[Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct

[Thiago Macieira]

On Friday, 26 October 2018 09:48:11 PDT Jason H wrote:
> My fundamental problem about the Contributor Covenant[1] was initially and
> solely the fallout from the Linux Kernel fiasco. But then I learned that it
> was drafted by Coraline Ada Ehmke, who sought to have a contributor removed
> [2] from a project preemptively. The contributor did nothing wrong with
> respect to the project or the project's community.  She constructed a claim
> of "transphobia" based on a tweet the contributor wrote in no way relating
> to the project at hand, and slandered the project for not expunging them.
> My mind is made up: the Contributor Covenant is a tool of oppression.

First of all, the kernel adoption of CoC was not a fiasco. All the negative 
emails you may have seen came from people who are not contributors, often 
their first and only email to the mailing list. Despite what Eric Raymond has 
said, revoking the copyright licence for GPL just cannot be done -- it would 
be against GPL's spirit.

Coraline's intentions are irrelevant. What matters is the text: is it good?

But if your mind is made up, kindly refrain from trying to convince others to 
change their minds too. This is a two-way street and you're only welcome to 
argue your point if you're willing to admit defeat too.

> The specific sentence in the Covenant is:
> "This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public
> spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community."
> 
> However, despite being the author of the Covenant (2014), she found it
> appropriate to attack someone who was clearly not operating in a project
> space or representing the project community (2015). We now have two
> examples - the linux Kernel and Opal project, that after CC was enacted
> that calls for removal of members based on past unrelated tweets went out.
> One of the problems its politics and political climates change over time.
> Expressing what is not political at one point in time may become political
> in subsequent years. People's minds also change over time.

What is the kernel example? Who was forced out, or attempted to?

> I urge you to read link[3] below and see if we want that kind of attention.
> It summarizes what happens when the CC has been adopted by other projects.
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_Covenant
> [2] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
> [3] https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/

I have.

The proponents of the removal were arguing that having such a person as a 
project leader is poisonous to the project, *regardless* of the fact that it 
was done in private time, because it would turn away potential new 
contributors as they didn't want to associate with such a person. This is an 
extreme situation, indeed, and one that the CoC committee should be able to 
make a judgement on: which way is the project best served?

Anyway, given that the request to get the maintainer removed was not accepted, 
how is that a failure of the CoC? Isn't it showing that it's *working*?

I personally think those situations explain why we need a CoC in the first 
place and why the judgment on such situations is very subjective, best left to 
humans, not to a script. And the deliberations should not be in a public 
forum, like a GitHub issue.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center