Conflict is necessary

Posted Sep 19, 2018 3:41 UTC (Wed) by Frogging101 (guest, #113180)
Parent article: Code, conflict, and conduct

The way the old Code of Conflict was written was much more relevant to kernel development than the new Code of Conduct. It acknowledged conflict as an inherent part of kernel development and outlined how it should be managed. That should be the purpose of a "code of conduct" for a software project. The new CoC is generic and seems disconnected from the needs of the kernel community.

to post comments

(ah well.)

Posted Sep 19, 2018 11:14 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (4 responses)

says who, exactly?

(ah well.)

Posted Sep 20, 2018 5:05 UTC (Thu) by Rudd-O (guest, #61155) [Link] (3 responses)

I agree with Frogging101.

In practice, I've seen CoCs like the one we are discussing be used to marginalize and eject good coders, and the very people doing that sort of thing were violating the CoC with their own behavior... but don't we all know that the rules don't apply to the SJW mobs.

(ah well.)

Posted Sep 20, 2018 5:21 UTC (Thu) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (2 responses)

> I've seen CoCs like the one we are discussing be used to marginalize and eject good coders

Then I'm sure you'll be able to provide a long list.

(ah well.)

Posted Sep 23, 2018 0:19 UTC (Sun) by netmonk (guest, #101961) [Link] (1 responses)

From Reddit :
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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/
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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
"

(ah well.)

Posted Sep 23, 2018 10:20 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

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.