GNOME ponders its code of conduct [LWN.net]

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Posted Dec 17, 2009 12:06 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740)
In reply to: GNOME ponders its code of conduct by BrucePerens
Parent article: GNOME ponders its code of conduct

He was hurt in the past and then turned into this anti-anti boycott person. Since then Lefty's communications are precisely what the Gnome CoC says you shouldn't do. "Be respectful and considerate, Be patient and generous, Assume people mean well, Try to be concise." But say Respectful the rules, Free Software, FSF, GNU, etc. in front of him and he will explode.

But that is also the hard part. Clearly something went wrong with the communication in the past. Someone's feelings were hurt really badly. Now what? Just tell them "be the bigger person", follow these rules of respect for each other even though you feel others weren't following them in the past when talking to or about you? Could you do that?

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GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Posted Dec 17, 2009 18:07 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]

I ran into Lefty at a community summit out here a while back, and his emotional state was really high. He explained his beef with RMS with a cry in his voice, I kid you not. When I was less than sympathetic, he practically ran out of the room in tears.

Now, I am no stranger to getting emotional about things. But I've learned that it doesn't generally help me win the argument.

He really needs to focus on ACCESS, which, IMO, is a sinking ship. RMS isn't the big problem in front of him.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Posted Dec 19, 2009 18:20 UTC (Sat) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link]

Sigh. It's the holiday season, and while I'm not sure what Bruce is
attempting to accomplish with an otherwise content-free personal
attack like this, let me try to be charitable.

When I went to the Community Leadership Summit, I fell into a
conversation with Kirrily Robert, Dave Neary and several others about the
events at GCDS. Bruce joined us, at which point it became impossible for
anyone else to manage to complete a sentence without being interrupted.

Bruce explained to usat us, actuallyat some significant length, that Mr.
Stallman has undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome, that he was "incapable of
apologizing", and that the order-of-magnitude lower level of participation
by women in community-based software development versus proprietary
wasn't indicative of any sort of a problem at all.

These are pretty much the same statements he made here on LWN when
the discussion here turned to Stallman's GCDS keynote. They earned him
some significant criticism here, and they served him no better at the
Leadership Summit.

Since the conversation had turned at that point into a lecture from Bruce,
and one which was becoming increasingly unrewarding, Ialong with
Kirrily, Dave and several of the others who had been in conversationgave
up and left the room to seek more worthwhile pursuits. No one "ran", no
one was "in tears".

If I'm passionate about attempting to point out and address the problems
that I see in our community, like sexism, like attempts at imposed "group
think", I don't apologize for that. It's unfortunate thatrather than
responding to the issues themselvesothers are as passionate in
"attacking the messenger" to shame and harass those who do see these
things as problems into silence and sweep such issues under the rug.

GNOME ponders its code of conduct

Posted Dec 20, 2009 0:53 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]

David, I am really really sorry, but most of what you are relating is from the online conversation at LWN, not our personal conversation at the summit. I fear that you are confabulating. I am sorry and horrified.

And you are writing for a site called boycott-boycott-novell???

IMO very sincerely it isn't healthy. Take a break.

I am on a PDA-only connection for now and will not engage in this further, but anyway I have said all I should ever say about this. I hope you find a way out of it.

Bruce