----------------------------------------
On the default of democracy
May 07th, 2018
----------------------------------------
Richard Stallman found himself in nerd-headlines today when an
article circulated on Hacker News and Lobste.rs titled "Who
Controls glibc?" [0]
(HTM) [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.
(DIR) [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.