In light of GitHub's recently-announced anti-straight-white-male Code of Conduct, I'd like to reiterate some alternatives to them.

85    05 Aug 2015 17:38 by u/frankenmine

If you're unaware of the background to this issue, please see:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3fmrcl/githubs_new_code_of_conduct_explicitly_refuses_to/

Here's the boycotted vs. supported vs. neutral code versioning service providers list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2ymi66/if_github_is_boycotted_then_what_repo_do_we_use/cpb3i4t

Here's a paste of the same info, if you need to share it via a non-reddit platform or save a local copy:

https://tidy.cc/rTxJmszg

If you lose access to the list and need to track it down again, you can Google for:

site:reddit.com github boycott

which will bring up the above list as the #1 search result, so that's nice.

The list has been researched to the best of my ability, but corrections and additions are always welcome.

If you'd like to host your own, the following will give you the best deals:

Discuss.

29 comments

10

While I can sorta understand the gamergateop repo being removed (it's not code), removing the c+= project under the guise that it 'harasses women' is fucking ridiculous. I don't understand why people are so quick to recommend bitbucket when they're just as censorship happy, but with less parasites looking for 'problematic' elements

14

Thousands of repos use GitHub to store documentation/research/website contents only. It's officially allowed, and even presented as a viable use case in their tutorials.

2

In this case, over-use of a free product is as effective or better than a boycott.

If their system is strained, their wallets are strained, and the only recourse they have is to charge paying customers more, which drives them to competitors. If their response is to offer fewer free services, their popularity goes down and they become irrelevant.

12

This would have been true for one-on-one services, but it's less true for GitHub, which also has some social network features, so when you buy into it, you're also giving them the benefit of the network effects of a larger userbase. So I advise against your recommended solution.

2

That's exactly the point - get more people using it heavily who don't pay for the service. Funding for start-ups vanishes if they are around too long without show potential for profit.

2

Can anyone give me a "out of the loop" version of what's happening? I saw the CoC posted the other day, I skimmed it, saw the "no action on revers-ism", but got confused:

  • why is that thing there in the first place?
  • Does it make any kind of sense in context?
  • Why does it matter anyway?
  • Is it being enforced?
7

It means minorities can harass, abuse, threaten, and do worse to straight white men, and there will be absolutely no consequences for them. It's a license for racism and sexism. Meanwhile, straight white men can be censored and/or cut off from projects for the most imagined slights. It's basically an attempt to cut straight white men off of the developer community and recruit incompetent minorities.

4

Although there a re a lot of problems with github's censorship philosophy, that only help isolate and separate communities of people instead of having them work together, this is no justification to start defaming minorities. This has nothing to do with their competence or skill as developers, and is a purely moral/ethical quandary in regards to group isolationism an reactionary inconsideration. Let's not respond to these silly reactions by said "action takers" by being exactly what they're saying we are.

5

I didn't claim that all minorities are incompetent, which is trivially demonstrable. Some of the best programmers in the world are East Asian, for instance.

I said the Code of Conduct is intended to enable the entryism of incompetent minorities, which it objectively does.

0

Is it really objective? One could be an SJW troll and know how to code well.

1

Look. For the last time, the Code of Conduct enables the entryism of incompetent minorities by allowing them to harass, bully, abuse, and threaten competent straight white males. It also enables competent minorities to do the same thing, of course, but such minorities wouldn't need the racist and sexist features of this Code of Conduct to enter the tech sector, already being able to enter it via genuine merit, so they're not covered by the entryism clause. That I have to restate the obvious to presumably smart people so many times is disappointing.

0

well put HorizonoziroH

5

Can I have a less foxnews version of events?

5

You can read the Code of Conduct and see for yourself that I reported on it factually.

See:

https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/blob/gh-pages/index.md

or

http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/

It's the same document. The former is the Markdown source. The latter is the pretty HTML produced from it.

Specifically:

Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

  • ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
  • Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you”
  • Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts
  • Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
  • Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions

This section declares open season for harassment, abuse, threats, and other criminal behavior by minorities against straight white males without consequences.

4

frankenmine covers the actual CoC quite well.

In addition, you have major "events" recently happening when so called "social justice warriors" have clashed with "the stereotypical (possibly libertarian leaning due to open source) coder" on open source projects that can provide a little bit of a background environment to this all.

Opal Issue 941. The FreeBSD Chatlog. Or effectively removing someone from the python cuba group for criticising a block list that was used for the OSCON twitter handle that blew up on twitter, which is better documented in a series of python cuba emails, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, with a tweet. These are just some examples, coupled with the most recent see what happens when due to content restrictions, we can't use terms like "retards", so lets call everyone "gits" instead.

So yeah, when you look at reddit, at github, at what the message is being pushed in the media, you are starting to see a cultural shift for a more strict, less wild west internet (and this is coming from someone who lives in a country that has codified criminal hate speech, and online harassment). The fact that the hacker manifesto flat out calls this debate as bullshit is telling. And yes, I first was introduced to through the movie Hackers, but is better seen in action by Julia Stiles.

If you really want a too long, didn't read: you are seeing, distilled into its purist, most nonsensical form, fascists versus anarchists. Or authoritarians versus libertarians. EDIT: Made some spelling mistakes. Woops.

1

After reading some of this (and some research I did last night after the question was posted) I find that everybody else is insane and I'm slowly turning into Wonko the Sane, so I've devided to just stay away from this issue.

0

Or just use Gittorrent.

0

I wish people would start running their own git repos on their own systems and hardware.

0

GitLab is what I ended up deciding on.

-1

Show of hands, how many folks here have posted content on GitHub laced with racism and misogyny? No one? Then why is this a problem?

8

Because people should have the right to, and it's none of GitHub's business.

My code. My decision.

If it's illegal, take it down after a DMCA notice or a conviction. Otherwise, hands off.

This sort of cultural Marxist bullshit is more hateful and more dangerous towards human rights and dignity than all other forms of bigotry combined, a thousand times over.

-2

My code. My decision.

And it's GitHub's servers which makes your and my code their business.

There are plenty of webhosts that prohibit content, i.e. pornography.

This sort of cultural Marxist bullshit is more hateful and more dangerous towards human rights and dignity than all other forms of bigotry combined, a thousand times over.

You're blowing this out of proportion. Also, free speech does not include obscene speech. Of course, what it is obscene is subjective, and GitHub thinks the word "retard" is obscene.

Finally, this code of conduct from GitHub comes on the heels of their $2 billion valuation. GitHub may have made the code of conduct to avoid pissing off investors. Every company with a lot of assets to protect will do stupid shit like this.

I know it sounds like I'm in favor of this new policy: I'm not. But I also know getting angry over it won't change GitHub's mind. So, I accept it so I can continue to use their free services.

1

Also, free speech does not include obscene speech.

Obscene speech involves, for instance, porn depicting pissing, scat, torture, etc. Calling someone a retard, or any purely verbal/written expression, for that matter, has never been considered anywhere near obscene. You are outright lying here.

So, I accept it so I can continue to use their free services.

You are one among a very tiny and unrepresentative fringe. You do not speak for the masses. You most certainly do not speak for me. Those of us who demand that our universal human rights and dignity be respected will not accept this. We will fight back.