Re: Joint statement on the GNU Project

[Taylan Kammer]

On 14.10.2019 03:44, Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
>   > The GNU project should publish a list of ideologies that are officially
>   > banned from its channels so people know what they're in for.
> 
> No ideology is "banned" on GNU Project mailing lists, but they are off
> topic so people should not discuss them here.

Some political topics come up inevitably.  For instance, trying to
increase the reach of the free software movement among women (who make
up roughly half the human population) makes it necessary to understand
certain feminist issues to some degree, and undertake measures based on
that understanding.

As such, some maintainers say that GNU should be a feminist project so
women can contribute and benefit as much as men.  According to this
perspective, being neutral on feminism equals following the status quo,
which means that mistreatment of women is seen as normalcy (not seen as
mistreatment in the first place), which means that the GNU project by
nature excludes the majority women (those who don't tolerate being
mistreated).

Of course, this is only one perspective.  The opposing perspective might
claim that the fact that women are vastly under-represented in the free
software movement is related to the nature of the female and male sexes
in humans, that feminist theories are wrong and therefore unnecessary to
understand or follow, because they will not make a difference.  That in
itself is a political position as well, but one which many people don't
recognize as a political position, because those people perceive it as
being "common sense" or "normal" and therefore supposedly apolitical.

In effect, the GNU project is forced to choose a political position.
Either one that considers the status quo of a vastly male-dominated free
software movement as being normal, or one that considers the status quo
to be flawed and feminist action to be necessary to improve things.
Saying "feminism is off-topic" and taking no action means implicitly
taking the political side of the status quo.

Let me attempt to draw up an analogy:

Imagine you visit a workplace which makes heavy use of proprietary
software.  You try to explain to the workplace why proprietary software
is harmful and how they would benefit from free software.  They say
"that sounds very political, and our company is not political, therefore
we won't bother looking into this any further."  In effect, they have
made a political choice to continue supporting proprietary software,
under the foolish impression of being apolitical, because they don't
realize that using proprietary software is a political choice too.

It is the same thing when the GNU project says "feminism is political,
and the GNU project is apolitical except for free vs. proprietary
software."  It is not actually a decision to be apolitical on feminism,
but a decision to support the sexist status quo.


That being said, if the GNU project decided to become feminist, that in
turn would alienate anti-feminists, and lessen their contributions.

Even though I personally feel strongly about feminism, I'm trying to be
objective here and consider the fact that the contributions of
anti-feminists to free software are not to be ignored either.  Besides,
the movement might go on to incorporate more and more such social
political issues, until only people who believe in a very strict set of
political perspectives feel welcome.  That would probably end up
excluding me too, given that I have my fair share of clashes with what
might be called "liberals" or "progressives" in the mainstream.

For that reason, I would suggest a sort of middle ground that hopefully
appeases the majority of people on all sides: the GNU project should
incorporate a feminist understanding for the purpose of solving the most
pressing issues that prevent women from joining.  That probably includes
humor that offends women, overly insistent "romantic" advances, out of
place sexualization, and so on.  (Any textbook on how to combat sexual
discrimination in the workplace should be a good start for a full list
of such issues.  When in doubt, we should ask a woman like Selam Gano
instead of trying to figure it out ourselves.)

Once principles like those are set in place, the GNU project could
clarify that one is not expected to ascribe to all the theories of
feminism, only follow the ground rules.  One might privately hold
strongly anti-feminist beliefs, and that would be fine, so long as
misogynist behavior or speech isn't brought to the community.

Likewise, a feminist would be expected not to push the buttons of
anti-feminists in the community.  The rules for not offending others
would go both ways and ultimately not favor any full political ideology.


The same would apply to other social political topics.  There would be
basic anti-racist principles, without forcing people to agree with
everything written by Martin Luther King Jr or Malcolm X.  There would
be basic anti-transphobia principles, without forcing people to agree
with the theories of Julia Serano on sex and gender.  There would be
basic anti-Muslimophobia principles, without expecting people agree that
Islam is a good ideology.  And so on and so forth.

Political disagreement, no matter how strong, does not preclude
respectful treatment of one another.


The Code of Conduct adopted by Guix and many other projects already
seems to attempt something like what I'm describing, but I've seen some
people (including maintainers) speak in a way as if the CoC means that
we ought to agree to the full political perspectives underlying the
anti-discrimination principles.  I've seen them behave as if not
agreeing to said political perspectives in and on itself amounts to
being a discriminatory person and therefore undesired in the community.
Any CoC that's put in place to prevent discrimination against minorities
should clarify that nobody is expected to agree to a concrete political
perspective, only behave in ways that ensure mutually respectful and
kind behavior.


GNU Kind Communication Guidelines on the other hand do not go into
sufficient detail on what counts as unkind communication.  The whole
thing with issues such as racism and sexism is that certain types of
behavior against the political minority in question is normalized within
society, and the unkindness inherent within not recognized as unkindness
in the first place.  This is why men constantly say that women
over-react.  They think they are being kind, when the women are
experiencing their behavior as rather unkind.  This is why it's
necessary to draw clearer lines.

The reactions of many people in this discussion also prove that it's
very unclear what counts as "unkind."  Those criticizing the joint
statement published by Ludo have claimed that the statement is unkind to
the highest degree.  Some have then went on to call some people (who are
not involved in this discussion) "pond scum" and characterize that
wording as merely "defense."


Without attempting to list and properly enforce clear guidelines that
are both sufficiently protective of political minorities and yet don't
force entire political perspectives on anyone, I can only see this
community splintering.


- Taylan