FSF leadership

[Nate Graham]

I find it amusing that there is such diversity in interpretations of 
what "ensure diversity" means. :)

Some people seem to interpret it to mean "remove institutional barriers 
and bias faced by non-straight-white-male candidates" and other people 
interpret it to mean "prefer and promote non-straight-white-male 
candidates over others".

These are different things, and if we don't agree on what is being 
proposed, it's easy to accidentally argue against something you may 
actually approve of because it was expressed using terms that did not 
mean what you thought they mean.

So instead of using ambiguous turns of phrase likely to provoke an 
argument over definition of terms, how about we just be clear and say 
what we mean?

By "ensure diversity", are we talking about "remove institutional 
barriers and bias faced by non-straight-white-male candidates"? Or 
something else?


Nate



On 9/19/19 5:54 AM, Nadeem Hasan wrote:
> It is amazing to see as we reach the year 2020, the amount of ignorance 
> (willful or otherwise) regarding what ensuring diversity means among the 
> educated adults in this group.
> 
> The call to ensure diversity does not mean choosing someone less 
> qualified who is not "white straight male" for the "sake" of diversity. 
> It means removing any hurdles that have been institutionally put in 
> place to prevent such a person from being selected for a leadership role 
> even if they are well qualified.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 6:48 AM Harald Sitter <sitter at kde.org 
> <mailto:sitter at kde.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 10:29 AM Jens <jens at ohyran.se
>     <mailto:jens at ohyran.se>> wrote:
>      >
>      > TBH I worry less about past transgressions or the communicative
>     fallout
>      > than I do a lack of response from us. (this is me not having a
>     blessed
>      > clue what exactly went down 2009)
>      >
>      > I do agree with you on many points and I think you raise a lot of
>     good
>      > concerns at the same time, we missed the boat then to comment - what
>      > we're seeing now is not a boat ten years travelled, but a new one
>      > launched from shore so to speak.
>      >
>      > I think with a bit of finesse we can use it as a voice of support for
>      > FSF, a hope to ensure a leadership that can better serve the FSF as
>      > well as weave it into a comment on our commitment for the same -
>     AND do
>      > so in a way that can include the ideological diversity of KDE.
>      >
>      > In practice (FOR EXAMPLE):
>      > "We support the FSF in its work to find a new President and would
>     urge
>      > them to find one that represent the Free Software movement as a whole
>      > and can grow the entirety of the community.
>      > We all (the KDE community included) have to ensure that past
>     biases do
>      > not limit our choices of leadership and that access to Free Software,
>      > the technologies and the communities isn't blocked by those same
>     biases
>      > and cultures."
> 
>     +1 to what Jens said in the entire thread.
> 
>     I will add that I don't think we need to publicly talk to or about the
>     FSF specifically though, but maybe I am just not grasping the scope of
>     the incident there. Perhaps we should; after all, while the FSF is a
>     separate organization it is still the figure head of the free software
>     movement as a whole. We are part of the movement and so our opinion
>     matters and we should make it heard. At the same time I am not sure
>     what wagging a finger in the particular direction of the FSF
>     accomplishes.
> 
>     With that in mind I would propose that we make a statement, but not to
>     the FSF... our statement should be one in support of a healthy,
>     diverse and inclusive free software community to that very community
>     at large. This applies to the FSF, to GNOME, to us, we all need to be
>     aware of our own biases so we can prevent bias-driven decision making
>     and foster diversity.
> 
>     KDE's statement ought to encourage and light the way.
> 
>     HS
>