I don't mean to dispute that ESR may be a jerk, but I'd ask you to consider what his position is:
> It's less bad that people sometimes got their feelings hurt than it is to institutionalize a means by which dissenting opinions are crushed under the rubric of “not nice”.
His point, as I take it, is that a "cancel culture" is antithetical to an open culture. I agree. Excluding someone due to tone, without warning or clear explanation of the violation, especially when it appears the content is a contested opinion, is bigoted censorship.
To steal the Paine quote ESR himself used, "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
The liberty to use strong rhetoric[0] in defense of ideas is what I see under attack by banning ESR from these discussions.
[0]: To my reading, the most inflammatory remarks he said on the mailing list are:
> With whatever moral authority I still have here, I say to all advocates of soi-disant "ethical" licensing not just "No" but "To hell with you and the horse you rode in on."
in the opening email for that thread and in his penultimate email:
> I am not fooled. You are mounting an ideological attack on our core principles of liberty and nondiscrimination. You will not succeed while I retain any ability to oppose this.
Compared to a typical rant from Torvalds this is pretty tame debate-speak.
> a "cancel culture" is antithetical to an open culture. I agree. Excluding someone due to tone, without warning or clear explanation of the violation, especially when it appears the content is a contested opinion, is bigoted censorship.
Ever hear the expression "Your right to your fist only extends as far as my face?"
In order to express ideas openly, even firmly and directly, one does not need to be explicitly RUDE to others, and apply personal insults and attacks.
For people who seem to be deeply intellectual, ESR and Linus (though less these days) have an apalling inability to differentiate between "This is a stupid idea" and "You are a stupid person".
They seem to revel in additional personal attacks on other people rather than engaging in a free marketplace of open ideas, and their behaviour has been unchecked for decades because they are brilliant and their contributions are meaningful.
It turns out, history is full of examples of that.
It also turns out that you don't HAVE to be a jerk, and you can express your strong beliefs in an idea without calling someone a looneytune.
> Ever hear the expression "Your right to your fist only extends as far as my face?"
Equating physical violence with someone who called another a "looneytune" is completely unreasonable as they are NOT the same thing. The uncomfortable truth is, the freedom of expression guarantees the right of someone else to say something people disagree with, hurt your feelings, offend, or even make others angry.
Also, who gets to decide when someone is being a jerk? In this case, it's a group of people who are comfortable deleting almost all evidence of Eric's supposedly offensive remarks, thereby ensuring that no one can even debate the subject reasonably. That alone, would keep me from jumping to their defense even if I agreed with their actions.
And drawing an impassable wall between physical violence and verbal abuse is also completely unreasonable.
The world is full of roided up assholes who would scream at someone in the face, have their victim "push them away", only to proceed to punch them back because once you cross the line into physicality a shove is the same as a punch in the face.
It's bullshit.
Obviously being "a jerk" to someone is not the same as physically hitting someone.
But in the context of a workplace, an online forum, or a community contributing to an open source project, the choice isn't between punching someone or yelling at them.
The choice is between civility and not. Between being an asshole for no reason and not. People like Linus Torvalds and ESR have significant trust in their technical leadership. If they don't like an idea they can just say "that is a bad idea. here is why". Their position is not strengthened by screaming insults at the other side. All it does is make them look childish and make people not want to contribute their time and energy to the cause.
The roided up monster antagonises, waiting for the slightest excuse to explode in violence.
A slightly sneakier version of the same monster would antagonise more non-physically and perpetually.
There's slippery slopes and giving inches; there are deleterious attractors all human interaction ecosystems can fall into through a tragedy of the commons (see meditations on moloch by slatestarcodex). How do you prevent this, or even start to stand against it? Schelling points.
The guy shouting on the corner is reliable. He's obvious and slightly unpleasant. But he's a lesser evil than the creeping decay that girdles you and smothers you while whispering honey into your ear.
> In order to express ideas openly, even firmly and directly, one does not need to be explicitly RUDE to others, and apply personal insults and attacks.
The issue is that "rude" is up to whoever feels treated rudely. If you tell someone they are wrong in no uncertain words, they might consider you rude. If you sugarcoat it, you're a) lying, b) doing the community a disservice by not opposing something that you consider wrong.
> For people who seem to be deeply intellectual, ESR and Linus (though less these days) have an apalling inability to differentiate between "This is a stupid idea" and "You are a stupid person".
Funny, it always struck me that it's people who are deeply emotional who have a problem with it. If you're emotional, you will feel personally attacked and aren't able to put that aside and deal with the issue at hand. If you're intellectual, you will notice the insult, but it will not dominate your take-away, and you will easily be able to address it if you think it's necessary (hint: it's not) and move on to the content. If you're playful, you might just add something similar in your response. If you just want to lighten the mood, you'll make a joke. And then you move on and address the issue they were talking about, because there's usually an issue in there, they aren't just saying "no, you're dumb" just because, they are saying "no, you're dumb, because you're doing xyz".
> They seem to revel in additional personal attacks on other people rather than engaging in a free marketplace of open ideas, and their behaviour has been unchecked for decades because they are brilliant and their contributions are meaningful.
I believe you're putting way too much weight on the insults here. I don't think that Linus sits there and laughs all day because he "owned some noob". More likely, he fires of an email and moves on with his life, the insult not being something that brings him a lot of pleasure, but just a part of his communication style. Not a sadist that wants to see other people experience pain and emberrassement but somebody who has little concern for the feelings of the recipients of his outbursts, either because he himself doesn't mind being called an asshat or because he believes that the stakes are too high to hold back.
> It also turns out that you don't HAVE to be a jerk
I agree if what you're trying to say is "there are highly-productive people that are not jerks". I strongly disagree if you're trying to say "you can choose whether you are a jerk or not, and you don't have to choose being a jerk".
> Ever hear the expression "Your right to your fist only extends as far as my face?"
I have. A "community guideline" or social disapproval of threatening violence may disallow those sorts of expressions, but they're quite common in certain communities (sports, games, etc - may be known as "trash talking").
> In order to express ideas openly, even firmly and directly, one does not need to be explicitly RUDE to others, and apply personal insults and attacks.
I agree. What one person interprets or intends as "explicitly RUDE" may be interpreted or intended differently by another individual, though, so an open community should assume good faith, correct the socially-determined, arbitrary language violation, and try to focus on the content of the message rather than delivery mechanism.
If you'd like to share examples of what makes you believe ESR[0] is unable to differentiate between a stupid idea and a stupid person, I'd be happy to examine them with you. I myself used Linus as an example of someone who can be famously insulting[1], yet I'm unaware of him actually permanently banning people from submitting new patches to the Linux kernel because he flipped out in a code review.
Indeed, as I think everyone can agree they've been polemic regardless of how you agree with them, the fact that they've engaged with the public at large seems contrary to your statement that they revel in personal attacks rather than engaging a free marketplace of ideas: They share an unambiguous position and offer defense of their ideas against all comers. I suspect most of this defense is done today by the organizations and the legacy they've created rather than them personally, which is why it's more noteworthy when they feel the need to make such strong statements.
> turns out that you don't HAVE to be a jerk, and you can express your strong beliefs in an idea without calling someone a looneytune.
You don't "HAVE" to be a jerk, but you may. I will listen to the content of your words rather than the appearance of your statement, and I believe ESR is aggressively asserting his position the Open Source Initiative should do the same.
I find it interesting you used "looneytune", because I don't see any message from ESR in the month of February using that word.[2][3] Quoting Russell McOrmond later in the thread[4] that does use the word "loonytoon", "ESR tried to post a message where he named and shamed some individuals and activities which he considers to be seriously problematic not only in society as a whole, but software communities as well. The moderators rejected his email to this list. Some might even suggest he is being de-platformed by being blocked from expressing personal political views. I'm not suggesting this, as I'm advocating strongly that those who wish to use software and software licenses to discriminate be invited (strongly if required) to go elsewhere than the OSI mailing lists."
[0]: Or Linus, I suppose, though that's less relevant to the specific topic
Torvalds has been exceptionally tame by comparison as of late. He's adopted a formal CoC, admitted he is often a real jerk, and is seeking professional counselling. You know, he is acting like an adult in this entire thing.
> It's less bad that people sometimes got their feelings hurt than it is to institutionalize a means by which dissenting opinions are crushed under the rubric of “not nice”.
His point, as I take it, is that a "cancel culture" is antithetical to an open culture. I agree. Excluding someone due to tone, without warning or clear explanation of the violation, especially when it appears the content is a contested opinion, is bigoted censorship.
To steal the Paine quote ESR himself used, "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
The liberty to use strong rhetoric[0] in defense of ideas is what I see under attack by banning ESR from these discussions.
[0]: To my reading, the most inflammatory remarks he said on the mailing list are:
> With whatever moral authority I still have here, I say to all advocates of soi-disant "ethical" licensing not just "No" but "To hell with you and the horse you rode in on."
in the opening email for that thread and in his penultimate email:
> I am not fooled. You are mounting an ideological attack on our core principles of liberty and nondiscrimination. You will not succeed while I retain any ability to oppose this.
Compared to a typical rant from Torvalds this is pretty tame debate-speak.