I am whole-heartedly against a Code of Conduct. While well-intentioned, anyone following the shit-show that is the Linux kernel code of conduct fiasco, I also think would be against the code of conduct as well.
Immediately after imposing the Code of Conduct, past tweets by contributors and the accusations started flying and it devolved from there. In addition to several authorities on Open Source weighed in that yes, contributors can revoke the copyright of their prior contributions, which was threatened by those accused. Which would leave any software in a lurch. Now, it looks like those contributors might go to BSD... Having been interested in software from a very young age, and later specifically Open Source, one thing that appealed to me was that it was a meritocracy. The best code survives, your code contributions are limited only by your code being the best. Now we're saying it's not just your code, but also your behavior. We had an ideal, we had THE ideal - a place where only our ideas mattered. A place where nothing else mattered - not your gentatilia, your sexual identity, not your partner preference, not your political party - none of it. It was purely about lines of code. It was elegant and beautiful, and brutally simple. And now the social justice warriors are contaminating that perfection with code+conduct. So it goes from "this is the best code that could be written" to "this is the best code that could be written from an individual whose political ideals match our own". If we adopt this, does that mean there is a [git commit hook| gerrit review] installed that evaluates the contributor's social media to find controversial posts? If we adopt this, how do we assure we don't wind up in a Sarah Jeong situation (She's racist against white people, but the New York Times says that's "ok")? - How do assure that white people are adequately protected against reverse racism? -- Do we even agree that reverse racism [is possible to] exist(s) If we adopt this, what exactly are the political ideas a Qt contributor must espouse? - Are stances against illegal immigration "racist"? - Is "Sceintific racism" actual racism or just statistics? -- In a matter closer to home, where are we on James Damore situation? Would he be banned from this community? NONE of those questions should need to be contemplated by an Open Source software project. Open Source is about the Source. Not the source of the Source. In case it needs to be said- I am AGAINST racism, sexism, bigotry, and all the other exclusionary things. But I am also against people judging other people's code for factors that have nothing to do with the code itself. I find that adding a value judgement of conduct to code to be intolerant. We had the ideal. I am FOR inclusion. I want everyone to feel welcome here. Everyone. We might identify as a "community" as we are people, but really we're an open source project, and at the end of the day what matters the most is what is in git. I oppose any Code of Conduct. And demand the answers be provided to the above questions PRIOR to passage (if it happens). I really want to know where we are with James Damore because I thought his paper was well-researched with a scientific basis? > Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 3:17 AM > From: "Ulf Hermann" <ulf.herm...@qt.io> > To: "development@qt-project.org" <development@qt-project.org> > Subject: [Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct > > Hi, > > regarding our earlier discussions on a possible Code of Conduct, here as > well as at the Contributors' Summit 2017, I've pushed a QUIP with the > necessary rules and definitions: > > https://codereview.qt-project.org/243623 > > Please review it. > > regards, > Ulf > _______________________________________________ > Development mailing list > Development@qt-project.org > http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/development > _______________________________________________ Development mailing list Development@qt-project.org http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/development
