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[Updated 2018-09-26 20:30:00 to show the CoC is already in effect. --martyb]
[Ed Note: Given Linus Torvalds' recent decision to step down as head of Linux development for a while, and news of an attempt to install a a new CoC (Code of Conduct) on Linux development, I believe it important to communicate this to our community. It does, however, offer an opportunity for more, ummm, fire, flame, and feelings than the usual stories posted here. Let's try and keep things civil and discuss the merits (or lack of same). To quote Sergeant Joe Friday "All we're interested in is the facts, ma'am."
If you are not interested in this, another story will be along before too long... just ignore this one.
As for the code of conduct itself, take a look at: code of conduct and the kernel commit.]
Eric S. Raymond speaks in regards to the Linux CoC:
From (Eric S. Raymond) Subject On holy wars, and a plea for peace Date Sun, 23 Sep 2018 16:50:52 -0400 (EDT) Most of you know that I have spent more than a quarter century analyzing the folkways of the hacker culture as a historian, ethnographer, and game theorist. That analysis has had large consequences, including a degree of business and mainstream acceptance of the open source way that was difficult to even imagine when I first presented "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" back in 1997.
I'm writing now, from all of that experience and with all that perspective, about the recent flap over the new CoC and the attempt to organize a mass withdrawal of creator permissions from the kernel.
I'm going to try to keep my personal feelings about this dispute off the table, not because I don't have any but because I think I serve us all better by speaking as neutrally as I can.
First, let me confirm that this threat has teeth. I researched the relevant law when I was founding the Open Source Initiative. In the U.S. there is case law confirming that reputational losses relating to conversion of the rights of a contributor to a GPLed project are judicable in law. I do not know the case law outside the U.S., but in countries observing the Berne Convention without the U.S.'s opt-out of the "moral rights" clause, that clause probably gives the objectors an even stronger case.
I urge that we all step back from the edge of this cliff, and I weant[sic] to suggest a basis of principle on which settlement can be negotiated.
Before I go further, let me say that I unequivocally support Linus's decision to step aside and work on cleaning up his part of the process. If for no other reason than that the man has earned a rest.
But this leaves us with a governance crisis on top of a conflict of principles. That is a difficult combination. Fortunately, there is lots of precedent about how to solve such problems in human history. We can look back on both tragic failures and epic successes and take lessons from them that apply here.
To explain those lessons, I'm going to invite everybody to think like a game theorist for a bit.
Every group of humans trying to sustain cooperation develops an ethos, set of norms. It may be written down. More usually it is a web of agreements that one has to learn by observing the behavior of others. The norms may not even be conscious; there's a famous result from experimental psychology that young children can play cooperative games without being able to articulate what their rules are...
Every group of cooperating humans has a telos, a mutually understood purpose towards which they are working (or playing). Again, this purpose may be unwritten and is not necessarily even conscious. But one thing is always true: the ethos derives from the telos, not the other way around. The goal precedes the instrument.
It is normal for the group ethos to evolve. It will get pulled in one direction or another as the goals of individuals and coalitions inside the group shift. In a well-functioning group the ethos tends to evolve to reward behaviors that achieve the telos more efficiently, and punish behaviors that retard progess towards it.
It is not normal for the group's telos - which holds the whole cooperation together and underpins the ethos - to change in a significant way. Attempts to change the telos tend to be profoundly disruptive to the group, often terminally so.
Now I want you to imagine that the group can adopt any of a set of ethoi ranked by normativeness - how much behavior they require and prohibit. If the normativeness slider is set low, the group as a whole will tolerate behavior that some people in it will consider negative and offensive. If the normativeness level is set high, many effects are less visible; contributors who chafe under restriction will defect (usually quietly) and potential contributors will be deterred from joining.
If the normativeness slider starts low and is pushed high, the consequences are much more visible; you can get internal revolt against the change from people who consider the ethos to no longer serve their interests. This is especially likely if, bundled with a change in rules of procedure, there seems to be an attempt to change the telos of the group.
What can we say about where to set the slider? In general, the most successful - most inclusive - cooperations have a minimal ethos. That is, they are just as normative as they must be to achieve the telos, *and no more so*. It's easy to see why this is. Pushing the slider too high risks internal factional strife over value conflicts. This is worse than having it set too low, where consensus is easier to maintain but you get too little control of conflict between *individuals*.
None of this is breaking news. We cooperate best when we live and let live, respecting that others may make different choices and invoking the group against bad behavior only when it disrupts cooperative success. Inclusiveness demands tolerance.
Strict ethoi are typically functional glue only for small groups at the margins of society; minority regious groups are the best-studied case. The larger and more varied your group is, the more penalty there is for trying to be too normative.
What we have now is a situation in which a subgroup within the Linux kernel's subculture threatens destructive revolt because not only do they think the slider been pushed too high in a normative direction, but because they think the CoC is an attempt to change the group's telos.
The first important thing to get is that this revolt is not really about any of the surface issues the CoC was written to address. It would be maximally unhelpful to accuse the anti-CoC people of being pro-sexism, or anti-minority, or whatever. Doing that can only inflame their sense that the group telos is being hijacked. They make it clear; they signed on to participate in a meritocracy with reputation rewards, and they think that is being taken way from them.
One way to process this complaint is to assert that the CoC's new concerns are so important that the anti-CoC faction can be and should be fought to the point where they withdraw or surrender. The trouble with this way of responding is that it *is* in fact a hijacking of the group's telos - an assertion that we ought to have new terminal values replacing old ones that the objectors think they're defending.
So a really major question here is: what is the telos of this subculture? Does the new CoC express it? Have the objectors expressed it?
The question *not* to get hung up on is what any individual's choice in this matter says about their attitude towards, say, historically underepresented minorities. It is perfectly consistent to be pro-tolerance and pro-inclusion while believing *this* subculture ought to be all about producing good code without regard to who is offended by the process. Not every kind of good work has to be done everywhere. Nobody demands that social-justice causes demonstrate their ability to write C.
That last paragraph may sound like I have strayed from neutrality into making a value claim, but not really. It's just another way of saying that different groups have different teloi, and different ethoi proceeding from them. Generally speaking (that is, unless it commits actual crimes) you can only judge a group by how it fulfills its own telos, not those of others.
So we come back to two questions:
- What is our telos?
- Given our telos, do we have the most inclusive (least normative) ethos possible to achieve it?
When you have an answer to that question, you will know what we need to do about the CoC and the "killswitch" revolt.
--
Eric S. RaymondThe spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1787
LKML URL: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/23/212
Possibly in reference to: http://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/20/444
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:51PM (11 children)
From this link: https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/19/234 [lkml.org]
I read this comment on another forum board discussing this issue.
Basically, its a comment concerning an Asperger's sufferer, Edward Cree, feeling threatened by this CoC.
I didn't see anyone else mentioning it here on this discussion, so I thought I would add it.
Here's the text:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:40PM (10 children)
Seems like they were able to be quite articulate there. It isn't hard to learn the social rules of not being a total prick and avoiding sexist/racist/etc language. There is absolutely nothing for that Asperger's sufferer to worry about, they obviously can comprehend civil interactions. I assume it is all the freaking out HYPE going on around CoCs that has this Asperger person so worried. This comment section alone exhibits some serious insanity which would be very anxiety inducing if you take it seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:57PM (1 child)
Says you. But are you really in a position to determine that for him, or are you othering him yet again?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:31PM
Get back to me when there is an actual problem and not some imagine boogeywoman coming for your manliness.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:06PM (3 children)
> It isn't hard to learn the social rules of not being a total prick and avoiding sexist/racist/etc language.
For you. Maybe. Many people on the autistic spectrum find it pretty hard, if not impossible.
I would also comment that the main opposition party in the UK has just spent six months or more having a massive argument about defining what is or is not racist language, the argument hasn't finished yet, and only covers the definition for one single race. How can you avoid something that there is no agreed definition of?
> There is absolutely nothing for that Asperger's sufferer to worry about, they obviously can comprehend civil interactions.
If you read it, they are also worried about being _required_ to _police_ those interactions among others. That takes more than just comprehension, it requires maintainers to have man management and HR skills too, which is ridiculous. If Linux _really_ needs an HR department, then get it one, but don't require technical maintainers to pretend to be an HR department.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:40PM (2 children)
You're reading way too much into it.
1. No not for me, civil language is very easily learned and isn't anywhere near the same level as in person socializing where you have to pick up on contextual clues and body language. Being abrasive and not very likable is an entirely different subset of problem from using offensive language. Maybe you're thinking of Tourettes? As with all organizations the implementation and interpretation of the rules is what makes them fair or not.
2. The enforcement clause is the only one that seems a tiny bit odd, but it is simply the burden of leadership. Want to be the lead on the project? You'll have to interact with others and call people out for rude behavior if you encounter it. I will repeat what I said in #1, the implementation / interpretation is what will make or break this CoC.
Plenty of Aspergers people work regular jobs and somehow magically don't get into trouble all the time. It is kind of amusing how you're becoming a reactionary SJW, hypocrisy FTW!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:47PM (1 child)
I intentionally use "civil" language. I intentionally use literally and technically correct terms and explanations. I don't compromise on quality for someone's feelings - they're not relevant. In my workplace I've been called mean, and I've alienated myself from some people, for exactly and only this. I've been taken to task because I said, "That's technically wrong." "-- but wouldn't you accept that information because they're highly regarded in their field and you've paid them a lot of money for their opinion?", "That doesn't change the fact -- they're simply wrong." Nearly word for word, to the best of my memory.
Socially, a small group was having a discussion in the kitchen about their ages. I was mostly just listening. One person told me that they were older than me, then in this discussion it came out that they were younger than me. I said, "Really? You're only xx??" -- because this was a contradiction of what they had told me. The person latched onto that, and I heard about it from a third party some time after the fact. There was absolutely no indication at the time that it had struck a cord, and I had no idea that someone was offended until it was raised that it was a conversation behind my back. It strikes me now that they were offended by my surprise, and they don't realize that they contradicted themselves, or that they'd told me earlier that they were older than me.
The offense is relative. Because someone else doesn't understand the situation, they are offended, and this document makes you the vile actor for their lack of understanding.
Being "grammatically correct" is not the same as creating social prose. Having created prose is in no way suggestive of how long that required (I've gone over these three paragraphs about eight times), and it's only worse when you can't proof-read in a face-to-face encounter. Even being "civil" or "sociable" is in no way a defense against this sort of code of conduct, and for your sake I truly hope that "doing your best" equates to "absolutely perfect without fail". There is simply No Possible Way to not run afoul of these conditions. The only thing you can possibly hope is that you never encounter someone who wants to use it against you. It's just another weapon -- not even a tool.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:10PM
> I intentionally use literally and technically correct terms and explanations. I don't compromise on quality for someone's feelings - they're not relevant.
Tick one off on the autistic spectrum bingo card (I have an autistic son who has a tendency to exactly this).
> The offense is relative. Because someone else doesn't understand the situation, they are offended, and this document makes you the vile actor for their lack of understanding.
...
> There is simply No Possible Way to not run afoul of these conditions. The
As Ted T'so has already found - he's been called, by one of the CoC authors, a "rape apologist" for writing something (and I have read it) that used intentionally "civil" language, literally and technically correct terms and explanations. In my opinion (assuming I'm still allowed to have one), the problem is that Ted and the CoC author probably don't agree on the definition of "rape" - which isn't really surprising as there are lots of definitions (e.g. the OED definition doesn't agree with English law) - and it would seem, to me, gratuitously offensive to call someone a "rape apologist" without first agreeing what "rape" is.
And finally, today's obligatory "Scott Adams has been looking over my shoulder again and I really wish he wouldn't do that": http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-09-27 [dilbert.com]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 26 2018, @09:06PM (3 children)
The bottom line: there is no inherent "right to not be offended", nor should anyone ever attempt create one, or be supported in such an attempt.
Most of this CoC tripe is nothing more than people trying to push exact error into the mainstream.
Should they succeed, I am quite certain we will all be the worse for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:38PM (2 children)
You are free to work on projects that have no CoC, just as you are free to work for a company with no HR department. Seems most people would like to have some measure of enforced community guidelines the same way most corporations find it desirable to have HR departments. This is part of cooperating with other humans, software development has just gotten a major "pass" for many decades because the demographics were quite small which allowed for a specific type of culture to develop.
Maybe your worst fears will come true, maybe they wont. How about we wait and see how things go instead of playing chicken little?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday September 27 2018, @03:18PM
> You are free to work on projects that have no CoC
The Linux kernel contributors did just that, but now they can't.
> just as you are free to work for a company with no HR department
And when the company installs an HR department you are free to leave and take all _your_ stuff with you - except for the work-for-hire which belongs to the company.
Not sure this analogy is leading where you wanted...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:09PM
How about we just don't go headlong into the padded room, nodding and smiling, and instead instill a strong sense of self into our selves and our offspring?
Stop trying to regulate other people's behavior.
Instead, regulate your own behavior.
Someone says something nasty, ignore it. Someone says something you disagree with, either make your case or ignore it. Words are not actions; treating them like actions is always, always the wrong way to go. For many reasons, not the least of which is that we need to hear what people wish to say so we know what they're on about far more than we need to create repressed individuals we have no idea harbor this or that idea. But that's just the base of the iceberg. People who cannot express themselves may also never, or rarely, be exposed to proper counter argument and reason directed to their own particular rationale(s); People who are coddled become unable to deal with radical and/or contrary concepts that can have great value; political opinions that are unpopular, but correct (such as anti-drug-law opinions) get repressed and society suffers hugely until they slowly manage to defeat the idiots who inflict such things on us; I could literally go on for hours. Repressing and/or penalizing speech is a wholly bad idea. Period. Full bloody stop.
Encouraging a world of "special butterflies" is only going to produce a weak, self-indulgent society of whiners. Something we are already seeing strong signs of. The warning signs are there — and as for your metaphor, this isn't a chicken-little moment, it's a third-little-pig moment, and your ass is living in a straw house, inviting the wolf in for tea.
Believe me absolutely when I tell you that there is no chance at all I would work for a project that had a CoC.
IMHO, the vast majority of "problems" come from people who are treated poorly by the employer, and the rest come from people deluded into thinking they deserve special consideration — rather than equal, but excellent, consideration. All this internecine whining is just a symptom of shitty workplaces, suckass corporate policies, and out-of-control political correctness stepping into the vacuum created by the former two factors. Fixing it isn't likely to happen unless you go after the cause. Treating symptoms at best simply masks, or partially masks, the causes.
We don't need mommy laws or CoCs. We need sane, solid people. And we're not going to get there by coddling those who think they deserve a padded room.