linux-kernel - Re: Code of Conduct: Let's revamp it.

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Message-ID: <72dadc76-44fe-ecb5-e142-0a9129082c93@cantab.net>
Date:   Thu, 20 Sep 2018 00:35:10 +0100
From:   Edward Cree <ec429@...tab.net>
To:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Code of Conduct: Let's revamp it.

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.