LWN: Comments on "Code, conflict, and conduct"

Baby-sitting bad behaviors

ssmith32 — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:13:08 +0000

>I don't know a single maintainer that signed-up for baby-sitting grown ups.

I would think that is exactly the job of a maintainer: it's just a matter of what domains of behavior you need to baby sit - their code? Their behavior on a mailing list unrelated to code? Their behavior outside of the kernel community altogether?

The line must be drawn somewhere, but, at some point, you are indeed baby sitting adults. Hopefully only in a very limited domain, though.

I suppose you could be a maintainer that doesn't take responsibility "baby sit" for the patches submitted by other people, but you will either have terrible code or no contributors outside of yourself.

Code, conflict, and conduct

neilbrown — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 06:50:26 +0000

> > However it is phrased as a question, not as an attack
>
> Honestly that line seems like one of the most hurtful things I've seen cited in these comments.

Thanks - that's really valuable and on-point. I genuinely didn't think that line would be very hurtful at all, but clearly not everyone shares my opinion.
This re-enforces the importance of not saying anything personal, even if I think it should be harmless (address the code, not the coder).
Hopefully it is OK to say personal things when they are positive: "You did a good job, thanks!" ????

Regardless of religion

mpr22 — Sat, 29 Sep 2018 08:45:34 +0000

>A religion involves worship as well as belief.

I prefer "observance" to "worship", since IIRC Buddhism says that worshipping gods keeps you trapped in samsara (because you are worshipping a being who is themselves trapped in samsara).

Regardless of religion

nybble41 — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 21:54:27 +0000

> I think you're confusing atheism and agnosticism.

No, what I am describing is atheism: the absence of belief in a god or gods.

Agnosticism addresses a different question altogether: whether it is possible in principle to know whether or not god(s) exist. There are agnostic theists, and agnostic atheists, as well as theists and atheists who are not agnostic. Demanding evidence to justify belief, with absence of belief as the default in the absence of evidence, does not make one agnostic; it makes one a rationalist. The agnostic view is that there can be no evidence one way or the other, that belief and absence of belief are both equally "leaps of faith", and that all positions on the presence or absence of god(s) should be granted equal credibility.

Atheists, as a rule, *don't* *care* whether you personally agree with them or not, as long as you keep to yourself and don't make trouble. However, unlike agnostics, non-agnostic atheists are unlikely to grant your beliefs equal credibility, and will tend to see any attempt to spread such beliefs in the absence of evidence as tantamount to fraud.

> Atheists *believe* there is no god. But notice that I said atheists *believe*. In other words a religion.

Some atheists assert that there is positive evidence for the absence of god(s). This is sometimes referred to as "strong atheism". Not all atheists hold this position. More to the point, even "strong atheism" is not a religion. A religion involves worship as well as belief. One can *believe* that the sky is blue, or that there are no invisible pink unicorns living in one's back yard, without making a religion out of it. None of the myriad varieties of atheism involve any form of worship; ergo, atheism is not a religion.

Regardless of religion

mpr22 — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 21:26:02 +0000

Atheism and agnosticism both come in pragmatic and dogmatic variants.

The pragmatic atheist is merely adopting the null hypothesis (since no deities can be adequately shown to exist, proceed as if no deities exist) in the absence of sufficient evidence to believe in any particular deity; the dogmatic atheist actively believes there are no deities.

The pragmatic agnostic has no experience that they interpret as being experience of a deity or deities. The dogmatic agnostic believes that experience of deities (at least in life) is impossible. One can be agnostic (pragmatic or dogmatic) and still believe that deities exist, of course.

The dogmatic modes of each rather resemble religious doctrines, though I would hesitate to call them religions in the absence of additional premises attached thereto.

Regardless of religion

Wol — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:26:39 +0000

> To coin another phrase: Atheism is a "religion" in exactly the same way that not collecting stamps is a "hobby".

I think you're confusing atheism and agnosticism.

Atheists *believe* there is no god. As do *several* religions, I believe. But notice that I said atheists *believe*. In other words a religion.

People who don't collect stamps *don't* *care*. Agnostics *don't* *care*. I wouldn't call agnosticism a religion - it's just an observation that "gods don't matter to me". It is also noticeable that Atheists typically attempt to convert other people to their beliefs - yet another defining characteristic of a religion. (Agnostics, again, *don't* *care* whether you agree with them or not.)

Cheers,
Wol

It's engineered that way.

raven667 — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 16:33:21 +0000

No one here has the power of the state to "destroy" anyone, unless you are redefining "destroy" to mean "have an adverse opinion about someone", in which case your statement is self-contradictory.

It's engineered that way.

paxillus — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 10:16:38 +0000

It's not when people judge other people any way they want, it's when they grant themselves the right to 'in any way destroy' another.

It's engineered that way.

mjg59 — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 09:13:53 +0000

I'm free to judge rapists in any way I want regardless of whether a court has found them guilty, just as you're free to judge me for doing so. As the OJ Simpson trial showed us, courts will (justifiably) refuse to use the power of the state against an individual if the state fails to prove its case in a reasonable way - but that doesn't demonstrate that he didn't murder his wife, and it's reasonable for individuals to treat him as if he did. Jake raped multiple people, and the absence of a legal ruling doesn't change that. If you think less of me for asserting that, well, feel free.

It's engineered that way.

paxillus — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 08:57:32 +0000

"No, but I'm unclear on what that has to do with anything."

It's to do with "someone ... raped multiple people" and due process.

That due process has its origins in the English Barons curbing King John's power is neither here nor there.

It established the principal that

“No freeman shall be ... in any way destroyed . . . except by the legal judgment of his peers or (and) by the law of the land.”

Few would object to a multiple rapist being 'in any way destroyed' by due process.

Code, conflict, and conduct

apoelstra — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 22:08:12 +0000

> However it is phrased as a question, not as an attack

Honestly that line seems like one of the most hurtful things I've seen cited in these comments. The implication is clearly that Kay *hadn't* learned anything, out of negligence or stupidity or whatever.

I don't know whether Linus can distinguish hurtful things from non-hurtful things (his statement about stepping away "to learn about human emotions" suggests that he thinks he can't), but it's clear that many people in this space lack this ability (I don't mean you, just in general). It's interesting to read comments like these because helps me, and hopefully others, to see what this distinction is, because it's often unclear over text and across cultures.

It's also interesting to see mainstream reporters, whose job it is to communicate, get this wrong. For example, I think counting f-bombs or slurs is a total red herring, and I also think any derogatory terms about *code* rather than *people* are fine. (Though in fairness, the latter point is somewhat unique to open source development -- it is definitely not true in most cultures that you can criticize someone's work, even on purely technical grounds, and expect it to be non-personal.)

Code, conflict, and conduct

neilbrown — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 21:08:45 +0000

Those last 2 sentences being:

> I'm, disappointed in the whole feature, but I'm also tired of having
> to go and even look for these things.
>
> Then actually *finding* them makes me just pissed off.

I think these are appropriate, not abusive. They are "I" statements. Linus. it talking about how he feels. This is always a reasonable thing to do. If hearing about Linus' feelings makes you upset, then that really is your problem, not his.

The previous sentence:

> Dammit, have you learnt *nothing*?

Isn't an "I" statement, so it would probably have been better to leave it out. However it is phrased as a question, not as an attack, so it should not be too hard to read it objectively, and respond to it accordingly.

It's engineered that way.

mjg59 — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:33:28 +0000

> And if the alleged rapist has an otherwise clean sheet, while the alleged victim has a history of making complaints?

Action involves listening to the complaint, talking to those involved and making a decision based on the evidence. That decision may amount to no more than "Please stay away from this person", but the decision to engage should have nothing to do with whether someone's willing to go to the police.

"New Yorker" article

Wol — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:18:21 +0000

Add to which, I get the impression that the offended party, and the victim of the "flame", ARE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE.

Yes it's not nice standing next to two people having an argument, especially when you are a deeply involved party to the conversation, but taking offence when it's not even aimed at you can itself be offensive...

Cheers,
Wol

It's engineered that way.

Wol — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:13:49 +0000

> But if a conference attendee tells the organisers that a fellow attendee attempted to rape them, the organisers should take action even if the reporter is unwilling to contact the authorities.

And if the alleged rapist has an otherwise clean sheet, while the alleged victim has a history of making complaints?

Unfortunately, there are a fair few fantasists out there. And a lot of *MEN* are victims of sexual misbehaviour. Don't get me wrong, the majority of victims are female, and are often ignored, but those men who are victims seem to be ignored even more!

(It seems pretty common for female predators - should a man dare reject them - to accuse their intended victim of all sorts of crimes. And seeing as we're on this subject, this seems to have been the crime of the "rape apologist" - to point out that men can just as easily be victims, too.)

Cheers,
Wol

Code, conflict, and conduct

marmalade — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 18:30:13 +0000

Seriously? That's "emotionally abusive"?

That's not emotionally abusive, it's direct. In a huge project people need to be told "no" sometimes in a manner that lets them know it's not okay.

I've seen people in the workplace who don't learn because nobody is willing to be "mean". Sometimes you need to be "mean". Feeling bad is part of growing up and improving yourself. It's incentive. If everyone just tells you "it's okay" nothing changes, you just coast along thinking that it's okay if you mess up or do something wrong or stupid, because there's no consequence.

Negative emotions are not to be dispensed with. You *should* feel bad sometimes. It's a critical part of the human experience.

It's engineered that way.

mjg59 — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:42:10 +0000

> Due process, conducted without fear or favour, where the punishment fits the crime, seems like a better idea than trial-by-twitter.

Due process, correctly, exists to provide a very high barrier against the state using its power against individuals. But if a conference attendee tells the organisers that a fellow attendee attempted to rape them, the organisers should take action even if the reporter is unwilling to contact the authorities.

> I'm assuming from your comments that he's either admitted the crimes or been found guilty by a court.

No, but I'm unclear on what that has to do with anything.

A matter of perspective

codeofdrama — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 10:44:22 +0000

In the debates here on LWN, and elsewhere on the internet, I've seen, what I understand to be, the following views expressed:

A) The Linux developer community is healthy with occasional minor infractions.

B) The Linux developer community is toxic.

C) The Contributor Covenant is a generic document, which permits a wide range of interpretations.

D) The Contributor Covenant is a tool meant for persuing social justice in the form of anti-meritocracy, and intersectional feminism.

E) An online community can be welcoming, inclusive, and transparently police itself without adopting a Code of Conduct.

F) A Code of Conduct is an important tool for ensuring a welcoming, and inclusive online community.

I think there are real disagreements here, and I encourage these to be acknowledged, and addressed by the core maintainers. I do hope that "debate will continue until morale improves". Full disclosure: I find my views closest to the (A, D, E) triple.

It's engineered that way.

paxillus — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 09:32:50 +0000

We're all subject to criminal law CoC, so there's no need to remind people not to rape, murder, rob ..

Due process, conducted without fear or favour, where the punishment fits the crime, seems like a better idea than trial-by-twitter.

I don't know anything about the Tor developer accusations - this is the first I've heard of it. I'm assuming from your comments that he's either admitted the crimes or been found guilty by a court.

It's engineered that way.

mjg59 — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 08:44:30 +0000

Something being a criminal offence doesn't mean it should be ignored for CoC purposes, but the point I was making was that it's inappropriate to describe someone who raped multiple people as being "accused of pretty much grabbing all the buttocks wherever he went".

It's engineered that way.

paxillus — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 08:36:06 +0000

" ... Tor developer who sexually assaulted or raped multiple people ..."

Rape and sexual assault are serious criminal offences, not CoC oversights.

It's engineered that way.

flussence — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 02:42:15 +0000

> Notably, it's fine to exclude contributors for their choice of politics.
Good. American politics is a disease. Kill it with fire.

It's engineered that way.

mjg59 — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:10:09 +0000

> [-1] for example, the number of claims made by anonymous people, as in the case of the german Tor developer accused of pretty much grabbing all the buttocks wherever he went. Twenty nameless people making specious claims are as good as one that can be investigated, as long as the press shouts hard enough.

You mean the American Tor developer who sexually assaulted or raped multiple people, several of whom later put their name to their stories?

It's engineered that way.

nix — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:23:10 +0000

> The point of having a laundry-list of things is to have things that're not on it. Notably, it's fine to exclude contributors for their choice of politics. There are others, but that's the main one that sticks out in its absence.

Oh come off it. If anyone did that most of the kernel contributors would be massively pissed off, since whatever you choose a lot of other maintainers probably share that political stance.

This is a code, not a program. You don't have to parse it like software. You don't even have to parse it like law: it's meant for the kernel developers to interpret, not for judges and certainly not for computers. (Also, it was adopted in a terrible hurry so worrying about its precise wording like this is simply ludicrous.)

This also explains why penalties apply only within the project: it's not a law, it doesn't have the power to imprison you (or, indeed, any power at all except what the maintainers choose to grant it). Your claim that it has been applied since it was instituted is also ludicrous: it hasn't been applied to anyone at all yet, and random bloggers talking about it are just that: random bloggers talking about it.

It's engineered that way.

ksandstr — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 19:44:02 +0000

The point of having a laundry-list of things is to have things that're not on it. Notably, it's fine to exclude contributors for their choice of politics. There are others, but that's the main one that sticks out in its absence.

Similarly the list of forbidden things is open-ended, meaning that regardless of how one tip-toes around these things the politruks-that-be can simply knit up a paddlin' out of rumour and equivalent derivatives[-1]. Likewise the specification of what amounts to representation is left open, so there's no way to tell what -- aside from wholly anonymous contributions, which the kernel is infamous for rejecting due to the SCO kerfuffle -- wouldn't fall afoul of (say) the rainbow-haired twatter mobs.

There are other downright pernicious properties to this CoC. One of them is that it permits non-practitioners to participate in said twatter mobs at will, since penalties for e.g. harassment[0] apply only within the project. This is analoguous to the way non-practicing entities ("NPEs") are used to wage software patent wars by proxy: a NPE won't feel the burn from an auto-revocation clause in a general "public benefit" patent grant.

Another is that it enshrines a method of adjudication where the accused may be denied chance to face their accuser, or to even hear the content of the accusation in detail so as to mount a reasoned defense. As such there's nothing that wouldn't allow Kafka-style kangaroo trials where the accused is put to the block on the basis of false claims by imaginary people based on made-up evidence. There's no reason the most egregious of falsehoods wouldn't fly: by structure alone, the accused will be found guilty even when the accusation would be physically impossible[1], because all the prosecutor need do is ask that the deets be kept secret from even the accused.

Given the years-long history of this particular CoC and that of its authors, and particularly the way in which it's being applied[0] since its adoption in Linux, I hereby argue directly that these glaring flaws are in the CoC by design. In practice the document is a tool of power, of fascism presented as manners. Unless these failures are remedied forthwith, Linux as we knew it two weeks ago will become a sterile wasteland of poor technical choices[2] enshrined in the politics of ass-kissing, corporate power, and the accompanying cultural rot.[3]

[-1] for example, the number of claims made by anonymous people, as in the case of the german Tor developer accused of pretty much grabbing all the buttocks wherever he went. Twenty nameless people making specious claims are as good as one that can be investigated, as long as the press shouts hard enough.
[0] such as the tytso kerfuffle, which the usual suspects are warming up once again; spose they didn't like his vote against the CoC?
[1] e.g. when a person would be required to be in two places at once, when the allegations are so poorly formed as to not be testable using any empirical experiment (no matter how involved or expensive) whatsoever, or the allegations require grand conspiracy of the sort that always manages to conceal itself. The latter kind in particular turns the absence of evidence into not just evidence but also an extra damning conspiracy membership!
[2] that means you, kdbus.
[3] which isn't to say that it already hadn't.

Code, conflict, and conduct

kjp — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 18:09:42 +0000

Yes, a good software project has to have someone to say no. This applies even if the idea isn't bad - it just doesn't belong in that project, on that deadline, etc. This seems to be very taxing and I can't stand doing it even on tiny internal shared repos for my company. Software is extremely subjective, like the art in your example.

A good book I've read is "Verbal Judo". It's written by a police officer who trains other police and referees on how to tactfully talk to and get compliance from people who are behaving at their worst. But those people will still go to jail.. just hopefully without adding additional offenses. Ultimately, I liked the book because it shows how I'm not the only person who struggles with "tact".

Code, conflict, and conduct

jbicha — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 16:19:04 +0000

It's possible to be direct and obvious without cursing and without saying thing like "have you learnt *nothing*?"

I believe the last 2 sentences of this email demonstrate emotionally abusive language.

Code, conflict, and conduct

JFlorian — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 15:55:13 +0000

I'm with you. In fact, I'd go even further and wish that more discourse was this direct and obvious. Maybe Linus lacks tact. I'm probably the same, but I *know* I often don't get the point on the receiving end simply because I'm corresponding with someone who uses too much tact.

Mean what you say, say what you mean. Be strict on your output, forgiving on your input.

Code, conflict, and conduct

neilbrown — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 03:10:18 +0000

I'm a little puzzled by the list of "Signed-off-by" lines on the code-of-conduct commit.

Signed-off-by is simply a statement affirming the "Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1", so it just says that all these people believe they either wrote the patch, or received it with an appropriate license, and in any case claim they have the right to include it in the kernel. Surely we don't so many developers to certify the origin of this patch?

It would have made much more sense to have multiple "Acked-by".

Bias

tterribe — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 02:28:11 +0000

I have to confess that reading this article also left me vaguely disappointed. Looking back on it perhaps I can make those feelings less vague for both of our benefits. As you may guess from my ✭ supporter ✭ tag, I have been a long-time fan of you and your work at LWN, ever since I first met you at LCA more than a decade ago. I really am trying to help.

Let's start with this paragraph:

> The adoption of a "code of conflict" in 2015 did little to mollify
> those critics, many of whom saw it as, at best, an empty gesture
> that would change little. Judging three years later whether they
> were right is harder than one might think. There is little in the
> way of hard evidence that the code of conflict brought about any
> changes in behavior.

The last sentence here seems to contradict the one immediately before it, making it sound like you just didn't want to admit that the critics were right. It is not until you read much further that you can figure out that what you were actually trying to say is that there may be *indirect* evidence that behaviors have been changing, but by that point the impression has already been made with the reader. The fact that the key word was "hard" was not obvious (especially since it was never explicitly contrasted with an antonym). I think this is mostly an editorial criticism, in that there was nothing wrong what you were trying to say, just that it was hard for me as a reader to figure out what that was.

> On the other hand, the kernel community continues to grow, and most
> of the approximately 4,000 people who contribute each year have a
> fine experience.

These read like almost classical logical fallacies. Yes, the community continues to grow, but is that because of or in spite of its policies and cultural norms? No one has ever argued that Linux is not a successful project. It is also not surprising that the majority of the active contributors would not have issues to complain about, just due to survivor bias. The ones who did not have a fine experience would leave.

But even beyond that point, to people like me who are not actually members of the kernel community and just follow along here on LWN because it is technically interesting, the majority of the discussion one has heard about that community in recent years is from those who were *not* having a fine experience. Now, maybe there is an argument there to be made that this has been sensationalized to generate headlines, but to state that "we're a big, happy, 4,000-person family just having a fine time" with no evidence to back that up makes me think, "Wow, this person has a very different image of that community than I do." A different image is okay (yours may be the right one! you are part of that community after all and I am not), but to leave out any justification for that viewpoint is to suggest that you either don't know what other people are saying about your community or that you don't want to acknowledge what they are saying. Even justifying this by drawing from your own personal experiences would have helped (since this article is told from a personal point of view, as you say). I would summarize this as a case of "telling instead of showing" being unconvincing.

> The web sites that specialize in publicizing inflammatory messages
> found in the mailing lists have had to dig harder than in the past.

I didn't even know such websites existed (though it does not surprise me), but given the opposite impression I have received, that reporting on these issues is more common than ever (outside of LWN), some justification for this claim would have helped, also.

But I think the bigger point, to me, is that regardless of how many incidences of Linus going postal on some poor contributor there actually are, the real issue has always been that he felt *entitled* to behave in that way, and that most of the other people in leadership positions within the Linux community were willing to back him up on that, or at least unwilling to challenge him on it. Nobody is perfect. I've had people call me out when I have acted badly in my own communities on occasion, but the difference is that those people were in positions of authority when they did it, and that I believed that they were right to do so. The "it's not that bad and it's getting better" line sounds like an abdication of the responsibility of those with actual power in the community to protect those who don't have it (as *people*), and that doesn't sit well with me, even if the line itself is true. You make many other excellent points in the article, and it was by no means one-sided. These were just some of the portions that I struggled with.

Ultimately, the announcement that Linus no longer feels so entitled is a hugely positive development even if it results in no immediate changes in how the community works on a day-to-day level. I hope that in the long term the Linux community will find ways to achieve its technical excellence by growing and nurturing its members, and I hope that it will set a positive example for other communities struggling with the same issues. Like it or not, as one of the largest and most successful open source projects, Linux as a whole is also in a position of leadership in the broader community, and that is how leaders should behave.

Follow through will be key

neilbrown — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 02:22:21 +0000

> I do not expect him to return a “new man”.

A *lot* of what Linus says and does ranges between good and excellent.
The number of times he uses inappropriate language are relatively few - but they have an effect out of proportion to their size (which is expected given Linus' power and position).

So Linus doesn't need to become a "new man", he just needs a little bit of a shave - file down those few rough edges a bit.

(ah well.)

anselm — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 10:20:27 +0000

Django attempt to impose "Contributor Covenant" over project for rejected pull requests from "People of Color", then labeling him an ist and saying they'll go to management: https://archive.is/dgilk

Just for the record, this has nothing to do with the Django project (a distinction that ESR himself was already careful to muddle when he pointed to that issue). The project in question here is awesome-django, which is basically a list of useful Django resources that is quite distinct from the Django project itself.

If anything, the Django project is evidence that it is possible to produce best-of-breed software in the presence of a code of conduct that is broadly similar to the one Linux has recently adopted.

Code, conflict, and conduct

giraffedata — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 03:30:17 +0000

"Good enough to work", "good enough to ship" and "good enough to be included upstream" are three different technical thresholds.

Don't forget "good enough to be accepted by whoever's in charge of upstream," because that's not the same as "good enough to be included upstream." A potential contributor may be afraid that his perfectly good work would not be acknowledged as such. Thus, it could be a truly emotional "afraid" based on lack of validation by another human being as well as a practical "afraid" just meaning you don't want to risk wasting your time.

I had many patches I thought were great rejected by various projects - some just ignored, others explicitly rejected, which led to a decision many years ago just to keep my code to myself from now on.

(ah well.)

netmonk — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 00:19:42 +0000

From Reddit :
"
Everyone always says CoCs are tools to ban people with differing political opinions but no one is ever able to find an example. You can't just make stuff up to get mad at.

Opal, attempt to witch-hunt dev out of the project over personal opinion thwarted by maintainer being open-minded: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

The entire GitHub Code of Conduct Drama: http://archive.is/JzOoj https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3g8ehh/github_put...

Django attempt to impose "Contributor Covenant" over project for rejected pull requests from "People of Color", then labeling him an ist and saying they'll go to management: https://archive.is/dgilk

As a suggestion I recommend adopting the Contributor Code of Conduct to ensure everybody's contributions are accepted regarless of their sex, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, height, place of origin, etc, etc, etc. As a white straight male and lead of this trending repository, your adoption of this Code of Conduct will send a loud and clear message that inclusion is a primary objective of the Django community and of the software development community in general.

Ruby attempt to impose the Contributor Covenant over the project, founder Matz thankfully aware enough to reject it, here's his explanation: https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-95 Following that attempts by Contributor Covenant to get Matz separated from "Community Management": https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432 and insults year later: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029170073938944000 Thankfully he knows what's up: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1041701099378540544

PHP attempt to impose Contributor Covenant on the project that thankfully fails after a few skirmishes and a few great explanations why: http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214

the Contributor Covenant, and any other codes of conduct originating in Social Justice, are to be opposed out of hand, both in PHP, and in any other place they are suggested

Node.js attempt to remove a contributor over sharing an article on Twitter: https://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free... http://archive.is/h6lem

Most recently Rod tweeted in support of an inflammatory anti-Code-of-Conduct article. As a perceived leader in the project, it can be difficult for outsiders to separate Rod’s opinions from that of the project. Knowing the space he is participating in and the values of our community, Rod should have predicted the kind of response this tweet received.

After lengthy attempts to defend himself: https://medium.com/@rvagg/the-truth-about-rod-vagg-f063f6... he barely survives a vote triggered to throw him out of the project, activists are pissed: https://twitter.com/ag_dubs/status/899749156209664000 After the Kangoroo court is over, people point out said activists broke said "Code of Conduct" in much more severe ways, no action is taken: http://archive.is/7cL5s

Drupal contributor is thrown out of the project for his personal sex life: https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/drupal-larry-garfield-gor.... after activists in its "Diversity & Inclusion group" set up dozen pages political dossier of supposedly "problematic" comments he might have made on Twitter/Reddit or his Blog: https://www.scribd.com/document/350215190/Crell

And now it's the turn for Linux. This is what this and similar "Code of Conducts" are designed to do, and explicitly so by its creator. Create political Drama and arguments and get outside activists to start witch-hunts and Social media/media shitstorms against developers with private political opinions they dislike. It's up to the Linux community to decide if that's what they want or they'd rather keep coding.

They're also implicitly anti-meritocratic and such language was embedded within the first versions of it, for instance "pervasive cult of meritocracy": https://twitter.com/dashorst/status/534473049647898624 and even if it's not explicit anymore, the intent of its creator is clear: https://postmeritocracy.org/
"
"
The creator of the CoC worked at GitHub for a year, was mostly hired on board to signal about "diversity", but got let go about a year later and triggering more Drama: https://where.coraline.codes/blog/my-year-at-github/

Which also triggered various "GitHub is sexist" articles upon departure:

https://www.businessinsider.de/fired-github-programmer-co...

https://www.themarysue.com/antisocial-coding-github/

While working at GitHub someone actually tried applying the same standards that were applied to others in past incidents described above to the CoC creator, which also led to nothing aside from the issue being closed by Ehmke with a passive aggressive explanation: http://archive.is/kdw13

If you want to know what this person is about, there's no better than from the horse's mouth, this extended Twitter rant from about a month ago is the pure distilled essence of what is going on: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029161113848557569

Nonetheless I'm sure there are still enough "allies" inside GitHub to try and push this and argue the pretense position of this being about "civility", "welcoming" or "safety" instead of what it is actually used for as explained best here: http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214
"

Code, conflict, and conduct

anselm — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 15:03:46 +0000

The important point is that this is not a CoC complaint in the first place. The person is complaining that there is somebody on the TAB who they surmise cannot deal with certain types of (hypothetical, so far) CoC complaints fairly. This contention is debatable, but it does not invalidate the concept of having the TAB handle CoC complaints in principle. If nothing else, the TAB member in question (who is known as a reasonable sort of guy) could recuse himself from dealing with that particular type of complaint if and when any specimens actually come in, and they could be handled by the remainder of the TAB. If, in the longer term, enough people object to his presence on the TAB on these grounds they could simply elect somebody else when his seat comes up the next time.

Now of course one can discuss whether the TAB is best placed to handle CoC complaints to begin with, but it's fairly obvious that the TAB ended up as arbiters of CoC disputes because the CoC template had a blank to fill in and the TAB was the only body that was immediately available to fill that blank. For all the criticism concerning its (current) composition, the TAB has at least been elected rather than arbitrarily appointed, even if it may not be the most appropriate institution for the job in the long term. But I wouldn't consider its role cast in stone.

As a matter of principle, it would probably be better to have a specialised “CoC oversight committee” that is trusted by the kernel development community to adjudicate disputes fairly, but it is by no means clear who should even be allowed to vote in an election for that body if “whoever is attending the kernel summit” is not what is wanted as the electorate. How many lines of code must one have contributed to the current Linux source tree in order to be eligible to vote? (Actually conducting the vote once you know who gets to vote wouldn't be a huge problem; the Debian project does it at least once every year.)

Code, conflict, and conduct

jospoortvliet — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 13:31:18 +0000

Here's one data point. As community manager I introduced a code of conduct to the openSUSE conference and was involved in shaping the wider community guidelines. They never had any adverse affect that I could see despite indeed quite some pushback at the time.

The guidelines were used once to push someone out, which had an amazingly positive effect: that person was clearly keeping many others from contributing with their bad behaviour. In hindsight I should have acted far sooner and in the future, when encountering a toxic person, I certainly will. Heck, I have, though mostly I could fix issues by a stern talking-to rather than kicking. But having a CoC to point to and as stick behind the door is very useful. I know several people who don't attend events without one and while as boring white dude I never bothered to look myself if an event had one I fully support that.

Talk to community managers. I bet you won't find one who thinks a CoC does anything other than grow the community.

Code, conflict, and conduct

lkundrak — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 13:03:49 +0000

The code of conduct doesn't really deal with things like this. This person made it pretty clear that they are not part of the Linux development community and are using a private Twitter account to make the derogatory comment in question.

If anything, it's perhaps a matter of Twitter terms of use; but my guess is that they're okay with it. They're okay with nuclear threats anyway.

Code, conflict, and conduct

rwm — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 23:54:44 +0000

Didn't take too long though we have yet to see how it pans out:
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/general-di...

More things will inevitably bubble up in future. It'll be interesting times.

Code, conflict, and conduct

HenrikH — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 19:43:03 +0000

Wow and here I thought that the ones I have heard was crazy. The Internet forums is indeed filled with crazy these days.

Code, conflict, and conduct

Tara_Li — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 18:24:16 +0000

Actually, the theory I heard floated was that it was less a specifically SJW take-over, though some might see that as a bonus, and more an opportunity to get Linus out of the way, whether temporarily or permanently, so that a stable binary interface might be put in place to allow Intel and others to side-step the GPL and lock down machines even more thoroughly than they are. However, Linus *does* personally own the Linux trademark, so that might affect things.