The Linux Kernel Adopts A Code of Conduct

Community Tech Policy & News
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The freedesktop project has been using this same CoC for ages and nobody had anything to say about it. It works great.

If you need to reference a CoC to tell you what you can or can’t do, you’re doing something horribly wrong.

Now the Kernel decides to use the same CoC, and the crowd goes wild.

All of the usual Kernel Developers & Contributors that this is actually relevant for are unfazed.

This CoC is just a paperwork change, to have something to point to when people go crazy. And trust me if you think linus can be abrasive you’ve never had to be a kernel or repo maintainer.

I have received some crazy responses from people for leaving warranted critical patch reviews or change requests.

It’s business as usual otherwise. This story is a nothing burger.

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I’m not sure a system where you must conform to their beliefs else you cannot contribute is ever a very good system, if individual projects want to use it whatever, but it shouldn’t be forced onto entire community.

Remember even if you’ve been there for years and don’t like it you can’t just ignore it. Unless a bunch of the people take a stand and say they’re using the older code of conflict. Wonder what would happen then.

““+Maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good faith”

the previous code of conflict was near perfect as it could have been done in the one line
“Be excellent to each other”

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They have the same definition issue. I would assume most if not all of the people who have used that particular coc have the same issue as well.

I think this is fairly true. Id just love a definition so the coc isnt up to interpretation of whoever decides what they feel is harassment at the time.

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Wait, maybe ESR was right and they finally got to him! I know relatively recently someone tried to make some claims about Stallman, not sure it ever went anywhere.

hat

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I’m just confused as to how anyone has an issue with this:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f

It’s literally just the same as “be excellent to each other” explained in more verbosity using different verbiage.

For example, If I just glue them together like this:

Code of Conflict
-----------------

The Linux kernel development effort is a very personal process compared
to "traditional" ways of developing software.  Your code and ideas
behind it will be carefully reviewed, often resulting in critique and
criticism.  The review will almost always require improvements to the
code before it can be included in the kernel.  Know that this happens
because everyone involved wants to see the best possible solution for
the overall success of Linux.  This development process has been proven
to create the most robust operating system kernel ever, and we do not
want to do anything to cause the quality of submission and eventual
result to ever decrease.

If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise
uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable.  If so,
please contact the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board at
<[email protected]>, or the individual members, and they
will work to resolve the issue to the best of their ability.  For more
information on who is on the Technical Advisory Board and what their
role is, please see:

	 http://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects/linux/tab

As a reviewer of code, please strive to keep things civil and focused on
the technical issues involved.  We are all humans, and frustrations can
be high on both sides of the process.  Try to keep in mind the immortal
words of Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other."

++For further illustration see the below example for what principles and beliefs can be 
++seen as in line with being excellent to each other.

Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Our Pledge
==========

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, regardless of age, body
size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and
expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality,
personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

Our Standards
=============

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment
include:

* 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


Our Responsibilities
====================

Maintainers are responsible for clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior
and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to
any instances of unacceptable behavior.

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.

Scope
=====

This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces
when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of
representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail
address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed
representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be
further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

Enforcement
===========

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. The TAB is obligated to maintain
confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.  Further details of
specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.

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.

Attribution
===========

This Code of Conduct is adapted from the Contributor Covenant, version 1.4,
available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct.html

EDIT: Actually I’d approve of Linux forming it’s own combined intermediate CoC as an amalgamation of those two.

EDIT2: Incase someone hasn’t read the original commit by Linus & Greg KH

The Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of ‘be excellent to each other’. Explicit guidelines have demonstrated success in other projects and other areas of the kernel. Here is a Code of Conduct statement for the wider kernel. It is based on the Contributor Covenant as described at www.contributor-covenant.org From this point forward, we should abide by these rules in order to help make the kernel community a welcoming environment to participate in.

The unmentioned back story on this is that people didn’t implicitly understand the Code of Conflict and where often impossible to deal with.

So the Linux Community had to Spell it out in verbose explicit detail to make it ass & idiot safe.

It’s a case of, “This is why we can’t have nice things”.
TLDR: People that didn’t comply with the Code of Conflict came and ruined it for everyone else

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It’s fine.

What do they mean by harassment?

Do they consider harassment as defined by UK law?
As defined by US law?
As defined by other law or no law?

What are their threshold and requirements in which a person is seen to have conducted an “offence” of harassment? (you can have caused harassment but not caused an offence)

A code of conduct is fine, if its clear what the line is. that’s always been a problem with this particular coc.

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As it’s always been, the line is still this:

If however, anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise
uncomfortable due to this process, that is not acceptable. If so,
please contact the Linux Foundation’s Technical Advisory Board at
[email protected], or the individual members, and they
will work to resolve the issue to the best of their ability. For more
information on who is on the Technical Advisory Board and what their
role is, please see:

It’s really defined by society and the individuals involved.
Just like in the rest of society It also falls on observers & participants to report things that they perceive as wrong.

The community is meant to be self correcting and self repairing to push out bad behaviour, to avoid heavily leaning on a legal crutch.

EDIT: I think this new CoC could still be amended to spell this out in better context.

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Because it’s vague and requires conforming to whatever their ideals of “inclusivity”, “empathy”, and
“+* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
professional setting”"

Are, it’s also unlikely to do much of anything because you can’t really control behavior or how people interact with each other. Linus should be allowed to be Linus.

Like it’s not what’s more common sense(aside from the socially inept in that community) It’s whatever they think is bad is bad. They being the people behind the new CoC, and whoever has to now impose it on their community.

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That doesn’t define anything though. The entire document rests on the single work harassment. Shouldn’t it be clear? (they’ll never change it so this is more of a exercise than anything anyway)

OK.

(edit, noticed you made an edit while i was posting, so we agree more about adding a clear definition i think anyway?)

This is just two countries of 195 in the world. Its safe to say more than just these two countries contribute to the Linux kernel (for our example).

These are not the same definition. So whos definition is applied? If its is defined by society, which one?

If this was a project restricted to one country I would agree with you, as the laws of that country would clearly define harassment when there is not definition in the coc. but that’s not the case here.

UK

Prohibition of harassment.
(1)A person must not pursue a course of conduct—
(a)which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b)which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

Interpretation of this group of sections.
(1)This section applies for the interpretation of sections [F28sections 1 to 5A].
(2)References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress.

US

Harassment is governed by state laws, which vary by state, but is generally defined as a course of conduct which annoys, threatens, intimidates, alarms, or puts a person in fear of their safety.

S 240.25 Harassment in the first degree.
A person is guilty of harassment in the first degree when he or she intentionally and repeatedly harasses another person by following such person in or about a public place or places or by engaging in a course of conduct or by repeatedly committing acts which places such person in reasonable fear of physical injury.
S 240.26 Harassment in the second degree.

A person is guilty of harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person:

He or she strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects such other person to physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same; or
He or she follows a person in or about a public place or places; or
He or she engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which alarm or seriously annoy such other person and which serve no legitimate purpose.

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I wondered why the kernal thread on r/linux had 600+ replies, and I guess this is why. I don’t really worship Linus so whatever he does is pretty much a nothingburger to me, nor am I a big Linux user, but I will add a thought.

While this is going to no doubt scare people away from having anything to do with a field governed by a document written by a person who unironically Tweets about “white cis het males”,* the ethereal nature of open source means the tighter someone tries to pin it down, the more they come away with a little smoke in a jar. Ie just a piece of it. For a movement famous for forking entire projects and spawning entire distros just because of a disagreement about the Desktop Environment, I don’t think Linux users need worry too much. And while I agree I should not have to choose a kernal based on some political agenda, people who can’t get behind this document will simply stick two fingers up and form whatever platform or group they need to in order to avoid it. Life finds a way.

*Source

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Greg made that commit and Linus pulled it in himself.
I’m sure he’s fine with being himself.

This CoC isn’t changing anything there really.
The functional aspects of the linux developer community, how issues get reported, assessed & resolved really falls onto the respective individuals and their own beliefs.

@Eden

The Linux kernel developers cannot be asked nor should they be to make unbiased judgements on issues of social & legal standing.

They are not legal practitioners or enforcers, they are mainly normal citizens and programmers.

If someone reports something problematic to the Linux Foundation Board or any developer they can realistically only personally judge the veracity of the issue based on their own principles and respond accordingly.

That can entail just writing a sternly worded e-mail telling someone to stop, blocking an address or if the issue is judged severe enough forwarding the relevant materials to the respective authorities.

It’s pretty much the same as on this forum here.

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I am increasingly concerned with the adoption of Codes of Conduct in the open source community.

The Linux Code of Conduct is much better than the FreeBSD code of conduct, but I think it’s still troublesome. The FreeBSD one was pretty clearly motivated by political agendas (they even link to Geek Feminism in it), as was the recent kerfluffle with the Lerna license change.

To me Free Speech and Free Software are important for many of the same reasons; chiefly that it enables dissent. The fact that contributions have typically been meritocratic and not political keeps the focus on sane engineering. I can’t help but think that shifting open source communites towards “workplace friendly environments” is going to hinder that.

The requirements to be “workplace friendly” in today’s tech scene is already burdensome enough if you don’t neatly fit into certain categories. If open source communities being “workplace friendly” is a necessity in order to keep the contributions from larger corporate and not-for-profit organizations coming, it might be time to reconsider the value of those contributions.

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No one is saying to follow the law as binding. The law was an example of a definition and an example that the definition society holds varies from country to country.

The issue with doing it the way you suggest is that no one can know what the coc applies to.

the leadership of the kernel as you say have their own opinion on harassment. so they can come to a consensus of what that is defined as.

they came to a consensus for the rest of the coc, why not complete it?

unless its being deliberately left ambiguous.

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as a next generation dev. This is absolutely terrible. So if you think that the next generation of devs will be helped by this you are dead wrong.

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Sorry for the long post :confused:

I realy don’t understand why so many have such big issues with this. (Well, I kinda understand it from the point of principle) but saying that what you say or do towards others may have consequences is not the same as taking away your freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequences.
If you say something hurtful or mean or act in a way that is detrimental to the community, you are completly free to do that, but you have to face that what you do or say has consequences for how people precieve you and how and if people are willing to work with you.

Now linux is already massive in the server market, and people realy want it to become bigger in computing, then it only makes sense to put down guidelines for how to interact with other people contributing when dealing with the project specifically. For example if I were to go to a coworker and tell him his work is shit and he should never have been born because what he did was so stupid I would probably at the very least get a warning from my boss if not get fired outright, because that is not acceptible behavior in a professional enviroment.

And I am willing to argue that linux kernel development should very much be expected to be a professional enviroment, especially if we wan’t it to be taken seriously by bigger and bigger contributors and actors in the world.

A CoC in my opinion has nothing to do with politics or ideals of a single person or a single group. It is a guideline stating that you should be respectful towards eachother, and act as professionals in a professional enviroment. It is simply to be used when someone goes above and beyond to step over the boundary for what is to be considered resonable behaviour.

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It’s a valid point that’s been raised by a few others on the KML.

Personally I believe the CoC as adapted from the covenant form is intentionally broad and vague( why that is I don’t know precisely) and that Greg nor Linus have though about all of the intricacies in too much detail. The thing is they don’t want to. They rather want to be coding, the prior simple “be excellent” code of conflict is an example of that.

They way I see it applied in Linux case is that it’s not quite applied in the strict legal sense of a code of conduct nor binding policy document, but rather a general suggestion or guidelines of how to be nice.

Which is why I’ve always seen the CoC in the kernel as a ‘floof’ thing with many developers being rather wary of including a real extremely comprehensive legal guideline document in the kernel. I’ve always had the impression that they(and me & we included) just simply don’t want to get bogged down in the politics and instead chose to defer judgement to the individuals, in the belief that they will be able to make the right call as issues arise.

There are a lot of things in the open source and kernel world that functions on an unwritten basis, many things are seen as ‘common sense’ , particularly as relating to politics and society.

Perhaps that’s why it’s so rather vague, that it builds primarily on this belief in people to have that common sense & ethical moral foundation to know what is right and wrong.

The prior implicit “be excellent” Code of Conflict was perhaps the most prominent example of that. It doesn’t explain what “being excellent to each other” means, it assumes that people understand and respect that.

Quite possibly a lot of open source and the kernel is built on this same sort of trust.

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I think the kernel will be safe as long as the Linus lives. After that, people who want that will have his legacy to contend with, which is going to prove near impossible to erase.

I was a bit worried about this yesterday, but the more I look into it, the more I realize that it’s a stupid thing to worry about. It could be a slippery slope, but the problem is that you don’t get to the top by not believing in a meritocracy, so there’s little chance of threat.

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The Post Meritocracy Manifesto, the Contributor’s Convenant, and the author’s self-identification as a “Notorious Social Justice Warrior” is why this subject can’t be discussed without “getting political”.

It’s also why you can’t commit it to a git repo without saddling a software development community with political baggage. The Contributor’s Covenant is so inherently political, it has a manifesto. :laughing:

What concerns me most is that advocates for Codes of Conduct don’t strictly limit their community enforcement to the community itself. Larry Garfield’s removal from the Drupal Project over his private sex life being a pretty notable example.

“If this action was taken because of their preconceived notions about people who engage in BDSM, they are clearly in the wrong,” she explained. “If it’s because they didn’t want someone espousing a quintessentially sexist philosophy like Gor representing the project, it’s very different.”

[Emphasis mine.]

That kind of out-of-community action within software communities has a chilling effect on free speech, free expression, and in my opinon, stands contrary to the values (more manifestos!) that the Free Software community formed to preserve.

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GOD HAS SPOKEN SHUT IT DOWN
Stallman

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red

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