Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Code of Conduct: Let's revamp it. | From | Edward Cree <> | Date | Thu, 20 Sep 2018 00:35:10 +0100 |
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On 19/09/18 15:18, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > I'd like to address just this part, speaking only for myself. > The LF is not in the position of arbitrating anything here. The body > charged with that is the LF Technical Advisory Board, which is a > different thing.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Jon, you're a good person, and I trust you not to harass developers. I'm not expecting you, or gregkh, or hpa to launch a dastardly plot to boot an innocent developer off the project.
But there are too many ways this can go wrong, maybe not now or next week but in five or ten years, when maybe a different kind of person is on the TAB, or maybe external pressure is brought to bear on TAB members. (Some people are speculating that pressure has already been brought to bear on Linus, although I'd like to stress that if he feels that changing the way he communicates is best for the project then I for one thoroughly respect that.)
Or maybe some manipulative extrovert will manage to whip up a media storm about some developer's innocuous remarks, the court of public opinion will immediately convict, other developers will be caught in a preference falsification cascade as no-one wants to take the risk of defending them. Are you, and the other members of the TAB, strong enough to hold back the lynch mobs when you know the guy hasn't done anything wrong? Do you really want to take on the responsibility to do that, perhaps time and time again? And can you be sure that you won't fall for a misleading framing by some charismatic sociopath of a fight you missed the start of?
Given that possibility, I think it is important for the kernel community to continue to send a strong signal that divisive identity politics are not welcome here; and I think that to adopt a Code of Conduct that contains in its opening sentence a laundry-list of protected classes (and was written by a, shall we say, divisive figure with a history of identity politics advocacy) sends precisely the opposite signal.
Linux is too important to civilisation to allow it to be turned into just another battlefield for the American culture war; commit 8a104f8b5867 seems like an invitation to both armies to take up positions on our fertile farmland. The only rule that gives no comfort to discriminatory political abusers (on either side) is— ye shall judge by their code alone.
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