[commitpizza]

Here is a good walk-through of the changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutR_LNoZw0

I don't particularly care about Rust but one of the reasons I've hesitated to learn / use it was because the project seemed like it was led by woke people that pushed politics into the programming space which imo is completely unnecessary.

One thing I've learned by experience is that people who push their political agenda into everything is inherently toxic and will destroy everything they come in contact with.

There is no need for a Code of Conduct like so many programming projects have today, there is no need to have a "Black lives matter" banner on the framework website nor is there any need of supporting any other political cause unless it directly affects the project or the maintainers. If you start advocating for cause x there will always be people who rightfully will argue for cause y.

I'm sick and tired of general politics getting pushed into everything.

[alkonaut]

Politics is everywhere and everything. There is no chance of "keeping politics out of" anything. Making such a decision or rule is highly political too. This goes for sports, entertainment, culture, tech, open source.. The fact that there are "counterexamples" of successful projects that "thrive without involving politics and never had a CoC" isn't an argument to the contrary.

[commitpizza]

I get that there will be politics enough to go around and honestly I only think it strenghten my point. There is no need to bring in external politics since there is enough in the technical space alone.

[alkonaut]

I mean external politics, not "office politics". There is no meaningful way of separating any group of people working together (a company, an OSS project, whatever) and politics.

[commitpizza]

I understood that, I just think your arguments are bad.

> There is no chance of "keeping politics out of" anything. Making such a decision or rule is highly political too.

Of course there is and such a decision is not about general politics or highly political. It's a bit like saying forbidding smoking on school grounds will never make it go away so we should just let the kids smoke. In fact, I would argue that Rust already has a lot of political rules in the code of conduct.

Even if people will break the rules there is still value in creating such rules but that will obviously only work as long as the people making the rules also abide by them which is not the case in the Rust community (among many others). It's obvious that certain political views are prohibited while others are welcome.

I guess what I am disappointed in is the constant double standards. They can have "black lives matters" on their webpage but if I were to link to a anti-trans movement (just making an example) on their discord it wouldn't take long until I'm banned. Anti trans movements and black lives matter has nothing to do with most development projects, thus none should be pushed on their websites.

[lelanthran]

> Politics is everywhere and everything.

Sure, but just because the $FOO software project is happy to incorporate political views on User Freedoms vs Developer Freedoms, it doesn't mean that proselytsing some particular political candidate is welcome.

IOW, when people reject a particular political topic, you can't very well turn around and say "How dare you; you talk about free software, and that's political too!"

A community willing to engage in one political activity doesn't automagically open the door for every vocal minotiry to spam them until they cave.

[loopdoend]

I wonder why we don't see the same thing on academic papers. Surely the people writing those papers are also affected by politics.

But somehow it is acceptable for programming languages.

[alkonaut]

Academic papers are usually written by a small group. But I imagine for large collaborations like papers from LHC and similar you'd have to deal with some of the same issues any major org. It comes at you very quickly. Can you hold an important meeting on the day 2 people of 100 are away because it's a religious holiday? What do you do about the fact that the Ukrainian guy refuses to work until the Russian guy is kicked out of the team? And the research itself is of course interfacing with politics all the time whether they like it or not. Of course more in climate research or economics than in theoretical physics but it's still there.

[H12]

I also find myself frequently questioning the labeling of things one doesn't like as "political".

Having a code of conduct that focuses on treating people w/ respect and discouraging personal attacks is not political, and it's strange to me that someone would label it as such.

[Veen]

That's an interesting way of framing a position: "I think X and all the obvious counter-examples that might prove me wrong are irrelevant.", "Why are they irrelevant?", "Because I just said they are!".

Anyway, you're equivocating around the meaning of "politics". Yes, everything involving people is political in some sense. But that isn't the sense people here are talking about.

[alkonaut]

I just preempted the usual answer "look at X, they don't have a lot of politics and they seem to be doing OK" because it's such an obvious non-argument that it shouldn't even need explaining.

[Nanana909]

> the project seemed like it was led by woke people that pushed politics into the programming space which imo is completely unnecessary

You’re not wrong, to a degree, but avoiding the language because of this is exactly the wrong take. Instead, if more people use it these sentiments are diluted and approach the median. IMO by even caring about this at all in your language decisions, you’re engaging in the exact same kind of game as those people are.

[commitpizza]

> IMO by even caring about this at all in your language decisions, you’re engaging in the exact same kind of game as those people are

Well, that is becaused I feel forced into it. I wouldn't care about the maintainers political views unless they pushed it down my throat at every opportunity they get.

I feel it is a sound economical choice not to support orgs and people who are toxic or actively work against you and your interests. I vote with my wallet when it comes to products and services but when it comes to languages I vote with my time and knowledge. I choose another programming language instead, it's not like there isn't any options out there.

What if I would have picked Rust? Then I would have to get a new domain for my website, I would feel unwelcome in the community because I don't share their political opinions and likely other things that is yet to come. Nah, I'd rather go with people and projects that don't do this kind of crap which I don't have time for honestly.

[sharikous]

Honestly how much does their political stance affect your work?

Using a programming language is 99.9% technical work. As long as they don't go out of their way e.g. to make rustc compile your project wrong if you have files with political content with opposing orientation on your computer, how does any of that matter?

[oefrha]

It shouldn’t be a problem if you just use the language. It does become something you should be mindful of if you want to get more involved, e.g. contribute to core, maintain high profile libraries, give talks at conferences, etc.

As a team member of another high profile project, I have had the pleasure of being accused (thankfully privately) of being intolerant towards trans people because I was very vocal about a change breaking backwards compatibility. Apparently the person behind the change is trans; I only learned about that when I was accused. A decade into woke politics I still have no idea why I should give a single shit about which bathroom they go in or who they choose to sleep with or whatever. But some people won’t hesitate to weaponize this crap when given the chance, and disappointingly, they can often amass a big cheering crowd, or should I say lynching mob.

[commitpizza]

> Honestly how much does their political stance affect your work?

Since I do not use Rust, not at all. But if I were this policy would affect me. For example, I had a domain with "rust" in it. I let it expire, since I decided not to use Rust which now seems like a great choice. I am also soon going to be a gun owner. Also, if I were to use Rust I would probably join a user group now required to adopt their CoC and a bunch of other things.

The main issue with people pusing politics in programming is a sign of a possibly unstable project since in my experience and by looking at the trademark policy it appears it was completely right. Restricting speech and adding a gun policy is just wtf. It is a clear indication that the project is run by people that have very specific political agendas that they're trying to push onto a programming project that has nothing to do with them.

[interlinked]

> All rust conference must prohibit firearms

Even if the safety is on?