An Open Letter to the Open Source Community (Melissa Draper)

[Pete Ryland]

On 22/05/07, Chris Puttick <cputtick at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hold on...
>
> People are strange. People discriminate. Some people have significant
> hangups. Some commit violent acts against other people as a result.
> This is a harsh detail of our shared reality; history suggests that it
> has been true for a very long time; indeed archaeology suggests that
> such extreme antisocial behaviour predates recorded history.
>
> But don't, please don't, take some isolated, numerically small
> examples and spin it into an issue that is one for open source as a
> whole. That is known as stereotyping and is the source of much if not
> most discrimination.

In my mind, it's not about the fact that, for example, stupid sexist
jokes get posted every now and then by the ignorant minority.
Individuals are easier to enlighten.  To me what is most important is
how the community reacts to it.  If a joke gets posted and someone
replies to say that he/she was offended, normally I would expect an
apology to be readily forthcoming, and ideally the community should
reassure the offended that the opinion isn't a shared one.  If instead
you see comments saying "it wasn't offensive", "you're in a minority
here so it doesn't matter", or worse "stop whining, go away, you're
not welcome", you know there's a problem in the community.  You think
this never happens?  Here's a fairly recent example I happened to
witness to my absolute disgust:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com/msg03636.html

Regards,
Pete