“My satisfaction with the Drupal Community comes through the sense of pride that comes with seeing the personal growth of the people who contribute and participate. This includes everyone, regardless of beliefs, gender, religion, national origin, carnal disposition, unfortunate personality traits, needlessly confrontational habits, or any other factor.

It is safe to say many of our brightest minds and greatest contributors would be unemployable were it not for the relative anonymity offered by the Internet. The thought that a group exists that feels entitled to condemn and expel others from the community over their differences disgusts me. The Code of Conduct is being used as a weapon against them and is ultimately incompatible with the community I helped to build.”

“As someone who grew up under an oppressive regime, this whole affair brings back painful memories.

One day the security forces showed up at my place at 3 am, and asked me to come with them. They put me in the “political detention room” with others picked up on the same night from various parts of the cities. All of them university students. They had me finger printed and photographed, and interrogated at length. I was released shortly after, with no charges, court, judge or anything resembling a lawful due process.

Life was very difficult because they had a file on me, and I was often summoned and interrogated multiple times over one a and half decades. To this day, I don’t know what I am accused of, nor who was my accuser. I was once told that my file will remain open until I die.

Because of all these painful experiences, I reject any sort of secret accusations and secret decisions. Either Larry did take an action that violated the COC, or he did not. If he did not, then Dries owes him an apology. If he did, then the community must know what this action is. Beliefs are not actions, and his private life is no concern of anyone.”

“
The Drupal community is not just DrupalCon, it’s people organising events from praised conferences to small meetups throughout the world, it’s people who have dedicated years of their time to improving the software, it’s a professional network without which thousands of companies wouldn’t exist, it’s the countless number of people doing great work everyday that have given Drupal it’s reputation.

Dries and the Drupal Association are in a position where they can ask for someone to step down from a specific role in DrupalCon, maybe even to ban someone from attending the event, but banning someone from the community is not something anybody should be able to do.”

“I believe that people should say something if they don’t like something, but I painfully learned that it’s not that easy. I’m male and have long hair, it happened twice that at a festival or party, drunk men walked up to me and told me drunkenly that they “love” my hair and touched it.

I strongly oppose the idea of self policing by members of the community. History shows that self policing generates fear and mistrust, and ultimately destroys a community.

But a community also needs strong and widely accepted policies that define how to handle such situations. Recent events show that both are missing within the Drupal Community. Especially the fact that the decision to remove a person from the community is taken by an individual person, who is also a board member and co-founder of the biggest Drupal company, is troubling to me. ”

“Dries, Thank you for staying strong, engaging an open conversation, and taking actions that keep us from running into such a deeply alarming issue again. Neither you nor the community deserves this to be a one man show that is likely to burn out. I am looking forward to understanding who is welcome and who is not.”

“Dries, Thank you for open sourcing your code and building the wonderful community which has fed and housed me and many others, but DA game is now up. When I first “fell in love” with Drupal I was in an abusive relationship - I eventually escaped her and Drupal gave me the tools to pick myself back up and live life by my own terms.

I am sure Drupal has grown beyond your wildest expectations and now is the time to pass the reigns over to that community in order to take it to the next level. The community that has grown up around Drupal has amazing values of mutual co-operation and collaboration at a scale that has never been done before in the world. There could be many brighter days ahead than we are experiencing, I hope you decide to radically change this current path you are on.

Eight years ago I approached a DA board member with a viable alternative, not written by me but one that exists and is proven - I was merely the messenger. I was immediately brushed aside which only made me stronger and ended up being your first community-elected Director of the DA. I saw the set-up and realised it was not a matter of changing the DA, the DA itself was the issue and a new model would need to be built to support the community as a whole AND the DA in its work. Open Source is chaotic, but despite all logic reasoning it works. No matter what you do, you will not be able to support that using top-down divide and conquer corporate methods originating from the military.

I ask you to reconsider your position on Larry and to pardon Chx. Itis not fair to chuck people out of a community for simply being who they are, other methods must be found to deal with these issues which do not entail destroying careers and lives.

I also ask you to seriously consider utilising some of your resources and connections to support efforts like mine and drutopia which are working hard to provide alternatives but are currently suppressed by the one-track system you have grown when it comes to business.

There are better ways, Drupal will survive, now is the time to change not shuffle the deckchairs around the Titanic. I truly hope you see this, then perhaps at some point I can get back to building open source coworking cafes, which is why I ended up in Drupal.”

“I have lived with chronic depression most of my life. Because I’m high functioning and because I have all sorts of coping and soothing mechanisms, my behavior is often misinterpreted when people don’t know me well. I try to be open about it to counteract the shame that comes with it and get as much support as I can. Depression makes you feel like a loser and warps how you see yourself and relate to the world.”

“There is a clear conflict of interest between Dries’ role at Acquia, his role in the Drupal project, his holding of the trademark, and him dictating decisions.

I stopped my company from contributing to Drupal modules, going to Drupalcon, and organizing local Drupal Camps. One of the reasons was that I saw these efforts indirectly helping Acquia. Acquia clearly took advantage of the Drupal project, both in terms of promotion, putting VC money to promote their brand and indirectly controlling Drupal affairs.

Drupal is a community contributed project and Acquia is a funded company which is indirectly controlling the direction of the Drupal project.

Many long term contributors have been witch hunted, targeted, and removed, and the voice of the majority is being suppressed. It is that majority who are small company owners, contributors, freelancers and many others who are not given an equitable voice and are shut down.”

“I don’t need to be part of the Drupal Community to tell right from wrong.”

“Everyone needs to smoke more (redacted) and chill the (redacted) out.”

“I don’t like that everything I ever did, say or wrote can be used to judge me. I carefully examine every tweet or like and it feels like walking on egg shells.”

“I have been publicly criticized by Gloria Steinem (the famous American feminist) for my opinions on single-sex education. While I personally believe in feminism, what would happen if someone else in the Drupal community thinks I don’t?”

“As someone who is politically more to the center than what is considered “acceptable” amongst some in the Drupal community, I have been fearful of being harassed for my private beliefs. This is why I generally keep a low profile, and follow some controversial accounts (that I disagree with) on a secret Twitter list. Some might think I agree with these accounts and consider me “suspicious” for it.

The latest events have made many (including myself) fearful of being “next”. None of the latest communications from the Drupal project have done anything to assuage these fears.”

“In politics, being ruled by a dictator that makes the call on who is and is not allowed to be part of a society is not an acceptable situation for me - regardless of how benevolent and well-intentioned any particular dictator may be. How come I am supposed to accept this as normality when engaging in an open source community?”

“By all means – address sexism in Drupal, but do it through concrete rules on the matter and through transparency. Also address gossip and the way it can lead to harassment and total community breakdowns like this.”

“In a community as large and diverse as ours, we will be offended by technical as well as non-technical statements, decisions and actions some of the time. That’s fine. Friction is a valid & valuable part of discourse.

I feel there is somewhat of a binary focus of some elements of the social justice movement in our community – issues of economy or ethnicity seem to play little to no role when thinking and talking about disenfranchisement. I believe feminism must include economic critique.

In a context in which everyone is continually evolving and learning to question and enhance their perspectives, it’s more often than not a bad idea to shut down discourse based on a perception of offense.

Dries’ and the DA’s handling of this issue and crisis management mode seems to confirm suspicions that Drupal is more and more becoming “just business“.

The fact of Dries’ & the Drupal Association’s lack of anticipation of (part of) the community’s reaction indicates an unhealthy culture & homogeneity of thought in the leadership and those that encircle them. Surround yourself with yes men (of all genders and identifications) and situations like this are bound to happen.”

“For about a decade Drupal has been on the forefront of how a large open source community can run. We run into all kinds of obstacles, and unfortunately don’t have a wealth of history to help us avoid them in advance. We have to content ourselves instead, with how well we respond to these problems when they hit us.

I believe that the last several years have shown us some serious problems with this version of our leadership and conflict resolution structures. We’ve ended up with some contributors expelled, others afraid of committing thoughtcrime, and a system that appears to be used too often by small interest groups or personal vendettas. No one wins.

We’ve sustained serious damage getting here. We’ve lost phenomenal community members and developers that we can never get back. Dries, the community is speaking. Please affirm our shared values of openness and diversity, and let’s build something better.”

“I’ve thought many a times about hurting the people that bullied me when I was a kid. Does that make me a murderer? Does finding another woman sexy even though you’re married make you a philanderer? The whole concept of being held accountable for your thoughts alone is ludicrous.”

“I don’t believe it’s right to shut down conversations by telling a person to “check their privilege”.”

“In order to Live Our Values in Open Source, we must be willing to embrace Openness and Transparency. In order to Live Our Values as a community, we must be willing to embrace Respect and Diversity of Thought and Experience. To do any less, is to become something unrecognizable.”

“Drupal is a community with a public Code of Conduct, that we can all read and try to abide by. But now it appears that there are other things that are forbidden, that result in expulsion, but we don’t know what they are. We’re in a community where there are some unwritten, unspoken, unknown rules. You might violate one of these rules, but you won’t know until it’s too late.”

“The more I know people, the more I love animals.”

“I’ve been following the Drupal debacle with great concern — precisely because of the fact that the tech “thought police” mob did the same thing to me. After group leaders of RailsGirls and RailsBridge learned of my conservative political views via social media accounts, they summarily banned me from both organizations without any provocation. Shortly thereafter, tech404.io also banned me. This group’s moderator proceeded to doxx me by contacting my business clients to get me kicked off the projects I work on. In addition, there’s strong evidence to suggest that he attempted to get me removed from a conference at which I was scheduled to lead a workshop. As one of the main instigators of the witch hunt against me, he started a smear campaign intended to ostracize me from the local tech community.”

“ I don’t mind if men consensually subjugate women. I also don’t give a (redacted) if a woman wants to be grabbed by the (redacted). It’s none of my (redacted) business. Just don’t go on a witch hunt to find out about my kinks.”

“I stopped participating in the Drupal community over a year ago, dispirited by what I saw as intractable problems caused by project leadership. Had the removal of a community member not been done in the name of making the community safe for women, I probably wouldn’t be saying anything at all right now. But unlike others, I don’t have to worry about being forced out of the community for my beliefs; the high price of trying to get anything done already did that.

I support clear expectations about how we treat each other in software communities. I value diversity. I do not believe that retroactive punishment for unnamed transgressions against unwritten rules helps anyone. I am not frightened of and do not need to be protected from other people’s beliefs. Dries, Megan, and the Board are not doing anything to help the diversity of the community by making it unsafe for everyone.”

“I’m a white male. At some point in my life, I’ve probably inadvertently said or written or done something racist or sexist. I want to treat everyone equally and with respect - but I’m human, being human is messy, and I’ve probably gotten it wrong. Don’t kick me out - call me out! Please give me (and those like me) opportunities to grow and become better.”

“Acquia and the Drupal community are in a master-slave relationship. Why are they judging others for doing the same?”

“Someone on Slack in the DD&I channel mentioned her opinion on the recent drama was important because she was a woman. As a man that makes me feel like a second class citizen.

Similarly, I’ve seen people advocating diversity and inclusion make proposals that, in my opinion, are a bit absurd. When you try to have a discussion about it, you are sometimes faced with an attitude like: “Oh of course a white male would say that”. Since when did it become okay for a group that is fighting for inclusion to exclude white men? Or at least the ones that don’t blindly follow their lead. Seems a bit hypocritical to me.”

“I enjoy watching porn.”

“As someone who was subjected to a years long harassment campaign that ultimately began to seriously affect my life outside of the FOSS community I was involved with, the current situation in the Drupal community hits home for me. Normalizing harassment, blackmail, doxxing and stalking behavior, and more importantly valuing the harasser and devaluing the harassed will eventually turn a vibrant collaborative community into a toxic wasteland.

To pretend that the outcome of this situation as it currently stands in any way ‘protects” women is a tragedy at worst and naively disingenuous at best. If anything it demonstrates that no one in the community is safe from harassment, stalking, doxxing and blackmail. That the admitted harassment has been excused and the harasser protected should give everyone pause.

I wish the very best for the Drupal community. In my experience over the years, it has been a very good example of a healthy, vibrant FOSS community that is welcoming.”

“I have voted for republican, democratic, libertarian and green candidates. I used to actively support and engage in religious proselytizing. I used to work with and donate money to extremely anti-choice lobbying groups. I’ve previously believed and publicly stated that homosexuality is a perversion resulting from rebellion against God.”

“I’m a hug addict and I initiate group hugs. I have a feeling the group pressure may make people uncomfortable.”

“I’ve consensually whipped and tied a woman.”

“I’m a woman who has been consensually whipped and tied.”

“The Drupal Community is not a Company or an Association. It is a free and open community, and if you feel like you belong to it, no one can tell you otherwise. It does not need any boundaries, ownership, ethics committee, or admission/expulsion process. There are always organized groups that pretend to decide over people’s will, but we don’t need to believe them.”

“I am a part time sex worker.”

“Being Canadian, I grew up with values like “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” as said by our Prime Minister P.E. Trudeau. To me, it wasn’t a big deal; it was just the way things were. I have many friends who have so-called “alternative lifestyles”. It never made a difference to me: good people are good people.

What I have witnessed over the years is people who are secure in their own sexuality have zero problems with someone else’s choice with another consenting adult. And, sadly, far too often those who protest too much fear their own tendencies or have ghosts in their own closets.”

“When submitting a patch, should my code be reviewed, or should my sexual life be?

Is being blackmailed and stalked OK for the Drupal Association if your private life is not “normal”?

Does being different render you unprotected?

If in the future I find myself enjoying certain things in private that Dries does not approve of, will my contributions and any positions in the community be stripped off of me?

Creating a precedent of people being kicked off Drupal based on their personal beliefs and values, which have zero effect to the community, means that no reasonable person will spend their personal time on Drupal.”

“I think Spaniards are lazy. They only think about “siesta” and “fiesta”.
”

“The thought that my professional career may be jeopardized because of the “thought police” is truly disturbing. In fact, it reminds me of my time in Afghanistan as an activist. I was labeled a number of unpleasant things that made me a target, and luckily I left before any serious attacks on me. I continue to speak out against any practices contrary to basic human rights (such as “free speech”) including those motivated by religion. Who will the “wrongthink” mob go after next for their beliefs? Muslims who believe in sexual slaves, forced marriages, and pedophilia? Or those who criticize these practices?”

“I’m closing in on my 12th year in the Drupal community and have a lot of great friendships from developing and believing in the people that make up this community. I’ve been saddened by the destructive behavior on twitter, reddit, blogs and d.o. forums of late but fear of something like this happening to me for my views (Christian / Libertarian / why-can-we-all-just-get-along-ian) of the world caused me to draw down my engagement with others about Drupal a few years ago. My radar for bullying is pretty high from getting much of it growing up for being rather flamboyant. I couldn’t vote for the current president because of this “tactic” and I couldn’t vote for many fellow community members who also have engaged in this destructive, silence inducing behavior.

I hope we can all take a breathe, realize we’re all human and that “monsters” make for great headlines but are few and far between in most walks of life. My political views are often at odds with many in the community from what I can tell but that’s a good thing. If anything, we need more ways of looking at problems so long as we can all agree that our solutions we’re proposing come from a place of believing we can create a better society. If we didn’t believe this already, why would we contribute years of our lives and sleepless sprints working on open source and Drupal?”

“This whole situation sucks like the first time I went down on a guy”

“When attending Drupal events I started to avoid social gatherings that happen as part of them since I do not feel safe there any more.

I prefer to meet my Drupal friends in other places where we can communicate without being afraid for someone to listen to our private conversation, put it out of context and use it against us.”

“I have done a lot with Drupal. I have built businesses and lifelong friendships. But I’ve also seen how dressing femme can make your expertise seem invisible, leading as a woman makes you bossy, children make you unreliable, and how my rates are criticized when I speak positively about them. And I’ve also seen how none of these things happen to my male colleagues.

Drupal has a gender equality problem. But instead of thought-policing individuals we should be taking proven steps to increase gender equality by prioritizing the things that make it easier for women succeed at all levels. Things like childcare, a community hierarchy that doesn’t depend on hours volunteered or length in the community, and a clear conflict process that works against gossip and bullying. It’s time to evolve how we take care of each other.”

“The Drupal community is experiencing an extreme crisis of leadership especially in terms of the bullying that has taken place in the community. While bullying may be condemned (even if only paid lip service), the de facto message is this: Bullying as a means to achieve your goal is effective, and it works.

Communities are built on trust, both in leaders and fellow members. The community leadership has decimated this trust by leaving us to question who is allowed in the community, who is not allowed in the community, and who is a safe person to talk to about these very questions.”

“I believe in compromise with my enemies, not dominance over them (Matthew 5:44: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”).

I believe that the concept of blasphemy is perverse, and that nobody should suffer violence consequences for mere thoughts or speech.

I will eat meat until the day I die (high fat diets for the win).”

“I share the feeling about the Drupal Community not being safe anymore, even though I don’t have anything to hide. If someone were to try to doxx me, I don’t know what I would do, but surely I wouldn’t be as politically correct and polite as Larry has been.

I have been very active in the Drupal Community over the past 7 years, and I have experienced different things (yes, I have been harassed too), but I’m an adult and know how to handle these situations. I don’t need to go public and/or complain to the CWG as I can differentiate a misunderstanding from real harassment. Going public with something like that can damage people’s reputation even if it ends in a misunderstanding and an apology.”

“My partner and I have a very traditional family arrangement. She takes care of the kids and household, while I provide our financial security. We consider this arrangement proof of our emancipation and of our feminism, because in the past we spent countless hours talking about our hopes, dreams, and ambitions and about how we could make sure both of us could fulfil them in the best possible way.

With all our cards on the table, we had come to the conclusion that she would would work three days a week, and I would work two. But then the baby came and her maternal instincts kicked in, which changed her ambitions overnight. All she wanted was to stay at home and be the best mom she could be. So we repeated our discussions and came to the conclusion that the best outcome for us would be that I would sacrifice time spent with my kids so that she could stay home with them (and in turn sacrifice her own financial independence).

I guess what I’m trying to say is, things are not always the way they seem at first sight, so don’t judge other people. Don’t judge them for the thoughts or beliefs they keep to themselves, for the thoughts or beliefs they express, or even for how you perceive their actions. See people for the good they bring to the table, let them be and accept them as they are.”

“I have been a top 100 Drupal core contributor for countless years and learned about my BDSM preferences from a consenting woman at a DrupalCon.”

“I have been hearing gossip about an important member of the Drupal Community ... (redacted) ...

Several people have been spreading this rumour for a long time. I have never discussed it with anyone, tried to verify its authenticity, or used it to damage anyone. But, given the current situation, I’m not sure what people will do in order to damage someone.”

“We need a better Code of Conduct. If the CWG is not able to handle a complaint, it should be escalated. Not to one person but to an external committee.

In my opinion Dries is burned, he has too many roles and there will always be a conflict of interes. His role as CTO of the biggest Drupal shop puts him in a position that’s not reconcilable with such a decision.

I respect and applaud the thrive to protect third parties, but if you expel somebody from a community, you must say why.

Starting a blog post about somebody’s personal preferences and ending with they are not related to this decision, is making things worse.

Drupal as a community should stay away from religion and politics. It isn’t easy, but if you want to be an open community you cannot judge people on their beliefs, no matter what they are. For those wondering: yes, this includes extreme left/right beliefs.

I know there’s a difference between the CWG/DA/Dries, but a unified statement would have helped. If there’s a CWG it should be able to handle all cases, if not one might wonder if it’s still needed.

Now, you give the impression that it’s a coincidence that two unrelated parties decided at the same time, which, in all honesty, is hard to believe.”

“In my troubled past, I was a part of an infamous fundamentalist Christian group, so I know the fear of having your livelihood destroyed, if someone found out and decided to start a witch hunt against you. Even though I have left said group and recanted my more extreme views, I still find it infuriating that the Drupal Association leadership would engage themselves in banning people based on their ideology. As long as someone interacts courteously and professionally with our community, we have no right to judge what views they profess elsewhere, nor what acts they engage in with other consenting adults.”

“If someone is excommunicated from the community and vilified, while it is admitted no breach of the Code of Conduct occurred, and someone else is protected and valued for not only breaching the Code of Conduct, but in that breach also committed a crime against a person of the community, then there is in fact no Code of Conduct and there is zero in terms of Community Values. The community at this point is unsafe for everyone. ”

“People don’t realize how gossipy the Drupal community can be. The community is fairly tight knit and gossip can travel fast. I heard about the “Larry issue” long before he outed himself. I believe him when he says there was a whisper campaign against him and understand why he felt the need to do so given we know it’s been six months since the issue was brought up officially and may have been going on longer.

Some of the whispers allude to something he did being extremely awful but that doesn’t make sense. If he’s a dangerous person why did Dries factor in that “Larry had indicated on several occasions that he was drawing down his involvement in the Drupal project, and that context helped inform Dries’ decision.” So he’s supposedly some kind of terrible sexist or maybe a harasser or something but if he had been more devoted it would have been OK?

Gossip can harm all kinds of people. Gossip in the Drupal community led to my employer being notified I was interviewing elsewhere, which led to many adverse consequences to me personally and professionally. I no longer feel comfortable or welcome in the community. ”

“I believe that Dries is no longer a benevolent dictator and should be removed from his current decision making capacity.”

“A number of years ago, when I was a secondary school teacher, a troll from a community outside of education saw fit to contact the school principal making many very serious allegations against me. Letters, phone calls, faxes, emails, posts on many internet fora, etc. The campaign went on for a long time and only stopped when the police visited the troll. Personal grudges can have very serious consequences for people’s professional and private lives. Let’s just say, I am not working as a teacher anymore.

As a white, western, cis-gendered, non-kink (I’m not sure if that’s the correct term, apologies if not) male it seems I have very little to worry about in terms of being doxxed or outed or unwelcome in the Drupal community. It’s for this very reason I think it’s important to sign this letter - and for others with the same privileges to do so as well. I am looking forward to our community growing stronger because of this very brave initiative.”