Sad news today.

#OpenSource / #FreeSoftware #activist, #writer, #programmer, and #streamer, #KrisNova, founder of #Hachyderm and #Nivenly, died in a rock climbing accident last Wednesday evening.

@nova's presence in the OpenSource community will be missed.

https://nivenly.org/blog/2023/08/19/an-announcement-regarding-kris-n%C3%B3va/

@mnl @aburka

First WIP draft for a #nivenly ethics proposal is up! https://gist.github.com/dclements/faed4d4a282648df0fb0b4778de9cad6

let me know any feedback. It's still a bit rough around the edges because I'm waiting for answers on how power works within nivenly before tidying up the language.

For those who are members of #nivenly, I have now created a follow up conversation discourse thread and included a set of relevant links:

https://nivenly.discourse.group/t/haidra-followup/32

I have not shared my opinion there yet. That will come later.

@nivenly

1. That's not what a supercomputer is.

2. The audience of #nivenly is highly technical already, we know what distributed workload clusters are.

3. If someone didn't know and is being assumed to not know, then the choice of references here is fascinating. Not "value neutral" items, but specifically public good projects in the domain of scientific exploration and research.

I don't think this part is deliberately manipulative, but it _is_ manipulative of the audience perception.

13/

Specifically, I am of the view that if they are accepted then #nivenly will become complicit in the behavior of #AiHordeDotNet.

I _don't_ think that the Nivenly board sees it that way, but as an engineer _I_ would. I could draw a line between "us" and "them" if .net was run by someone who was not a lead maintainer on #Haidra

This would not be as big of deal, except that I feel like there's a bit of a shell game going on when it comes to responsibility, and that's part of my core objection

4/

Being neurodivergent has _nothing_ to do with it. At all.

The maintainer responded poorly to multiple people who they have not apologized to, but rather made a blanket post in a different medium. This evades responsibility.

This makes the apology feel less than genuine

From a learning perspective I could treat this as a calling in moment and a matter of coaching, but in whether to select a project for #Nivenly—and their maintainers for the senate—I would like to see that learned _first_

2/

It seems likely that if #haidra joins #nivenly it would give them a seat on the nivenly senate.

That is not something I personally want to see.

While I think that the situation with #nivenly is one where a call in is appropriate and a situation where I and others can do a lot of good ( https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/110896943805743127 ), I think the situation with #haidra is a lot less so.

Even if I knew nothing at all about the situation or about haidra I would be heavily discouraged by their answer.

I think that's a Problem™ and their attitude tells me I can't help once they join.

So I will be voting against them joining. I encourage others to do the same.

Screwing up is something that happens. I'm going to treat this, as far as #nivenly is concerned, as an opportunity to call in and, to do that, I am going to put my money where my mouth is.

I have an ethics referendum written and want cosigners and/or contributors (it's still a draft) before putting it to a vote for the community

It would require nivenly projects to answer a series of ethics questions up front, and puts nivenly specifically in line with the ACM code

But to do this, I need you.

Personally, I think that Quintessence's blog highlights something I suspected (in the interest of disclosure: something I said that came up in an interview was referenced in the article):

#Nivenly was looking for an opportunity to collaborate, thought that this could be something interesting to collaborate on, and thought that collaboration could improve the project

There are a good many things I think they bungled (and look forward to pt 3), but I do believe that's what they were looking at.

Does anyone know the process for actually putting for a referendum with @nivenly?

I remember stumbling across it or something like, but can't find it now. #nivenly

My thoughts on this are that the situation with #haidra illustrates a good opportunity to course correct. That they didn't think about these externalities is a problem, but it is also a _fixable_ problem and something that we can likely make sure is always on their radar going forward.

If this interests you then let's talk about what that might look like!

#nivenly

If you are a member of #nivenly, or aren't but are willing to help me try to shape their direction a bit:

I would like to find the language and a way to push them in a more ethics-focused direction overall. I think they have done a good job on understanding a lot of the dynamics of harassment, but it feels like there could be more of a focus on _ethical_ development practices and projects, making it explicit up front

If you feel similarly, DM me and let's talk about what that might look like!

Basically: If you _are_ that person and looking to build that base of support please let me know! Especially if you have done this before. There's a lot of potential here and I'd love to see it realized.

But I'm tired and it's a lot of work to do it right.

#nivenly #haidra

If I had the time and the energy I would be doing things with #nivenly properly:

* Paying into it
* Going around and looking for other nivenly members and talking to them about #haidra and #generativeAI
* Talking to non-members and building a base of support for ethical development and trying to get them to join

As it is I have somewhere I would rather be focusing if I had the energy for this: my union.

I hope someone will take up the torch there with nivenly and help them onto a good path.

See, this is the kind of thing that makes me think that #Haidra is just not going to be willing to take the ethics of this seriously and that #nivenly will not be able to sway them to a better course.

Okay, I've put these questions on #haidra and #nivenly together into a slightly more coherent single post on the forums for discussion: https://github.com/nivenly/community/discussions/2#discussioncomment-6647668

This is in direct reaction to the #haidra comments on the #nivenly github discussion https://github.com/nivenly/community/discussions/2#discussioncomment-6645718 is very much "but we're not training the models or gathering training data, we're innocent".

I'm following @hrefna thoughts about the subject, which are much more eloquently put than mine: https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/110833561126744694

8. What does #nivenly's involvement wrt its mission of "sustainable governance to open source projects and communities around the globe and supports the maintainers’ independent oversight of their projects" mean for #haidra? What does Haidra hope to get out of this? How about nivenly? (Nivenly Mission Statement).

9. What lessons does nivenly's board take from this announcement and the response? What actions will they take as a result going forward?

6/*

Continuing.

7. I view it as a mistake to think of this as "all or nothing." Are there good intermediary steps that cold be considered by #nivenly and #haidra such that haidra could be grown into a better project over time as a series of targets? For example, associating without making them a "Nivenly project" until some set of criteria are met? Providing some resources but limiting fiscal ones until other criteria or benchmarks are achieved? (ACM 3.2, 3.5)

5/