The CoC is extremely ambiguously written for an enforceable document, any
behavior disliked by the maintainers can be punished, and the level of
naivete of the maintainers defending it is suprising for such a far reaching
document.
> In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as
> contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project
> and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, [snip].
The CoC is an enforceable document but harassment is not defined. In the state
of New York, harassment used to be defined as written communication "in a
manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm" before the state's highest court
struck down this clause [1]. Rejecting a submitted patch is clearly annoying,
especially if it comes with a negative review attached to it.
> Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
> [snip]
> * Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
> professional setting
There are already two major problems in this statement. The first problem is
that behavior is deemed unacceptable if it "could" be considered inappropriate.
In Singapore, littering the street with cigarette butts is punished with a 300$
fine or prison whereas it is legal and socially accepted in most Western
countries. Again, this is sloppy wording in an enforceable document. The second
major problem is the term "Other conduct" which includes anything done private.
That is, by contributing to the Linux kernel, you are submitting to a sloppily
written set of rules that apply in a professional setting somewhere on earth
and that cover all activities of your life. This is intolerable.
You may argue now that the private life is out of scope based on the following
sentence in the Section "Scope":
> This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces
> when an individual is representing the project or its community.
Who qualifies as an individual who can represent the Linux kernel developers?
Is this every person who has ever contributed code to the Linux? Is this only
the maintainers? Do you "represent" if you mention in an online profile that
you are a contributor to Linux kernel development? If so, then you opened the
door for another OpalGate [6]. (The founder of the Contributor Covenant CoC
filed a GitHub issue because of a Twitter statement by someone advertising
himself as Opal developer.)
Finally, let us review the responsibilities of the project maintainers.
> Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or
> reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions
> that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or
> permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem
> inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
Notice the "or". With this CoC the project maintainers have the
*responsibility* to remove content that does not meet the CoC criteria
AND they can ban anyone for ANY OTHER BEHAVIOR THEY DEEM INAPPROPRIATE.
Right there the CoC kicks any pretense of due process out of the window.
With this CoC it does not matter if you actually harassed someone or
not, only the perception of the maintainers is important. Harassment is just a
pretext.
This goes on in the next section where "unacceptable" behavior can be
reported to the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB). Again,
what is deemed unacceptable is never defined in the CoC.
> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior
> may be reported by contacting the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) at
> <[email protected]>. All complaints will be reviewed and
> investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary
> and appropriate to the circumstances.
How is the TAB supposed to "investigate"? Call hotels for the videos of
their surveillance cameras? Ask telephone companies for phone protocols?
> The project team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard
> to the reporter of an incident.
This confidentiality is not compatible with many legal systems and can
be viewed as obstruction of punishment. The TAB is neither a law
enforcement agency nor a law office nor are the TAB members acting as
journalists.
In addition, in many countries an accuser has to reveal itself and we
can already see at US universities how anonymous accusations followed by
investigations and rulings within universities lead to wrong decisions
and made them liable to lawsuits. The Linux Foundation (LF) is based in
the US. I wonder if the LF with its more than thousand corporate members
can be held accountable for decisions made by the TAB.
Some TAB members already stated they only want the best for kernel
development but this kind of thinking is naivete bordering on
negligence. Every supporter of every idea ever only wanted the best,
just ask the fans of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
One TAB member writes [5]:
> I personally find it unlikely that relevant pressure could be applied
> on TAB members; I don't find it a prestigious role such that it is worth
> holding on to against my own values or best judgement.
The TAB gets to decide who participates in the development of an
operating system software with an estimated worth of 500 million US$, it has
a 40% market share in the server market, and it forms the basis of Android
with an 88% market share in mobile devices. Add to that political interests
and you have an uncountable number of reasons to subvert the TAB.
Now if you still think the CoC is just a set rules, let me correct you by
quoting the founder of the Contributor Covenant [2]:
> Some people are saying that the Contributor Covenant is a political
> document, and they’re right.
In another tweet, the founder writes [4]:
> Breakfast conversation with my daughter about the impossibility of
> “reverse racism” and why “all lives matter” is problematic
You may argue now that I judge the CoC by its author but I do not
believe that a person with these views wrote this document without
embedding some of these ideas in it.
Finally, Edward Cree wrote [7]
> I absolutely cannot sign up to this 'Pledge' nor accept the
> 'Responsibilities' to police the speech of others that it makes a duty
> of maintainership
Will Edward Cree face repercussions for his non-enforcement of the CoC?
> Maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good
> faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by
> other members of the project’s leadership.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/nyregion/top-court-champions-freedom-to-annoy.html
[2] https://archive.is/xZOZ3
[3] https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/19/602
[4] https://archive.fo/oV4Tu
[5] https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/20/93
[6] https://archive.is/o/XRnb9/https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
[7] https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/19/234
Hello Christoph.
Christoph Conrads - 20.09.18, 23:18:
> The CoC is extremely ambiguously written for an enforceable document,
> any behavior disliked by the maintainers can be punished, and the
> level of naivete of the maintainers defending it is suprising for
> such a far reaching document.
For me the most important point is this:
Let Linus have his own experience and insights. It is not up to me
telling him that he might be making this all up or may be completely
right in his assessment. I do not know how he got to that experience and
insights and what talks in person may have contributed to it. And its
frankly simply not my business. I just congratulated him for his
insights and his courage to speak up like this, seeing the potential in
it.
Not my business is also the CoC Linux kernel developers and contributors
may or may not give themselves. I am mostly a by-stander. Sure I test rc
kernels and give (limited, as I usually do not bisect issues) feedback,
report bugs. But that is about it.
What I see here is that a lot of people who are not even contributing to
the Linux kernel in a major way apparently want to make their opinion
about Code of Conduct heard loudly.
I ask myself: What the point of it?
Apparently at least some of the major contributors to the Linux kernel
see an issue with communication culture on this mailing list and
elsewhere. Whether it has been a wise move to just change the CoC to a
different text, I read some major contributors opposing this move … I am
all for letting people who contribute significantly to the Linux kernel
have their own experience and insights.
It is simply not my business to interfere with whether they give
themselves and the wider community a Code of Conduct and what would be
the content of it. They do the work, one of them cares for the
infrastructure that serves this mailing list. Even in case someone would
now censor every post I do on LKML or even ban me from using it… I do
not think it is to up to me to change or control that behavior. Sure,
even small contributions count and I even have a tiny, little commit to
kernel documentation, but still for me the major point is:
Some of the major contributors apparently see that the way of
communicating here and elsewhere sometimes (!) does not serve Linux
kernel development and the community. By just continuing the way it is,
it is unlikely to receive a different outcome. So it is important to
change *something*.
There is a kernel developer summit where they like to discuss exactly
things like this. I do not see it up to me to try to control the outcome
of that process.
KDE.org has a code of conduct¹. While at the same time they really have
a rather friendly and welcoming environment – if you ask me one of the
most friendly and welcoming ones I have ever witnessed so far. I also
still see honest discussions there where people share their point of
view and agree to disagree. They are very productive as well. Plasma and
KDE applications become better and more usable with every release – yes,
Linus in case you did not decide not to read mails on this list for now,
I won´t CC your address, KDE stuff is getting better and better. And
they work on making the project even more welcoming for newcomers. I´d
say I even found friends within that project. They may not even need the
CoC, but I do not see it doing any harm either.
I really don´t see the point of most of the discussion here. What
happened now won´t be the end of Linux and that´s about it. There is no
point for predicting doom unless you want it to happen.
[1] https://www.kde.org/code-of-conduct/
Thanks,
--
Martin
Hallo Martin,
> What I see here is that a lot of people who are not even contributing to
> the Linux kernel in a major way apparently want to make their opinion
> about Code of Conduct heard loudly.
>
> I ask myself: What the point of it?
So far, the Contributor Covenant CoC always left a path of destruction
in its wake, see for example the list posted by Michael Woods [1].
There is not a single success story to be heard. Add to that the
very political and very vocal crowd associated with the CoC: These
people drive away contributors, they do not contribute themselves
because they are busy policing the behavior of the remaining
contributors (see OpalGate), and they will not stop until each and
every software project abides to their CoC. To top it off, none of the
Linux maintainers seem to be aware of or bothered by the incidents in
other projects adopting the Contributor Covenant CoC.
> Some of the major contributors apparently see that the way of
> communicating here and elsewhere sometimes (!) does not serve Linux
> kernel development and the community. By just continuing the way it is,
> it is unlikely to receive a different outcome. So it is important to
> change *something*.
Again, I have yet to see a single success story related to the
Contributor Covenant CoC.
Communication issues and the magic word "harassment" are just
pretexts to establish "investigative" boards operating in secrecy to
maintain anonymity of accusers and to give a "legal" foundation for
censorship based on subjective judgement inside and outside of the
LKML. The Rod Vagg case is a nice example of what can come of this
secrecy [2]. Note that Node.js applies the same CoC.
> There is a kernel developer summit where they like to discuss exactly
> things like this. I do not see it up to me to try to control the outcome
> of that process.
Removing or modifying an existing CoC is very different from agreeing
to a new one. I bet 10 Dollars that at least one person who proposes the
remove the CoC at the summit, will be called out for supporting
harassment -- if you can still attend without signing the CoC.
> KDE.org has a code of conduct¹.
> [snip]
> [1] https://www.kde.org/code-of-conduct/
The KDE CoC does not force maintainers to take "corrective action".
Additionally, the Contributor Covenant CoC may also apply outside of
development and it gives a carte blanche to the maintainers to punish
behaviors deemed unfit for contribution. The KDE CoC does stipulate the
existence of committees operating in secrecy.
> I really don´t see the point of most of the discussion here. What
> happened now won´t be the end of Linux and that´s about it. There is no
> point for predicting doom unless you want it to happen.
Let's make doom happen with the aid of the Contributor Covenant CoC.
[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/17/1147
[2] https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165