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mjg59Edit: About two months after this was written, Intel committed to a large scale diversity initiative. Actions speak louder than words, and this was an effective repudiation of the behaviour described below. I've happily worked on Intel-related issues since then.
A lot of the kernel work I've ended up doing has involved dealing with bugs on Intel-based systems - figuring out interactions between their hardware and firmware, reverse engineering features that they refuse to document, improving their power management support, handling platform integration stuff for their GPUs and so on. Some of this I've been paid for, but a bunch has been unpaid work in my spare time[1].
Recently, as part of the anti-women #GamerGate campaign[2], a set of awful humans convinced Intel to terminate an advertising campaign because the site hosting the campaign had dared to suggest that the sexism present throughout the gaming industry might be a problem. Despite being awful humans, it is absolutely their right to request that a company choose to spend its money in a different way. And despite it being a dreadful decision, Intel is obviously entitled to spend their money as they wish. But I'm also free to spend my unpaid spare time as I wish, and I no longer wish to spend it doing unpaid work to enable an abhorrently-behaving company to sell more hardware. I won't be working on any Intel-specific bugs. I won't be reverse engineering any Intel-based features[3]. If the backlight on your laptop with an Intel GPU doesn't work, the number of fucks I'll be giving will fail to register on even the most sensitive measuring device.
On the plus side, this is probably going to significantly reduce my gin consumption.
[1] In the spirit of full disclosure: in some cases this has resulted in me being sent laptops in order to figure stuff out, and I was not always asked to return those laptops. My current laptop was purchased by me.
[2] I appreciate that there are some people involved in this campaign who earnestly believe that they are working to improve the state of professional ethics in games media. That is a worthy goal! But you're allying yourself to a cause that disproportionately attacks women while ignoring almost every other conflict of interest in the industry. If this is what you care about, find a new way to do it - and perhaps deal with the rather more obvious cases involving giant corporations, rather than obsessing over indie developers.
For avoidance of doubt, any comments arguing this point will be replaced with the phrase "Fart fart fart".
[3] Except for the purposes of finding entertaining security bugs
A lot of the kernel work I've ended up doing has involved dealing with bugs on Intel-based systems - figuring out interactions between their hardware and firmware, reverse engineering features that they refuse to document, improving their power management support, handling platform integration stuff for their GPUs and so on. Some of this I've been paid for, but a bunch has been unpaid work in my spare time[1].
Recently, as part of the anti-women #GamerGate campaign[2], a set of awful humans convinced Intel to terminate an advertising campaign because the site hosting the campaign had dared to suggest that the sexism present throughout the gaming industry might be a problem. Despite being awful humans, it is absolutely their right to request that a company choose to spend its money in a different way. And despite it being a dreadful decision, Intel is obviously entitled to spend their money as they wish. But I'm also free to spend my unpaid spare time as I wish, and I no longer wish to spend it doing unpaid work to enable an abhorrently-behaving company to sell more hardware. I won't be working on any Intel-specific bugs. I won't be reverse engineering any Intel-based features[3]. If the backlight on your laptop with an Intel GPU doesn't work, the number of fucks I'll be giving will fail to register on even the most sensitive measuring device.
On the plus side, this is probably going to significantly reduce my gin consumption.
[1] In the spirit of full disclosure: in some cases this has resulted in me being sent laptops in order to figure stuff out, and I was not always asked to return those laptops. My current laptop was purchased by me.
[2] I appreciate that there are some people involved in this campaign who earnestly believe that they are working to improve the state of professional ethics in games media. That is a worthy goal! But you're allying yourself to a cause that disproportionately attacks women while ignoring almost every other conflict of interest in the industry. If this is what you care about, find a new way to do it - and perhaps deal with the rather more obvious cases involving giant corporations, rather than obsessing over indie developers.
For avoidance of doubt, any comments arguing this point will be replaced with the phrase "Fart fart fart".
[3] Except for the purposes of finding entertaining security bugs
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 05:25 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 05:27 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Re: Yawn....
Date: 2014-10-03 05:27 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Re: Research
Date: 2014-10-03 05:30 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 05:30 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Re: Are you honestly surprised?
Date: 2014-10-03 05:39 pm (UTC)Why punish Linux users?
Date: 2014-10-03 05:44 pm (UTC)You're going to punish Linux users (who may or may not be gamers) because of a big fight between gaming journalists and gamers and the fact that Intel decided they wanted none of it on them?
Nice job breaking it, hero.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 05:47 pm (UTC)Re: Well good riddance!
Date: 2014-10-03 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 05:54 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Sad ragequitter
Date: 2014-10-03 06:17 pm (UTC)Good
Date: 2014-10-03 06:28 pm (UTC)Re: Intel's point of view
Date: 2014-10-03 06:30 pm (UTC)Money's calling. Of course it was their "business decision" to make. Doesn't mean it was the right one.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 06:32 pm (UTC)'Original comment read:
"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.'
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 06:52 pm (UTC)aaaaaaaaaaaaand that's why #GamerGate went so big. "IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME YOU ARE WRONG AND ANTIWOMEN BLAH BLAH BLAH CAN'T HEAR YOU NO DISCUSSION ALLOWED".
There is no way you are wrong, mate! We need more programmers like you or Ulrich Drepper.
Re: Still hiding any discussion champ?
Date: 2014-10-03 06:52 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Re: reddit thread has been censored
Date: 2014-10-03 06:52 pm (UTC)And reddit is a piece of shit always censoring people. They even banned a guy who was talking with Julian Assange on his AMA
Re: GamerGate is not anti-woman
Date: 2014-10-03 07:34 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
Re: My name is @AndreMurgo
Date: 2014-10-03 08:36 pm (UTC)"Fart fart fart fart"
and as such has been screened for irrelevance.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 08:43 pm (UTC)Which doesn't, mind you, mean I'm defending Intel. I really hope
no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 09:18 pm (UTC)Reminder
Date: 2014-10-03 10:01 pm (UTC)See ya.
Date: 2014-10-03 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-03 11:21 pm (UTC)His current employer: https://www.nebula.com/contact