The Authoritarianism of Code: Why Open Source Communities Exploit You
Zed A. Shaw argues that authoritarianism is deeply embedded in software development, especially in open source communities. He defines authoritarianism as any deference to authority given or taken without enthusiastic informed consent, and distinguishes it from fascism. Shaw provides a framework to evaluate projects and communities, using the Python community's handling of a 2012 sexual harassment incident as a prime example of deference to authority. His goal is to help developers make informed decisions about where they invest their time, avoiding exploitation by authoritarian leaders and communities.
Any deference to authority given or taken without the enthusiastic informed consent of everyone involved.
- BigTTYGothGF
From the same mind who brought us "python 3 is not turing complete because its interpreter cannot run python 2 code."
- trinsic2
I think the concept that our culture is ripe with authoritarianism is sound idea. It's funny, I can see it easy in politics and government but not in our organizations until now, so that was a surprise to me. But the way it's written comes off like someone with an axe to grind. The length was way over the top and it needs refining.
But the author is right, this is a pervasive problem in western culture that is the primary cause of most of our ill's when 90% of our society can't even conceive of supporting structural change in our institutions you know we have a problem.
- underdeserver
Should be (2020) per the URL.