Re: The anti-GNU defamatory group of Ludovic Courtès - Re: assessment of the GNU Assembly project

[Jean Louis]

* Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss) <936-846-2769@kylheku.com> [2021-04-29 10:30]:
> A code of conduct document is little more than a condensed set
> of corporate or governmental HR policies, disguised as some
> sort of "organically grown" community document.

Code of conduct is used in an organization with employees is
fundamentally different to organizations with arbitrary volunteers.

Corporate policy is to exchange with employees, here is the salary,
and in exchange we need the work, and work has to be conducted by
specific manner, for example, don't spit on the floor.

Those corporate Code of conducts are not politics focused, neither
majority of such promote issues like feminism, gender problems,
etc. They are mostly focused on business and how organization conducts
its business matters.

There exist very clear agreement, legal agreement named employment
agreement between the employer and employee.

In our voluntary organizations contributors they do not have any
formal legal agreement with any employee, often there is no employee
and no legal entity. There is no salary for contributors in free
software projects. There is no direct dependency. Sometimes there are
donations.

Those who promote code of conduct speak of wanting diversity. But in
the same time they also speak of not tolerating diversity. It is
contradiction in itself.

If I want diversity, I want diversity. I will then tolerate well
behaved people and bad mannered people. That is diversity for me. I
can immediately think of carnevals, Mardi Grass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras, open air concerts, and
similar public gatherings. There is special feeling coming with it.

On such public gatherings there are all kinds of people, some will be
drunk, some will be funny, there will be abusive and sexist
people. Nobody likes worst happening, but that is true diversity.

Tolerance is key word.

Not assuming bad faith just because somebody is upset or made some sex
related joke.

Code of conduct is strictly a document authorizing thought police to
exclude people out of "their diversity", example from Guix code of
conduct:
https://github.com/pjotrp/guix/blob/master/CODE-OF-CONDUCT

"We are committed to making participation in this project a
harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of
experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation,
disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age,
religion, or nationality."

The above statement is obviously not true, as it is impossible for a
project maintainer to know what is "harassment free" experience for
everyone.

By the way one of them D.T. tried harassing me online from his farm,
behind computer, and beyond the GNU project but declined meeting me in
person to solve the issue. It is very easy to appear brave behind the
keyboard. Why would I need any "Code of Conduct" to help me with the
harasser? I don't. I can solve issue myself, there is legal system,
there is police, there is recourse for that.

I need no gang of bullies to protect me from bullies. If bully comes
along, I know how to deal with one. 

It is very fine to tell people to stop with harassment.

What is not fine is the open interpretation on what harassment is, and
that a small group is allowed to do basically anything they wish and
want by justifying their actions by Code of conduct. Of course, in
anonymous way. Somebody complained, you said something wrong, we kick
you out.

No expectedhearing, no expected confrontation with accuser, thus open
to misinterpretations on what happened.

More quotes from Guix code of conduct:

"Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:"

The above statement only lists "examples" which means that
interpretation on what is wrong and right is left to project
maintainers.

We already had Terms of Service for every website, in general private
websites can simply kick out any person for whatever reason. I find
that better, not necessarily just, but better to say "this is ours and
we will do what we want" rather than giving appearance of some just
and public cause.

To say these are "examples" makes it open for vague misinterpretations
and thus injustices.

> * The use of sexualized language or imagery

Humans are sexual. We love sex. At least majority of us loves sex.

I cannot possibly imagine why any kind of mentioning of sex or
sexualized language would be "breach" of behavior. There are vulgar
expressions, every decent conference should warn people who express
themselves vulgary. But to prohibit any use of sexualized language or
imagery would IMHO also obstruct freedom zero.

It becomes practically impossible to create programs that recognize
coppulation on pictures and in websites, as the sole mentioning of
those programs would be in violation of the so called code of
conduct.

It becomes practically impossible in such projects with vague codes of
conducts to make software vibrators, and other sex toys, sexual chat,
and dating sites become out of domain of such projects.

Though millions of people use sex products, software in sex toys, and
services for sexual conversations and interactions, anything like that
could be banned by such code of conduct veiled organizations.

I don' find it proper, as I love sex.

The definition is thus vague, left to misinterpretations and would
disallow inclusion of various sex related software.

> * Personal attacks

I can understand personal attacks, but because they are personal, it
is best personally handled. Interesting is to observe that when I
mentioned their leader's name, oh, that was immediately construed as
"personal attack" -- how it can be personal when I have not personally
contacted him at the time?

When public figure like Ludo, publishes a statement then I am
commenting on such statement and say it is defamatory, because that is
in my understanding. I consult Wordnet: 1. calumniatory, calumnious,
defamatory, denigrative, denigrating, denigratory, libellous,
libelous, slanderous -- ((used of statements) harmful and often
untrue; tending to discredit or malign) and I use my present mind to
arrive to conclusions.

That is far from any hate, I don't hate neither Ludo neither any of
them.

Statements, conclusions, are not hate.

I have many people around me, not necessarily I need to agree on
everything with them, disagreement is not a hate.

But when it comes to something that disgruntled individual does not
like, then within his comprehension capacity it will be either
intentionally or maliciously called as "hate".

I truly have no emotion of intense dislike, quite contrary, I am Guix
user, liked Guix but could not use it in countries where Internet is
expensive. The concept is great, I like Ludo and all developers. 

1. (9) hate, hatred -- (the emotion of intense dislike; a feeling of
dislike so strong that it demands action)

But that does not mean I have to agree on each of their actions, and
if I don't agree, that it is hate.

That is a good example of wrong interpretation and how actions of
codeofconducts foster rather exlusiveness than inclusiveness.

It is example how A is equal to B which is equal to C, and if you
don't agree with me, even though you don't know what I agree with, if
you disagree, you are personally attacking me.

No my friends, those are not personal attacks. They probably don't
know what is personal attack.

> * Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments

Trolling is term used rather online for people who annoy others,
usually beyond the topic. Would I be now writing this message on the
AntiGNU Assembly, they would probably feel highly annoyed.

GNU mailing lists, and also Libreplanet mailing list are very
tolerant. That is to be acknowledged. That fosters inclusiveness,
diversity. They are tolerant even to its own dissidents and
apostates. This is because their purpose is to foster distribution of
free software, not to be thought police.

There are several criminals behind free software. What is important is
if that free software can be used and if other human may get use of
it. We shall not judge software by people who make it.

> * Public or private harassment

This is open to misinterpretation. Thus anything one says could be
construed as public or private harassment, within or without the
"space". Codeofconducts, I mean those people who feel authorized
thought police, they will spy around Internet and look on the websites
that are not within their code of conduct jurisdiction, but will
nevertheless feel free to punish the accused. Kick him out of chat for
reason of making a question.

Process goes like this:

- hello, nice project, I would like to know what is this accusation of
  person X?

- thanks, but no.

- I am sorry, you published accusation against X on your website, is
  there any evidence to it?

- not space to talk about it.

- I feel upset that this nice project I love publishes accusations of
  X, is there any evidence for havens sake?

- watch your language, we will kick you out. KICK.

That is how it works. Codeofconducts will or may initiate public and
private harassment and then dictate that nobody should speak about it,
followed by exclusion. This creates atmosphere of fear, nobody will
then raise the voice and good children remain silent.

In general, online harassment is in many countries illegal. Sometimes
it may be in favor of the accused to kick him out, as if legal system
would be involved the accused could end up in jail. This is also one
good reason that few individuals should not judge about that.

Instead, if they feel that there is victim of online harassment,
project maintainers should help the victim report it to authorities,
so that case may be followed up, brought to court for justice.

Eventual removing of online harassment evidences may be construed as
obstruction of justice as well.

> * Publishing other's private information, such as physical or
> electronic addresses, without explicit permission

This is also open to misinterpretations. Some people publish their
addresses on websites, many are in telephone books, such information
may not be private, people register their domains, email addresses are
not private once in public. It is open to misinterpretations and
injust punishments.

> * Other unethical or unprofessional conduct

Here we can see that just anything that codeofconducts deem unethical
will be a reason to reject, ban, and so they say:

> Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove,
> edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and
> other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or
> to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other
> behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or
> harmful.

They have rights sure, because rights are given by the project
ownership. But that does not necessarily deem their actions moral,
rather capricious.

* Overview of adj capricious

The adj capricious has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. capricious, freakish -- (changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish 
weather")

2. capricious, impulsive, whimsical -- (determined by chance or
impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; "a capricious
refusal"; "authoritarian rulers are frequently capricious"; "the
victim of whimsical persecutions")



Jean

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