The Linux Kernel Adopts A Code of Conduct

It appears the thought police have finally come for Linux devs.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Kernel-Code-of-Conduct

"+* Using welcoming and inclusive language
+* Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
+* Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
+* Focusing on what is best for the community
+* Showing empathy towards other community members
+
+
+Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
+
+* The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or

  • advances
    +* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
    +* Public or private harassment
    +* Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic
  • address, without explicit permission
    +* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
  • professional setting"

“+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.”

Can’t even escape it if you want to stay, but not deal with any potential BS lol. Wonder how they got to Linus.

Year of GNU?

*-
Info Dump update

*_
ESR has released a statement
https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/23/212

"I urge that we all step back from the edge of this cliff, and I weant
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."

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They “confronted” him about his life, going by his recent correspondence.

It sounds more like Linus has had it with the constant eliteism and general fucking awful community he has helped create.

Though the scope is very wide, I see that as having to do something and being in this modern age a lot of baggage came with the needed changes.

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To progress is to adapt.

It’s only downhill from here

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How so? Politics and social bs aside, something good could come out of it.

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I don’t see a problem here. If you accept the code of conflict, how is this much different? The Code of conduct is just written out in more words IMO.

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Over time they will add more and more SJW agenda into COC.

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Personally, I don’t think the CoC was what pushed Linus. I think that was on him. That said, I totally understand why he acted the way he did.

Feel free to disagree with me but when you take an introvert, make them the face of a project, and have them work on it for what’s now nearly 30 years, they are going to be defensive of their work. Anybody would get pissed off about having a broken patch submitted to a piece of work they’ve invested so much time in. Myself included. So when you have a patch that you made in five minutes without proper review it’s kind of like a fuck you to Torvalds in all honesty.

Reading that honestly made me reassess how I interact with people myself.

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Quite possibly. We don’t know for sure though.
Computing is no longer a small universe. The majority of people out there, that has access to, will use computers in some way or another. Natural progression is to smooth out the wrinkles and continue forth. Doesn’t matter if I agree with it or not, it’s happening.

I am pessimistic in nature, so I guess it’s that side of me showing.

But just to further discussion, the project was fine for 30 years or so, why change it now?

It doesn’t matter how majority of people will use it, we’re talking about people who develop it, and that is much smaller group.

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Because change will happen whether we want it to or not. The minority that develops it now will eventually be replaced by others. No one is immortal.
We can continue to fight against the said change and it is our right to do so. However, it will happen.
More people every day are starting to understand that GNU/Linux is a better choice than microsoft and that bitten apple. We can continue to keep distancing ourselves, but where will that road end?

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Again the COC only applies to the devs, i don’t care how many people use linux. I care that COC can be abused to push someones view on how the devs should act and it can undermine how many devs are willing to put up with that. Same with new devs, why would they contribute to a project that has COC they don’t agree with.

Also change is not always good. In fact most ideas are meh at best, and we filter through all of them and select very few that are good. So yeah if you think that something is bad, fight it. There’s too much shit in the world anyways, why add more.

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We can’t make significant changes without sacrificing some stuff. We do in society all the time.
Ideas and beliefs will always clash, no matter what it is. More people being aware that GNU/Linux is a viable thing, is better than only a tiny corner in an ever expanding room.
More minds working on a problem is better than fewer.
We may not agree with the whole social politics bs, but hey, it’s the world we live in.

I don’t subscribe to that rhetoric at all. “Oh it’s just how it is”, no way, if we all did that we would still be picking berries and hunting vermin.

And again most people aren’t devs, and won’t be, especially OS devs. So it doesn’t matter how popular it becomes, and in any case it already rules the server world.

Bottom line is, i don’t agree with this change coz it wasn’t necessary in my eyes. It adds complexity that we don’t need. It also may be abused in future to push ideologies. And those are always creating us vs them, so they devide the community.

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This is correct, but you have to remember out there in the wilds, there will be the next generation of devs. It’s not about how it just is or was, but progressing. Can’t stay in the sand forever.

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Yes and dumb COC might push them away from contributing. That was one of my points.

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Linus has made a great kernel. That is a reflection of his character to be strong on engineering and reject sub par work.

I think Linus will retire / step down soon enough it really does not matter about him anymore.

The next steward of the linux kernel will have big boots to fill to keep the kernel from devolving.

While he telling someone there code sucks and will never be mainlined is rude. It keeping sub par code out. Im not sure we want the squeaky wheels getting code in to the kernel because people were mean to them.

I know that’s a extreme. I have worked places where people breakdown / cry and over time their sub par work is accepted. Because the drama of cotton ball coaching them takes so much time.

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Linux is very important part of software infrastructure, keeping it robust and maintainable is very important. Letting people merge shitty changes coz they cried enough seems idiotic.

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Merging shitty changes because they cried, more than likely won’t happen. For now at least. If it does come to that, well it will be a really sad day in software.
A change in CoC is not the end of the world as we see it. Whether a person is on one side or another or something completely different, if they have something to contribute that is viable they shouldn’t be ignored.

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