"Justine's views in unrelated areas are not relevant to this article."

And that is a problem Tech (corporate and Open Source/Free Software!) needs to fix: It absolutely matters that Justine Tunney uses antisemitic and racist dogwhistles as project names, that she publicly argued for fascist government by tech CEOs. I don't care about her technology at all if her existence is about destroying democracy. (It's still a stain on Mozilla to pay for for her llamafile shit). And Tunney isn't the only character that this logic is applied to.

We don't want tech build by racists, fascists, LGBTQ*IA-phobes and whatever shitlord we can find in some basement dungeon.

https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/113520250162734614

@tante Hey @corbet, it's been awhile since we met! You've asked to not discuss this on the article itself.
So maybe this is a better forum?

"Someone's stance isn't relevant." I don't think we can afford that anymore (if we ever could); e.g., to pick different example, the influence of anti-democratic/billionaire-owned companies on FLOSS, ...

I don't think LWN does the community a service by blocking those discussions.

Will this create strive? No. It'll make it *visible*.

@tante can you provide an example, or point me to an article which lists such dogwhistling project names? btw. not yelling "source?!", need to learn. clicked through the LWN comments (yikes).. are there more than cosmo*?

@tante In addition to my other reply, though, *tricky*, have you looked at https://github.com/facebook alone?

If we stopped using anything primarily maintained by the likes of Those Who Welcome Trump(tm) ...

I mean, yeah, we should, but at this point that's close to impossible while still using any computer.

I haven't yet made up my mind on how to cope with that.

@larsmb purity is hardly possible in the world we live in, I agree. Sometimes all options are shit.

But still for the situations where we do have _any_ choice we can try to make better ones. And for the situations where we cannot we should at least talk about it. Demand change.

@tante 💯

@larsmb @tante there's still a difference between that and LWN actively going out of its way to promote and defend Justine fucking Tunney, however

@tante @corbet That said, I do believe the "The mask comes off at LWN" is ... uh ... not helpful take and seems unnecessarily inflammatory. That's not a sentiment I want to endorse nor support.

But yeah, checking the creator should possibly be a mandatory process step going forward?

If the work is so influential it still needs to be on LWN ("truth is rarely pure and never simple"), add a block to at least acknowledge the complexity.

@davidgerard @larsmb 100%. And it's not like her persona is unknown or hidden. She's been a known figure for at least 10 fucking years.

@tante @larsmb i just don't believe open source types who claim not to know who Justine Tunney is

@larsmb @tante @corbet In order for open source to continue and grow it must be inclusive. Knowing who the hateful folks in our community so that we can avoid them is important for that. Her main website hides all that and asks for money. I'd have been pissed if I discovered her views - which affect her actions - after donating to her.

@tante @larsmb that LWN doubled and tripled down, goodness me

@tante @davidgerard I had never heard of that name and had to search. (And it's not on the first few pages if you go just with the name.)

But yeah, that *should* be a required step when reporting about someone's work. And the handling ... not the best? I hope that LWN will build a better policy around this going forward.

@davidgerard @tante I've been doing nothing but FLOSS for 30 years. I've never actively seen her name.

(I'm unlikely to forget it now tho. Yuck.)

@lyda 100%. That's a take I fully support, media should look into the background of the people they cover.

@davidgerard @tante @larsmb
Never heard of her to be honest. OSS is big and widely spread enough that nobody is likely to even know the names of all the "notable" people.

@jannem @tante @larsmb yes, i meant those publicising her

@davidgerard @jannem @tante I concur that researching the background of the people whose work one writes about should be a thing, yes.
I know it isn't though. Which is a huge problem, but at least a slightly different one from assuming people knowingly amplify and/or support their other positions.
I'm very grateful you've brought this up though!

@larsmb @tante I think the point in question was highly visible enough.

Had that conversation been allowed to continue, it would have gone on for hundreds of posts, and brought people out of the woodwork that you really would rather not know even exist. We've been there in the past, and it threatened to kill the site at one point. Thus our "no personal attacks" policy, which we had to enforce here.

Should we, instead, have just pulled down the article, as some are saying? That would have "blocked the discussion" too, of course. We also try not to hide our mistakes.

Things like this make me wish I'd made a career in JavaScript framework development or some such. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some kernel drama to somehow deal with.