REMEMBER how Microsoft pushed "boobs" into Linux [1, 2, 3] (much to the detriment of Linux) and later "apologised" because it got caught? Many people don't remember that (or simply didn't pay attention at the time). This helped remind us that Microsoft is very hard to beat when it comes to chauvinism. Over the years we have covered many examples of sexism at Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. This kind of sexism goes all the way up to the CEO himself and let's not even mention Microsoft homophobia [1, 2, 3] because that is a separate (albeit related) topic.
Sexism Lawsuit Against Microsoft
A class action lawsuit has been filed by a former Microsoft employee over rampant sexual discrimination at Microsoft. Katherine Moussouris claims that women are underpaid, passed over for promotions, and face retaliation if they complain. She worked for the company for seven years.
Matthew Garrett, noted developers and self-proclaimed social justice warrior, today announced solidarity with Sarah Sharp's resignation in protest of rude behavior and the "way [Linus Torvalds] behaves" by providing a Linux kernel with changes rejected by Torvalds. Elsewhere, Jack M. Germain said Slackel offers advantages over Slackware but it's still not for new users and DarkDuck found most Linux users still use Windows or Mac as well.
A Game of Thrones style war has broken out amongst the weirdie beardies of Open Source Land which has now split the Linux kingdom just as "Winter is a Coming."
Everyone is free to have his own opinion (sorry, his/her), and I am free to form my own opinion on Sarah Sharp by just simply reading the facts. I am more than happy that one more SJW has left Linux development, as the proliferation of cleaning of speech from any personality has taken too far a grip.
On the other hand, it's little mystery at all: Sarah was the first female kernel contributor I'd ever heard of, and the only one I can readily name now. It's an uncomfortable answer, because when someone breaks into a space that doesn't often include their gender or background, we feel we avoid culpability by being nonchalant. No exclusion here, nosiree. Didn't even notice you were a woman. It's comforting and dishonest; when someone breaks a boundary of cultural exclusion, regardless of how your reaction may later be judged, the fact is you notice.
Although apparently nobody noticed when Sarah quietly disappeared over the past year, finally coming out to cite now-familiar complaints about the toxic and hostile atmosphere on LKML and in the kernel community in general.
Once again, he's complaining about how the fun from Debian has been lost because making sexist jokes, or treating other people like shit is not allowed any more. He seems to think the LKML is the ideal environment and that Debian should be more like it.
Another Linux kernel developer has left, citing a toxic environment. Jack Wallen proposes the type of motivation used by the kernel devs could unmake a very precious commodity.
Well, here’s the third, though it’s completely unrelated to Sharp and Garrett: The call went out in September for nominations for the Ubuntu Community Council elections, and they were returned with a glaring omission: Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph, who will not be running for re-election. She explains in her blog her motivations for moving on, and it’s well worth a read. Perhaps this is understatement, but her absence leaves a notable void in the “adult-in-the-room” department, since Elizabeth was often the voice of reason and sanity — and of course a voice for doing the right thing even when it was unpleasant or difficult for Canonical/Ubuntu — in a UCC group too full of yes-boys and Ubuntu Apocalypse zombies. Her leadership will definitely be missed.
Bottomley, maintainer of the kernel's SCSI subsystem and other code, argues that things on the Linux kernel mailing list aren't all that it's talked up to be.
When Matthew Garrett, well-known Linux kernel developer and ââ¬Å½CoreOS principal security engineer, announced he was releasing a [Linux] kernel tree with patches that implement a BSD-style securelevel interface, I predicted people would say Garrett was forking Linux. I was right. They have. But, that's not what Garrett is doing.
The definition of “thick-skinned” in different dictionaries ranges from “not easily offended” to “largely unaffected by the needs and feelings of other people; insensitive”, going through “able to ignore personal criticism”, “ability to withstand criticism and show no signs of any criticism you may receive getting to you”, “an insensitive nature” or “impervious to criticism”. It essentially describes an emotionally detached attitude regarding one’s social environment, the capacity or ignoring or minimizing the effects of others’ criticism and the priorization of the protection of one’s current state over the capacity of empathizing and taking into account what others may say that don’t conform to one’s current way of thinking. It is essentially setting up barriers against whatever others may do that might provoke any kind of crisis or change in you.
Folks are still discussing the resignation of Sarah Sharp and Matthew Garrett from Linux kernel development. Jack Wallen said Sharp (and Garrett) are cases of more developers being "turned away, simply because developers had no patience for personal respect." He said Linux rules with a "sharp and iron tongue" with "foul and abusive language." He agreed with Dr. Roy Schestowitz in that all this is a "PR nightmare" threatening the "flagship of the open-source movement." He placed part of the blame on what he calls the "Internet of hate" and said if Linux is to compete with Microsoft and Apple its developers need to "start treating the legions of programmers, who are working tirelessly to deliver, as well as they treat the code itself. Open source is about community. A community with a toxic foundation will eventually crumble."