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Comment by Kye

6 hours ago

The master of ceremonies is a proper creature: https://floss.social/@kde/116673618808097094

edit: I appreciate the quality of discussion below, so far.

34 comments

Kye

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chekibreki  5 hours ago

I lament the times when open source projects were open source software projects instead of political platforms for people who arrogantly think that their private political opinion is important enough to overshadow the project they participate in.

This will undoubtedly create tensions and will lead to fewer donations, thus having a negative impact on KDE.

  • sham1  5 hours ago

    The Free Software community has always been political. Where have you been?

    Introducing a non-binary mascot for KDE is no more or less political than for example Richard Stallman demanding that printer drivers should be free, back in the 1980s. And same way the use and preference of the term "open source" over "free software" -- or vice versa -- is also very political because it depends on if one wants to go with the described values or not necessarily want to stand behind them.

    The Free software community involves people, and with people come shared values and politics. That's kinda what "community" implies. And if we really want to go into it, given the circumstances of the invention of things like computers, the Internet, etc. it'd be very erroneous to asset that software in general has ever been value-free or non-political. Computing artillery trajectories is political just the same way as promotion of LGBTQ+ people, even if people get more upset about the latter rather than the more kinetic kinds of politics implied by howitzers et al.

  • enragedcacti  5 hours ago

    It's Pride Month and the organization is doing Pride things, its not that complicated.

    > This will undoubtedly create tensions and will lead to fewer donations, thus having a negative impact on KDE.

    "undoubtedly" is absurd here. Does KDE really have a stable of consistent transphobes donating? Do they outweigh additional donations from supporting the LGBTQ community?

    Regardless, if the only point of KDE were to make money it wouldn't be a non-profit. Extremely passionate people are often passionate about a lot of things beyond just what you want from them. KDE is a community project and that community loves and accepts non-binary people.

  • mhurron  5 hours ago

    > open source software projects instead of political platforms

    OSS and FOSS movements themselves were political platforms, so this has never been true. Your problem is that you just have some issue with this one

  • graypegg  5 hours ago

    With all due respect: it is just a picture of a cute lizard.

    Thinking practically, having a male and female lizard is sort of inconvenient for a mascot, since leaving one out is a message in itself. Having a genderless mascot with art assets ready to go makes practical sense to me.

    • adjfasn47573  5 hours ago

      > since leaving one out is a message in itself

      Side question: why would having a male or female mascot be "a message in itself"? Why do people want to see a message, and especially a $currentDayPolitics one, in every single thing? A mascot can be a cute mascot without having to represent anything more than exactly that.

      Just as a random example: Let's say some OG founder of a project had a cute dog named Laila, and the project makes this dog its mascot. Why should that be a problem, AT ALL?

      And what's even worse, if you think this "everything has a message and we have to be super careful what the message is" thing through, the conclusion is: No project ever again can have a solely male or female mascot. Which is of course absurd.

      And this whole "we need to send the RIGHT message" thing falls apart with time anyway, because what the right message is, WILL change over time. You're not at the end of all human enlightenment.

      2 replies →

    • F3nd0  5 hours ago

      The presented mascot is not genderless, but non-binary. The situation you describe has hardly improved with their introduction.

    • jl6  5 hours ago

      They could have hung a Star of David pendant around its neck and it would still have been “just” a cute lizard, and surely only an anti-Semite would object to such neutral, normalizing messaging?

    • mongol  5 hours ago

      No it is not just a picture, it is also a descriptive text and specific emojis attached. I don't think anyone would have raised an eye if it was just for the picture.

  • voidfunc  5 hours ago

    I used to think this way but with the rise of fascism pretty much everywhere I think it's important to know what I am consuming and what they support now.

    Is it perfect? No. Does it piss some people off? Probably, and I don't care.

    Also it's a cute fucking lizard.

  • YorickPeterse  4 hours ago

    This is just concern trolling, so let's not pretend otherwise.

    If a non-binary mascot "creates tensions" then by all accounts you should go outside and touch some grass.

    • F3nd0  4 hours ago

      I think it’s a little different to simply have the mascot than it is to make their introduction an officially endorsed celebration of ‘pride month’ and have them ‘presiding over KDE’s 30th anniversary celebrations’. If something has a greater chance to ‘create tensions’, it’s probably the latter, for better or worse.

  • stusmall  5 hours ago

    Honestly, when was open source not political? Look at early GNU writing. The topics have change but it being political absolutely have not.

    • thewebguyd  5 hours ago

      Minor nitpick but s/open source/free software

      But yes, the free software movement is political, and the FSF is by all intents a political organization with a specific political goal and message.

      Politics is multifaceted, it doesn't purely relate to government either. Politics is how humans decide who gets what, when and how. You can't run a community or organization without politics.

      1 reply →