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38 changes: 38 additions & 0 deletions content/blog/2021/ethics-and-empathy-in-open-source.md
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---
title: "Ethics and Empathy in Open Source"
publishDate: 2021-04-16
---

One of the biggest stories to come out in the tech industry last week was the [deliberate bad patches to the linux kernel](https://www.zdnet.com/article/greg-kroah-hartman-bans-university-of-minnesota-from-linux-development-for-deliberately-buggy-patches/)
and got the University of Minnesota from future contributions.

When reading the article I was reminded how incredibly broken
the tech industry is. I say broken because a group of people
thought that it was ok to experiment on an Open Source Project
without express permission. This shows that the leadership of
the Computer Science faculty, and possibly the Doctoral
candidates lack any form of empathy... and possibly shows how
there is a lack of ethics being taught. To "experiment" on a
project and the people who maintain it is not ethical. At least
to me.

One of my friends, [Ashley Hunsberger](https://twitter.com/aahunsberger),
has done a fantastic talk at [Selenium Conf Berlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5CdM87B9wo&list=PLRdSclUtJDYV8I_B5rLkMI7jL_JMv7GRO&index=8) entitled
"The death of liberal arts". In this talk Ashley talks about
how, with a testing twist, how humanities subjects can improve
the way we approach our problems in the technical world.

Open Source projects already get a lot of people abusing them regularly,
complaining that their poorly written bug reports are not being actioned,
or that something they are benefitting from for free isn't working the way
they expect. 99% of the time the contributors are doing this in their free
time. And the 1% who are paid to work on Open Source? They don't deserve to
be treated badly either. They will go above and beyond to try help but they
are not to be abused. I've said it before that you should [hug a developer
or don't be a dick.](/blog/2011/hug-a-oss-developer-or-dont-be-a-dick/) and
have even [described what harassment can look like](/blog/2017/harassment-of-open-source-maintainers-or-contributors/).

Circling back to the original reason for blogging, the experiment could have
happened if it had been planned with a little bit of empathy. I feel
a social engineering project like that could be useful and a lot can be
learned to improve the security of software in the Open Source world.
183 changes: 183 additions & 0 deletions docs/blog/2021/ethics-and-empathy-in-open-source/index.html
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<meta name="twitter:description" content="One of the biggest stories to come out in the tech industry last week was the deliberate bad patches to the linux kernel and got the University of Minnesota from future contributions.
When reading the article I was reminded how incredibly broken the tech industry is. I say broken because a group of people thought that it was ok to experiment on an Open Source Project without express permission. This shows that the leadership of the Computer Science faculty, and possibly the Doctoral candidates lack any form of empathy&hellip; and possibly shows how there is a lack of ethics being taught."/>

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<meta property="og:description" content="One of the biggest stories to come out in the tech industry last week was the deliberate bad patches to the linux kernel and got the University of Minnesota from future contributions.
When reading the article I was reminded how incredibly broken the tech industry is. I say broken because a group of people thought that it was ok to experiment on an Open Source Project without express permission. This shows that the leadership of the Computer Science faculty, and possibly the Doctoral candidates lack any form of empathy&hellip; and possibly shows how there is a lack of ethics being taught." />
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<h1>Ethics and Empathy in Open Source</h1>
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<p>One of the biggest stories to come out in the tech industry last week was the <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/greg-kroah-hartman-bans-university-of-minnesota-from-linux-development-for-deliberately-buggy-patches/">deliberate bad patches to the linux kernel</a>
and got the University of Minnesota from future contributions.</p>
<p>When reading the article I was reminded how incredibly broken
the tech industry is. I say broken because a group of people
thought that it was ok to experiment on an Open Source Project
without express permission. This shows that the leadership of
the Computer Science faculty, and possibly the Doctoral
candidates lack any form of empathy&hellip; and possibly shows how
there is a lack of ethics being taught. To &ldquo;experiment&rdquo; on a
project and the people who maintain it is not ethical. At least
to me.</p>
<p>One of my friends, <a href="https://twitter.com/aahunsberger">Ashley Hunsberger</a>,
has done a fantastic talk at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5CdM87B9wo&amp;list=PLRdSclUtJDYV8I_B5rLkMI7jL_JMv7GRO&amp;index=8">Selenium Conf Berlin</a> entitled
&ldquo;The death of liberal arts&rdquo;. In this talk Ashley talks about
how, with a testing twist, how humanities subjects can improve
the way we approach our problems in the technical world.</p>
<p>Open Source projects already get a lot of people abusing them regularly,
complaining that their poorly written bug reports are not being actioned,
or that something they are benefitting from for free isn&rsquo;t working the way
they expect. 99% of the time the contributors are doing this in their free
time. And the 1% who are paid to work on Open Source? They don&rsquo;t deserve to
be treated badly either. They will go above and beyond to try help but they
are not to be abused. I&rsquo;ve said it before that you should <a href="/blog/2011/hug-a-oss-developer-or-dont-be-a-dick/">hug a developer
or don&rsquo;t be a dick.</a> and
have even <a href="/blog/2017/harassment-of-open-source-maintainers-or-contributors/">described what harassment can look like</a>.</p>
<p>Circling back to the original reason for blogging, the experiment could have
happened if it had been planned with a little bit of empathy. I feel
a social engineering project like that could be useful and a lot can be
learned to improve the security of software in the Open Source world.</p>

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