Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter
Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we&#x27;re actually talking about (which wasn&#x27;t made especially clear otherwise):<p><i>&gt;&gt; &quot;The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead.&quot;<p>Even assuming this is Larry&#x27;s philosophy, it is pretty much the same philosophy shared by many women &amp; men in various conservative religious faiths, including branches of Christianity, Judaism, &amp; Islam—only they add in the idea that it is divinely ordered. Are we now going to expel all who hold such religious beliefs? &lt;&lt;</i><p>I agree this philosophy is hard to swallow, but the commenter&#x27;s point about religious belief is well made. Apart from the issue that this is in fact a widely-held belief I would suggest communities allow their members to hold <i>any</i> belief in private, as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value, and as long as that person does not <i>act</i> based on that belief during community interactions.<p>It&#x27;s one of the simple facts of life that you pretty <i>have</i> to work with people who believe all kinds of things, and they have to work with you. Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that it&#x27;s even feasible to have good relationships and friendships with people we fundamentally disagree with.<p>In this context, if you&#x27;re running an open source project, it&#x27;s expected that people hold an even more varied spectrum of beliefs than would be the case in a traditional company. As long as members can professionally conduct themselves in that environment, firing them is not a productive solution. Presumably the person in question has pledged to uphold Drupal&#x27;s community values and at first glance it looks like that pledge has not been broken.