Re: removing toxic emailers

["Frosku" <frosku@frosku.com>]

On Fri Apr 16, 2021 at 3:47 AM BST, Ian Lance Taylor via Gcc wrote:
> This is about work. There are social aspects to free software, but
> it's not fundamentally a social activity. It's about getting
> something done, and for many people it's their job. For the sake of
> argument, I'm going to temporarily set aside all consideration of how
> people should behave in a professional setting, not because it doesn't
> matter, but just to try to clarify matters. Let's just think about
> the project.
>
> We want free software to succeed. Free software is more likely to
> succeed if more people work on it. If you are a volunteer, as many
> are, you can choose to spend your time on the project where you have
> to short-stop unwelcome advances, where you are required to deal with
> "men with poor social skills." Or you can choose to spend your time
> on the project where people treat you with respect. Which one do you
> choose?

The one where technical excellence is prioritized over social skills,
personally. If I have a choice between partaking in a project where I
have to walk on eggshells for fear of people coming with torches and
pitchforks to expel me because I was a bit too harsh in my critique or
posted an opinion on my personal blog which wasn't something they
agreed with, or a project where some of the other people are people I
wouldn't share a beer with but the technical standard is high and free
expression is generally valued, I would choose the latter.

This comes down to culture. I did not grow up in a culture where I was
taught that other people need to wrap me in cotton wool. I grew up in a
culture where arguments were judged on merit and generally as people we
accepted other peoples' rights to hold shitty opinions. For many of us,
the latter is more comfortable.

> Or perhaps you have a job that requires you to work on free software.
> Now, if you work on a project where the people act like RMS, you are
> being forced by your employer to work in a space where you face
> unwelcome advances and men who have "trouble recognizing boundaries."
> That's textbook hostile environment, and a set up for you to sue your
> employer. So your employer will never ask anyone to work on a project
> where people act like that--at least, they won't do it more than once.

I have never seen RMS act like that in a technical setting though, and
if he did, I think that would be a valid reason to remove him from the
mailing list and demand that GNU chooses someone else to represent
itself when communicating with GCC.

> In other words, having people who act in the way that you describe RMS
> as acting is actively harmful for a free software project, because it
> will discourage people from working on it.
>
> (Entirely separately, I don't get the slant of your whole e-mail. You
> can put up with RMS despite the boorish behavior you describe. Great.
> You're a saint. Why do you expect everyone else to be a saint? I
> don't meet with people who act like that, not more than once. Life is
> too short. I'll work with them if I must, but not if I don't have
> to.)

I don't think anyone needs to be a saint, but we do need to be able to
collaborate with people from different cultural, political, and personal
backgrounds to our own. Enforcing a social code which is exclusive to
the coasts of the United States on a global community seems to me to be
even more exclusionary than allowing people with poor social skills.

>>= %frosku = { os => 'gnu+linux', editor => 'emacs', coffee => 1 } =<<