• The USPTO granted a patent to Amazon.com for charging for computing resources on an as-used basis.  This is similar to the chargebacks of mainframe computers beginning in the 1960s.  Apparently patent examiners are not familiar with the term “prior art” or “obviousness.”
• White House cyber-security czar Peter Schmidt is considering rules that would put computers with viruses into a “walled garden.”  There is, of course, no discussion of how this will work — agents on your computer?  IDS?  Either way, false positives, SSL, and public wifi hotspots are sure to only make this a headache for legitimate users.
• ASCAP has shown themselves to be ass-hats.  Not only do they want to charge royalties that are crippling to non-profit organizations, but now they want to prohibit artists from using their choice of license for the media they produce.  They won’t be happy until they have control over the entire music market.  Apparently choice and freedom aren’t options for musical artists.

Mackenzie over at Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks has called attention to the greatest dark spot on the face of the FLOSS Community: a man who calls himself MikeeUSA.

This “man” has been posting sexist, misogynist, and violent comments on blogs in the FLOSS Community advocating rape and violence towards women.  His behavior is, to say the least, nauseating and despicable.  Worse, the “man” is a coward who hides behind pseudonyms and tor in protecting his identity.  Whether he really feels the way he does or he gets his jollies on trolling in this dirty manner, he is no better than the likes of Hitler and Stalin.  Needless to say, comments by him on my blog or any site I work with (e.g., LinuxQuestions.org) will not be tolerated.

That being said, I thought today would be a good day to address my take on the numerous issues of sexism in open source that have been going around lately.  I’ll first discuss a few points brought up via Mackenzie’s link to the Geek Feminism Wiki, which I wasn’t even familiar with until today.

• Hoss Gifford’s Flashbelt Presentation: Hoss’s presentation clearly presented a sexist message which was inappropriate for the venue.  It was unprofessional and disappointing.  That being said, it didn’t seem (to me) to be anything worse than immature attention-getting, and I doubt it reflects his personal views towards women.  (Or at least, I hope it doesn’t.)
• Richard Stallman’s emacs virgin joke: It was a joke, and a bad one at that, but it was delivered by RMS.  Who has ever expected anything politically correct from him?
• Mark Shuttleworth’s Keynote: While his comment was probably politically incorrect, it was hardly sexist to me.  In fact, I doubt anyone would have noticed were it not for all the other gaffes made at conferences this year.  Are we now asking every statement open source leaders make to be run by legal?  Maybe his comments were misinterpreted, or I just interpret them differently than others do.  What I do at work, and what I do in the open source community, can be VERY hard to explain to my fiancee.  From his perspective, this is “hard to explain to girls.”  This is not to say that women are not both valued and welcomed in the open source community, but it is more about the technical nature of the work and that being a doctor or a lawyer or a banker is easy to explain, and being a contributor to an open source project is not.  (I am in no way suggesting that Mark Shuttleworth’s comments were appropriate, only that they stem from common usage, and I don’t believe they reflect a sexist attitude.)

I fully support the movement to reduce sexism in the FLOSS Community, and I welcome and encourage the participation of women in the open source community.  I hope the proportions continue to normalize, and I don’t intend to offend by posting these views.

All that being said, I think that it’s inappropriate to expect someone to use “he slash she” every time they want to refer to a person in a speech.  The political correctness involved will quickly overwhelm and swamp the efforts that are being made elsewhere.  If we are to spend all of our time thinking about being politically correct, there would be no time for any forward movement, both technically and socially.  The idea that terms like “guys” are sexist is one I cannot wrap my mind around.  Show me a list of suitable replacement words that doesn’t make a presentation sound stilted and detract from the central idea, and only then can we expect ideas to change.

As for those who are refusing to use Ubuntu over Shuttleworth’s “remark”: overreact much?  It’s not like the Ubuntu wallpaper has nudes of women on it.  Perhaps when an attitude of discrimination is demonstrated, then it will be time for a boycott.  Until then, words are words and actions are actions, never confuse the two.

Edit: I have earned myself a comment from MikeeUSA, which is interesting in that he seems to be seeking out a fight.  Big surprise.

It seems that the British were taking notes when they invaded Germany in the 1940s — it’s time to throw civil liberties to the wind and throw people in jail for nothing, just in case they might try something later.  A man was arrested, fingerprinted, and DNA tested because the police are too blind to tell the difference between a gun and an MP3 player.  Additionally, once they realized they had made fools of themselves, they couldn’t even offer a proper apology.  Oh, and in case anyone was missing it, they tracked him on CCTV cameras the whole way.  It wouldn’t quite be a police state if we couldn’t watch everyone at every second, now would it?