Subject: Re: [bug#76407] [GCD] A better name for the default branch

From: André Batista <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:37:26 -0300

Hi, 

dom 23 mar 2025 às 11:54:25 (1742741665), [email-masked] enviou:
> Egun on Ekaitz,
> 
> Ekaitz Zarraga <[email-masked]> skribis:
> 
> > Also, what drains me from this is not only the fact that this is an
> > unreasonable change in many levels, but the fact that those who push
> > for it don't care about being reasonable but do care about winning and
> > labeling others as "far right". […]
> 
> I haven’t read in detail the previous discussion on guix-devel that you
> must be referring to, but derogatory comments like those you report
> could be a violation of the code of conduct.
> 

I have spent quite some time reading the discussion and what I saw
was the exact opposite of what Ekaitz is claiming.

For the record: I do not personally believe for one second that
Ekaitz has either argued in good faith on this thread or that their
interjections were aimed at consensus building at all.  I also do
believe that their wording were inviting others to harass Liliana
and anyone who openly supports oppressed minorities.  And I see
that as being very problematic since it's comming from someone with
commit rights on our project.  I'll elaborate on this further down.

Normally, I would have just skipped this whole thread after the first
few troublesome remarks I've read, as I do know that nothing good
comes out of this sort of interactions and I'm beyond hoping some
people to face that they are very much part of the problem and to
change their harmful ways toward others.

However, this community is very dear to me and, being so, I don't
want to let this kind of behaviour be normalized around here.  I also
know I've been wrong many times in my life and hopefully this is one
of those times.

That being said, I'll reframe the issue at hand in the hopes of
untangling it from some dead end discussions, most importantly those
related to subjective perceptions, cultural-societal customs and
mores and personal intentions.

First of all: the strugle against oppression and for human rights
is _NOT_ one that can be put to majority voting, opinion polling or
other numerical methods of decision making.  That would be tantamount
to requiring oppressed minorities to be majorities to have their
issues, interests taken seriously.

The paradox is clear cut.  However, Ekaitz has leaned on this numbers
game more than once as if saying that "a minority is a minority" were
some kind of "argument" or ARGUMENT as they put it.  Make Minorities
Great Again.

If that was the whole of it, one could ascribe it to a lack of a
proper logical education or reasoning on their part.  But they didn't
stop there.  Over and over they put into question the actual
_existence_ of such minority, proceeded to claim that these people
are "imaginary", claimed that their lack of interactions with this
minority is some kind of proof of their non-existence and _demanded_
to be _convinced_ of the contrary.

There are many issues on that reasoning, but for us here three stand
out:

1.  They are implying that those who proposed/supported this GCD are
either brainwashed puppets, liers, ill-intentioned or non-people;

2.  They are demanding that people who are oppressed/victimized "show
their faces" on this public fora, conveniently ignoring that those
people could and probably would be targeted after showing their
faces, which is a form of violence in itself;

3. They are posing as if they have to be convinced for things to
proceed, not as if the burden was on them to show that their
disagreement is based on reasons that are shared by the community.

More than that, they then proceeded to claim that this non-existent
imaginary folks where some kind of super majority which would win by
a land slide on this GCD and to pose as some sort of vilanized
defender of _real_ oppressed people which would be very much harmed
by such a change, even though they don't say _HOW_ such people are
being harmed by the current GCD.  This is all well-known playbook
tactics of fascists/nazis which no one claimed them to be, but which
they themselves rushed to say they are being labeled.  Another old
trick on the aforementioned playbook.  Say it first so as to
discredit any one who says it later.  Play the victim of a
Schrödinger enemy, one that is at the same time super strong and
patetically weak.

To add insult to injury, they then proceeded to claim that they
couldn't care less for the name of the default branch.  So, even
though they don't actually care, they somehow find the strenght, time
and resources to be _very_ involved in denying that the proposal
could have any meaning or benefit at all and that it is outright
harmful to the project, opening the gates to some flood of similar
proposals.  Similar on what?  On being against oppression?

Polical movements, ethical considerations and a clear stance against
oppression all require that we take sides and that we make some
people unconfortable.

The question is _NOT_ which is the optimal decision that will make
the greater number of people happy.  That is easy: go by the status
quo, it is the status quo because the majority is conformant to it.
The question is: which decision brings us closer to a society without
or with the bare minimum possible oppression?

Also, oppression does not cease to be oppression because those who
are oppressed do not or cannot recognize it as oppression.  It does
not matter that you happen to know someone who is a black, blind,
handicaped, fat, old, trans, muslim, schizo, cognitively impaired
illegal immigrant who happens to not care about this issue.  Their
opinion is not the "truth" on the matter at hand.  It's just their
opinion.  And they are only a flawed human who are trying to cope
with their lot on life.  The fact that they have a huge following,
became internet influencers and got thousands of likes on their
message saying that they don't care is not proof that this is not
an issue, it is rather proof that there is social aceptance for
things to stay as they are.  But then again, oppression has always
had social acceptance, it cannot exist without it, there is no need
to prove it.

Finally, I despise imperialism, I despise corporations, I despise PR
stunts and I despise propaganda, but corporations and empires trying
to pander to progressive causes is _NOT_ the reason I despise them.
The reason I despise them is because they do cause and maintain a
state of normalized oppression.  But unlike me, there are those who
don't have any issues with oppression as long as they themselves can
assume the role of oppressors.  These are the people who have issues
every time someone tries to critically question the status quo and
to propose tiny changes to the way we talk, behave, think.

Of course branch names on guix won't end oppression, no one is
expecting that.  Of course "master" has other meanings which are
unrelated to slavery, no one is saying it does not.  However, the
harmful meaning was brought up and some people showed issued with
it.  Is there a strong reason to keep this handle for our repos in
sight of that?  Some prople brought valid concerns: guix time machine
for instance.

Pandering to those who might feel alienated by moving away from this
name is not a valid concern IMO.  Why is this word so special to
them?  Or, if it is not special to them, why all this noise?

PS: many times people's rights were invoked to defend this position.
Let me then remember that capitalists have a right to hoard wealth,
slavers had a right to trade on human lives and copyright holders
have a right to keep their code proprietary.  That does not mean
we should support their "rights".  At least for the last one, I think
it is safe to say that our project very much does not support that
right.

PPS: Since nation-states were brought up as a subject, here is my 2c
on that front: Spain is well-known for having excelled at two things:
inquisition and genocide.