Mastodawn

Meredith Whittaker Apr 2, 2024

I keep brooding on the way the xz backdoor was enabled in significant part via weaponizing the FOSS culture of shitty behavior and abuse.

Yes, there're other pathologies at work here (the big tech capitalist pillaging of the commons, etc).

But what is striking is that the uncool, mean standards of FOSS conduct that many of us have decried for years, & that many defended as authentic, tough, etc., ended up not just being exclusionary loser behavior, but a significant attack surface.

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happyborg

@Mer__edith I don't get why anyone would tolerate shitty behaviour in a public context. Where there are other ties, like family you may choose to try harder etc, but in public why?

It's a serious question because helping people stop doing that would be a big positive step. I don't tolerate it anywhere, not IRL, not on SM and wouldn't on my FOSS 'properties'. (Lucky for me the latter are not yet popular enough to have attached that, but I do expect it as things take off.)