Actions have consequences (or: why I'm not fixing Intel's bugs any more)

[mjg59]

Edit: 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

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your integrity.

[m50d.wordpress.com]

So if anyone disagrees with you it must be because they're evil? And you're going to delete anything disputing that? Stay classy.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you. It's always nice to see people standing up against the misogynist mob that is GG and their supporters and colluders.

Actions have consequences

[(Anonymous)]

Quote: "On the plus side, this is probably going to significantly reduce my gin consumption."
Your liver will be happy :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking as a contingent worker (via another company) at Intel, thank you for your integrity. I'm very disappointed in Intel for this decision, and I will be making it known internally to the best of my (limited) ability.

I'm also curious as to whether you have brought your disinterest in continuing work for Intel to them directly. It would have a large impact if you did, I'm sure.

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, I agree with your sentiments regarding GamerGate. However, I'm also curious if it's possible that the nuances of that debacle might not be blatantly clear to the Intel marketing department. In other words: is it possible that this decision was not Intel expressing sympathy with misogynistic assholes and their misguided allies, but rather "wow, this looks like an ugly pile of controversy, let's avoid it entirely"?

I haven't seen the actual content of the mails and "complaints" sent to Intel. Considering the overall approach taken by the GamerGate instigators, I could easily imagine them painting a very different picture from reality.

Sad news indeed...

[(Anonymous)]

Hey. Great fan of your work here in Brazil. A lot of things you worked on made my intel-based notebooks work like a charm today.



As a user, i feel like we had a great loss today.



Bu then again, as a fellow programmer, you are doing the right thing. Intel became a company full of bad ideas and decisions lately. I was aways a big fan, but it's been kind of a rough ride.



Anyways, wish you the best man, and, on another plus side, more time to work on other open source software. Keep it up bro!

[(Anonymous)]

As you say, you can do whatever you like, but I would characterize Intel's action as "not standing in the middle of a crossfire." It may not be the bravest decision, but you have to be a hard person to actually blame anyone for it.

[(Anonymous)]

As a person who has been playing computer and video games for over 20 years, but who lately happens to be the wrong gender to play in the gamer treehouse, thank you. It has been disheartening to see so many people loudly expressing their views against women in gaming and technology, and then have a company like Intel deciding to support them.

[dr_memory]

*applause*

[(Anonymous)]

There are probably more talented people than you anyways. The work will be done regardless

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sad that you're not open for any discussion on the matter.

Hello sir.

[(Anonymous)]

As a man who has a doctorate in genetics. I would please urge you to speak to your old professors about relativism, or at least checkout their attacks on Richard Dawkins http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2gsyic/less_than_24_hours_after_richard_dawkins_makes/

Confused now.

[(Anonymous)]

1) Thank you for fixing bugs.

2) I'm confused. Did the publication get political and get dropped, or was it always political and there's a movement to silence them? Cause if it's the first one then isn't the smart thing to avoid being associated with politics entirely?

I helped run Women In Science and Engineering events in university and it was always "how to handle your course load, how to find a job in your field, how to manage your career, here's the reality of building a successful family" not... I dunno, picking on some video game dudes.

This doesn't sound like feminism or women's issues or anything. Is sounds like some bloggers having a spat. Did I miss something?

Just confused.