On 20/09/2018 22:23, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Open Research Institute got our first space communication project
> transferred over from AMSAT for two reasons: we had an ITAR/EAR
> avoidance plan, and the engineering managers at AMSAT (a venerable
> organization that has flown some 90 Amateur satellites since 1963)
> were inexperienced in dealing with female engineers and were (IMO
> unconsciously) egregiously rude on multiple occassions. The woman
> engineer in question is no wilting lily, and in general refuses to
> represent feminist or women's viewpoints because that isn't her thing.
> It may not be a gender issue at all, many men left the organization as
> well.

By all means, sometimes things go too far. But often not. One example,
as you offer here, is an anecdote, not data.

> Those who are not on the spectrum may still underperform in human
> relations, as we've just heard from Linus.

There's the thing, Linus did not seem to me to "underperform". As far as
I can see, he performed correctly and in the best interests of producing
high quality technical output. If his reactions were sometimes over the
top, then the old Code of Conflict surely contained entirely adequate
means to deal with it. The new Code of Conduct instead creates an
open-ended pit of anti-merit political correctness (i.e. a mindset that
is explicitly opposed to merit-based technological progress) that can be
(and thus will be) used to advantage the less-capable at the cost of the
disfavoured more-capable.

> We used to tolerate this stuff, and it cost us in many ways.

What "stuff"? Reasonable, honest and blunt feedback? That is surely not
something that needs to be "tolerated". It is a specific goal, one which
(a) Code of Conduct such as the new Linux Kernel one seek to
'criminalise' in effect, and (b) which all primarily technological
projects should surely aspire to.

> I am 60 and I /can/ deal with this. I have many things to get done,
> and can't afford to have the stick-in-the-mud guys on a project any
> longer. If you want to paint yourself into a corner, that is your
> right, but IMO it's a poor choice.

Have you actually read the idiotic claptrap in the new Code of Conduct
for the Linux Kernel?

If you are saying that you support such rubbish then it also means that
you are reducing the significance of technical merit in favour of
happy-huggy feel good factors (which is exactly what the new Linux Code
of Conduct explicitly intends), and it seems to me to therefore follow
that you are putting your projects at risk. I find it difficult to
believe that you really mean this.

--
Mark Rousell