commit: 34e858d7434d0d43a762c969fdcbdb543561021a
parent 2b922fe18a85dd1972bf4c2ebe2c05b3fa27ef0e
Author: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2024 16:10:12 +0200
FDO conduct enforcement case
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diff --git a/content/blog/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.md b/content/blog/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.md
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+---
+title: FDO's conduct enforcement actions regarding Vaxry
+date: 2024-04-09
+---
+
+freedesktop(.org), aka FDO, recently banned Hyprland maintainer Vaxry from the
+FDO community, and in response Vaxry has taken his case to the court of public
+opinion, publishing their email exchanges and writing about it on his blog.
+
+It saddens me to bear witness to these events today. I wrote [in September of
+last year][0] about problems with toxicity in the Hyprland community. I
+initially reached out to Vaxry to discuss these problems in private in February
+of last year. I failed to get through to him, leading to that blog post in
+September. I spent some time in the following weeks talking with Vaxry on his
+behavior and his community's social norms, again in private, but again, I was
+unable to get through to him. Unfortunately, we find ourselves again leaving the
+private sphere and discussing Vaxry's behavior and the problem posed by the
+Hyprland community once again.
+
+[0]: https://drewdevault.com/2023/09/17/Hyprland-toxicity.html
+
+The fact of the matter is that Hyprland remains a toxic community, enabled and
+encouraged by its toxic leadership, namely Vaxry. FDO's decision to ban Vaxry is
+ultimately a consequence of Vaxry's behavior, and because he has elected to
+appeal his case in public, I am compelled to address his behavior in public. I
+hereby rise firmly in defense of FDO's decision.
+
+I invite you to start by reading the two email threads, [one][1], and [two][2],
+which Vaxry has published for your consideration, as well as Vaxry's follow-ups
+on his blog, [one][3], and [two][4].
+
+[1]: https://blog.vaxry.net/resource/articleFDO/LyudeMails.pdf
+[2]: https://blog.vaxry.net/resource/articleFDO/lyudeReply.pdf
+[3]: https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-fdo-and-redhat
+[4]: https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-fdo-and-redhat2
+
+Here's my read on the situation.
+
+The FDO officer that reached out to Vaxry did it after Vaxry's problematic
+behavior was brought to her attention by members of the FDO community, and was
+acting on her mandate within the FDO conduct enforcement board by investigating
+complaints submitted to her by this community. It is not a stretch to suggest a
+close relationship between these communities exists: FDO is the steward of both
+the Wayland protocol and implementation and the wlroots library, essential
+dependencies of Hyprland and sources for collaboration between Hyprland and FDO.
+Vaxry and other members of the Hyprland community had already participated
+extensively in these projects (mainly in discussions on IRC and GitLab issues)
+at the time of the email exchange, in spaces where the code of conduct applies.
+
+The FDO officer duly investigated the complaints she had received and found, in
+collaboration with the other members of the FDO conduct enforcement team, that
+they were credible, and worrying. There are numerous examples of behavior from
+Vaxry that contravenes the FDO code of conduct in several different respects,
+and any number of them would be grounds for an immediate ban. Since these
+behaviors are concerning, but did not take place in the FDO community, the
+conduct board decided to issue a warning in private, stating that if this sort
+of behavior was seen in the FDO community that it would result in enforcement
+action from the conduct team.
+
+All of the actions from the FDO conduct team are reasonable and show
+considerable restraint. Vaxry could have taken it in stride with no consequences
+to himself. Instead, he immediately escalated the situation. He construes the
+FDO officer's polite and well-reasoned warning as threats and intimidation. He
+minimizes examples of his own hate speech by shrugging them off as a joke. He
+belittles the FDO officer and builds a straw man wherein her email is an
+official statement on behalf of RedHat, and cites a conspiracy theory about
+<abbr title="diversity, equity, and inclusion">DEI</abbr> programs at RedHat as
+justification for calling the FDO officer a hypocrite. He is insulted on my
+behalf that my name was cited in the FDO officer's email in lowercase, "drew",
+and feels the need to address this.
+
+The FDO officer responds to Vaxry's unhinged rant with a sarcastic quip
+clarifying that it was indeed within the FDO conduct team's remit to ban Vaxry
+from their GitLab instance -- I confess that in my view this was somewhat
+unprofessional, though I can easily sympathize with the FDO officer given the
+context. Following this, Vaxry states that Hyprland will cease all communication
+with FDO's conduct team and _ignore_ (emphasis his) any future emails from them.
+Finally, he threatens legal action (on what basis is unclear) and signs the
+email.
+
+Regardless of how you feel about the conduct team issuing a private warning to
+Vaxry on the basis of activities outside of FDO community spaces, the email
+thread that ensues most certainly is within the scope of the FDO code of
+conduct, and Vaxry's behavior therein is sufficient justification for a ban from
+the FDO community as far as I'm concerned. The conduct team cites Vaxry's stated
+intention to ignore any future conduct interventions as the ultimate reason for
+the ban, which I find entirely reasonable on FDO's part. I have banned people
+for far less than this, and I stand by it.
+
+Vaxry's follow-up blog posts only serve to underscore this point. First of all,
+he immediately opens with a dog-whistle calling for the reader to harass the FDO
+officer in question: "I don't condone harassing this person, but here is their
+full name, employer and contact details":
+
+> I do not condone any hateful messages sent towards any of the parties
+> mentioned.
+>
+> Recently I have received an email filled with threats to my inbox, from a
+> member of the X.org board, Freedesktop.org, and a Red Hat employee. Their name
+> is [redacted].
+
+Moreover, Vaxry claims to have apologised for his past conduct, which is not
+true. In lieu of an apology, Vaxry has spent the "1.5 years" since the last
+incident posting angry rants on his blog calling out minority representation and
+"social justice warriors" in light of his perceived persecution. Meanwhile the
+Hyprland community remains a toxic place, welcoming hate, bullying, and
+harassment, but now prohibiting all "political" speech, which in practice means
+any discussion of LGBTQ topics, though this is largely unenforced. In the end,
+the Hyprland community's fundamental problem is that they're all "just having
+fun", and it seems that they can't have "fun" unless it's at someone else's
+expense.
+
+The FDO team is right that Hyprland's community reflects poorly on the Linux
+desktop community as a whole. Vaxry has created a foothold for hate,
+transphobia, homophobia, bullying, and harassment in the Linux desktop
+community. We are right to take action to correct this problem.
+
+Every option other than banning Vaxry has been exhausted over the past year and
+a half. I personally spent several weeks following my last blog post on the
+matter discussing Vaxry's behavior in confidence and helping him understand how
+to improve, and at my suggestion he joined a private community of positive male
+role models to discuss these issues in a private and empathetic space. After a
+few weeks of these private discussions, the last thing he said to me was "I do
+believe there could be arguments to sway my opinion towards genocide".[^1]
+
+[^1]: Yes, this is taken out of context. But, if you raise this objection, I
+ struggle to imagine in what context you think this statement can be read
+ sympathetically.
+
+There's nothing left to do but to build a fence around Hyprland and protect the
+rest of the community from them. I know that there's a lot of good people who
+use and contribute to Hyprland, and I'm sorry for those of you who are affected
+by this problem. But, in the end, actions have consequences. The rest of the
+community has no choice but to sanction Vaxry.
+
+And, to Vaxry -- I know you're reading this -- there are going to continue to be
+consequences for your actions, but it's still not too late to change. I know
+it's humiliating to be called out like this, and I really would rather not have
+had to do so. FDO is probably not the last time you're going to be banned if you
+don't change course, and it would reflect better on you if you took it on the
+chin and didn't post inflammatory rants on your blog -- trust me, you don't look
+like the good guy here. You are trapped in an echo chamber of hate, anger, and
+bigotry. I hope that you find a way out, and that someday you can build a
+community which is as great as your software is.
+
+And, to the FDO officer in question: I'm so sorry that you're at the ass end of
+all of this hate and abuse. You don't deserve any of it. You did a good job, and
+I'm proud of you and the rest of the FDO conduct team. If you need any support,
+someone to talk to, don't hesitate to reach out and ask, on IRC, Matrix, email,
+whatever. Don't read the comments.
+
+And on that note, I condemn in the harshest terms the response from communities
+like /r/linux on the subject. The vile harassment and hate directed at the FDO
+officer in question is obscene and completely unjustifiable. I don't care what
+window manager or desktop environment you use -- this kind of behavior is
+completely uncalled for. I expect better.
+
+---
+
+*P.S. The Hyprland community has already descended on me before even publishing
+this post, after I called Vaxry out on Mastodon a few hours ago. My
+notifications are not full of reasonable objections to my complaints, but
+instead the response is slurs and death threats. This only serves to prove my
+characterization of the Hyprland community as deeply toxic.*
