Hello Ekaitz,

On 2024-10-27 02:01, Ekaitz Zarraga wrote:
Hi Juliana,

I like some of the points you do here: we should encourage committers to review patches, and give commit access to those that are focused on that.

On the other hand, I disagree with your message about GNU and the FSF.

First, I don't think the sentiment you describe about GNU and the FSF is universal. It's probably biased by the people you interact with and the country you live in. That's not something for me to criticize, you have your views and they are valid, the problem with your argument is the same I find with the "let's use a Git forge, that'll give use many new contributors!".

It's just really hard to measure.
...

I think a useful measurement of any community is the diversity within it.

One of the lessons I had in my local hackerspace was that the lack of diversity in it meant that there were less social safeguards. Over time the range of voices deteriorated, which meant it was harder for me to protect against bad behaviour - let alone to have protections myself once a minority there ran out of other people to bully and belittle.

While my own exiting was not quiet, the silence of others staying away or avoiding can be real loud. From (eventually!) noticing that genders and behaviours were better represented in other hackerspaces, its evident that people are capable of operating away from clusters which appear unwelcoming or behave unwelcoming.

During one hackerspace conference at another location, the delight at seeing better gender representation to an old friend was met with a comment about the toxicity at the place I frequented. Repeating that delight to a fellow board member at min, I was meant with a dead eyed look -- ultimately indicitive of the true antagonistic behaviour of this individual.

Its really pleased me to see increasing diversity among the attendees of Fosdem and Offdem in Brussels across the years (which I ascribe not only regarding the mainstreaming of IT but the enabling behaviours of technologies such as the Fediverse). Its not a question of assaging guilt but (given the spread of talent and potential that exists across people) that libre technologies deserve greater access to people capable of making small and significant improvements to the world.

Its not for me to wade into the particulars about concerns about GNU as a project of humans doing things together. However, it is a point of concern where there is such a volume of people with strong reservations about themseves or others operating in a safe or respectful way. It would of course be nice that such things are unfounded, though from afar Im not confident any of that has been well handled. It all feels very limiting.

Ultimately, its 2024. If its the case that a community group is still resembling the configuration of a Steven Levy history of MIT hackers then its time for either more significant internal reforms or alternative institutions.

Kind regards,


Jonathan

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