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On the default of democracy | |
May 07th, 2018 | |
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Richard Stallman found himself in nerd-headlines today when an | |
article circulated on Hacker News and Lobste.rs titled "Who | |
Controls glibc?" [0] | |
[0] Who Controls glibc? | |
In short, some of the maintainers of glibc attempted to remove | |
a comment that Stallman had added to the source in the 90s. This | |
comment was a reference to censorship in the form of hyperbole | |
about the function being named "abort". Sensationalized headlines | |
refer to it as a bad abortion joke, but that is clearly | |
a mischaracterization. Regardless of the content of the comment | |
itself, it was Stallman's response that created a minor | |
controversy. | |
The maintainers claim they had consensus in the community that the | |
comment (they refer to it as a joke) was unnecessary in the code | |
and should be removed. Stallman stated firmly that it will not be | |
removed. This created an abrupt conflict in the eyes of the | |
maintainers who believed that the project is community controlled. | |
Stallman stated unequivocally that he is the de facto decision | |
maker of the GNU Project, which trumps community. | |
Now I've previously mentioned that I'm a monarchist [1], and not | |
in favor of democracy as a general rule. You will therefore | |
understand why I inherently support Stallman's position. But lets | |
dive a bit deeper anyway. | |
[1] Confessions of a Monarchist | |
The glibc maintainers are upset that Stallman, who in their eyes | |
is not contributing code to the project, has authority over it. | |
They feel that a majority rule (or at the very minimum, | |
a consensus of the vocal maintainers) should decide how the | |
project proceeds. We see this in a lot of open source projects | |
these days, and it's promoted in the form of community guidelines | |
more and more often. The struggles that happen within communities | |
as a result of actions against the community guidelines is often | |
public and brutal. In most cases it involves the ostracising of | |
individuals and occasionally forks in code bases. In some more | |
extreme cases it involves doxxing and personal attacks. | |
In all these cases the problem is pointed at the individual who | |
broke outside the line of acceptable behavior according to the | |
group. This is bread-and-butter stuff for democracy, especially in | |
the age of maximized sensitivity. Let me give you a real example: | |
Just a few weeks ago there was honest conversation and debate, in | |
some places heated, about whether or not a variable name within | |
the Mastodon source code should refer to the "dark web" by that | |
name. Never mind that the dark web is not something named by | |
Mastodon, the community at large converged on the idea that it was | |
inherently racist because it suggested some sort of evil, and by | |
including the name "dark" it was somehow also inferring that black | |
people are bad. I'm not exaggerating here. This was the actual | |
conversation and the community as a whole moved in the direction | |
of "yes, that's racist and we should rename the variable name." | |
There's so many things wrong with the specific argument, but I'm | |
not going to address them at all. Instead I'm going to focus on | |
the structure of community projects themselves. They are almost | |
always created by someone. Not some group, some one. Even when | |
a group is involved, there is almost always a leader, whether | |
defined or naturally as a part of that group. If the leader is the | |
ultimate decision maker, then these conflicts have an authority | |
which can address issues that arise. If there is no authority, the | |
issue must be raised to everyone. In many cases, the very act of | |
raising an issue to everyone is going to escalate that issue, and | |
once it is escalated, there's no bringing it back to Earth. | |
In a group which has an authority, the whims of the masses are | |
normalized. The fad of the day is quietly passed by and the | |
project avoids moving with tides of opinion. If given over to the | |
mob, the loudest will prevail or destroy. | |
Democracy's lie is that everyone gets an equal voice. This isn't | |
true because not everyone is equally aware and equally | |
understands, and has the equal background to make their equal | |
decision. Instead, the group relies on those who stand tall and | |
shout to the masses. "Rally around me!" they cry. "I understand | |
what needs to change." And so the democratic individual is | |
presented with a choice. It is not a choice born of her natural | |
inclination and understanding of the world, but a response to | |
a loud individual. This spark invites other loud individuals to | |
chime in and steer the conversation. Their voices are not equal | |
still. The ability to speak may be equal, but that is all. | |
(Small aside: I live next to a canal with a lot of wildlife. A fox | |
just managed to sneak up on a goose and it is being loudly | |
murdered outside my window. It's rather distracting.) | |
Where was I? Oh right. | |
Stallman is in charge of GNU. This is good. Without someone in | |
charge, GNU would float on the eddies of popular opinion. Instead, | |
it is a bulwark standing for freedom. Freedom as in liberty. | |
Liberty, which I've previously discussed, is diametrically opposed | |
to equality. Of course that's how he runs things. Any other way | |
would be as ridiculous as the idea of censoring a joke about the | |
overreach of censorship in a project dedicated to fighting fucking | |
censorship. |