Re: [rain1 at airmail dot cc] Delete abortion joke

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva at redhat dot com>]

On May  8, 2018, Torvald Riegel <triegel@redhat.com> wrote:

> it seems pretty obvious now that the majority of people who
> have spoken out are in favor of removing the "joke"

You've been a lot more involved with glibc day to day than I have
lately, but it seems to me that you're confused about the governing
rules adopted by this community.

The stepping stone is not tiranny of the majority, but rather consensus
building.

This means that if there is opposition to a proposed change, it is up to
the proponent to listen to the involved parties and attempt to find
middle ground so that opinions converge, or at least that objections be
withdrawn.

Is that not so?


> What also happened, though, is that RMS showed up and that said that the
> community's consensus process wouldn't apply, that he'd have the last
> say, always, if he wanted, and that the arguments and opinions of a
> majority of the active developers don't matter.
> That will push people away, because it undermines the community.

You might be surprised that I very much agree with your perception
stated in the paragraph above, and also with your conclusion.  It was
not nice that he did so.  The community had not been nice to him either.
All involved parties were at fault, and throwing feces at each other
won't get us very far, other than far from each other.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist|Red Hat Brasil GNU Toolchain Engineer