Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:08 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Turmoil for Drupal by mjg59
Parent article: Turmoil for Drupal

You left out (0) -- The initial actions taken (combined with the undisputed public facts) badly fail the smell test, and as the saying goes, where there's um, smoke, there's fire.

I'm not accusing Drupal of actually lying here -- Indeed, I'm taking them at their word that Garfield did nothing illegal nor anything that violated the Drupal Code of Conduct. The problem is (as mentioned in TFA), if one assumes good faith and that this was entirely justified, what does that actually leave that would be grounds of excommunication? Perhaps I (and many others) lack sufficient imagination here, but I'm left scratching my head.

Meanwhile, back to the smell test, while I may be biased towards (2) due to personal experience, that doesn't necessarily mean that the CWG and BFD lied or acted in bad faith. Indeed, based on the outcome described in TFA, this appears to have been what happened, with the actual bad actor stepping down and apologizing (having violated the Drupal CoC and arguably commiting an actual crime or two along the way), along with governance changes that should hopefully prevent things from escalating to this point in the future. Not that it mitigates the damage already done -- to both Garfield and trust in Drupal's governance.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:23 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

The documented conflict resolution process permits someone to be ejected from some or all project spaces. There's no requirement that the basis of the conflict be something that would be an explicit breach of the code of conduct. We've been told that the people who had to make that decision as part of that process were given confidential information that led them to conclude that doing so would be in the best interests of the project. Reasonable people could certainly find that story implausible - the important thing is whether the Drupal community does, and whether the leadership retains the trust of its constituency.

Turmoil for Drupal

Posted Apr 29, 2017 4:39 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Reasonable people could certainly find that story implausible - the important thing is whether the Drupal community does, and whether the leadership retains the trust of its constituency.

Fair enough.

It appears that a sizeable portion of said community/constituency pitched quite a fit over the way this was initially handled, which led the CWG to backtrack and revisit it, followed by a promise to make some specific changes to the project governance. Time will tell if that's sufficient.