Termination_of_Copyright_Licenses_and_Transfers_for_the_Benefit_of_the_Public [wikisource.org]

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:23PM (3 children)

              by shrewdsheep (5215) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:23PM (#740240)

              Even if it is in statutory law, it does not seem enforceable. Otherwise many of those fighting divorces (aka forks) would have ended in revocations of licenses. I guess that some underlying judicial principles would overrule any such revocation (e.g. in Europe you have transparency principles). IANAL.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:47PM (1 child)

                by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:47PM (#740260) Homepage Journal

                The barrier to termination might be hard to clear:

                In the case of a grant executed by two or more authors of a joint work, termination of the grant may be effected by a majority of the authors who executed it;

                I think they wont be able to get 50% of Linux kernel contributors... probably.

                --
                The Government is a Bird
                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:35PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:35PM (#740293)

                  Linux isn't a joint work. It's a pile of derivative works.
                  (Look up the legal explanation regarding what a joint work is in copyright, it's a term of art)

              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:43PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:43PM (#740416)

                IANAL either but allow me to be somewhat anal about your premise: revocations of licenses in "fighting divorces" have never been tried because all parties involved believed in the principle of FLOSS. They just were never challenged to think outside of this particular box and parted ways as equals. The occupying force of SJWs planting their own power structures right in the heart of FLOSS land has changed the rules. Anything goes now. Be very afraid.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:27PM (1 child)

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:27PM (#740242) Homepage
              GPLv2 4: "However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance" -- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html#SEC3
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:39PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:39PM (#740297)

                The "You" in section 4 is speaking of the licensee regarding sub-licensees, it is not speaking to the licensor/copyright-holder. Re-read the license.

                IE: if the licensee loses his license, through operation of the automatic-revocation provisions, the sub-licensees do not also lose their licenses.

                IE: The language is disclaiming a chain topography for license distribution, and instead substituting a hub-and-spoke topography (all licenses originating from the copyright holder, not the previous-in-line)

          • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:49AM (3 children)

            by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:49AM (#740630) Homepage

            This entire sub-thread is of questionable value; I don't even know which incorrect post to reply to because there's so many of them.

            So I'm replying not only to this post, but every post recursively that's claiming "But you can't do that with the GPL!".

            First, let me confirm that this threat has teeth. I researched the relevant law when I was founding the Open Source Initiative. In the U.S. there is case law confirming that reputational losses relating to conversion of the rights of a contributor to a GPLed project are judicable in law. I do not know the case law outside the U.S., but in countries observing the Berne Convention without the U.S.'s opt-out of the "moral rights" clause, that clause probably gives the objectors an even stronger case.

            US law is based on case law. It doesn't matter how all of the Soylentils here are trying to interpret it while playing lawyer. If there is case law on this GPLv2 issue, then there is a strong precedent to support this interpretation. It is possible for future decisions to reverse case law, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

            --
            Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
            • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday September 28 2018, @03:44PM (2 children)

              by vux984 (5045) on Friday September 28 2018, @03:44PM (#741378)

              " It doesn't matter how all of the Soylentils here are trying to interpret it while playing lawyer."

              I'm deferring to actual lawyers playing lawyer.

              "In discussion of the Linux project's new Code of Conduct, a few people have suggested that contributors who reject the Code of Conduct might disrupt Linux licensing in response. This seems unlikely to most, but to ensure that uncertainty around this issue casts no shadow over contributions to GPLv2 works, Conservancy engaged our outside counsel, Pamela Chestek, to update the Copyleft and the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide (called the Copyleft Guide for short) on copyleft.org to clarify this issue."

              https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/sep/26/GPLv2-irrevocability/ [sfconservancy.org]

              Today, a new section in the Guide explains GPLv2's safeguards to prevent the very scenario recently contemplated.
              and that refers to:

              https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x11-540007.4 [copyleft.org]

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:23AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:23AM (#741712)

                The software freedom conservancy has tendered its response:
                http://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/sep/26/GPLv2-irrevocability/ [sfconservancy.org]
                http://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech8.html#x11-540007.4 [copyleft.org]

                ""
                "The GPLv2 have several provisions that, when taken together, can be construed as an irrevocable license from each contributor. "
                ""

                It cites:

                                    " That license granted to downstream is irrevocable, again provided that the downstream user complies with the license terms: "[P]arties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance" (GPLv2§4). "

                However this is disingenuous

                The full text of section 4 is as follows:

                ""
                    4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
                except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
                otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
                void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
                However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
                this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
                parties remain in full compliance.
                ""

                The "You" in section 4 is speaking of the licensee regarding sub-licensees, it is not speaking to the licensor/copyright-holder.

                IE: if the licensee loses his license, through operation of the automatic-revocation provisions, the sub-licensees do not also lose their licenses.

                IE: The language is disclaiming a chain topography for license distribution, and instead substituting a hub-and-spoke topography (all licenses originating from the copyright holder, not the previous-in-line)

                GPLv3 added a no-rescission clause for a reason: the reason being to attempt to create an estoppel defense for the licensees against the licensor. You will notice that Eben Moglen never speaks on these issues. (He preumably is aware of the weaknesses vis a vis the US copyright regime.)

                Section 6 further clarifies the hub-and-spoke model:
                ""
                      6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
                Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
                original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
                these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
                restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
                You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
                this License.
                ""

                The memorandum posted then goes on to a discussion of estoppel, detrimental reliance, etc; noting that users may have relied on the software and their licenses may be estopped from being revoked from said users since doing so might cause them unanticipated loss. This is speaking of already published, existent, versions of the program used by end users.

                The memorandum seems to ignore what happens to "upstream" once said project receives a revocation notice. Thought it may be possible that users of a published piece of software may have defenses to license revocation, the same is not true regarding the rescinded property vis-a-vis future prospective versions of the software nor of future prospective licensees of said software.

                That is: once the grant to use the code in question is rescinded, future versions of the software may not use that code. Current users of the software may be-able to raise an estoppel / detrimental reliance defense regarding the current published software, however the programmers working on the next version of said software cannot continue to use the property in future versions of the software (such would be a copyright violation once the gratuitous license is rescinded by the grantor).

                Additionally, prospective-licensees, once the grant was rescinded and such was published, would have no same-such estoppel defense (not being user-licensees at the time of revocation).

                (Ignoring this eventuality in the published memorandum, is, of-course, by design.)
                (Now, to note: the free-software movement is focused on the freedom of the user, not the progenitors of the software, so one could certainly say that ignoring some developer-focused analysis is consistent with their prerogative...)

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:40AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @05:40AM (#741722)

                  Gnu GPL version 2, section 0:
                  "Each licensee is addressed as "you". "

                  The "you" is not referring to the licensor (copyright owner). It is referring to the licensees and then future sub-licensees/additional-licensees receiving the work from said previous licensee.

                  It is independently clear from the context of the clauses if you read them in full.

                  ...and then section 0 comes around and makes it _explicit_ that "you" refers to the licensee. (if you had any doubt)

                  Additionally, you should know that the copyright owner is not bound by the gratuitous license he proffers to potential licensees regarding his property. The licensees are bound to his terms: he is the owner. They take at his benefaction.

                  GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
                        TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

                      0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
                  a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
                  under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
                  refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
                  means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
                  that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
                  either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
                  language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
                  the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".

      • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by RS3 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM

        by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM (#740208)

        The bottom line is words have consequences...

        It all depends on how strongly society values freedom of speech.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:42PM (74 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:42PM (#740163) Journal

      It's not that hard. Any group that has things to do, has more important stuff than worrying about people's widdle feelings. When the group begins to worry excessively about those widdle feelings, then the group falls apart. If it doesn't fall apart entirely, then the remaining group's mission in life has changed.

      The Linux developers are in danger of becoming obsoleted by the bleeding heart liberals SJW's whose mission in life is to punish success.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:48PM (37 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:48PM (#740169)

        Its just too convenient that the forced windows 10 "upgrade" finally started pushing non-tech people in the direction of linux, and now these internal attacks are coming out. I doubt most SJWs as you call them are doing more than following some thought leaders, so who are they?

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM (#740192) Journal

          For starters, Soros, Turner, Hearst, Jane Fonda, that "Professor" Ayers. MSM beats the drum, look for any of the owners, and movers and shakers in MSM. The leaders are the people with the money, who pay other people to get on the news, or on the screen, or on the radio to push these agendas. To a lesser extent, some of the leaders occupy silly positions in universities. One of the colleges in California was mentioned on my talk show last week. That one college has more than 400 positions related to diversity. It takes money to employ all of those people, whose job it is to ensure that everyone EXCEPT Whitey is advanced. Whoever supplies the money is the leader.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:22PM (35 children)

          by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:22PM (#740194) Journal

          Its just too convenient that the forced windows 10 "upgrade" finally started pushing non-tech people in the direction of linux, and now these internal attacks are coming out. I doubt most SJWs as you call them are doing more than following some thought leaders, so who are they?

          Let's not negate all of the hard work by so many talented coders by giving all credit to Microsoft. Linux was a rising star long before Windows 10; surely Win10 helped, but what really did it was *building a decent operating system*.

          However, I do think there may be a bit of truth to your statement -- it's gotten too popular among people who simply don't understand how it works. They're treating open source projects like a typical corporation. They don't actually understand the fundamental concepts of open source development. They ought to go read ESR's CatB actually...that would probably be quite informative. We have a long history of projects working on the same code with different ethos/telos. That's why PaleMoon forked from Firefox...or even IceWeasel before that. That's why we have so many different distros all packaging damn near the same products. If you don't like what some existing group is doing, you take the code and you build your own group and let people choose which project they want to support. What you don't do is try to destroy the existing group out of spite. There's absolutely no reason for that.

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (33 children)

            by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (#740200) Homepage Journal

            That's perfectly reasonable.

            If you don't like the way Linux is being run, FORK! There's no reason to try to fight the Linux development team, even if you disagree with the way they are handling it. That's what the GPLv2 is for.

            Anyone who tries to withdraw their copyright in violation of the GPLv2 needs to be put on a wall of shame, and blacklisted from participation in the Open Source ecosystem. The system can't survive if people withdraw their supposedly irrevocable licenses.

            --
            The Government is a Bird
            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM (15 children)

              by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM (#740207) Journal

              And those who don't like how Linux is being run now aren't considering forking. They're threatening to pull their code from the project, thus gutting it. That's about as far from an open source ethos as one gets IMVHO.

              --
              This sig for rent.
              • (Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:45PM (14 children)

                by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:45PM (#740212) Homepage Journal

                Yeah. I understand why they are mad. I actually agree with them that what the Linux team is doing is wrong. But I also think the GPLv2 gives you the right to fork for exactly this type of ideological disagreement. We can have separate projects with different ethical rules that are based on the same code, thanks to the GPLv2.

                --
                The Government is a Bird
                • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:51PM (13 children)

                  by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:51PM (#740264) Journal

                  Yes, but if I get this correctly -- and I might *not* and I invite correction if I'm misunderstanding -- but the threat here isn't that separate projects based on the same code will happen. Instead you have contributors asserting that they will *pull* "their" code from the kernel and not allow it to be used anymore for the Linux kernel. They effectively gut the kernel this way. GNU says you "shouldn't" do this (in relation to a program being used *only* under the latest GNU license / being able to revoke earlier terms under which software is released) but it does not say it "cannot" be done.

                  --
                  This sig for rent.
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:31PM (#740289)

                    The code is already distributed with license agreements, your comment does not make sense.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:46PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:46PM (#740380)

                      I think it makes perfect sense but perhaps I didn't explain myself.

                      RTFA, the "possibly in response to" post and also figure out what ESR means by a "killswitch revolt".

                      I believe the notion is that the individual contributors of code have the right to unlicense *their contributions* to the codebase.

                      It's not just the codebase that is licensed but the individual contributions that went into it is the theory are each individually licensed by the code writer(s), I think. (Which may not be correct nor legal but I think this is the theory being feared). The question is: Is there a license by the contributor to the codebase and can that license be revoked? That seems to be an open-ended question that nobody knows the answer to IMO. GPL 3 explicitly states the term of license agreement is the length of Copyright of the work, thus giving a definitive sunset in time to the license. GPL 2 makes no such assurance other than a vague intent to give an explicit copyright to the licenser. But without a term it opens the license legal challenge - a potential argument is that the term is perpetual.... which in the UK may not be "forever". [theregister.co.uk] And in the U.S., IANAL and IMVVHO, one might argue that a perpetual license is not legal either - perpetuity is generally not allowed in estate law, for instance. It may be seen as generally unconscionable to give an eternal license to something - it's not reasonable. Which would then open up the other terms to artificial sunset the was the British decision did ("perpetual" meaning "as long as both sides keep agreeing.")

                      This might not be legal nor correct. Personally I think it is understood one is offering one's contribution in a project one knows to be distributed under GPL means one relinquishes one's own copyright of what has been written to the project. But again, that's an unchallenged interpretation. (IS there a "by submitting this code to us you agree...." clause when one offers up a patch?) But apparently ESR thinks there is a potential that this can in fact happen and might be legal.

                      Or I might be wrong. But now you can disagree with what I've written.

                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:21PM (10 children)

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:21PM (#740327)

                    I believe that "pulling" their code is beyond their rights under GPL2. They can pull their support, but nothing stops the project from effectively telling them to "fork off" and use their existing code in its current state, and continue to develop it as long as they remain compliant with the GPL2 terms. Continued developers also gain author/owner rights in the derivative work, they just don't have the right to violate GPL2 on the parts they incorporated.

                    ffmpeg and libav managed to fork and continue down both paths (for a while, at least) and from what I saw of the junior wannabe lawyering in the ffmpeg camp, if there were a way to "pull their code" or anything else hurtful they could come up with, it would have been done.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:24PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:24PM (#740361)

                      FFMPEG is arguably an illegal product anyhow the only reason it's tolerated is because so many MPEG group members find the project to be incredibly useful.

                    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:17PM (7 children)

                      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:17PM (#740437) Journal

                      Maybe, but by agreeing to contribute the code to a GPL2 project is the contributor therefore licensing "their" code - the exact code they typed - under GPL2? That may seem obvious but unless the project has a disclaimer to the effect of "If you give this to us to use you're doing so under GPL2 [or other license or a public domain waiver]" upon submission the author of that snippet may maintain that they hold copyright to what they contributed, and fully have the right to revoke use to it.

                      I don't know that I buy that. Would the law apply common sense that if it's a GPL2 project and you know it you're obviously ceding your rights to it? The author hasn't been paid by the maintainer so "work for hire" copyrighting may or may not apply AFAICT. But I think that's the theory being argued, and I do think it could become a matter for a court to determine if it were pushed that far. Here's someplace else summarizing it the same way [lulz.com] as far as my understanding of the theory.

                      --
                      This sig for rent.
                      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:13PM (6 children)

                        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:13PM (#740503)

                        "Common sense" aka common law, was developed centuries ago by the aristocracy to justify protection of their property. Those aspects of common law and GPL are almost orthogonal.

                        If you want to extrapolate intent - publishing your work for all to see, use, copy and extend, for years, under a license like GPL2, would to me, establish intent to share, not intent to spring a novel submarine trap costing the world at large potentially billions while giving you little beyond personal satisfaction when somebody calls you out for being a misogynist pig.

                        If GPL2 explicitly included language such as "right to retract" then I could see it, but inferring the right to retract from common law and the presence of explicit exclusion of right to retract under GPL3 does not seem like a reasonable conclusion. If the contributors specifically selected GPL2 when GPL3 was offered, perhaps, but mostly the GPL2 works were licensed GPL2 before GPL3 was even an option. Again, if the contributors had previously published an explicit reason for sticking with GPL2 including their desire to retain the right to retract, that could be reasonable. Attempting to basically retroactively apply it after they were banned from the project just furthers justification for banning them in the first place.

                        As for that, I think the ban hammer is ridiculously heavy handed for managing this type of group, but lack of any kind of cultural oversight these many decades is also negligent. It's true: some people mature and learn that being an egotistical jackass really isn't all that satisfying in the end, some don't, but most can be swayed by a little social nudging. Meritocracy sounds great, until merit is being judged by the jackasses.

                        --
                        🌻🌻 [google.com]
                        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:49AM (1 child)

                          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:49AM (#740579) Journal

                          I agree that those aspects of common law property rights (as extended to intellectual property) and GPL are orthagonal. And I can also agree that a person knowingly contributing to a GPL project should be aware that they are contributing to a project where the final work is shared and modifiable - preserving some rights but intentionally modifying the right of copy. Those aspects (and others) speak against that theory that one can retract GPL 2 licensed code contributions as others have asserted.

                          However, much of law does not judge based on what reasonable intent is but rather what has been explicitly agreed to. And if you haven't explicitly agreed to signing away your copyright (by work for hire law which I think requires consideration or some other contractual agreement - I don't know that even willful public domain committing has ever been tested in law), these days copyright fully attaches and is vested in the writer. This is combined with cases in estate law which may or may not be parallel saying you cannot establish an irrevocable agreement in perpetuity. It is parallel to contract law that an eternal term is unconscionable. Since V2 doesn't seem to have a time limit (and I might be wrong there - others have said things which seems like I might be) the entirety of the license might be found invalid at its root. This line comes back to if the right to copy has not been explicitly granted it cannot be implicitly taken away... and again - what did the contributor expressly agree to when submitting the code?

                          That dichotomy between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 is what I think has not been tested. It's my take on what I see each side saying and what a court might well find points of law to be argued in a case.

                          But before a ban hammer is judged as ridiculously heavy handed I want to see who it is truly being swung at first. I get the impression that there's a lot of fear about who's in charge. It would be interesting to see where that fear is really coming from. There is a difference between social maladeptness / being an egotistical jackass and engaging in the behaviors that are described in the code of conduct, for example.

                          --
                          This sig for rent.
                          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:56AM

                            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:56AM (#740737)

                            combined with cases in estate law

                            There's an awesome thought: Linux kernel contributor passes away, their rights pass to their heirs, heirs decide to fsck up the world and pull the rights to the code. I don't see a reasonable judge setting any kind of precedent that would support this scenario.

                            --
                            🌻🌻 [google.com]
                        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:02AM (3 children)

                          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:02AM (#740637) Journal

                          Actually, reading elsewhere in the comments (about the position of Copyleft on GPL retractions) I picked up a little different modification that I wasn't getting betfore. GPL2 contributions are themselves subject to the GPL2 as the patcher is modifying the software and thus subject to accepting the license terms in order to submit their modification in the first place. (As opposed to thinking that the wrriting of the patched code itself carries its own copyright.) Still dunno, still think it could be tried in court, but the Copyleft interpretation takes away the right to revoke from a patch submitter IMVHO.

                          --
                          This sig for rent.
                          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:59AM (2 children)

                            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:59AM (#740738)

                            Anything can be tried in court.

                            Tangentially: I think it would be very difficult to find any significant piece of kernel code that's 51% "controlled" by people wanting to pull the rights. Besides, how do you determine % contribution to code? Blame line count is an insanely crappy metric: whitespace changes, etc. Even if you remove all whitespace editing, how do you rate importance of a style change vs a conceptual innovation? Particularly when many conceptual innovations actually have negative value.

                            --
                            🌻🌻 [google.com]
                            • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:34PM (1 child)

                              by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:34PM (#740796) Journal

                              True, anything can be tried, but a solid enough theory can get a summary dismissal after initial response assuming one provides both a better interpretation of law which is uncontestable and no matter of facts to determine in that assessment. You're still putting out lawyer money but not nearly as much.

                              On the tangent, though, yeah that 51% idea also assumes that a project still has all contributors. (Don't you need to find 51% of all parties who still have any submissions in the base? Or can withdrawn developers be excluded?) I'd think it would be 51% of the parties who've contributed - write one line that gets incorporated and you're officially a contributor with an interest under that twisted notion. Is there case law behind making that determination or would the first (next) court considering the issue get to write precedent for the determination? But if 51% of active contributors decide to make a change (allow a withdrawl) in advance then maybe it's thought that is insurance against it ever being actionable in a court. (Or maybe the whole theory got lifted from cryptocurrency transaction reversals and not actual coding at all???)

                              Another tangent: Revoking contributions depends entirely on the person(s) with the button to commit changes, and what that person(s) both will do and what a court might order that person(s) to do (and what weapons a court has to make its will stick). If the committer won't push the button and a court won't make that person push the button (either in trial or because the theory is either tested or will not be tested) and one still has no problem.

                              Something about the unconditionedwitness post reminds me of tax protesters.... "Here's a bunch of steps [with no case law behind the conglomeration] to achieve [a whole bunch of legal theories squashed together that sound good but don't necessarily mesh] and achieve your result [which sounds good until you actually think about how much common sense it violates. Which isn't necessarily a legal impediment but can't just be ignored without due legal consideration either.]" More I think about it, the more it reads like a quasi-legal framework that real lawyers may demolish easily.

                              --
                              This sig for rent.
                              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:23PM

                                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:23PM (#741072)

                                the more it reads like a quasi-legal framework that real lawyers may demolish easily.

                                As did the GPL at first, but I think it's slowly gaining legitimacy... until crap like this comes up.

                                --
                                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                    • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:27PM

                      by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:27PM (#740513)

                      I believe that "pulling" their code is beyond their rights under GPL2. They can pull their support, but nothing stops the project from effectively telling them to "fork off" and use their existing code in its current state, and continue to develop it as long as they remain compliant with the GPL2 terms...

                      And as long as they use the "old" code in the kernel the kernel must remain GPL2 - which means that, while the new project developers may have choice in who gets to contribute, they can't change the rules covering its final use.

                      --
                      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
            • (Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:43PM (15 children)

              by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:43PM (#740211) Journal

              If you don't like the way Linux is being run, FORK! There's no reason to try to fight the Linux development team, even if you disagree with the way they are handling it. That's what the GPLv2 is for.

              Anyone who tries to withdraw their copyright in violation of the GPLv2 needs to be put on a wall of shame, and blacklisted from participation in the Open Source ecosystem. The system can't survive if people withdraw their supposedly irrevocable licenses.

              Frankly, I think you've got that backwards. If there's this much disagreement over the CoC, then the people pushing it should be the ones forking rather than ripping apart the existing community just because they don't like how that community operates. If you've got a better governance idea, prove that it's better in a fair competition.

              • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:50PM (12 children)

                by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:50PM (#740220) Homepage Journal

                Ultimately I think Linus should decide. Interesting that he stepped down at this time. It creates a problem.

                I also agree that the CoC side should be the ones forking, not the other way around. But lets say that they don't, it doesn't give the anti-CoC group the right to violate GPLv2.

                Personally, I am considering suing anyone who threatens to withdraw their GPLv2 permissions for declaratory judgement in U.S. Court. Since that would affect my license as well, I have ample grounds to do so.

                Shall we test if the GPLv2 is indeed rescindable under U.S. law?

                --
                The Government is a Bird
                • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)

                  by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:15PM (#740234) Journal

                  The GPL v2 explicitly states that you must receive express permission from every author in order to change the terms of distribution for any contributed code:

                  10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

                  The CoC is attempting to add additional restrictions on what code can be distributed:

                  Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

                  Therefore, the new CoC violates the GPL unless every existing contributor consents to the change. And clearly they do not...

                  • (Score: 5, Informative) by termigator on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:59PM

                    by termigator (4271) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:59PM (#740270)

                    You are confusing distribution with modification. The CoC does not violate the GPL.

                    The “change” is not a change in licensing, which would require agreement of all contributors. Change in the code is allowed as long as changes follow the GPL when distributed.

                    For example, if I contribute code to a GPL-based project, my contribution is covered under the GPL. Someone else can the change my contributed code for whatever reason within the project and the release under the GPL. Otherwise, no one could ever fix bugs on code that was not directly contributed by them. Another way to look at it is the CoC adds to the list of reasons why code in project can be altered beyond the reasons of bug fixing and functional improvements.

                  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mr_mischief on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM

                    by mr_mischief (4884) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:32PM (#740447)

                    You're free to pull from master, make changes, and redistribute those under the GPLv2 whether or not you follow the CoC. That's redistribution.

                    You're not free to harass one of the maintainers and have your code merge upstream. You were never free to demand your code was accepted upstream in the first place. All that's changed with the CoC regarding the code is they can feel free to tell you they won't accept technically solid code from you upstream for non-technical reasons, and they can point to a codified list of reasons why.

                • (Score: 5, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:41PM (5 children)

                  by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:41PM (#740254) Homepage
                  "Interesting that he stepped down ..."

                  What's most interesting to me is that the mail in which he announced his withdrawal contained a matching pair of smart double-quotes, and a single smart apostrophe. Linus almost entirely sticks to ASCII, in particular on LKML. Which implies to me one of two things:
                  - he's hanging a flag upside down, or sticking up a middle digit - this is duress;
                  - he didn't actually write parts of his mail, somebody wrote them for him.
                  --
                  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:34PM (4 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:34PM (#740291)

                    Where is the evidence for this?

                    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:26PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:26PM (#740404)

                      Look for it yourself: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/00117.html?print=anz [iu.edu]

                      Great catch, FatPhil. Glad the "Funny" mod has been replaced by "Insightful" now. That is an indication that Linus could have been handed a declaration to submit under duress. We should try to identify what the last commit to the Linux tree was, in which Linus was still free to act.

                    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:15PM (2 children)

                      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:15PM (#740435) Homepage
                      Amazingly, the evidence for what I have claimed is in his mail is ...

                      wait for it ...

                      in his mail.
                      --
                      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:43PM (1 child)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:43PM (#740474)

                        Sorry, all the quotes and apostrophes look the same to me.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:56PM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:56PM (#740493)

                          The link doesn't display the text properly. This one [lkml.org] properly decodes the non-ASCII, and is probably a safer source anyway.

                          For instance:

                          Usually it’s just something I didn't want to deal with.

                          On the original link, it appears in my browser as:

                          Usually itâs just something I didn't want to deal with.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:50PM (2 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:50PM (#740306)

                  They will wait until they are ready to initiate legal proceedings, then rescind, and then sue anyone who ignores the rescission.

                  Would you like to be on the hook for 300,000 in statutory damages per violation, per copyright owner?

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM (#740324)

                    > on the hook for 300,000

                    Sure. First we interpret the "," as decimal separator (Euro standard) so this = "300". Then we choose the currency, I'll pick "Yen" so this becomes ~ USD $3

                    Your move?
                     

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:51AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:51AM (#740700)

                      Yea... you don't get to decide that.
                      The court, interpreting the statute does.
                      Haven't you ever read the copyright act?

              • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:31PM

                by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:31PM (#740516)

                ...If there's this much disagreement over the CoC, then the people pushing it should be the ones forking rather than ripping apart the existing community...

                I agree. Unfortunately, I can't afford the dollars needed to buy a voice on the Linux Foundation.

                --
                It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM (#740949)

                Agree.

                I don't personally have a problem with a CoC, but I might at some time in the future. I don't see why this has to be a normative project-level policy.

            • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:02PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:02PM (#740777)
              They DID try to fork it. Matthew Garrett (mjg59) forked Linux [github.com] and is currently at "18 commits ahead, 194376 commits behind torvalds:master." NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ON FUCKING "SOCIAL JUSTICE LINUX." Take a hint, SJWs. Fuck out of here.
          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:34PM

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:34PM (#740202) Journal

            Corporations, at least traditional ones, don't understand open source. (There are exceptions. I would say Google understands it.)

            You don't own or control open source.

            Open source is like a beehive and the corporation is like a bee keeper.

            The bees are free to leave at any time.

            If you make the bee hive attractive, well maintained, with a good workflow, and Microsoft free, then the bees will say and produce profitable honey for you.

            If you start screwing the bees, or spraying Microsoft around the place, the bees can and will leave.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:00PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:00PM (#740180)

        I was a minor Linux kernel hacker back in the day. I submitted patches starting in 1995, about 23 years ago. I stayed involved for a decade.

        Now I do cyberwar for a government contractor. There are SJW-inspired laws we have to pretend to follow, but mostly it's a patriotic hacker meritocracy.

        If I were still involved in Linux... I'd be in complete panic now. As it is, I feel awful knowing that Linux is starting to circle the drain.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:15PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:15PM (#740189) Journal

          I lack your credentials, but I share your anxiety. The new masters may decide that Linux security must be sacrificed for the benefit of . . . . whatever the hell. I can almost hear them chanting, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide!" There won't be any backdoors installed, instead all of the doors will be removed for the sake of transparency. When that starts happening, Linux will definitely need to fork, or everyone who takes security seriously will have to bail to BSD.

          • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:51PM

            by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:51PM (#740222)

            Kernel-level, admittedly an enormous task, but a sw developer (or group) could search / scan the Linux source, verify no backdoors exist, and make that source available. At some point absolute security is impossible, as we've seen hard disk boot code, BIOS, and now CPU bugs. You could run a 486 and older code-scanned Linux kernel and probably be okay, but again there are so many attack vectors...

            Beyond that, your distribution would need to be secure, and how could you ever be sure unless you scan all source-code.

            And of course we've seen firewall / gateway / router attacks...

        • (Score: 5, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:24PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:24PM (#740196)

          Would you say you would be in a complete kernel panic?

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:53PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:53PM (#740308)

          Want to pull your code? You are still the owner of it. A gratuitous license not supported by an interest is revocable at any time by the grantor.
          They didn't pay you a dime for the right to use your code, you simply allowed them to.
          You can rescind that permission.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:36AM (#740624)

          Now I do cyberwar for a government contractor.

          Send this link to your government. [8ch.net] The money trails behind this lead to Middle Eastern funders of terrorism.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (29 children)

        by zocalo (302) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (#740199)
        It's not the whole "equality" or "inclusion" aspects here that bother me; I'm all for that, and any sane meritocracy proponent would see that if you have a limited demographic for whatever reason then you are statistically likely to be missing out on merit-worthy contributions from people who are remaining outside the meritocracy because of the perceived demographic bias. Not that you need to reveal anything about your gender, orientation, beliefs, or whatever, that you don't feel comfortable doing in order to submit code for potential inclusion in the Linux kernel anyway, in this specific instance. The two aspects that really concern me are almost inevitable witchhunts that start (and I'm pretty confident that T'so will be far from the last of the major kernel hackers to be targetted), for which the mere allegation is enough to result in a ban, and the inevitable fall in quality that results. These people care nothing for the product; it's all about the agenda and to hell with the consequences. That make it just another form of extremism, and like most extremism it can't see when it is guilty of failing to meet its own standards - e.g. accusing T'so of being a "rape apologist" which is, in itself, a clear violation of the CoC. Ultimately, what you get is just another version of "no child left behind" and a lowest common denominator approach to everything - it'll just be a matter of time before they have Hollywood style "Well, we've code contribution boxes ticked for L, G, and B. What do we have from T that we chuck in there so we can put a tick in that box?" discussions, and don't dare mention the complete lack of a "CIS" box.

        That's absolutely no way to run a project of any kind, let alone develop software.
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:44PM (2 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:44PM (#740258) Journal

          You've hit on the biggest problem, the taking of offense where none was offered. There is literally nothing that one may say or do (including saying and doing nothing) that cannot be construed as an offense to another. A typical modern code of conduct fails to acknowledge that. The "offender" is presumed to have offended because someone has taken offense. All that remains is the punishment. Somehow, taking offense where none was offered is never considered as a possibility and so never carries a punishment or correction.

          As time goes on, the group is filled by people whose primary talent is being offended while all others are expelled one by one based on imaginary offenses.

          • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:34PM

            by coolgopher (1157) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:34PM (#740521)

            This post deserves a +10 mod imo.

          • (Score: 3, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:38PM

            by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:38PM (#740526)

            ...The "offender" is presumed to have offended because someone has taken offense. All that remains is the punishment. Somehow, taking offense where none was offered is never considered as a possibility and so never carries a punishment or correction...

            So militant SJWs have learned from the DMCA?

            --
            It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:47PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:47PM (#740261)

          So basically what you are saying is "only white male anglo-saxon persons should have the keys to write code". Is that right?

          • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:11PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:11PM (#740279)

            > So basically what you are saying is "only...

            It looks like that is what you are hearing -- time to have your ears checked.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:03PM

            by sjames (2882) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:03PM (#740313) Journal

            Case in point

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:43PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:43PM (#740378)

            You're a russian troll. Right now there are multiple government agencies and blackhat groups independently working to uncover your identities.
            Given that reality winner was willing to go to prison to leak information about you guys to the press, it's perfectly reasonable to expect people will be leaking intelligence on you guys to blackhat groups.
            You will all be hunted to the ends of the earth.
            Tell me how much did they pay you per post?
            Hope it was worth it.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:03PM (18 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:03PM (#740271) Homepage
          "... any sane meritocracy proponent would see ..."

          You do realise that the CoC being thrust in Linus' and Linux's face was written by a very-far-from-sane person? One who definitely does not have the best intentions of any code-base, or project viewed in terms of the programs it contains, at heart? She even came up with this doozie: "We acknowledge the value of non-technical contributors as equal to the value of technical contributors." in her SCUM Manife^W^WPost-Meritocracy Manifesto: https://postmeritocracy.org/ (search for 'Patricia' on that page, if you want some insight into one of the rusty nailfiles being held to Linus' throat currently). Meritocracy is now wrong and bad - did you not get the memo?

          She does claim to be a capable programmer, but given this unverified tweet: https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/upload_2017-5-21_15-43-3-png.223283/ , I reckon she doesn't have as much merit in the field as she thinks she does. Some of the commits commits commits here:
          https://github.com/CoralineAda/alice/commits/master?after=b18025ba5152cccdaa8c07f948dd39ce89981fa9+34 imply that (a) she's not a very competent coder at all; and (b) either (i) she doesn't know how to use version control, as she's publishing her dirty laundry that nobody should have any interest in; or (ii) she's deliberately bumping her contribution count in order to pretend to be more productive. None of which reflects well on her. Unless competence really is as unimportant as she claims it is, in which case she's just doing great.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:35PM (15 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:35PM (#740292)

            You do realise you're arguing ad hominem?

            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:24PM (8 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:24PM (#740442)

              You do realise you're arguing ad hominem?

              It's not a personal attack, it's context that questions motivations. A meritocracy discriminates only against incompetence. If you've been in the workforce some time you've already seen the incompetent and malicious play the discrimination card. You must never let these shits control the frame.

              contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

              None of this has anything to do with code or engineering decisions, right of the bat it's grievance mongering bullshit.

              Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

              * The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances
              * Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
              * Public or private harassment
              * Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission
              * Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

              What I consider inappropriate in a professional setting is identity politics. These rules are inappropriate, they are infantilising and seek to undermine the personal agency of contributors.

              The TAB is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

              How very Kafkaesque! Using the pretense of inclusion to exclude people based on mere allegations is outright sociopathic. Do not let the shits control the frame!

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:03PM (7 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:03PM (#740495)

                The parent post is not discussing meritocracy. It's not discussing the CoC. It's discussing the person the parent believes is pushing the agenda. Sorry. Ad hominem. = "To the person". And this is textbook.

                What such rules suggest is that the personal agency of the contributor is undermined. And it should be. When that person uses their agency to engage in unprofessional behavior such as sexualized language, trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, personal attacks, harassment, and doxxing. Things a Foundation can be sued for and put out of business if it doesn't make it clear that such behaviors are unacceptable. Unless you personally have the multithousands of dollars and want to pay the legal costs of such a lawsuit yourself. Which would likely kill Linux much faster than any other method. More than anything else that could have been a convincer to Linus that he needed to mend his ways.

                But aside from that, the behaviors that the CoC outlines are in fact unacceptable in a professional setting. Period. And that likely is threatening to those who engage or condone such behaviors.

                Me, I hope instead Linus sees that his behavior was wrong. For decades. And now he's willing to change and see Linux change as well instead of fighting it when he's already ceded that he has behaved in hostile fashion.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:26PM (6 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:26PM (#740512)

                  The parent post is not discussing meritocracy. It's not discussing the CoC.

                  That is the context, you're removing the context. You are being intellectually dishonest. You are playing games!

                  What such rules suggest is that the personal agency of the contributor is undermined. And it should be. When that person uses their agency to engage in unprofessional behavior such as sexualized language

                  The people stuffing their CoC down contributors proverbial throats object to sexualized language do they?

                  trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, personal attacks, harassment, and doxxing. Things a Foundation can be sued for and put out of business if it doesn't make it clear that such behaviors are unacceptable.

                  Bullshit!

                  Unless you personally have the multithousands of dollars and want to pay the legal costs of such a lawsuit yourself. Which would likely kill Linux much faster than any other method.

                  Adults are responsible for their own behavior, this isn't a school yard.

                  But aside from that, the behaviors that the CoC outlines are in fact unacceptable in a professional setting. Period. And that likely is threatening to those who engage or condone such behaviors.

                  No, they're not unacceptable in a professional setting. They're unacceptable in "polite" settings where walking on eggshells around anti-social behavior is expected. Only those who feel threatened by frank, open discussion seek to close it down.

                  Me, I hope instead Linus sees that his behavior was wrong.

                  Calling out bad code, stupid ideas and shitty behavior is wrong is it?

                  he's already ceded that he has behaved in hostile fashion.

                  Hostile towards bad code, stupid ideas, breakage and general fuckwittery! The proof of the pudding is in the eating, explain how Linux was failing under this style of leadership.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:47AM (5 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:47AM (#740603)

                    My oh my... Struck a nerve, did I? Let's see....
                    1) Sexualized language being prohibited is in the CoC. You're welcome to go look it up. So yep.
                    2) On a nonprofit being able to be sued for a volunteer for Title VII harassment... All the following is IANAL. It's not settled yet seems in the winds. Have fun reading. [nonprofitissues.com] That case settled and parts were overturned, but cracked open the notion that volunteers may open Title VII claims even if they are not paid. If you want more reading [pbpatl.org] on how nonprofit organizations may be liable for the acts of their volunteers. But let's just note that if you don't think a project Foundation can get hit by a lawsuit for the actions of a benevolent dictator for life.... well... I'm sure you'll see sooner or later.
                    3) If you meant instead that such behaviors as those I outlined are socially acceptable... yeah. Good luck with that.
                    4) No, adults are not solely responsible for their own behavior when a larger organization condones that behavior by not intervening. See ANY number of lawsuits which don't go after the individual harassing but the organization which blatantly allows such harassments to occur without intervention after complaining. Have fun reading part II [eeoc.gov].
                    5) Find me a professional setting where a court has said such behaviors - as a matter of routine business and not isolated slights or incidents - is an acceptable procedure. I await with baited breath but I won't hold it.
                    6) Telling people that a situation isn't a dick-sucking contest, or advising them to shut the fuck up, or suggesting "please just kill yourself now," however hyperbolic or tongue-in-cheek, is NOT acceptable behavior. No. And I suspect you well know that and are intentionally being obtuse. And no - calling out bad ideas and code does not make up for that... that only requires logic. Which is easy.
                    7) No. You first explain how such behaviors are EVER acceptable. You tell me how abusing someone is justified. Then maybe I'll think about answering your concerns. Because if you can't see abuse when it is in front of your nose you won't understand the answers anyway.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @11:53AM (4 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @11:53AM (#740748)

                      1) Sexualized language being prohibited is in the CoC. You're welcome to go look it up. So yep.

                      So you agree those behind the CoC are using "sexualized language" in the form of sexual innuendo and have effectively volunteered themselves for sanction under the very rules they seek to impose on others?

                      But let's just note that if you don't think a project Foundation can get hit by a lawsuit for the actions of a benevolent dictator for life.... well... I'm sure you'll see sooner or later.

                      Why would a foundation be hit with a lawsuit because the guy who started the project calls someone out on their bullshit? 1A expressly prohibits congress from enacting any such law and if you're implying any other behavior, that is not opinion but misrepresentation and legally actionable defamation. At the very least it is a personal attack which would see you metaphorically sodomized by the CoC you so clearly love. See how it works yet?

                      3) If you meant instead that such behaviors as those I outlined are socially acceptable... yeah. Good luck with that.

                      If you're making the case it's not socially acceptable to call a CoC a CoC (which you've done) then you've already fallen afoul of your own rules. See how it works yet?

                      4) No, adults are not solely responsible for their own behavior when a larger organization condones that behavior by not intervening.

                      Nonsense, non-intervention in interpersonal politics does not and cannot imply condoning the behavior of parties involved.

                      5) Find me a professional setting where a court has said such behaviors - as a matter of routine business and not isolated slights or incidents - is an acceptable procedure. I await with baited breath but I won't hold it.

                      Why would a court be ruling on non-actionable social behavior?

                      6) Telling people that a situation isn't a dick-sucking contest, or advising them to shut the fuck up, or suggesting "please just kill yourself now," however hyperbolic or tongue-in-cheek, is NOT acceptable behavior. No. And I suspect you well know that and are intentionally being obtuse. And no - calling out bad ideas and code does not make up for that... that only requires logic. Which is easy.

                      Absolutely is acceptable professional behavior when someone is trying it on. Don't like it, don't submit shitty code or waste peoples time with your nonsense.

                      7) No. You first explain how such behaviors are EVER acceptable. You tell me how abusing someone is justified. Then maybe I'll think about answering your concerns. Because if you can't see abuse when it is in front of your nose you won't understand the answers anyway.

                      No you! [wiktionary.org] You tell me how doing a Kay Sievers, refusing to fix your breakage and attempting to project blame elsewhere doesn't deserve a strongly worded reprimand. I want you to explain why being impolite or insulting when reprimanding an individual behaving like that is not "professional" but the bad behavior itself somehow is.

                      Key, I'm f*cking tired of the fact that you don't fix problems in the
                      code *you* write, so that the kernel then has to work around the
                      problems you cause.

                      Greg - just for your information, I will *not* be merging any code
                      from Kay into the kernel until this constant pattern is fixed.

                      This has been going on for *years*, and doesn't seem to be getting any
                      better. This is relevant to you because I have seen you talk about the
                      kdbus patches, and this is a heads-up that you need to keep them
                      separate from other work. Let distributions merge it as they need to
                      and maybe we can merge it once it has been proven to be stable by
                      whatever distro that was willing to play games with the developers.

                      But I'm not willing to merge something where the maintainer is known
                      to not care about bugs and regressions and then forces people in other
                      projects to fix their project. Because I am *not* willing to take
                      patches from people who don't clean up after their problems, and don't
                      admit that it's their problem to fix.

                      Kay - one more time: you caused the problem, you need to fix it. None
                      of this "I can do whatever I want, others have to clean up after me"
                      crap.

                      Effective people are disagreeable and don't put up with bullshit, deal with it because nobody sane gives a fuck if you or anybody else is offended!

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:22PM (3 children)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:22PM (#740764)

                        Good luck, bud. You're a liability waiting to happen.

                        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:13PM (2 children)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:13PM (#740811)

                          You're a liability waiting to happen.

                          Personal attack, great to see you living up to the standards you would impose on others.

                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)

                            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:14PM (#740875)

                            No, but explaining why isn't worthwhile. Like I said, good luck.

                            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:49PM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:49PM (#740901)

                              Totalitarian regimes [historyguide.org] -- thanks to technology and mass communications -- take over control of every facet of the individual's life. Everything is subject to control -- the economy, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, science, history and sport. Thought itself becomes both a form of social control as well as a method of social control. Those of you familiar with Orwell's premonitionary novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, should have an easy time understanding this development.

            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:23PM (5 children)

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:23PM (#740464) Homepage
              Not at all. My argument is that she has no interest in rewarding or admiring competence as she is not as competent as she once, when she was a he who was a nerdy bloke, wished she was. Highlighting the limits of her capabilies *is* the argument.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:05PM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:05PM (#740496)

                So you aren't talking about the CoC itself, or about the policies, but about her. Thanks for the confirmation.

                • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:39PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:39PM (#740527)

                  So you aren't talking about the CoC itself, or about the policies, but about her. Thanks for the confirmation.

                  The comment occurred in the context of discussion about the CoC and was speculation on motivation. If you don't like the messenger or the critique of the identity politics pushed by those behind these CoC's, here's a transgender psychopath spelling out the same thing. [psychogendered.com]

                • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)

                  by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday September 27 2018, @12:53AM (#740556) Homepage
                  I was responding to a comment about a putative "sane meritocracy proponent", which is clearly a hypothetical person. Therefore it only makes sense to discuss the relevant attributes of the relevant person in my response.

                  Is being as stupid as you are painful?

                  No, that's not ad hominem either, it's just an insult.
                  --
                  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
                  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:17AM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:17AM (#740612)

                    I'm sorry I made you desperate enough that you had to stoop to insult. And yep, it is ad hominem since now you're trying to conlude on a point about my intelligence instead of what I actually said. You are arguing the arguer and not the argument. Fail.

                    And my point is that this entire subthread from the grandparent "sane meritocracy proponent" to your explicitness is discussing the merits of people. Not of the arguments involved. Discussing the "relevant attributes of the relevant person" is already off track even if you didn't initiate it.

                    But I'll bow out now as my point has been made, whether you can comprehend that or not.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @12:44AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2018, @12:44AM (#741134)
                      Oh dear. Poor anonymous coward troll doesn't understand the difference between "instead of" and "as well as".

                      Conclusion of idiocy confirmed.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM

            by zocalo (302) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:19PM (#740323)
            Absolutely; I'm talking about two distinct groups there. The first are those that merely want to encourage as many people to be included in their meritocracy as possible, including through such things as Codes of Conduct or whatever term is chosen for the community guidelines that encourage that inclusiveness. The meritocracy still applies, but now with more contributors with a more diverse range of views/ideas, meaning more chance of quality submissions, and hopefully better end results. Everyone benefits.

            The second group are those that take those tools and use them as the equivalent of a torch or pitchfork to go on a crusade to further an agenda at the expense of whatever it is they are involved in, and it's something goes far beyond the CoC and LGBT+ issues - you see a similar mindset from religious extremists too, hence my use of "fanatics". Ultimately, this is group cares more about their agenda than the project, which is fair enough, but the disruption that they invariably cause is absolutely not fair enough. What's needed is a set of guidelines encourages the inclusiveness *within* the meritocracy of OSS projects and allows the fanatics to be excised like the cancer they are. The Linux CoC is not that set of guidelines and its adoption - or at least it's application - needs to be re-thought, fast.
            --
            UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:44PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:44PM (#740456)

            Some of the commits commits commits here:
            https://github.com/CoralineAda/alice/commits/master?after=b18025ba5152cccdaa8c07f948dd39ce89981fa9+34 [github.com] imply that (a) she's not a very competent coder at all; and (b) either (i) she doesn't know how to use version control, as she's publishing her dirty laundry that nobody should have any interest in; or (ii) she's deliberately bumping her contribution count in order to pretend to be more productive

            You're suggesting CoralineAda is bumping commits to look good on a side project they're the only meaningful contributor to?

            https://github.com/CoralineAda/alice/graphs/contributors [github.com]

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by gringer on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:27AM (1 child)

          by gringer (962) on Thursday September 27 2018, @10:27AM (#740727)

          I'll start with my own suggestion for a code of conduct:

          Everyone's contributions are welcome. Insulting or demeaning language, sexual content, and slurs are not welcome. Please stay on topic.

          That's it; a simple statement of general principles, open for interpretation, with a generally positive expectation of the community. I have grave concerns for the code of conduct that has been presented here for the Linux kernel.

          It's not the whole "equality" or "inclusion" aspects here that bother me; I'm all for that, and any sane meritocracy proponent would see that if you have a limited demographic for whatever reason then you are statistically likely to be missing out on merit-worthy contributions from people who are remaining outside the meritocracy because of the perceived demographic bias.

          It also looked good for me... up until about this point:

          Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting

          If you are presenting mere examples, don't complicate them by making more general statements. It got worse pretty quickly from that point on:

          Maintainers are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior.

          The maintainers have a particular skill: maintaining code. They may also have other skills, but this is not guaranteed, and forcing them to do something they're not good at is a recipe for disaster. Maintainers who are aware of this would probably keep silent in the face of a code of conduct like this, to avoid speaking out their concerns, for fear of being shot down. But that's precisely where this code of conduct drives the final nail in the coffin, in the last sentence:

          Maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other members of the project’s leadership.

          This is not a good faith code of conduct. It assumes that the community is generally hostile, and the only reason for silence or inaction is support of that hostility.

          In the interest of providing some more constructive criticism about my concerns, here are a few more general points:

          Communities don't need to put up with undesirable behaviour, but it's a community problem, and should be dealt with by the community itself. Someone helicoptering in and spitting out their dislike for the conduct of the community is about as helpful as an old, established community member that attacks the opinions of everyone that disagrees with them. Ideally, all community members should try to be responsible for immunising the community against harmful behaviour, so that the ones who can't do that (for whatever reason: social, time, or otherwise) are still protected. Discussion about undesirable behaviour should be open, and carried out within the community. Management of repercussions should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and should not be the sole charge of a single person or the same old group of people. Change must come from within. Anyone who wants to change a community should either encourage an existing community member (in a non-coercive fashion) to translate for them, or learn the culture of the community first before they try to change it.

          If a person's behaviour is unacceptable, they might not know that themselves, or may assume that it's okay because no one is saying anything. Others might not mention anything, because the person carrying out the unacceptable behaviour is a genius (or similar), and there's an impression that they'd lash out and leave the community, taking their expertise with them and throwing away the key. I don't think this needs to be a concern for two reasons:

          1. If the person is a genius (or similar), they are probably fairly good at learning. If they are taught that a particular behaviour is unacceptable, and that continuing the behaviour will result in negative consequences, they should quickly learn a more appropriate way to interact with others.
          2. Unacceptable behaviour is probably shutting out other points of view. There are probably other experts who would be able to fill the void left by the person carrying out the unacceptable behaviour.

          Finally, I think that silence is okay. It's useful to understand what that silence means (in particular, that most people will interpret silence as agreement or approval), but sometimes silence can be the only manageable defence against an attack. It's okay to be silent, and punishing people for their silence will only serve to drive away the quiet people that are waiting patiently for their turn to speak.

          If anyone's interested in improving the Neutral Code of Conduct that I started this comment with, feel free to visit my GitLab repository on it:

          https://gitlab.com/gringer/NCoC/ [gitlab.com]

          --
          Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
          • (Score: 2, Interesting) by evilcam on Friday September 28 2018, @02:13AM

            by evilcam (3239) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 28 2018, @02:13AM (#741159)

            This seems like a really weird argument for the FOSS world to get involved in.
            On the one hand there is clearly a problem where contributes to Open Source projects are acting like jerks, and because cis-het-white-men are the majority of contributors this is manifesting with certain language. But having read the CoC and several of the review comments, I really think this is a storm in a teacup.

            Keep committing your code.
            Keep providing feedback on other people's commits.
            Just don't be a dick about it; there are ways to provide feedback without saying "This code fucking sucks" and hurting people's feelings.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:14PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:14PM (#740785)

          I'm was a bit surprised by how much controversy a CoC sparked. Then someone pointed me to a discussion in a different project about a gender field in a profile page where the question was what to add beside male and female. There were people who suggested to drop the entire gender field, because gender shouldn't matter in a software project, and someone who identified neither as male or female was offended by the suggestion because they needed the reassurance of knowing they were accepted and that apparently wasn't obvious enough without the gender field.

          Ok, I get what people get upset about, that is ridiculous.

          But I'm still surprised at the apparent inability to write a CoC that adresses this. Why not state that the project is not about religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, culture, political preference and so on, is neutral on those issues, and the project is not a platform for discussing those issues. It's strictly about the code being developed. Anything expressed in code, comments, commits, on mailing lists and whatever else the project uses to communicate should respect that neutrality. Take discussions about those subjects elsewhere. If there are complaints about people's conduct that will exclusively be judged on how they behave within the project. Use derogatory language about a category of people that has nothing to do with the project and you're out of bounds; complain about such behaviour done outside the project and you're out of bounds too. Stay on topic, in other words.

          I'm sure this doesn't address everything. What's polite in one culture may be extremely rude in another, and what's polite in the other culture might be so indirect and unclear in the first that it is perceived as a lack of honesty. One shouldn't have to walk on eggs while communicating out of fear that someone might be offended though, don't start with assuming the worst when you don't like something. So a CoC should not be enforced too strictly, it's a reference point for when a situation is getting out of hand. That should be stated as part of the CoC.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:47PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:47PM (#740168)

      Then you didn't pay enough attention. It's far from pseudointellectual babbling.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:51PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:51PM (#740172)

        Strict ethoi are typically functional glue only for small groups at the margins of society; minority regious groups are the best-studied case. The larger and more varied your group is, the more penalty there is for trying to be too normative.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)

          by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM (#740191)

          Makes perfect sense to me, and I had to learn a couple words on the fly. Though I suspect regious was a typo for religious, as the available definitions don't seem to fit in context.

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:06PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:06PM (#740275) Homepage
            Yeah, those pooooor royals on the outskirts of society! Won't anyone think of the royal babies?
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:49PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:49PM (#740218)

          I disagree. An entire culture has an ethos at whatever level that it functions at. Many cultures do have strict ethoi - look at the Muslim world for examples, and historically you can find many Christian communities the same way and you can go back at least to Sparta and I'm sure beyond that. You can disagree that those cultures are "right" but they do exist. Plus, lack of ethoi are *also* norms if they are consciously or unconsciously expressed. Thus you see in societies with stricter norms a punishment for not being normative enough as well - fail to rub the mud in your belly when everyone expects will be punished as well.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 29 2018, @12:50PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 29 2018, @12:50PM (#741774) Journal

            I disagree.

            About what?

            You can disagree that those cultures are "right" but they do exist.

            No one claimed these cultures didn't exist. So that can't be your point of disagreement. Nor were they claiming the cultures weren't "right". Another point.

            Thus you see in societies with stricter norms a punishment for not being normative enough as well - fail to rub the mud in your belly when everyone expects will be punished as well.

            Who was saying otherwise?

            So what is it you actually disagree with?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:08PM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:08PM (#740229)

      I have no idea what that was

      Of course not, if you didn't read it. I wonder why you think you are qualified to judge a text that you didn't read.

      Or did you lie in your title?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:29PM (9 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:29PM (#740245)

        I stopped reading it when it became too hard to parse and began heavily referring to speculative philosophical concepts. None of that has anything to do with whats going on here.

        Its a group of "newcomers" attempting to force their will on people who created something great and take control of it, when those creators even gave them an easy path to taking the fruits of their work and using it/modifying it for themselves.

        There is zero point to talking about ethos and telos regarding this, even if they are real things.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:43PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:43PM (#740257)

          So you didn't understand the part you read, and you didn't read the part that describes how it applies to what is going on, but yet you feel qualified to claim that it doesn't apply at all. Yeah, right, makes absolutely sense. </sarcasm>

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:20PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:20PM (#740325)

            You've made two posts now without explaining what it is you think was missed.

            • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:57PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:57PM (#740428)

              You missed the part you didn't read, genius.

        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:23PM (1 child)

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:23PM (#740328) Homepage Journal

          I stopped reading it when it became too hard to parse and began heavily referring to speculative philosophical concepts.

          ESR always introduces philosophical concepts in an effort to understand and explain what's really going on.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:40PM (#740450)

            It's he the one who eats his toe jam, or is that the other one?

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:50PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:50PM (#740341)

          Are you by chance a conservative leaning person?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:21PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:21PM (#740357)

            No.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:48PM (#740382)

            Abusing philosophy like this would be like writing the spec for a production node.js microservice in mathematical notation.
            It can be done but it's just fucking confusing. Besides it just encourages more people to bandy about more philosophy 101 bullshit they don't even begin to understand.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:37PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:37PM (#740294)

      Linus probably bought the wrong plane tickets on purpose

      I'd guess he had already heard through the grapevine that the conference was going to be what it was, a decapitation strike. He saw no reason to buy a ticket to attend his own execution.

      ESR is trying to be diplomatic but that won't work. The people who now run Linux do not care about any of it. They are simply SJW locust who saw massive resources at the Linux Foundation and wanted them. They will now proceed to kill Linux and wear its skin. Pretty safe bet Intel and the other big corporate sponsors aren't just doing it because of their own SJW infestation, it is also business.

      Linus was the single obstacle to ensuring a problem like this never recurs with is veto of a stable binary kernel ABI. Get that implemented and both free drivers and more important hardware documentation will vanish behind NDAs. Kiss *BSD goodbye and any hope of a new upstart that will disrupt the market. They did not enjoy Linux turning the market upside down, they will ensure it never happens again. Combine with the so far unbreakable DRM built into modern CPUs and it is a simple thing to only hand out the keys to locked device drivers to trusted and signed kernels. Game over. The Linux kernel stays in a git repo and retains the illusion of being open but is dead. As hooting misshapen demons who couldn't write clean Python code run the place.

      The "Killswitch" won't work either. Forking is the only answer. And quickly. If the majority of the competent contributors move the distributions will pull from the new tree, exactly like xorg killed XFree86, LibreOffice killed OpenOffice, etc. RedHat excepted, they will be the last holdout. But if the talent moves the rot will fester quickly in the vacuum and even RedHat will have little choice in a year or two. The biggest problem will come with most of the major contributors working for major corporations who will get told by their HR depts that switching will be a "hate crime."

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:53PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:53PM (#740385)

      Short Version - the "Linux Project" has stopped wearing diapers and is contemplating moving on from shorts too. A new level of maturity and corporateness has arrived. Fine. Great. Just keep them distros rolling and keep it open and free (and that free too).

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:16PM (#740436)

        We've already seen this in firefox. It means linux will be a testing ground for microsoft and google where they force new unwanted features on their users while removing desirable ones.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:50PM (#740475)

        Short Version - the "Linux Project" has stopped wearing diapers

        By appeasing crybullies and treating contributors like children? Pffft!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:14PM (#740784)

        ...Hi Zoe.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:27PM (#740931)

      i dont know what kind of milk this guys mom made but i want some : ]

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