From Edward Cree <> Subject Re: Code of Conduct: Let's revamp it. Date Wed, 19 Sep 2018 07:00:26 +0100 The new Code of Conduct makes me feel threatened and uncomfortable.



No, really. As a person with (diagnosed) Asperger's, I'm a member of,

objectively, a marginalised minority. Effectively (i.e. this is a massive

oversimplification), I was born without the hard-wired circuitry for

social

interactions that is normally a part of the human brain; consequently

I have

to run a slow and inaccurate software simulation when interacting with

'normal' people.



In nearly all the communities I participate in, this is a constantly

limiting

factor for me. But there is one world that is blessedly free of such

things:

the world of open-source software. It is one of the last places where my

particular neurodiversity does _not_ mark me out as Other, does _not_

force

me to carefully watch what I say and present a falsely constructed

façade in

place of my real identity. For here, we care not for 'feelings';

either the

code is good or it is bad, and in the latter case we say so directly and

bluntly. Not only does this mean that I don't have to guard my tongue

when

critiquing someone else's patch, far more importantly it means I can

understand what's being said when _my_ patches are criticised.

(Almost all

of my best ideas and patches have been born out of someone telling me I'm

wrong.)



The Linux kernel community is a place without office politics, without

subtle

subtexts, without primate dominance dynamics. A place where criticism

_can_

be gracefully accepted _without_ having to worry that admitting to being

wrong will lower one's status. A place where I, and people like me,

can feel

at home, and maybe even create something of value.



And the Contributor Covenant looks very much like the camel's nose of an

attempt to take that place, that community, away from me. To replace

it with

an Orwellian nightmare where I must forever second-guess what is safe

to say.

(First they came for "master/slave replication", and I did not speak up

because I was not a DBA.)



I cannot speak for my employer (hence why I am posting this from my personal

address), but to the extent that my rôle as a contributor to the

networking

subsystem, and as co-maintainer of the sfc driver, gives me any

standing in a

_personal_ capacity, I absolutely cannot sign up to this 'Pledge' nor

accept

the 'Responsibilities' to police the speech of others that it makes a

duty of

maintainership, and I urge the project leadership to revert its adoption.



Some elements of the Code are unobjectionable; sexual advances, for

instance,

have no place on the lkml (though they may at, say, a conference, and not

everyone can reliably predict whether they are unwelcome), and the

ability of

kernel developers to accept constructive criticism is one of the strengths

that has made Linux what it is. But far too many of its provisions

rely on

ill-defined terms, and thus give those charged with interpreting those

terms

the power to destroy livelihoods. By placing a corporate body (the LF) in

the position of arbiter, an avenue is opened for commercial pressure to be

applied; and the legalistic phrasing of the Code practically invites

rules-

lawyering whereby the most abusive may twist it into a weapon to further

their abuse.



If the Code were reduced to something more like the old Code of Conflict,

reminding people to 'be liberal in what they accept and conservative

in what

they emit', and clarifying that patch submissions should be judged by the

_code_ and not by any characteristics or beliefs of the submitter (I don't

think the enumerated list of protected classes is helpful, as a legalistic

abuser can always slip into a crack between them), I think the sting

would be

drawn. Probably the CoConflict would make a better base from which to

draft

such a document.



(A note for the irony-challenged: where I use Progressive terms-of-art, such

as 'marginalised', 'Other' and 'identity', in the above, I am

endeavouring to

show that this alleged push for 'inclusiveness' fails on its own

terms; I am

_not_ accepting the theory behind those terms nor suggesting that, in

reality, the kernel community owes me any special treatment on account

of my

'diversity'.)



