Statement on LambdaConf 2016
The organizers of LambdaConf, now in its third year, describe it
as “one of the largest, most diverse gatherings of functional
programmers in the world”. This year, it selected Curtis Yarvin
as a speaker—a man known as a founder and advocate of an
ideological movement that promotes racist bigotry, and as an
apologist for slavery.
Yarvin's selection as a speaker says to marginalized people that
their humanity is considered merely another matter for
debate. LambdaConf cannot live up to its goal of being a “friendly
community of like-minded souls” when it does not protect current and
potential members of that community who are vulnerable to those who
would deny their humanity.
We believe that functional programming should warmly welcome
those who have been systemically excluded from participating in
programming communities. We strongly object to LambdaConf's
actions, which are a step backwards as we work together to share
functional programming with a wide audience.
April 8th, 2016
Signatories as of 4/8/2016:
(Note: Organizational affiliations are listed only for
identification, and do not indicate organizational endorsement).
- Joseph Abrahamson (LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Andy Adams-Moran
- Jacky Alcine
- Carlo Angiuli (Carnegie Mellon University)
- Mario Aquino (co-organizer of Strange Loop, The Climate Corporation)
- Morgan Astra
- Lennart Augustsson
- Timothy Baldridge (developer at Cognitect)
- Gershom Bazerman (co-organizer Compose Conference, LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Josh Bohde
- Ambrose Bonnaire-Sergeant (Typed Clojure)
- James Brechtel
- Andrew Bromage (University of Melbourne)
- Travis Brown (Typelevel)
- Kevin Burke
- Sam Caldwell (Northeastern University)
- Harold Carr (LambdaConf 2014, 2015 speaker)
- Chris C Cerami
- Manuel Chakravarty (UNSW Australia; Haskell language, libraries & tools contributor)
- Tim Chevalier (Google)
- Kat Chuang (co-organizer Compose Conference)
- Athan Clark
- Alex Clemmer (Microsoft, !!Con co-founder)
- Declan Conlon
- Becky Conning
- Laurence E. Day (Haskell developer)
- Allele Dev
- Reid Draper (Helium)
- Richard Eisenberg (U. of Pennsylvania, GHC implementor, LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Johnny Everson
- Mark Farrell (LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Richard Feldman (LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Jonathan Fischoff
- Adam Foltzer (Galois; Haskell.org Committee; LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Kenneth Foner (U. of Pennsylvania, co-organizer Hac Phi)
- Phil Freeman (PureScript; speaker, LambdaConf 2014, 2015)
- Harry Garrood
- Gabriel Gonzalez
- Austin Haas
- Coda Hale
- Elana Hashman
- Pat Hickey (Helium)
- Jenn Hillner (Cognitect)
- Libby Horacek (Position Development)
- John D. Hume
- Lars Hupel (Typelevel)
- Juan Pedro Villa Isaza (Stack Builders)
- Ranjit Jhala (University of California, San Diego; LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Joseph Kiniry (Research Lead, Galois; CEO and Chief Scientist, Free & Fair, LambdaConf 2015 contributor)
- Edward Kmett (Haskell developer, HacBoston organizer)
- Geoffery S. Knauth (Lifelong Friend of GNU)
- Eric Y Kow (Haskell developer)
- Neel Krishnaswami (University of Birmingham)
- Lindsey Kuper (Intel Labs; !!Con co-founder; ICFP Steering Committee member)
- Justin Leitgeb (CTO & Co-Founder, Stack Builders)
- Aaron Levin (SoundCloud)
- Melinda Lu (LambdaConf 2016 speaker - cancelled)
- Simon Marlow (co-author of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler)
- Vincent Marquez (LambdaConf 2015/2016 speaker)
- Chris Martens (UC Santa Cruz)
- Conor McBride (Mathematically Structured Programming group, University of Strathclyde)
- Andi McClure (LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Bartosz Milewski (keynote speaker: LambdaCon 2015, LambdaDays 2016)
- Alex Miller (Organizer of Strange Loop, Clojure team at Cognitect)
- Richard Minerich (co-organizer Compose Conference, NYC F# User Group)
- Adriaan Moors (Scala team lead at Lightbend)
- Jared Morrow (Helium)
- David Nolen (Cognitect)
- Liam O’Connor (UNSW Australia)
- Erik Osheim (Typelevel)
- Daniel Patterson (member/owner, Position Development)
- Dan Peebles
- Greg Pfeil (SlamData)
- Isaac Potoczny-Jones (Author of Haskell Cabal, Former Haskell Prime Chair)
- Prabhakar Ragde (University of Waterloo)
- Getty Ritter (Galois, Inc.)
- Tavis Rudd (Unbounce; Polyglot Software Meetup & Conference)
- Miles Sabin (Underscore Consulting and Typelevel)
- Tom Santero (Helium; MoonConf co-organizer)
- Kyle Schmidt
- Austin Seipp (Glasgow Haskell Compiler maintainer, ATX Haskell founder)
- Amar Shah (LambdaConf 2016 speaker - cancelled)
- Chung-chieh Shan (Indiana University; Haskell Symposium steering committee chair)
- Ghadi Shayban
- Satnam Singh
- Aditya Siram (LambdaConf 2016 speaker)
- Leon P Smith
- Jon Sterling (SlamData; PhD student, Carnegie Mellon University; LambdaConf 2015 speaker)
- Bodil Stokke (LambdaConf 2016 keynote speaker - cancelled)
- Wouter Swierstra (University of Utrecht)
- Asumu Takikawa (Racket developer)
- Patrick Thomson (Helium)
- Seth Tisue (Scala team at Lightbend)
- José Manuel Calderón Trilla (Galois, Inc.)
- Stew O’Connor (Typelevel, speaker: Lambdaconf 2015)
- David Van Horn (University of Maryland)
- Philip Wadler
- Malcolm Wallace (Haskell developer)
- Stephanie Weirich (University of Pennsylvania)
- John Wiegley
- Brent Yorgey (Hendrix College; former Haskell core library & Haskell.org committees)
- raichoo
Additional Signatories:
- Jeanine Adkisson (Snek organizer, Tulip) 04/09/2016
- Colin Barrett, 4/9/2016
- Rob Rix (GitHub, Inc.), 04/09/16
- Morgan Chen, 4/9/2016
- Chris Parks, 4/9/2016
- Evan Cofsky (Cofounder of LambdaNow, The UNIX Man Consulting), 2016/04/09
- Robert Atkey (Mathematically Structured Programming group, University of Strathclyde), 04/09/16
- Vitor Vieira, 4/9/2016
- Stephen A. Goss (Urban Airship), 04/09/16
- Mark Lentczner, 4/9/2016
- Jan Lehnardt (Erlang programmer, Vice President of Apache CouchDB at the Apache Software Foundation, JSConf EU Organiser, co-inventor of Hoodie), 04/09/2016
- Deian Stefan (UC San Diego; LambdaConf 2016 speaker - cancelled)
- Edwin Brady (University of St Andrews), 04/09/16
- Philippa Cowderoy, 04/9/2016
- Guillaume Allais (Radboud University Nijmegen), 04/09/16
- Piët Delport (pjdelport, community volunteer), 2016-04-09
- Hans Hübner, 4/9/2016
- Jan de Muijnck-Hughes (University of St Andrews), 04/09/16
- Martin Kühl, 04/09/16
- Andreas Halkjær From, 04/09/2016
- Steven Taschuk, 4/9/2016
- Sibi Prabakaran, 4/9/2016
- Alexandru Nedelcu (Eloquentix, Monix.io), 4/9/2016
- Michael Daines, 04/09/16
- Darrin Eden (DigitalOcean), 4/9/2016
- Donald Ball (SparkFund), 4/9/2016
- David Hartunian, 04/09/16
- Juan Pablo Santos (Stack Builders), 04/09/16
- António Nuno Monteiro, 04/09/16
- Todd L. Montgomery, 04/09/2016
- Phillip Bowden (Brooklyn Computer Club), 04/09/16
- Ivan Storck, 04/09/2016
- Phil Darnowsky, 04/09/2016
- Richard Cordero, 04/09/2016
- Pierre-Yves Baccou, 04/09/2016
- Sebastian Jackel, 04/09/2016
- Mike Fikes, 4/9/2016
- Ryan McCuaig, 04/09/2016
- Ramsey Nasser, 04/09/2016
- Brian L. Troutwine (LambdaConf 2015 Speaker) 2016/04/09
- Eugene Yokota (Lightbend, sbt tech lead; ScalaMatsuri organizer), 04/09/2016
- Jens Bendisposto (University of Düsseldorf), 04/09/2016
- Ali King (ClojureBridge), 04/09/16
- James Abley (jabley in most places — humanist), 2016-04-09
- Peter Abrahamsen, 4/9/2016
- James Cash, 4/9/2016
- Peter Jaros (peeja), 4/9/2016
- Oliver Keyes (Wikimedia Foundation, R developer), 2016-04-09
- Igor Wiedler (Travis CI), 04/09/2016
- Ray McDermott, 04/09/2016
- Lionel Barrow, 2016-04-09
- Coraline Ada Ehmke, 04/09/2016
- Aaron Gray (moonconf.org), 04/09/2016
- Ian Esling, 04/09/2016
- Long Cao, 04/09/2016
- Justin Lowery (Senior Software Engineer @ PayPal), 04/09/2016
- Dylan Scott, 04/09/2016
- Michael Sanderson, 04/09/2016
- Paul Young, 04/09/2016
- Nikita Prokopov, 04/09/2016
- Oliver Turner, 04/09/2016
- Christian Romney (Point Slope, LLC), 2016-04-09
- Keith Flower (koantify), 04/09/2016
- Moss Prescott, 04/09/2016
- Peter Alvaro (UC Santa Cruz), 04/09/2016
- Nathan Sorenson (SparkFund), 4/9/2016
- Benjamin L. Russell (Haskell-Beginners Mailing List Administrator), 2016-04-10
- Joe Lencioni, 04/09/2016
- James Long (jlongster), 04/09/2016
- Andrei Oprisan, (Eloquentix, Monix.io, Obsidian Innovations), 2016-04-09
- Akil Harris 04/09/2016
- Max New (Northeastern University) 04/09/2016
- Wes Morgan (CTO of Democracy Works, Inc.), 2016-04-09
- Zane Shelby 04/09/2016
- Aaron Tomb (Galois), 2016-04-09
- Brandon Konkle, 04/09/2016
- Jonathan Daugherty (Galois, Inc.)
- Jan Van Ryswyck (ElegantCode.com, Awesome Talks), 04/09/2016
- Brian Jenkins, 2016-04-09
- Brian Mastenbrook (AirStash), 2016-04-09
- Kevin Cantú, 2016-04-09
- Michiel Trimpe (CTO at Interactly), 9th of April 2016
- David Cairns, 2016-04-09
- Chad Dollins, 2016-04-09
- Greg Hale (HacBoston co-organizer), 2016-04-09
- Michael George Hinrichs, 9th of April 2016
- Greg Nwosu (DeepLearning hobbyist, Freelance Big-Data Polyglot), 2016-04-09
- Aniqah Mair, 2016-04-09
- Jeff Madsen, 2016-04-09
- Joshua Dunfield (University of British Columbia), 2016-04-09
- Gabriele Keller (University of New South Wales), 4/9/2016
- Michael Xavier 2016-04-09
- Gonçalo Carvalho 4/9/2016
- KC Sivaramakrishnan (University of Cambridge; LambdaConf 2016 speaker - cancelled), 2016-04-09
- Bernd Meyer, 04/09/2016
- Daniel Bergey 2016-04-09
- Cassie Moy (Position Development), 4/9/2016
- Tyler Holien, 2016-04-09
- Harley Eades III (Augusta University), 4/9/2016
- Texas Toland (PureScript Unscripted organizer), 4/9/2016
- Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene (Ruby Together), 4/9/2016
- wren romano (Indiana University; Google), 2016-04-09
- Claire Alvis (SparkFund, 4/9/2016)
- Raul Raja 4/10/2016
- Leo Tindall 04/09/2016
- Eliza Weisman 04/09/2016
- Liyang HU (Tsuru Capital), 2016-04-10
- danielle kefford 2016-04-09
- Herman J. Radtke III 2016-04-09
- Mark Greenaway (University of Sydney, R user, Student of Haskell)
- Justin Holguin (Puppet), 2016-04-10
- Adam Neilson (CTO at Rareburg), 2016-04-10
- José Valim 2016-04-10
- Zans Mihejevs (Haskell developer) 2016-04-10
- Christopher Kuklewicz (Haskell developer)
- Carlo Hamalainen (Haskell developer)
- Tony Aldridge 2016-04-10
- Andres Cuervo 04/10/2016
- Jeremy Lee, 2016-04-10
- John Berry (Heresy, the Red Flag of FP), 10.4.2016
- Anders Pearson (Columbia University), 2016-04-10
- Evan Cavallo (Carnegie Mellon University), 2016-04-10
- Moritz Kiefer, 2016-04-10
- Justin Glenn Smith, 04/09/2016
- Jonas Betzendahl, 2016-04-10
- Bruce Adams (Steel City Ruby Conference; IBM), 2016-04-10
- Joshua Hanson (Bitly) 2016-04-10
- Sam Griffith Jr, 2016-04-10
- Bastian Krol, 2016-04-10
- Nick Meharry, 2016-04-10
- Jean Niklas L'orange, 2016-04-10
- James Alexander Feldman-Crough, 2016-04-10
- wilkie, 2016-04-10
- Arya Popescu, 2016-04-10
- Anna Pawlicka, 2016-04-10
- Oren Robinson, 2016-04-10
- Torsten Grust (Universiät Tübingen), 04/10/2016
- William Dix, 2016-04-10
- Luke Westby (Elm community member), 04/10/2016
- Andy Wingo (Guile Scheme co-maintainer), 2016-04-10
- Philip Wills, 2016-04-10
- Dmitri G. Brenguz 2016-04-11
- Cory Kolbeck (Urban Airship) 2016-04-10
- Dave Cottlehuber (Apache Foundation Member, Apache CouchDB community), 2016-04-11
- Joel Burton (Hackbright Academy), 2016-04-10
- Alethea Rose, 2016-04-10
- Maxwell Holder, 2016-04-10
- Amy R. Boyer, 2016-04-10
- Trask Stalnaker, 2016-04-10
- Manuel Alonso, 2016-04-10
- Philipp Meier, Clojure/conj Speaker, 2016-04-10
- J David Smith, 2016-04-10
- Giles Alexander (ThoughtWorks; Indu programming language), 2016-04-10
- Emily Gorcenski, 2016-04-10
- Miah Johnson, 2016-04-10
- David Christiansen (Indiana University), 2016-04-10
- Yuki Izumi (GitHub, Inc.), 2016-04-11
- Karl Mikkelsen, 2016-04-11
- Seth Thomas, 2016-04-10
- Alexis King, 2016-04-10
- Justin Falcone, 2016-04-10
- Adam Frey, 2016-04-10
- Jeff Balboni, 2016-04-10
- Christopher Lane Hinson, 2016-04-10
- Dante Haskell Elrik, 2016-04-10
- Giovanni Bassi (Lambda3; Scrum.org; Microsoft MVP), 2016-04-10
- Leif Andersen, 2016-04-10
- Jack Firth, 2016-04-10
- Jordan Harband (Airbnb), 2016-04-10
- Alex Babich, 2016-04-10
- Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater, 2016-04-10
- Colin Fleming (Clojure Conj/Clojure West speaker), 2016-04-11
- James P. Renken (Sandwich.Net, LLC), 2016-04-11
- Sebastian Grail, 2016-04-11
- Danny Gratzer, 2016-04-11
- Glen Maddern (CSSConf AU), 2016-04-11
- Karsten Gebbert, 2016-04-11
- Ignacio Torres Masdeu, 2016-04-11
- Tobias Adam, 2016-04-11
- Leon Weidauer, 2016-04-11
- Sebastian Wiesner, 2016-04-11
- Laura M. Castro (University of A Coruna), 2016-04-11
- Matthias Tellen, 2016-04-11
- Adrian Heine, 2016-04-11
- Eddy Bruel, 2016-04-11
- Daira Hopwood, 2016-04-11
- Alice Ford, 11/04/2016
- Cameron Alexander, 2016-04-11
- Lewis Cowper, 2016-04-11
- Dan Haraj (Obsidian Systems), 2016-04-11
- Ben Sima, 2016-04-11
- Andrew Condon, 2016-04-11
- Andrew Cherry (speaker: LambdaConf 2015, etc.), 2016-04-11
- Jonas Winje, 2016-04-11
- Brent Hagany, 2016-04-11
- Dionna Glaze (LogicBlox, Inc.), 2016-04-11
- Moishe Lettvin, 2016-04-11
- Rachel Bowyer, 2016-04-11
- Philippe Normand, 2016-04-11
- Luke VanderHart, 2016-04-11
- Tony Abell, 2016-04-11
- Jack Hill 2016-04-11
- Joshua Conner, 2016-04-11
- Zach Allaun (Recurse Center), 2016-04-11
- Ross A. Baker, 2016-04-11
- Emrys Ingersoll, 2016-04-11
- Cody Allen (Typelevel), 2016-04-11
- Alexander Ulrich (Universität Tübingen), 2016-04-12
- Noam Chitayat, 2016-04-11
- Laurence Miotto, 2016-04-11
- elsehow, 2016-04-12
- Jürgen Geuter, 2016-04-11
- Ricardo Gladwell, 11/04/2016
- Gordon Guthrie
- Lucas Dohmen, 2016-04-12
- Sam Mathis, 2016-04-11
- Katherine Cross (City University of New York), 4/12/2016
- Stew Wilson, 2016-04-12
- M. Teufel, 2016-04-12
- Avery Katko, 2016-04-12
- Levent Erkök, 2016-04-12
- Heather Miller (Scala Center/EPFL), 2016-04-12
- Mark Nutter, 4/12/2016
- Farley Caesar (Functional Swift Community Member), 2016-04-12
- Éléonore Mayola, 2016-04-13
- Amy Wilhelm, 2016-04-13
- Kevin Hale (Workiva), 2016-04-13
- Finn O'leary, 2016-04-13
- Rob Looby, 2016-04-13
- Alistair Johnson, 2016-04-14
- Alain O'Dea, 2016-04-13
- Dan McKinley, 2016-04-13
- David Kinzer, 2016-04-13
- Duilio Ruggiero, 2016-04-14
- Savanni D'Gerinel, 2016-04-13
- Thomas Sutton, 2016-04-15
- Jeff Romine, 2016-04-15
- Fumiaki Kinoshita, 2016-04-16
- Fergal Byrne, 2016-04-16
- Felienne Hermans (speaker LambdaConf 2016), 2016-04-18
- Dylan McNamee, Mecodegoodsomeday, 2016-04-19
- Gordon Stratton, 2016-04-20
- Daria Phoebe Brashear, 2016-05-17
- David Sanwald, 2016-12-19
- Wai Lee Chin Feman, 2016-12-20
- Sean T. Allen, 2016-12-20
Some signers of this statement have written elsewhere on this topic as well.
Media coverage of the controversy:
If you would like to sign this statement, go
to github.com/statement-on-lambdaconf,
click edit, add your name/info/date in the section "Additional
Signatories", and create a pull request. If you want to sign it
but don't want to deal with github, pull requests, or HTML, send
an email
to dbp@dbpmail.net
with the same info.