I don't understand people criticizing cancel culture and or political correctness. To me, not wanting to collaborate with people who have terrible opinions is the most natural thing to do. Sometimes I have to. Sometimes its expedient not to know. But in my own free time, having values and living up to them is what I expect of everybody and specifically of those I am going to collaborate with. In fact, I wish corporations and politicians did the same.

More and more I keep thinking of @onepict and her point that Freedom of Association is key.
https://chaos.social/@onepict/117581024206372507

I don't want to collaborate with homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, xenophobes, right wingers, creeps and all the other people I don't like. The big tent is necessary if we need to run a country because we can't move around as easily. But for Internet projects? Of course we can. We should!

In my twenties I also thought that forks were the worst, and why can't we just all get along and make the software. But now I know, it's not a zero sum game: If misogyny reigns, for example, there is just one broject. If we fork it, there are two projects. The broject is not harmed, because the misogynists can keep collaborating over there where as all decent people can collaborate on the second project. These people had left and now they can come back.

When I think back to my younger days, as a cis het white man at university in Switzerland, with all this ignorance and protection, I could not bear the ranting and flaming on news:comp.lang.lisp and so I left. I did not want to associate. If I had understood that other forums exist, I might have joined those friendlier places. I think this experience translates to all projects with people having terrible opinions.

And yes, the new project may not be a shiny as the old one. It's new! Of course it's not comparable. But at least I don't heave to bear the terrible smugness of unbearable opinions.