OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct
We hope that by having a clear and concise Code of Conduct for the project, the openSUSE Community can continue to grow and prosper in the years to come".
Posted Mar 30, 2022 17:09 UTC (Wed)
by eplanit (guest, #121769)
[Link] (85 responses)
I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?
Posted Mar 30, 2022 17:43 UTC (Wed)
by donbarry (guest, #10485)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 23, 2022 10:33 UTC (Sat)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (1 responses)
I personally think anything you control (including political and religious and other beliefs) should be less protected than things you can't control (like ethnicity, education or gender identity). Perhaps it'd be good to make that clear.
Posted Apr 23, 2022 12:27 UTC (Sat)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link]
You can't discriminate someone purely based on the religion they follow, that's effectively a thought crime. If that religion means they start acting like an asshole to other people, then you can absolutely call them on that. What your political beliefs are is not relevant, but if you turn up at an OpenSUSE conference with big banners and a megaphone, they can absolutely kick you out.
So there is an element of choice: the religious (or political) beliefs may have been instilled in you by your parents during your upbringing, you may not have much influence on that. How you act out that religion/politics is absolutely a choice and you can be held accountable for that.
As for why political beliefs are not explicitly listed, my guess is that's a legacy of WW2. The current situation doesn't help either.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 18:36 UTC (Wed)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
That's a desirable and standard omission, considering one common political affiliation these days is defined largely by hatefulness towards many kinds of people. Making political affiliation a protected category would make the remainder largely ineffectual.
It's perfectly fine for certain political affiliations to be unwelcome. It's fine to judge people by what they say and what they support. There is no intersectionality to be had between a group of people and the politics of hating and attacking that group of people.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 18:52 UTC (Wed)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (20 responses)
Generally, you want to protect immutable attributes, things you have no real control over.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:19 UTC (Wed)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (19 responses)
Personally I do not see enough of a difference between "political affiliation" and "religion" to justify protecting one and not the other.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:25 UTC (Wed)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (8 responses)
"The openSUSE community is dedicated to providing a positive experience for everyone, regardless of such attributes (including, but not limited to)"
Given that list is clearly and explicitly marked as examples but not all inclusive, I am not sure what the point here is.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:11 UTC (Wed)
by eplanit (guest, #121769)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:31 UTC (Wed)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (4 responses)
Again I don't see how, it explicitly includes for example, religion which is often representative of certain ideology.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:42 UTC (Wed)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link]
And this is not a bad thing.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 21:06 UTC (Wed)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 31, 2022 7:19 UTC (Thu)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 1, 2022 0:10 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
I remember complaining about a lad at school who always played the race card, and I basically didn't like him because I felt he was a total brat. Then I can't remember exactly what, but somebody pointed out how my disliking him "as a brat" fitted easily into the "racial hatred" category despite me not giving a damn about our different races.
"Tyranny of the majority" is a real problem, and is made much worse if the majority aren't aware of it. The problem comes when the minority rub their attitudes into the majority's faces, but all too often if they don't then they are not given the opportunity to express themselves!
At the end of the day, I think we all have to do our best to respect other people, even if we don't like what or who they are. We might need that respect ourselves someday ...
Cheers,
Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:59 UTC (Wed)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link] (1 responses)
If someone keeps their political affiliation to themselves at SuSE's events, and goes along with the CoC at SuSE events even if the CoC might conflict with their political affiliation, then everything should be OK.
To the extent that political affiliation (or religion or anything else) makes someone unwilling to abide by the CoC, then that's just too bad; the CoC should take precedence.
Posted Apr 23, 2022 10:39 UTC (Sat)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link]
As mentioned above, there are of course some rule-of-thumb things that can help make decisions here - mostly, was it a choice or not. Political orientation and religion are fundamentally choices people can make, unlike race or sexual orientation. Some of these are a bit more complicated - is veteran status or education a choice? You probably chose to go into the military - though you were likely young. What about education? How much choice did you have?
So yeah, fun.
Of course in reality, it's 99 out of 100 very clear that one is using the cover of religion or political ideology to try and defend racist, abelist and otherwise bigoted behavior.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 20:37 UTC (Wed)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (1 responses)
Religion gets used more or less transparently as a proxy for ethnicity and race with sufficient frequency that it pretty much has to go on the "protected characteristics" list.
Also, you only have control over your veteran status if you have always been a civilian.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 21:28 UTC (Wed)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link]
Ethnicity and race are already on the list as protected attributes. If some other non-protected attribute happens to be used as a proxy then that can be addressed cleanly in terms of the protected attribute, not the proxy. It's not a very good proxy anyway, since while you can't choose your ethnicity or race your religion is entirely up to you. One is not obligated to follow a particular religion due to circumstances of birth—no more so than political ideology, at any rate—and most religions will gladly welcome adherents of any race or ethnicity.
> Also, you only have control over your veteran status if you have always been a civilian.
I did say "unless conscripted". If you didn't get a choice that's one thing, but if you choose to sign up that's you controlling your status. It's true that you can't alter your past and go back to not being a veteran—but that's also true of anything else you've ever chosen to say or do. If, as josh replied, "it's fine to judge people by what they say and what they support", then there is no issue with judging someone for voluntarily signing up for work in the military. On what basis *should* people be judged, if not by the choices they've made?
Posted Mar 31, 2022 9:17 UTC (Thu)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link] (7 responses)
Well, to a certain extent. Education and level of experience is somewhat related to age and one can't really change the later (except at the usual one year/year rate). Not to mention that at some jurisdictions some people are not allowed to receive (higher) education. The immigration status: if somebody's homeland is invaded by an other country (or flooded by an ocean), have to flee to stay alive and end up as immigrant in an other country - how much control do they have over this situation?
Posted Apr 1, 2022 3:48 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Apr 1, 2022 13:05 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (5 responses)
We had a massive flood of immigrants in ?70s. I don't know the figures, but until we had all these refugees from Uganda I don't think we even really realised we had immigrant Indian population ...
(Yes I *know* Uganda is not part of the Indian sub-continent, but how many of fellow Brits - or even those Indians - either know or care?)
(I'm second generation Jamaican immigrant. How many people are there like me, whose experience is very different from the public impression? That's because I'm not black, but I'm just as Jamaican as many of them ...)
Cheers,
Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:18 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (4 responses)
>until we had all these refugees from Uganda I don't think we even really realised we had immigrant Indian population ...
People were fully aware of the rising immigrant Indian population in Britain long before the 1970s. Heard of the 'Rivers of Blood' speech? It was a big political issue.
> (Yes I *know* Uganda is not part of the Indian sub-continent, but how many of fellow Brits - or even those Indians - either know or care?)
I doubt any significant number of people in Britain or anywhere else in the world (perhaps except the USA) would think Uganda is in India. What?
Posted Apr 2, 2022 12:41 UTC (Sat)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link]
Refugees are often treated as another element of immigration, not just by media (although not all media) but the legislative and governance bodies and it is certainly not recent. The law that defined refugees and the committee that addresses these issues and the government department that deals with it, all blurs the line across all form of movement across borders quite often.
Posted Apr 5, 2022 12:04 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
Are you too young to remember?
"Indian immigrant" == "Ugandan refugee".
I don't know to what extent our Indian population comes from Uganda, but I wouldn't be too surprised if not that long ago it was "pretty much all of them".
Like I said, most people are shocked when I say I'm 2nd-gen Jamaican ...
Cheers,
Posted Apr 5, 2022 14:47 UTC (Tue)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (1 responses)
For a little perspective on this:
The Office of National Statistics tells me that as of the 1971 census (i.e. a year before Idi Amin decided to throw the Asians out of Uganda), there were ~313,000 people living in the UK whose census-reported place of birth was in India, and a further ~136,000 whose census-reported place of birth was in Pakistan. (Neither figure accounts for people born here to parents born overseas.)
The total Asian population (including Ugandan-born people of Asian descent) of Uganda at the start of 1972 was only ~80,000.
Posted Apr 5, 2022 15:21 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Mar 30, 2022 19:12 UTC (Wed)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link]
But only to the extent that they involve attendees of official OpenSUSE events. That doesn't seem quite so unreasonable; the CoC's impact would be fairly limited if it only applied to public speakers and ignored conduct between attendees outside of official public events.
Posted Mar 30, 2022 22:02 UTC (Wed)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (24 responses)
The point of all this seems to be virtue signalling.
I'd guess the market share of SUSE is rather small and the market share of OpenSUSE is even smaller. It's unlikely that this will ever change. I think (Open)SUSE primarily provides rpm's of KDE, instead of deb's GNOME. No one outside our bubble cares about that!
Instead of confronting that problem they decide to slide into irrelevance, but who cares, since they're being just. That's all that matters anyway...
Posted Apr 9, 2022 14:41 UTC (Sat)
by Lurchi (guest, #38509)
[Link] (23 responses)
Although openSUSE provides a very fine Linux desktop distrubution, whose KDE offering is definitely the best there is (not bolted on like Kubuntu or Neon), the "market" is somewhere else, i.e. in the data center.
IMHO the only part where (open)SUSE lacks is good press. Unfortunately it is much harder to get good news coverage when you provide a solid release several times a week (Tumbleweed) instead of two times a year.
Posted Apr 13, 2022 0:27 UTC (Wed)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (22 responses)
I couldn't find any information on market share or likewise in that link.
A bit of searching told me that MSFT's revenue will be approaching 200B in its fiscal year ending in 2022. SUSE's numbers are harder to get, but its last quarter's revenue was apparently 155M. Not even 1% of MSFT's revenue.
My "rather small" for SUSE's market share still looks correct.
Posted Apr 23, 2022 10:47 UTC (Sat)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (21 responses)
There are really only two relevant Linux distribution businesses, Red Hat and Suse. Deb based distro's are irrelevant from a revenue/business point of view. Last time I saw reliable numbers, RH had about twice the market share of SUSE, between them they have about 90% of all commercial deployments. I'm sure things have moved a few percent in one direction or another but I doubt the big picture has changed at all.
Posted Apr 25, 2022 19:10 UTC (Mon)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (20 responses)
My concern is the pretty obvious issue that people working on Free Software have managed to split their rather small market share into ever smaller, incompatible rounding errors. Instead of confronting that issue some people choose to spend their time on creating third rate legalese.
No goalposts were moved stating that concern.
Posted Apr 25, 2022 19:54 UTC (Mon)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (19 responses)
You appear to be under the impression that people working on drafting code of conduct can choose to spend their time to increase the marketshare of the distribution. Marketshare isn't necessarily a goal that everyone working on a community distribution is hoping to increase and it isn't obvious that have clear communication on what type of conduct is expected in a community distribution is antithetical to that goal. It also assumes a top down resource allocation strategy where individuals can be told to work on a single central goal. What is far more likely is all that volunteer resources aren't fungible in this way. These are very different skills and people can choose to spend their volunteer time however they want. You might as well as be complaining that people working on a distribution wallpaper aren't fixing your pet package manager bugs.
Posted Apr 25, 2022 21:01 UTC (Mon)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (18 responses)
Correct.
> Marketshare isn't necessarily a goal that everyone working on a community distribution is hoping to increase [...]
If you're into Free Software that's certainly a goal. And even for those that are not, what's the point of being some niche product? Purity?
> It also assumes a top down resource allocation strategy where individuals can be told to work on a single central goal.
No, it doesn't. It's merely pointing out that busywork is what it is: a waste of time.
Posted Apr 25, 2022 21:57 UTC (Mon)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (13 responses)
No it is certainly not a goal for everyone. Anyone can develop free and open source software for a large variety of reasons besides marketshare. Maybe it is a hobby, maybe they are just scratching their own itch, who knows. Most free and open source projects I suspect have marketshare not in their mind at all.
> No, it doesn't. It's merely pointing out that busywork is what it is: a waste of time.
Yes it does because otherwise you have to agree you can't just tell volunteers what to do. What is busywork for you is interesting and engaging work for others. Calling what others considers to be important as busywork will get you ignored.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 16:10 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (12 responses)
Whatever the motivations of individual developers are, the goals of the Free Software movement are crystal clear. And this is an issue where open source and free software actually can't be lumped together: "For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution."
How does this not translate to a 100% marketshare if you're into free software?
Posted Apr 26, 2022 18:25 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2022 18:45 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (6 responses)
"Your project seeks to solve a social problem. Its strategy to do so might even work. However, your project doesn't have a Code of Conduct. This means large parts of the population are dissuaded from involvement. Therefore I rather not have your project try to solve that problem, however effective it may be."
Posted Apr 26, 2022 18:48 UTC (Tue)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link]
Posted Apr 26, 2022 19:09 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2022 19:59 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (3 responses)
The social problem that free software seeks to solve is non-free software. Whoever solves it - Amish housewives, Nordic fishermen, Thai monks, Afrikaner farmers, Detroit choir boys - is immaterial to that movement.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 20:00 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2022 20:25 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (1 responses)
How do these Mormon youth and Iranian girls make it impossible for most people to feed starving people or exercise their freedom to use software?
Posted Apr 26, 2022 20:30 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Apr 26, 2022 18:35 UTC (Tue)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (3 responses)
It's fine for you to subscribe all the way to this ideology and believe this follows but you must recognize that plenty of software gets produced by people who don't subscribe to this "movement" and this includes major contributors within several GNU projects, often funded by the same companies that produce a lot of proprietary software. So making the assumption that what they are working on, often voluntarily, is "busy work" because you don't see the connection between what they are working on and marketshare is obnoxious.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 19:13 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (2 responses)
If distributions do not strive any more to make free software or open source - pick your favourite - ubiquitous they should be clear about that. I suggest "Freetime Linux OS", "openHOBBY", "Uvebeenfooled" and "Debate, The Universal debating society".
Posted Apr 26, 2022 19:42 UTC (Tue)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link]
Declaring it "busy work" and "third rate legalese" goes far beyond raising doubts.
> If distributions do not strive any more to make free software or open source
They do make plenty of software without necessarily subscribing to your ideology on marketshare. They also do plenty of other related work including artwork, translations, documentation, communication, marketing, infrastructure management and so forth.
Posted Apr 27, 2022 9:18 UTC (Wed)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link]
The number of people working on free/open source software is in the millions, maybe even hundreds of millions. The number of people ascribing to any kind of Free/Open Source software *movement* is tiny. Linux distributions generally don't ascribe to any particular movement. Each distribution has its own goals, just as any organisation has its own goals.
And even if you as a user use any particular distribution, that doesn't mean you ascribe or even like the goals of the distribution you are using. Debian is driven by its Social Contract. It promises to provide software according to its own guidelines. At no point does it say it is promoting any particular movement. OpenSUSE has it's own goals. There is no deception: people don't use a Linux to be part of some kind of movement. They do it because it helps them in some way.
What you are suggesting is about as absurd as suggesting that anyone drinking coffee is part of a Coffee Drinking Movement, or that anyone driving a car is part of a Car Driving Movement. People have their own reasons for doing things.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 6:46 UTC (Tue)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (2 responses)
https://lwn.net/Articles/667610/ is a really fitting response to that, especially in this context.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 15:50 UTC (Tue)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (1 responses)
"The goal of GNU was to give users freedom, not just to be popular." So the "bad decisions" he warns about in that quote are probably things like allowing proprietary extensions, reuse in proprietary programs etc. To get more popular is not enough reason for those sort of things: he only endorses them when they are in the strategic interest of free software.
But the utopia he advocates clearly involves a 100% marketshare of free software.
Posted May 5, 2022 21:54 UTC (Thu)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link]
People making a career out of throwing rocks and gatekeeping is a strong signal too, but not the one they think it is.
Posted Apr 26, 2022 21:40 UTC (Tue)
by timon (subscriber, #152974)
[Link]
> If you're into Free Software that's certainly a goal. [...]
This reminds me of a piece of GNU philosophy that's relevant here:
> It is misleading to describe the users of free software, or the software users in general, as a “market.”
Posted Mar 30, 2022 23:33 UTC (Wed)
by edeloget (subscriber, #88392)
[Link]
I think you're a bit disingenuous here. As often, context matters.
It's "private events off-site that involve one or more attendees" and "private conversations taking place in official conference hotels".
Having a whole code of conduct and telling the community "of course you can harass her in the toilets of the conference hotel" or "yes, you have to restrain you on IRC, but we have a good news: you are free to insult him if you happen to meet him at another conference" would have been weird, don't you think?
There are some behavior that cannot be tolerated within a community, even if this behavior is hidden behind a curtain or happen outside the public universe of the community.
For political views: as long as anyone is proffessing political views that don't promote hate then that's civil discourse and it shall be protected. Now, I'm not sure that the code of conduct shall protect a person who claims that all the (insert religion or ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever) shall all die in pain.
These code of conducts are the formalisation of "be nice to each other". Trying to find a hidden agenda in these texts is... well, it's a bit weird.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 0:44 UTC (Thu)
by gdt (subscriber, #6284)
[Link] (11 responses)
I suggest you read that in openSuSE's European context. You'll recall that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that much of the remainder of Europe is sanctioning the economic and cultural activity of nations and people with a political affiliation with Putin. That is, very much not "a positive experience" for those with a "political affiliation".
I can well understand openSuSE not wanting to box itself in with a CoC which then doesn't allow it to reject conference registrations from people with notorious political affiliations, say, staff of Russia's FSB.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 12:36 UTC (Thu)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (10 responses)
And also read it in the context of SuSE being German originally. Certain political beliefs are outright criminal in Germany, because they were implemented by the government between 1933 and 1945, and the consequences of accepting that those beliefs deserved to be permitted full expression were literally lethal to a subset of the German population.
It becomes challenging to write a policy that says that the political beliefs of the Reich's leadership in 1944 are protected, without also saying that it is fine to threaten someone with death simply for existing. And OpenSUSE is avoiding that challenge completely by refusing to protect political views as a class - that way, instead of having to balance the political viewpoint that certain categories of person should simply not exist with those people's view that they have a right to go about their daily lives without receiving death threats.
Simpler to just not protect political viewpoints in and of themselves, and instead rely on the more general expectations of being inclusive and civil, and respecting differing viewpoints.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 0:42 UTC (Fri)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (5 responses)
In the context of OpenSuSE and similarly-situated private actors, I broadly agree with this, but I'm hesitant to extend it to the government context in which Europeans generally like to raise it (often phrased euphemistically in terms of "proportionality" etc.).
The American position basically goes like this: If you only protect the political mainstream, that's functionally equivalent to no protection at all, because the political mainstream is in a position to look out for itself anyway. Therefore, the extent of your support for free speech is best measured in terms of your protection for the political fringes. Hearing this, one might ask why free speech is so important in the first place. The American argument would respond that free speech and democracy are two sides of the same coin, and that removing or suppressing the political fringes is tantamount to installing an oligarchy.
It must be emphasized that this argument is highly specific to the context of a democratic government. It is neither necessary nor helpful for OpenSuSE (or any other private entity) to provide its members with some sort of "free speech" guarantee, because OpenSuSE is just one of many participants in the marketplace of ideas. Forcing OpenSuSE to associate with people of all political stripes would necessarily entail, for example, forcing them to associate with people who oppose the development of FOSS, which is obviously absurd on its face. More generally, freedom of association is a natural and proper element of the marketplace of ideas, and its exercise by private actors is merely another form of expressive conduct; trying to restrict freedom of association would be problematic at best, and oppressive at worst.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 15:39 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (4 responses)
This is not the place to go into free speech philosophy in depth, but I would just add to your description that a major underlying motivator for treating governments separately to companies is that the government asserts that it is the only entity permitted to commit violence in a given territory.
As a consequence of this assertion, it is reasonable to apply more restraints to government power than to a company; the government asserts that, if it so chooses, it has the right to have you killed or beaten, while no other entity has that right. Because of this, prohibiting the government from using its power to punish speech is different to prohibiting a company or individual from doing so - the worst a company or individual can do is refuse to associate with you, while the worst a government can do is actively kill you.
And it's important to note that even the American position does not protect you from consequences of speech; you are perfectly entitled to say that anyone who practices a Christian faith ought to die, but if that means that nobody wants to employ you, that's your problem. You're simply protected from the entity with the authority to kill you if it so pleases choosing to punish you.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 19:31 UTC (Fri)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (3 responses)
Poe's law again?
Posted Apr 2, 2022 6:36 UTC (Sat)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 2, 2022 23:08 UTC (Sat)
by pebolle (guest, #35204)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 3, 2022 9:18 UTC (Sun)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link]
It's standard American philosophy in this situation - in the American view, the only thing that prevents you from killing someone without consequence is that the state will take action against you that is at least as damaging as your gains from the killing. But, if the state actively kills you (e.g. the death penalty, "accidental" shooting by the police and other such things), there are no consequences for the state or its constituent parts for the killing.
In this model, it's right and proper that the state be limited in ways that companies aren't, because companies aren't given the same powers as the state, and the state will use its power to restrain companies. And note that for the early European settlers of what became the USA, the contrast was to absolute monarchies in Europe, where you could be prosecuted and put to death for treason if there was a viable accusation that you'd spoken against the monarch's policies (e.g. on religious belief) in private.
All that said, this model comes from the tendency to treat the state as an independent entity, adversarial to the people; this makes for "simple" theories about how the state should be controlled, but it's not a great model of reality. More modern philosophers tend to see this as excessive simplification, and it's from those more modern philosophers that the European Convention on Human Rights comes, where freedom of expression (a more general concept than freedom of speech) is protected in balance with other baseline rights (like the right to privacy, and the right to not be tortured). But the founders of the USA were on the leading edge of human rights philosophy 250 years ago, and it's not surprising that things moved on in the century and a half between their day and the ECHR.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 9:45 UTC (Fri)
by geert (subscriber, #98403)
[Link] (3 responses)
So the whole "including, but not limited to" is moot, and we'd be better of with "Be nice to each other"?
Posted Apr 1, 2022 14:43 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
Yes, they might. The list is not, however, normative in the sense of standards language - the normative bit is "be nice to each other, use civil and respectful language", and the list is an informative list of things where, if you're bringing them into the conversation, you're probably overstepping the bounds.
Political views is a hard one to include in such a list, because (for example) the GNU GPL is an explicitly political statement, so by adding political views into the list, you then have to clarify what subset of political views are exceptions from the statement that political views are potentially problematic.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:24 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (1 responses)
You might argue that it is a political view to say 'I think that the state should only use free software' and that it is a political view to say 'I think that it should not have such a restriction imposed'. I don't necessarily agree that they're political views, but if they are, I think it's quite reasonable to require that an event allow speakers with both sets of views. Just because it's a free software event doesn't mean that you have to dogmatically allow only people with the most extreme free software views to speak.
Posted Apr 2, 2022 6:30 UTC (Sat)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
> The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. [...]
Use of terms like "freedom," "abuse," "unacceptable," "threatened," etc. all connote policy arguments, not a dispassionate description of the relevant law or the license's text.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 15:58 UTC (Thu)
by jbicha (subscriber, #75043)
[Link] (19 responses)
I think the new Code of Conduct has the longest list of protected classes I've seen. Imagine someone who sees such a list and because it doesn't include their particular class, declares that the whole thing is authoritarian.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 16:18 UTC (Thu)
by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:18 UTC (Thu)
by Vipketsh (guest, #134480)
[Link] (1 responses)
Your implication seems to be that "not limited to" should be taken to mean "everything". We all know that in practice "not limited to" means "whatever the people judging individual cases happen to feel that day", which is not reassuring in the slightest. It's most definitely not reassuring since the people who supposed to judge issues seems to be an anonymous "Moderation Team".
Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:35 UTC (Thu)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link]
A quick search shows who committed it in git, the meeting minutes from board members and so on including the mailing list announcement and even an answer to this question
https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.op...
Spoiler alert: it is not anonymous, it just doesn't exist yet.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 16:38 UTC (Thu)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (15 responses)
That is part of the problem. When the list is short and clearly non-exhaustive people expect to lean on the "not limited to" part more. A long list (despite any disclaimer) invites people to question whether any omissions were left out deliberately, especially when they seem more notable than certain items which were included. "Why are X, Y, and Z on the list but not W? Isn't W at least as important?"
Posted Mar 31, 2022 21:33 UTC (Thu)
by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152)
[Link] (10 responses)
Posted Apr 1, 2022 4:00 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (9 responses)
What's more it includes items that are clearly simple matters of personal choice: body size, education, familial status, gender expression, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, pregnancy, religion, socioeconomic status and veteran status.
The whole point of 'protected characteristics' is that they are things that we do not have any control over, and which (as far as we know) do not influence our abilities or merits. There is emphatically no evidence that sex or skin colour have any influence on one's abilities, and we do not control these things. So it is considered morally wrong to discriminate on these sorts of bases. The whole justification for the concept falls away when you include in the list things over which we have control (or which we control *completely*) and things that are directly relevant to merit, like level of experience and level of education.
I remember when these lists were a few items long: sex, race, skin colour, sexual orientation. They've expanded and expanded over time and are getting absurd. What next, level of intelligence? I mean come on, this list includes *genetic information*. So the intent is for OpenSUSE to be welcoming to people regardless of *any* traits with a genetic component. That includes conscientiousness, intelligence and agreeableness.
People seem to want a world in which everyone is expected to treat absolutely everyone identically regardless of his or her personal choices or personal characteristics. That's frankly stupid.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 9:14 UTC (Fri)
by timon (subscriber, #152974)
[Link]
From my perspective, you are arguing in bad faith here. I am certain that these things are not "simple matters of personal choice". Or to put it in your words: The items on the list are frankly ludicrous.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 14:17 UTC (Fri)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (3 responses)
Would you be OK if pregnant women were banned from participating in discussions, then?
/s (in case it's needed)
Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:21 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (2 responses)
But if there is some sort of event that, say, involves the consumption of alcohol (like a Linux Users Group meeting held in a pub), there will be people that claim that this 'excludes pregnant women' and 'excludes muslims' and 'excludes people who don't want to be around alcohol'. And yes, it does, in a way. So what? If you choose to subscribe to an ideology that forbids something many people enjoy, that's a choice you make. If you choose to become pregnant and can't drink alcohol, that's your choice. If you choose to abstain, that's your choice. You aren't being excluded, you exclude yourself.
Posted Apr 4, 2022 7:25 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (1 responses)
Leaving aside the obvious issue that for some women pregnancy isn't an active choice, the last time I checked (which admittedly is some time ago) even in a pub it wasn't mandatory to consume alcohol. Presumably letting the non-drinkers in a group dictate that the rest mustn't drink around them is exactly as bad, from a CoC POV, as lettings the drinkers dictate that the rest must. But a reasonable CoC should not try to control what people have in their glasses in the first place.
Posted Apr 4, 2022 18:00 UTC (Mon)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link]
No, the latter is much worse. The drinkers can always drink their preferred alcoholic beverages some other time, but the non-drinkers can't just hold off on *not drinking* for a while. Forbidding alcoholic beverages during an event is a commonplace requirement, if only to avoid dealing with the aftermath of over-consumption, while requiring all participants to drink alcohol really would be exclusionary.
Also, while one can in principle always choose not to drink even when the venue for the gathering is a customary drinking establishment such as a pub, some (such as recovering alcoholics) would reasonably consider that an unnecessarily hostile environment. It's fine if everyone interested in participating consents, but if not then there are other, more inclusive, options.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 17:21 UTC (Fri)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (2 responses)
No. But if a beginner asks a "basic" question, you should perhaps answer it rather than brushing them off. Such an answer might consist of "go read the documentation" - but it should also contain a link to the specific document which answers their question. In some cases, you might find that such a document does not, in fact, exist.
At my job (Google), we have found that beginners typically do not ask enough questions, specifically because they think they should "look it up" first. This doesn't work very well, both because a significant portion of our documentation is inadequate or outdated, and because our systems are so large and complicated that it's difficult to know where to start. We have to actively encourage them to ask more questions, or even proactively ask questions on their behalf (when we know someone just used an unfamiliar term in their presence). I'm not going to claim that the internet definitely trained newcomers to behave this way... but it's a possibility that I'm seriously entertaining.
> People seem to want a world in which everyone is expected to treat absolutely everyone identically regardless of his or her personal choices or personal characteristics. That's frankly stupid.
The CoC does not actually say you have to treat everyone the same, merely that you should strive to give everyone a "positive experience." Indeed, failing to recognize that some people have unique life circumstances and need to be treated differently could itself be a violation of the CoC.
Posted Apr 5, 2022 12:11 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
> The CoC does not actually say you have to treat everyone the same, merely that you should strive to give everyone a "positive experience." Indeed, failing to recognize that some people have unique life circumstances and need to be treated differently could itself be a violation of the CoC.
I've just had my review at work. My boss specifically called out my ability to talk to people at THEIR level. That's actually a very difficult skill to learn ... (I think I've had too much experience of people NOT speaking to me at my level, that it's rubbed my nose in it pretty hard ...)
Cheers,
Posted Apr 11, 2022 21:52 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Apr 1, 2022 20:59 UTC (Fri)
by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152)
[Link]
Did you actually read the CoC that you are so upset about or is this just a standard SIC outrage?
Posted Apr 1, 2022 17:04 UTC (Fri)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (3 responses)
> Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ' hors de combat ' by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
IMHO that's a relatively short list by modern standards (especially when you realize that each of the "X or Y" items is just listing two synonyms instead of two different criteria). But various countries have argued that "any other similar criteria" doesn't include sexual orientation or gender identity, because those things are not on the list. You can't win just by making the list short.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 23:35 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (2 responses)
Is it a 'living document' intended to be interpreted according to the prevailing views of the time or not? If it is, then how does that figure with its status as a treaty? Treaties are by consent. States can withdraw from them, sure, but does that mean that not withdrawing from a treaty means that a state implicitly assents to its changing interpretation over time? Or do we say that they should be interpreted according to what was actually originally intended and contemplated by those drafting them originally, and if we want to add things not contemplated by the original drafters and signatories then we need to write *new* treaties for states to sign today, written in modern language with modern sensibilities?
These are both quite legitimate options. It is quite reasonable to say that 'any other similar criteria' should be interpreted as including criteria that is universally considered similar criteria today, or as including criteria that would have been considered similar criteria at the time, rather than what you seem to think it should mean, which is criteria that a certain segment of generally-left-of-centre western society would consider similar. While I agree that those categories should probably be protected, I'm not sure that that means that they are. These treaties are meant to represent international consensus, after all. I'm not really sure that there is international consensus that 'gender identity' is a protected status. Especially when it comes to prisoners of war: does that mean that male-identifying-as-female prisoners of war must be housed with female prisoners of war? That would be extremely controversial to say the least.
Posted Apr 3, 2022 21:22 UTC (Sun)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (1 responses)
For example, before the UK joined to EC, no authentic text of directives were in English, but were in French, Dutch and German. After the fact they were translated and some of those translations weren't good or were even downright wrong. But you need to be practically native speaker in two languages to pick up on it. And even now, directives in the EU are often written in English, but English words in the EU don't always mean the same thing as in British English. Let alone how bureaucrats in a member states where English is a second language (i.e. basically all of them) will interpret it.
The ECHR for example explicitly chooses the living document approach where the treaty in interpreted in a modern context. It is however relevant that precedent doesn't work the way it does as with e.g. the US Supreme Court. And that it has no means to enforce its own judgements.
IMO the best way to deal with this is to have living documents that are literally regularly updated with new meanings as they become apparent in a transparent and democratic way. The new CoC has a list and you can disagree about what's on it, but as long as there is a process to revise the document occasionally to line up with the consensus then it doesn't matter. (Assuming we can even define what consensus means in any particular context.)
Posted Apr 3, 2022 22:18 UTC (Sun)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
As an interesting little aside, the person in charge of all that when Britain joined the EC was an excellent linguist, and a Brit to boot! A little story about his youngest daughter, she was in an international group of people, and claimed to be French. They believed her without question. Then she said she'd been fibbing and claimed to be German. The Germans believed her. When she finally said she was English, no-one would believe her!
How do I know that? The lady in question is my aunt and is now a retired language teacher, the Head of the Translation Department of the EC was my Granddad. I don't think he'd have let translations like that past! But he retired about 6 months later.
Cheers,
Posted Apr 4, 2022 14:00 UTC (Mon)
by federico3 (guest, #101963)
[Link]
No. Any voluntary community is free to set their rules for participation. The community has no power to force people to participate or prevent them from leaving under threat of fines, imprisonment or any bodily harm.
It's like joining a chess tournament and demand to be able to move a pawn like a rook.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 15:09 UTC (Thu)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (7 responses)
Every single time.
Posted Mar 31, 2022 22:20 UTC (Thu)
by Vipketsh (guest, #134480)
[Link] (3 responses)
I was pretty much neutral when it comes to CoC -- if someone wants to implement one go ahead, but if not it's fine by me too -- but the more I read comments from proponents, the more against I become as there is a distinct lack of wanting to meet people with reservations at eye level. Every fear is, at best, just waived away with some text that amounts to "trust me, it will be fine" which is not how to have a civil debate and onboard people to your cause. There is also a distinct lack of transparency about anything practical surrounding enforcement of CoCs. Just take an example from this CoC: enforcement is handled by some "Moderation Team", whose members don't seem to be listed anywhere obvious. I understand that the nature of issues dealt with here are by their very nature not public, but still, not having any visibility into the process does not do wonders to make people feel all warm and fuzzy.
Posted Apr 1, 2022 13:11 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
I'd say that analogy is spot on! Yes the majority of people are like you.
But there's always the lunatic fringe flussence is referring to, who think their right to "whatever" includes invading your space to try and force you to agree with them.
Cheers,
Posted Apr 1, 2022 20:52 UTC (Fri)
by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152)
[Link]
Posted Apr 11, 2022 14:58 UTC (Mon)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link]
Posted Apr 1, 2022 3:51 UTC (Fri)
by milesrout (subscriber, #126894)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 5, 2022 12:20 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
Or worse, actively hinder safety.
One of the things that came out of the Grenfell Tower enquiry was the statement, by the investigating committee, that Britain's fire safety regulations "were not fit for purpose". Pretty damning!
Cheers,
Posted Apr 11, 2022 21:56 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Er, yes. That would be because they were drastically weakened (IIRC, a few years before Grenfell was built). They were fit for purpose before that (for literally centuries).
OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct
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a number of items one *does* have control over: education, immigration status, level of experience, personal appearance, religion, veteran status (unless conscripted), etc.
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100% market share?
> [...]
> But the free software movement is a social movement, not a business, and the success it aims for is not a market success. We are trying to serve the public by giving it freedom—not competing to draw business away from a rival. To equate this campaign for freedom to a business's efforts for mere success is to deny the importance of freedom and legitimize proprietary software.
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> I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?
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> [...]
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> Some devices are designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so. This is fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users' freedom to change the software. The systematic pattern of such abuse occurs in the area of products for individuals to use, which is precisely where it is most unacceptable. Therefore, we have designed this version of the GPL to prohibit the practice for those products. If such problems arise substantially in other domains, we stand ready to extend this provision to those domains in future versions of the GPL, as needed to protect the freedom of users.
>
> Finally, every program is threatened constantly by software patents. States should not allow patents to restrict development and use of software on general-purpose computers, but in those that do, we wish to avoid the special danger that patents applied to a free program could make it effectively proprietary. To prevent this, the GPL assures that patents cannot be used to render the program non-free.
OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct
> or affiliations. Further, the scope of enforcement includes "private events" and "private conversations".
> I'm all for requiring civility from those in a group of professionals, but this seems a bit ...authoritarian?
That's where (including, but not limited to) becomes relevant. It literally precedes the list.
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>
> The whole point of 'protected characteristics' is that they are things that we do not have any control over, and which (as far as we know) do not influence our abilities or merits. There is emphatically no evidence that sex or skin colour have any influence on one's abilities, and we do not control these things. So it is considered morally wrong to discriminate on these sorts of bases. The whole justification for the concept falls away when you include in the list things over which we have control (or which we control *completely*) and things that are directly relevant to merit, like level of experience and level of education.
Because being pregnant is a choice, and we all know pregnant women have hormonal issues, don't they?
OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct
OpenSUSE adopts a new code of conduct
So what? If you choose to subscribe to an ideology that forbids something many people enjoy, that's a choice you make. If you choose to become pregnant and can't drink alcohol, that's your choice. If you choose to abstain, that's your choice. You aren't being excluded, you exclude yourself.
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