> This is not the first case of racism and sexisme in FOSS and probably won't.
The fish rots from the head down, and apart from Stallman (which is mentioned in the article) I for myself would personally add Torvalds to that same conversation (even though with a little less overt sexism, but definitely with more bullying).
But because Torvalds's project has had an incredible ROI, i.e. it has made lots of people lots of money (heck, I for myself only started learning Python 17 years ago because I had a Linux distro easily at hand) his position is pretty much safe for the time being.
It has been proven very often that the good intension of people like Stallman that devoted their life to the cause have been hijacked by people that used FOSS to find employment in big corporations and infiltrated committees and standard bodies to keep pushing their employers' agenda.
No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people simply make mistakes, what counts is how the organisation react and the proportion.
If the fish rots from the head, what should we think about Apple where Steve Jobs was known for bullying and terrorising employees for no real reason?
Big tech in US have been condemned for the infamous no-hire agreement in SV After a class action filed on behalf of roughly 60,000 workers (sixty thousands).
For instance, after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt’s note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face.
That's the real issue nowadays in FOSS, not the lack of human perfection.
Nothing even remotely similar has ever happened inside the FSF, apart when they assaulted Stallman over a fabricated issue and forced him to resign
I could make names, but I don't want a shadow ban from HN, suffice to say that some of these people work at Google .
> No one can seriously believe that there exists an organisation that is completely free from tensions between members, sometimes people simply make mistakes, what counts is how the organisation react and the proportion
True, but if cases like this happens, then there should be an investigation.
> I could make names, but I don't want a shadow ban from HN, suffice to say that some of these people work at Google .
You are using a newly created (6 days old) account anyways.
Torvalds isn't a bully, he's very realistic and stern. Sometimes code really is unnecessary garbage. Software engineering is real engineering and linux is used by serious organisations. Contributing code to Linux is like laying your own concrete on top of the burj khalifa.
The fish rots from the head down, and apart from Stallman (which is mentioned in the article) I for myself would personally add Torvalds to that same conversation (even though with a little less overt sexism, but definitely with more bullying).
But because Torvalds's project has had an incredible ROI, i.e. it has made lots of people lots of money (heck, I for myself only started learning Python 17 years ago because I had a Linux distro easily at hand) his position is pretty much safe for the time being.