02.29.20

How OSI Co-Founder Got Banned From the OSI’s Mailing Lists (a Month After the Other Co-Founder Resigned in Protest in Those Mailing Lists, Bemoaning Attacks on Software Freedom)

Posted in OSI at 5:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: This post is not an endorsement of the message; its purpose is to show what was censored and let people decide for themselves if that merited a ban

Date: Wed, Feb 26, 2020 1:09 PM
From: Eric S. Raymond esr@thyrsus.com

Gil Yehuda via License-discuss <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>:
> Personally I'm confused about the details of the ESD, but that's OK, if I
> wanted to, I'd join the working group and learn more about it.

Here is everything you need to know about the ESD:

* Its originator is a toxic loonytoon who believes "show me the code"
   meritocracy is at best outmoded and in general a sinister supremacist
   plot by straight white cisgender males.

 * The actual goal of the movement behind the ESD is to install political
   officers on every open-source project, passing on what constitutes
   "ethical" and banishing contributors for wrongthink.  Even off-project 
   wrongthink.

 * They have already had an alarming degree of success at this through
   the institution of "Codes of Conduct" on many projects.  This *has*
   led to the expulsion of productive contributors for un-PCness; it's
   not just a problem in theory.

* The "Persona Non Grata" clause is best understood as an attempt to
  paralyze resistance to such political ratfucking by subverting the
  freedom-centered principles of OSI.  It is very unlikely to be the
  last such attempt.

Make no mistake; we are under attack. If we do not recognize the
nature of the attack and reject it, we risk watching the best features
of the open-source subculture be smothered by identity politics and
vulgar Marxism.

-- 
                 Eric S. Raymond

Someone from Verizon then complained. Maybe the OSI just wanted to secure its coffers. OSI deleted the message, which can be judged on its own (e.g. whether it is/was threatening). There may be other messages, but we cannot tell for sure due to the censorship. █

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