The other day reading Hacker News, I stumbled on a blog post called "Weird Little Guys of Foss". This is a somewhat arbitrary list of people within the open-source 'community' that have said questionable things or have strong ties with highly toxic people1. Some have sexist, racist positions, others have been accused of sexually assaulting women. The 'accusations' vary a lot.
To my dismay, Jeff Geerling is on this list. I knew that he was a devout Catholic - he has been open about that on his Youtube channel - but he is actually anti-abortion, anti-contraceptives and anti-homosexuality. That's really sad and deeply disappointing to me.
Some time ago, Grady, from the Practical Engineering Youtube channel, canceled a collaboration (original with comment from Grady) with Jeff after he learned about Jeffs position on abortion and homosexuality.
Grady writes:
Thanks for flagging. I wasn’t aware of the blog posts being discussed. I’ve removed the shoutout for the YouTube release next week and am updating Nebula to avoid implying broader endorsement, and I’ve let Jeff know directly.
Why am I calling Jeff Geerling out?
I want to be very clear about this. I'm not calling Jeff out. He has been very clear about his views on abortion, contraceptives and homosexuality. His views are based on his religion and he's probably not going to change his mind2.
My goal is to inform people like me - that didn't know Jeff's position on these topics - and let them make up their own mind wether they still want to support Jeff or watch his content. This blogpost you're reading is for the people who want to know. If you share Jeff's beliefs, pretend you didn't read this article and move on.
Jeff has done good things. He has written a book about Ansible and made it free. He has a very popular Youtube channel that can be informative. Through Jeff, I learned about 10 inch racks and inspired by his video, I made one myself. He's shared a lot of technical information about various topics on his blog / github account.
In my view the good does not compensate for the bad, not even close. Morality and ethics don't work like that.
I have unsubscribed from all of Jeffs youtube channels3.
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it seems that the author Drew DeVault himself isn't free of controversy himself as he seems to admit here. It also reads like he's distancing himself from his previous behaviour and admit his wrongdoings. ↩
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I'm as stubborn in that regard: I'm pro abortion, pro contraceptives and I support the entire LGBTGHI+ community, all of them. None of that is up for debate to me. ↩
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I'm curious - if this blogpost is read - how many Mr. Gotchas will pop out of their wells. ↩
