As Ted pointed out, it is an ancient symbol found in most Far East mythology and the Hindu religion. "Out here" you will find it quite often, on shops, temples and business cards. It doesn't "carry weight" unless it comes in black on white, with the Nazi proportions of widths. The Nazi one was also at an angle.
We all know that in this instance, there is no malignant intent, and should not require any action. And we have not had any case of "red and black" and "something needs to be said" as far as I know. But the 'solution' is relatively simple; ASF is a non-political organization, and expression of political views (such as showing political allegiance, berating political figures, commenting on political activity, and so on) is not acceptable, regardless if that is a hate organization like the Nazis or more moderate political statements that many may agree with, say recent elections in the world or outbreaks of war. We should not be involved, I think we are even obliged by Law to not be involved. Cheers Niclas On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 7:58 AM, Andrew Palumbo <ap....@outlook.com> wrote: > I am pretty new around here and don't know if this is a more private room > for ASF members .. but my .02: of it is in red and black, then something > needs to be said. > > > > Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Ted Dunning <ted.dunn...@gmail.com> > Date: 01/31/2017 3:50 PM (GMT-08:00) > To: dev@community.apache.org > Subject: Re: Profile photos and ASF values > > Yeah... I twitched when I saw that. > > My suspicion is that this is being used in the ancient, pre-nazi sense. > > It is hard to believe that somebody is ignorant of the impact it must have > on some readers. > > > > On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Christopher <ctubb...@apache.org> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > It is surprising to me that a certain individual participant in ASF > forums > > seems to be using a swastika as their Google profile photo. The impact of > > this is that ASF users which use GMail to interact with the mailing > lists, > > are presented with this swastika whenever reading or interacting with ASF > > forums using GMail. > > > > To be clear, this symbol can have alternate meanings, and it may not be > > intentionally being used as Nazi symbol. Additionally, even if this > > individual holds to certain ideologies which may be antithetical to ASF > > community inclusive values, they may act entirely professional and in > > accordance with ASF code of conduct on Apache forums. So, I don't want to > > imply that the profile photo is indicative of their ASF interactions... > it > > may be an entirely separate thing. > > > > My main inquiry here is to question whether or not there is a concern, > > because the use of such profile photos may actually have consequences of > > deterring potential new committers, because Apache may be indicted by > > association. > > > > Is there something we wish to do about this? Is it a non-issue? I really > > don't know. All I know, is my gut tells me that I'm bothered when I see > it > > (I use GMail). But, I don't want to overreact, or start a witch hunt. I'm > > genuinely curious if this is something we want to address at all. > > > > If the profile photo is used on ASF infrastructure (JIRA, affiliated as a > > member of the Apache org on GitHub, etc.), then I think we probably do > want > > to address it in the Code of Conduct. However, unrelated services like > > Google profile photos... that may not be something we want to address, > > because the web mail client users use is not related to ASF services > (even > > if it were know for user that it impacted ASF community by deterring > > potential new community members). > > > > In any case, I don't raise this issue to demean the individual whose > > profile photo came to my attention... this is not an attack on them. > Again, > > this is not a witch hunt. > > -- > > Christopher > > > -- Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer http://polygene.apache.org <http://zest.apache.org> - New Energy for Java
