Comment by elektronika
9 hours ago
> programmer with political views
It's dishonest to downplay what his "political views" entail. He compared the removal of minorities to pest extermination.
> When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them.
In my view the core of the "drama" is about whether quoting an unpolitical statement of a person endorses the person as a whole, including their political views.
The maintainer who originally responded to the github issue clearly thinks that it does not. The reporter and Twitter mob think that it does
Whether we disagree with his political views (I hope so) and how political a project like neovim is would be questions to answer once agreement on the first question is reached
When you put an endorsement quote on your project page, you're addressing it to a large range of unrelated people who majoritarly won't even be users of your project (yet).
It's basically advertisement, we won't ever reach some universal conclusion on what any specific aspect of it means for your project, it's all in the eye of the beholder.
It's also all social norms, the maintainer doesn't get a choice on how it will be taken.
Would you put up a quite from Hitler on your website endorsing your product, even if the quote wasn't about his views about anyone who is not a part of his "master race"? How about Pol Pot? Maybe Stalin?
If the answer is "yes", I think maybe you're a little out of touch with how people tend to view stuff like that.
Sure, DHH is not literally any of those people, but he certainly seems to really like Hitler. I just don't get why someone would want a quote on their website from someone who thinks minorities are pests to be exterminated, regardless of the content of their quote. Like, seriously, this is the hill you want to die on?
Accepting a PR from a racist is a very different thing to using a quote from a racist as advertising for your product.
If you don't want reactions to your advertising, don't advertise.
I would be very mindful about advertising endorsements from anyone at all myself.
It doesn’t matter what his political views are, as they’re totally unrelated to what he said about Neovim. Quoting what he said about Neovim does not in any way indicate support of his political views.
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