Voice of the Masses: Do we need a Code of Conflict?
The Linux kernel now has its own Code of Conflict, stating: “if anyone feels personally abused, threatened, or otherwise uncomfortable [in mailing list discussions], that is not acceptable”. For some people, this has been a long time coming, but for others, it could just force artificial politeness on proceedings when frank opinions would be more effective.
So as we rev up our podcast engines, we want to hear from you: is the Code of Conflict a good idea, and should it be applied to other FOSS projects? Is there too much invective on mailing lists now? Or should we accept that snarky remarks are inevitable when geeks are discussing technical matters, and providing they don’t become overly personal, we should all have thick enough skins to deal with harsh criticism of our work?
Let us know your musings and we’ll read out the best in our upcoming recording!
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About The Author
Mike Saunders
Mike stores his data by printing out hex dumps and laminating the sheets. He's the author of The Haynes Linux Manual and the creator of MikeOS, an operating system hand-built from assembly language.
I think that if it wasn’t an issue the powers that be wouldn’t feel the need for a Code of Conflict to be introduced.
One person’s “to the point” remark can be hurtful to whoever it’s directed at, and it’s something we should be mindful of. It’s just a shame it has to be made explicit in a Code of Conflict, but if that’s what it takes then so be it.
In life as in coding, I find the Golden Rule to be a good place to start:
“One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself”
If you’re of a Christian bent you might say:
“Do to others what you would want them to do to you.”
Buddists would formulate it as:
“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
Confucianism:
“What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.”
And it goes on.
There are criticisms of The Golden Rule of course, as the joke goes:
“Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.”
But as the Code of Conflict quotes from Bill and Ted:
“Be excellent to each other.”
I think it is a good start. Even Linus himself has acknowledged some of his behaviour hasn’t been conducive to building a harmonious community. The fact that so many of the maintainers Acked the patch and Linus merged it will probably do more to improve civility on the lists than any number of answers to the “why are you such an asshole?” questions we get at the regular conference Q&As.
As a Finn, I feel that usually rest of the world seems to be whining pussies who can’t handle honest feedback. Using expressions like “you are idiot who can’t code” or “please die”, shouldn’t be interpreted impolitely or taken personally.
But since it seems that only Finnish people can handle Linus and folks, I guess that having a little bit of instructions considering feedback is useful. After all most important thing is that we don’t lose any good contribution to code because of straight feedback and if this helps even a little it is a good thing.
Hi Tapio, don’t worry, it’s not just finns who get it, I’m totally with you. Aussie here in case you’re wondering. Think I might have to move to finland!
How is “please die” honest feedback?!?
I think that the code of conduct will be fine as long as it is not misused in two ways: 1) Artificial politeness, as mentioned; 2) False victim scenarios when code is simply sub-par. This code of conduct could be beneficial if it makes contributors/mergers stick to topic and not personal attacks e.g. I won’t accept using a global variable here due to scope issues later on instead of: I can’t believe you would be so fscking stupid to use a global variable.
The standard troll reply to any encouragement towards civil behaviour is namecalling (typically of the female anatomy variant), and as we can already see this is not going to be any different. My take is simply this: Any personal remark (even positive) within a technical discussion is at the very best *completely irrelevant* for the discussion, and as such should be discouraged. Any *negative* personal remark also *hinders future cooperation between existing members and discourages potential new members from joining*, and should therefore be a bannable offense in any technical community which takes their own work seriously.
tl;dr In a technical community, focus on the technical. If you can’t, you’re unfit for the community.
I don’t know where I got these rules, but I try to follow this advice when dealing with others, and appreciate it if others attempt to abide by them also.
Rules of Debate:
* You can always fight over topics but never over people.
* Every hard discussion must lead to being able to have a beer with your opponent.
* Ad hominem attacks are a sign of weakness on your side.
* Respect and praise on the same level as you question and argue.
It sounds like bureaucracy to me. Well-intended people should regulate themselves.
A couple of angles that may be interesting to consider; firstly, is the need for a code of conflict more indicitive of the issues of using the internet as a proxy? A great deal of information is lost, like body language and tone of voice, by commiting thoughts to (all be it digital) paper. Not to mention the fact that you cannot judge the recipients mood or bias necessarily just from reading a patch. This can lead to a lack of empathy, or a misunderstanding, or indeed a percieved diminishing of responsibility for ones words.
Second, it mentions in the code of conflict that writing kernel patches ‘is a very personal process compared to “traditional” ways of developing software’, I’d argue this isn’t the case, writing any software can be personal as posting any code for others to see (even within a company) feels like posting a little bit of yourself, like putting up a piece of creative writing. That said, you cannot expect patches you write to be accepted 100% of the time, so developers need to be able to step back and accept that sometimes a complaint against your code is not a personal affront; and might even help you be a better programmer.
Just dismayed. I like Linus because he’s d**k that doesn’t care what people think. And he’s usually right. Being that Linux is opensource maybe the overly sensitive types should just go fork themselves.
I agree with this 100%. I have heard Linus talk at some length about his attitudes and how forthright he is and how he’s not willing to change because basically it would be dishonest, and frankly I’m a little disappointed by this development, it seems to me like he’s bowing to political correctness, and political correctness is the cancer that is killing frank discourse – you’re not a loser, you’re the last winner!
I enjoy snickering at the overly sensitive people when he creates controversy by yelling at people, and some of his tirades are damn funny (the one about “how did you live to this age?” was gold).
Having said all that, I’m willing to trust Linus’ decisions, so if he’s happy to do this than who am I to argue? Though I will miss the chuckles (assuming he abides by it)
Why are morals being legalized today? Shouldn’t it be a social norm that obnoxious people are ignored and upright people respected?
A code of conflict/conduct in itself is fine, but the behaviours it calls for must be demonstrated by the top management at all times. Otherwise it is undermined.
“Otherwise it is undermined.”
We can only hope 😛
There are real issues in the community that make Free Software worse by making it harder for people to get involved – see this thread for examples. I am not necessarily thrilled about it being necessary to codify these things, but it seems to be that way nonetheless.
I am not convinced that this implementation will be very effective – and perhaps the impulse to change things would need to come from somewhere else, out of individual conviction or via positive examples of amplified figures in the community. But it is a step forward.
Unfortunately, I think this is necessary.
I think the concept that it will kill frank discourse is misguided. The code explicitly says that you will likely receive criticism about submitted code, but there are different ways to provide criticism. Constructive feedback can be extremely useful, insults are not.
Someone here mentioned harmonious community. In my experience harmonious communities can be as detrimental to projects or jobs as highly conflictual communities. We do need conflicts in order to move to uncharted areas. However, this code is not about harmony or conflict, it is about conduct, as far as I understand it. The problem in my view is the possibility for blanket application ‘one size fits all’ type. I am not in favour of such an approach, but hey, it is a legitimate instrument for social engineering, and it may help to create behavioural patterns all developers feel comfortable with. Recent system.d issue is in a foul language way relevant for this case, but got itself self-regulated.
In the course of a long career in engineering and software development I invariably found it best to be polite, constructive, and helpful towards colleagues. The combative tone of discussion in many online technical communities can be profoundly offputting especially to newbies and to women, many of whom will observe what’s going on and simply walk away. Why are we so prone to alienating potential talent?
I think both that people should be more polite and have thicker skins. Being over-sensitive is just as inefficient as being over-critical. Know your audience and don’t take things personally. Most importantly of all speak your brains. 😀
Right or wrong, a code of conduct and grievance procedure change the power dynamic on the field. So while on the one hand it could keep abusive speech in check, it can also hand levers of power to passive-aggressive serial victims and bureaucratic extortionists who can use these newly available mechanisms to bully and intimidate others. If a hierarchy of power is inevitable in any community (sorry, anarchists) the question should be who wields the power: contributors who’ve gained power and influence more or less meritocratically, or those whose talent for making claims of victimization might far surpass the value of their contributions to the kernel? (I guess it’s obvious which way I lean here.)
There’s no need for any code of conflict, in my opionion, because making someone feel threatened or offended or uncomfortable is already illegal. Respect and politeness can’t be taught with rules and punishments, those only bring about fake smiles and backstabing. Also everyone should take example of the real uninforced politeness at the LV forums and VOM.
It also occurs to me that if Linus needs to censor his comments this limits his free expression. This will probably make him feel uncomfortable. It’s against the code for anyone to made to feel uncomfortable. Therefore Linus must be free to express his full opinions no matter how abusive he may be. But this would be against the code, so Linus must censor himself, which will make him uncomfortable. And so on, until Linus ultimately suffers catastrophic breakdown. This code of conduct may lead to the destruction of Linux as we know it – a dilema of systemd proportions.
in which case, the following steps must be implemented:
1) creation of an expert-led psychology commitee to investigate the inner workings of Linus’ minds
2) creation of a workgroup of sociologists to explore the dynamics of the linux
3) subcontracting of a lion tamer to keep Linus in check
4) setting up of a security force to police the behaviour of the devs as a group
5) creation of Executive Political Office of the Linux Kernel (ExPOLK) to manage all the preceding groups
6) creation of ExPOLK Oversight Committee to supervise number 5.
Of course, every developer will be obliged to fill in a report on the conduct of the other devs in the end of his working day (on paper and in tripplicate).
It might add a little bit of overhead but I’m sure this will keep everyone happy and respectful.
:-*
And I think our EU would be happy to help in this
Its not a law, and can never be enforceable, so what’s the point of making one unless the particular community intend to take action against people, but of course any community or group of friends can make up any rules they want, and have freedom of association. I personally think if things are out in the open, and its public discussions then any fair or unfair harshness will be responded on by the community in question…. and who needs yet more of the nanny state, or political correctness being taken on by perhaps well meaning people who want to make a safe environment constantly for all people. Sometimes its time to speak straight and to the point, the community will judge each time and regulate themselves, perhaps as our larger society should also do, if we weren’t burdened by so much ridiculous, and growing thanks to the EU, regulate. If any individual, who’s already able to stand up for themselves or has thicker skin and isn’t easily intimidated by straight, wrong or right people, then others can stand up for them at the moment, instead of supporting another vague law… open for misinterpretation.