IT was almost a month back that the Linux Foundation brewed its own scandal by publicly banning someone from an event, citing its controversial Code of Conduct (CoC). We wrote about this. Bryan Lunduke made the above video and then wrote the following text to accompany that:
On November 6th, The Linux Foundation made a public statement that it had banned an individual from one of their upcoming events (KubeCon) -- the banning was based on that individuals public tweets (including a picture with a red "Make America Great Again" hat) and statements, unrelated to KubeCon, that were determined to violate the Linux Foundation Events Code of Conduct.
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Since we are focusing, in this article, on the banning of the individual from an event -- we are going to start with the initial (to my knowledge) and primary public complaint posted by Kim Crayton and directed to the organizers of the conference (KubeCon).
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It is unclear if Kim Crayton plans to attend any Linux Foundation events, or what the Linux Foundations reaction might be on if these Tweets do, or do not, violate any portion of the Code of Conduct.
During all of this, The Linux Foundation made public statements about the actions it was taking (banning Wood after receiving the Tweeted complaint) but have not provided enough details or context to fully evaluate how well the Code of Conduct, or the actions based on it, functioned.
After these events, Robert Martin published an open letter to the Linux Foundation in protest of the banning of Charles Wood. Followed by an article from Cher Scarlett praising the decision to ban Wood from the event. Both have distinct viewpoints on what has transpired, but both contain significant details for those looking to gain more insight on what transpired (with additional sources and Tweets beyond the scope of this article). They are also worth reading as examples of how these events are being interpreted by differing parts of the broader Tech community -- and what impact all of this is having.
--Linus Torvalds