This looks like a good move to me. The text of the CC only has one potential problem area that I see:
This code of conduct applies both within project
spaces and in public spaces when an individual is
representing the project or its community.
The potential problem here is what does it mean to be "representing the project or its community"?
For example, suppose on my personal website I include a link to my resume, and on that resume I list my work on the project. Suppose also on my personal website I have have a blog, and on that blog I post an article containing sexualized language or imagery.
Am I in violation of the CC?
The use of sexualized language or imagery is one of the specific examples given in the CC of a violation.
I would say that, based on current common usage of English, stating on a site unrelated to the project, as part of biographical information (such as a resume) that I contribute to the project would NOT be "representing the project or its community", and so would be outside the scope of the CC.
That clause was added after a devout Catholic who contributes to Opal expressed his thoughts on transgender people while talking about a piece of legislation in his country, Italy on his Twitter account. The person who wrote the Contributor Covenant went on to GitHub and demanded he be removed by the project. After much discussion, Opal's founder said they would adopt a code of conduct, specifically the Contributor Covenant. Once people in favor of the Contributor Covenant realized it would do nothing to prevent what they perceived as harassment, they added that clause. They tried to issue a PR to update Opal's Contributor Covenant version. Said founder seemed hesitant of the revised COC, but looks like he added the change but only with it explicitly saying where the code of conduct does and does not apply. See below.
"This code of conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces where an individual explicitly associates their presence with the project; non-project related material on accounts explicitly marked as personal should not be considered to be so associated."
I don't particularly like the way that whole thing was handled (and Coraline said she didn't feel she handled it optimally, even if she didn't apologize) but I think the concepts are still sound.
Having someone post things in a public place where they identify as a member of a group can reflect badly on the group. It is in the group's best interest to enforce that people who identify with a group on a certain medium do not say/do things that would not be allowed on official group channels.
This specific instance seems to have been intended to be interpreted differently than it was and did not need to be brought into the spotlight.
Having someone post things in a public place where they identify as a member of a group can reflect badly on the group. It is in the group's best interest to enforce that people who identify with a group on a certain medium do not say/do things that would not be allowed on official group channels.
No one within the group had a problem though. Coraline Ada came from outside the group and caused the disturbance.
This specific instance seems to have been intended to be interpreted differently than it was and did not need to be brought into the spotlight.
It's good that this instance is being brought into the spotlight because it shows the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source.
I didn't say it was so if someone in the group had a problem. I said it was in the group's best interest.
Someone making the group look bad to anyone is bad for the group because it limits the(already pretty small really) potential pool of new contributors.
As far as "showing the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source"... you must not be a part of the same open source movement as myself. Identify politics have always been huge in the open source world. People work on projects, shun projects, ostracize projects, all because of identity politics.
Identity politics has been a large part of open source (and free software before it) since the beginning.
Do you claim to know what's in the best interest for the Opal project? Or Ada knows best?
I don't think so, it's pure meddling.
you must not be a part of the same open source movement as myself.
I must not because it used to be widely acknowledged that no one on the internet cares if you're a dog. Identity politics (specifically aggressive feminism) have made their appearance in the past 5 years.
Open source is based on the hacker ethos, individual empowerment and the belief in free software. It was never based on feminism.
Who on earth said open source was based on feminism (whatever that could mean)? Please reread my above comment.
Meanwhile it never hurts to reexamine that age old assumption that every generation's fight is a novel one. The hacker ethic is fundamentally a set of political beliefs and if you really believe that those SJW boogeymen are the first to try to exclude people based on not aligning with some holy set of political opinions, then, again, you're missing out on the entire history of the FOSS movement. You don't even have to go far; ESR has some great writings on that very topic :)
Switch "identity politics" with "gender/racial identity politics" and their statement becomes (almost) accurate. The whole internet SJW brigade seemed to get its footing in 2008, which would make it about 7 years ago. Before that it existed in niche groups nobody ever heard of or dealt with and was far from being mainstream.
It wasn't until 2010 that it seemed to really take off in the media so I'll personally excuse the "5 years". If you try to find feminist articles or gender politics articles circa 2004-2006 it can be pretty difficult, but if you try to find them from 2008-2010 they become plentiful and easy to find.
I find it intellectually dishonest to stretch "identity politics" to be about "Free vs Proprietary" in the context it was used in, because context will always matter more than a strict dictionary definition.
The nitpicking over terminology (and analogies) is an extremely annoying tactic. So I'll cite Layne's Law [0]. While in the actual "dictionary definition" of identity politics, he is factually wrong. You do indeed have to have a very narrow scope of identity politics (gender, most specifically) to become accurate. In modern usage, in regards to SJW/feminism, "identity politics" is almost exclusively about "gender politics".
The nitpicking over terminology (and analogies) is an extremely annoying tactic. So I'll cite Layne's Law [0]. While in the actual "dictionary definition" of identity politics, he is factually wrong.
No, you cannot narrow a definition to be about your pet cause and then declare anyone discussing the (fairly transparent) larger context to be nitpicking. The "modern usage" you're talking about is limited by self selection and is not, in fact, modern usage so much as jargon with a specific meaning to a particular subculture (or subcultures). Meanwhile the term continues to have a well defined meaning with an extensive and well documented history.
The whole internet SJW brigade seemed to get its footing in 2008, which would make it about 7 years ago. Before that it existed in niche groups nobody ever heard of or dealt with and was far from being mainstream.
It wasn't until 2010 that it seemed to really take off in the media so I'll personally excuse the "5 years". If you try to find feminist articles or gender politics articles circa 2004-2006 it can be pretty difficult, but if you try to find them from 2008-2010 they become plentiful and easy to find.
I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
Define "pet cause", I'm a random passerby. I happen to understand their argument as they intend it - rather than purposefully misrepresent it so that they are wrong.
:::Edit (also TL;DR)
This example doesn't match up because "Dogs are prone to heart conditions" would be the original argument, but I would need more context that was talking about Rottweilers and Dobermans to allow the meaning to be obvious, but the terminology used to be poor. My point here is to not get stuck on the words used - but the meaning intended behind them.
:::End Edit
Discussing the larger context when you've already delved into a specific context isn't merely nitpicking, it's intellectually dishonest. I'll give you a contrived example, albeit not an exact comparison of the current issue, to illustrate my point:
Argument: "Rottweilers and Dobermans are prone to heart conditions."
Counterargument: "Dogs are not prone to heart conditions!"
Well, the context has already been specified to a niche. Both statements are true but are now arguing what are fundamentally different things. One is talking about specific breeds (subsections) of the species (idea) "dog" while the other is talking about the species "dog".
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue about "dogs" when the person was arguing for "Rottweilers and Dobermans". Even if both belong to "dogs".
Gender/racial identity politics are both subsections of "identity politics". They had already delved into an argument/subsection regarding gender/racial identity politics, and then you went and argue about the broader concept of "identity politics". The issue is you do not want to actually argue against his points. You wanted to argue about his usage of "identity politics". That's intellectually dishonest.
Here's a better way to approach someone either misusing a term or using a broad term where a more specific term would suit their argument better:
"Identity politics is a broad term and could include 'free vs proprietary' ideals, which is the foundation of Open Source / FOSS. It sounds like you're arguing about 'gender politics'. I want to make sure we're on the same page."
They can then clarify that yes, they meant "gender politics" and they might even apologize for using a term that was too broad in meaning.
The point of a debate is to counter someone's arguments, which means you have to make some effort to see their arguments as how they were intended rather than how they were stated.
That means do not nitpick over trivialities and definitions. If you're unclear on a definition of a word they are using, have them clarify it. But to purposefully misunderstand and argue an entirely different concept is unfair to the other person. Especially if they don't recognize what you are doing. (So I'll repeat ad nauseam: intellectually dishonest behavior)
>I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
"Sources" and "so many sources I could establish a well-stocked multi-floor library" are two different things. I'm not saying sources don't exist at all.
Having someone post things in a public place where they identify as a member of a group can reflect badly on the group. It is in the group's best interest to enforce that people who identify with a group on a certain medium do not say/do things that would not be allowed on official group channels
If a black person tweets something I disagree with, and I let that lower my opinion of blacks as a group, isn't the best response for people to call me out for being an idiot and possible racist rather than to ask the black person to curtail their speech or to remove indications from their twitter account that they are black?
Similar if a woman tweets something I disagree with, or a member of a particular religious group, and so on.
I don't see why it should be different for associations that are formed around an open source project.
You are essentially advocating running open source projects as if they were religions, where converts are expected to uphold the religion's values in all aspects of their life rather than just in church. That makes sense for a religion, since those values are the point of the religion. It makes no sense for an open source software project.
Thanks for pointing out this analogy. It really helped in ordering my own thoughts. In essence it expresses my thoughts.
The only problem is, if I associate (within a smallish group) with someone who is an very outspoken idiot, this association might taint my reputation. If I am grouped with this person within a relatively big group (male, female, white, black, human, mammal) this does not happen.
Personally I am trying to find the boundary that makes a group big enough, that these kinds of associations do not happen anymore.
Part of the problem is there most groups can be divided into those who share a common purpose and those who share common beliefs. Most social groups fall into the latter category, whereas most project groups fall into the former. (There are also, of course, groups that buck the trend. The Xiphos developers, for example, are simultaneously both types of group and there are lots of groups that arise from circumstance that fit neither; enough, in fact, that they may be best described as a third category)
With belief-based groups, it's somewhat reasonable to use one person's beliefs as a predictor of the group's beliefs; if the guy leading your kid's youth group starts spouting racist nonsense, then it may be time to find a new youth group. However, that's not true of project groups outside of the radical left¹, where people often put aside their differences in beliefs to further some other goal. Circumstantial groups are similarly heterogeneous: just because one Redditor is a staunch /r/MensRights follower doesn't mean that another can't find that subreddit abhorrent and instead follow /r/shitredditsays.
I think the reason that making the separation feels difficult for many people is that they find themselves in far more belief-driven groups than purpose-driven groups, and don't notice the circumstantial groups that they're part of.
¹ The American radical left focuses somewhat horrifyingly on ideological purity, to the point that many gay gun enthusiasts find more acceptance in gun clubs than gay rights groups.
Thanks a lot. Helps me to internally better parse these topics (see below).
Well for me this whole business is sometimes very hard. I learned by training to kind of understand most peoples way of thinking in borders (or discourses if you are to follow Foucault). Thinking in differentiation and defining ones self ex negativo in what they are not. But these thoughts/concepts do not come natively.
I understand, that this oftentimes has to do with identity, but deep inside me all these concepts do not really make that much sense.
I really have to internally translate and rationalize these ideologies like race, citizenship (being proud of some place where one was born is so weird imho), gender differentiation and so on. As I do not experience these feelings. I cannot relate as these concepts are totally alien to me.
Except maybe that I seem to be somewhat different in not understanding these concepts, as everybody else seems to do.
The meta problem is trying to discuss specific examples of rules lawyering when the purpose of one CC is to eliminate detailed rules lawyering isn't going to philosophically work well.
None the less, for a corporate interpretation of the exact same topic but with respect to email:
Generally speaking identifying yourself as a legal representative of a project or community has all kinds of interesting legal problems; you don't want the project sued because some idle conversation between some contributor and a service provider was seen by the provider as a verbal contract between them and the project for their services.
Another example would be copyright, if the project owns the copyright to your self made pr0n example (because you posted it on the project wiki) then you're probably in huge trouble, but if everyone legally agrees you own the copyright and not the project, well, its kind of hard to argue you represent someone you're clearly not legally working for.
Comments
This looks like a good move to me. The text of the CC only has one potential problem area that I see:
The potential problem here is what does it mean to be "representing the project or its community"?For example, suppose on my personal website I include a link to my resume, and on that resume I list my work on the project. Suppose also on my personal website I have have a blog, and on that blog I post an article containing sexualized language or imagery.
Am I in violation of the CC?
The use of sexualized language or imagery is one of the specific examples given in the CC of a violation.
I would say that, based on current common usage of English, stating on a site unrelated to the project, as part of biographical information (such as a resume) that I contribute to the project would NOT be "representing the project or its community", and so would be outside the scope of the CC.
That clause was added after a devout Catholic who contributes to Opal expressed his thoughts on transgender people while talking about a piece of legislation in his country, Italy on his Twitter account. The person who wrote the Contributor Covenant went on to GitHub and demanded he be removed by the project. After much discussion, Opal's founder said they would adopt a code of conduct, specifically the Contributor Covenant. Once people in favor of the Contributor Covenant realized it would do nothing to prevent what they perceived as harassment, they added that clause. They tried to issue a PR to update Opal's Contributor Covenant version. Said founder seemed hesitant of the revised COC, but looks like he added the change but only with it explicitly saying where the code of conduct does and does not apply. See below.
Some links: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://twitter.com/elia/status/611319469982527488 https://github.com/opal/opal/pull/961
Opal's code of conduct says:
"This code of conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces where an individual explicitly associates their presence with the project; non-project related material on accounts explicitly marked as personal should not be considered to be so associated."
I don't particularly like the way that whole thing was handled (and Coraline said she didn't feel she handled it optimally, even if she didn't apologize) but I think the concepts are still sound.
Having someone post things in a public place where they identify as a member of a group can reflect badly on the group. It is in the group's best interest to enforce that people who identify with a group on a certain medium do not say/do things that would not be allowed on official group channels.
This specific instance seems to have been intended to be interpreted differently than it was and did not need to be brought into the spotlight.
No one within the group had a problem though. Coraline Ada came from outside the group and caused the disturbance.
It's good that this instance is being brought into the spotlight because it shows the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source.
I didn't say it was so if someone in the group had a problem. I said it was in the group's best interest.
Someone making the group look bad to anyone is bad for the group because it limits the(already pretty small really) potential pool of new contributors.
As far as "showing the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source"... you must not be a part of the same open source movement as myself. Identify politics have always been huge in the open source world. People work on projects, shun projects, ostracize projects, all because of identity politics.
Identity politics has been a large part of open source (and free software before it) since the beginning.
Do you claim to know what's in the best interest for the Opal project? Or Ada knows best?
I don't think so, it's pure meddling.
I must not because it used to be widely acknowledged that no one on the internet cares if you're a dog. Identity politics (specifically aggressive feminism) have made their appearance in the past 5 years.
Even in the very narrow sense you mean this isn't remotely true. Maybe take some trips back to old Usenet content?
But mordocai is absolutely right. "identity politics" is the foundation of free and open-source software.
Open source is based on the hacker ethos, individual empowerment and the belief in free software. It was never based on feminism.
While I don't agree with ESR on everything, I'd say he's a better source about this than mordocai: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6642
Who on earth said open source was based on feminism (whatever that could mean)? Please reread my above comment.
Meanwhile it never hurts to reexamine that age old assumption that every generation's fight is a novel one. The hacker ethic is fundamentally a set of political beliefs and if you really believe that those SJW boogeymen are the first to try to exclude people based on not aligning with some holy set of political opinions, then, again, you're missing out on the entire history of the FOSS movement. You don't even have to go far; ESR has some great writings on that very topic :)
Switch "identity politics" with "gender/racial identity politics" and their statement becomes (almost) accurate. The whole internet SJW brigade seemed to get its footing in 2008, which would make it about 7 years ago. Before that it existed in niche groups nobody ever heard of or dealt with and was far from being mainstream.
It wasn't until 2010 that it seemed to really take off in the media so I'll personally excuse the "5 years". If you try to find feminist articles or gender politics articles circa 2004-2006 it can be pretty difficult, but if you try to find them from 2008-2010 they become plentiful and easy to find.
I find it intellectually dishonest to stretch "identity politics" to be about "Free vs Proprietary" in the context it was used in, because context will always matter more than a strict dictionary definition.
The nitpicking over terminology (and analogies) is an extremely annoying tactic. So I'll cite Layne's Law [0]. While in the actual "dictionary definition" of identity politics, he is factually wrong. You do indeed have to have a very narrow scope of identity politics (gender, most specifically) to become accurate. In modern usage, in regards to SJW/feminism, "identity politics" is almost exclusively about "gender politics".
[0] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LaynesLaw
No, you cannot narrow a definition to be about your pet cause and then declare anyone discussing the (fairly transparent) larger context to be nitpicking. The "modern usage" you're talking about is limited by self selection and is not, in fact, modern usage so much as jargon with a specific meaning to a particular subculture (or subcultures). Meanwhile the term continues to have a well defined meaning with an extensive and well documented history.
I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
Define "pet cause", I'm a random passerby. I happen to understand their argument as they intend it - rather than purposefully misrepresent it so that they are wrong.
:::Edit (also TL;DR)
This example doesn't match up because "Dogs are prone to heart conditions" would be the original argument, but I would need more context that was talking about Rottweilers and Dobermans to allow the meaning to be obvious, but the terminology used to be poor. My point here is to not get stuck on the words used - but the meaning intended behind them.
:::End Edit
Discussing the larger context when you've already delved into a specific context isn't merely nitpicking, it's intellectually dishonest. I'll give you a contrived example, albeit not an exact comparison of the current issue, to illustrate my point:
Argument: "Rottweilers and Dobermans are prone to heart conditions."
Counterargument: "Dogs are not prone to heart conditions!"
Well, the context has already been specified to a niche. Both statements are true but are now arguing what are fundamentally different things. One is talking about specific breeds (subsections) of the species (idea) "dog" while the other is talking about the species "dog".
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue about "dogs" when the person was arguing for "Rottweilers and Dobermans". Even if both belong to "dogs".
Gender/racial identity politics are both subsections of "identity politics". They had already delved into an argument/subsection regarding gender/racial identity politics, and then you went and argue about the broader concept of "identity politics". The issue is you do not want to actually argue against his points. You wanted to argue about his usage of "identity politics". That's intellectually dishonest.
Here's a better way to approach someone either misusing a term or using a broad term where a more specific term would suit their argument better:
"Identity politics is a broad term and could include 'free vs proprietary' ideals, which is the foundation of Open Source / FOSS. It sounds like you're arguing about 'gender politics'. I want to make sure we're on the same page."
They can then clarify that yes, they meant "gender politics" and they might even apologize for using a term that was too broad in meaning.
The point of a debate is to counter someone's arguments, which means you have to make some effort to see their arguments as how they were intended rather than how they were stated.
That means do not nitpick over trivialities and definitions. If you're unclear on a definition of a word they are using, have them clarify it. But to purposefully misunderstand and argue an entirely different concept is unfair to the other person. Especially if they don't recognize what you are doing. (So I'll repeat ad nauseam: intellectually dishonest behavior)
>I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
"Sources" and "so many sources I could establish a well-stocked multi-floor library" are two different things. I'm not saying sources don't exist at all.
If a black person tweets something I disagree with, and I let that lower my opinion of blacks as a group, isn't the best response for people to call me out for being an idiot and possible racist rather than to ask the black person to curtail their speech or to remove indications from their twitter account that they are black?
Similar if a woman tweets something I disagree with, or a member of a particular religious group, and so on.
I don't see why it should be different for associations that are formed around an open source project.
You are essentially advocating running open source projects as if they were religions, where converts are expected to uphold the religion's values in all aspects of their life rather than just in church. That makes sense for a religion, since those values are the point of the religion. It makes no sense for an open source software project.
Thanks for pointing out this analogy. It really helped in ordering my own thoughts. In essence it expresses my thoughts.
The only problem is, if I associate (within a smallish group) with someone who is an very outspoken idiot, this association might taint my reputation. If I am grouped with this person within a relatively big group (male, female, white, black, human, mammal) this does not happen.
Personally I am trying to find the boundary that makes a group big enough, that these kinds of associations do not happen anymore.
Part of the problem is there most groups can be divided into those who share a common purpose and those who share common beliefs. Most social groups fall into the latter category, whereas most project groups fall into the former. (There are also, of course, groups that buck the trend. The Xiphos developers, for example, are simultaneously both types of group and there are lots of groups that arise from circumstance that fit neither; enough, in fact, that they may be best described as a third category)
With belief-based groups, it's somewhat reasonable to use one person's beliefs as a predictor of the group's beliefs; if the guy leading your kid's youth group starts spouting racist nonsense, then it may be time to find a new youth group. However, that's not true of project groups outside of the radical left¹, where people often put aside their differences in beliefs to further some other goal. Circumstantial groups are similarly heterogeneous: just because one Redditor is a staunch /r/MensRights follower doesn't mean that another can't find that subreddit abhorrent and instead follow /r/shitredditsays.
I think the reason that making the separation feels difficult for many people is that they find themselves in far more belief-driven groups than purpose-driven groups, and don't notice the circumstantial groups that they're part of.
¹ The American radical left focuses somewhat horrifyingly on ideological purity, to the point that many gay gun enthusiasts find more acceptance in gun clubs than gay rights groups.
Thanks a lot. Helps me to internally better parse these topics (see below).
Well for me this whole business is sometimes very hard. I learned by training to kind of understand most peoples way of thinking in borders (or discourses if you are to follow Foucault). Thinking in differentiation and defining ones self ex negativo in what they are not. But these thoughts/concepts do not come natively.
I understand, that this oftentimes has to do with identity, but deep inside me all these concepts do not really make that much sense.
I really have to internally translate and rationalize these ideologies like race, citizenship (being proud of some place where one was born is so weird imho), gender differentiation and so on. As I do not experience these feelings. I cannot relate as these concepts are totally alien to me.
Except maybe that I seem to be somewhat different in not understanding these concepts, as everybody else seems to do.
Have we been reading the same thing? What about the part where they consider "other unethical or unprofessional conduct" to be violations of the CC?
This whole thing is set up to be arbitrary and highly political in its application. I invite everyone to see the broad and hand-wavy language for themselves: http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/2/0/code_of_conduc...
It's only 18 lines long, if you can believe it.
The meta problem is trying to discuss specific examples of rules lawyering when the purpose of one CC is to eliminate detailed rules lawyering isn't going to philosophically work well.
None the less, for a corporate interpretation of the exact same topic but with respect to email:
http://www.emaildisclaimers.com/Sample_disclaimers.htm#Liabi...
Generally speaking identifying yourself as a legal representative of a project or community has all kinds of interesting legal problems; you don't want the project sued because some idle conversation between some contributor and a service provider was seen by the provider as a verbal contract between them and the project for their services.
Another example would be copyright, if the project owns the copyright to your self made pr0n example (because you posted it on the project wiki) then you're probably in huge trouble, but if everyone legally agrees you own the copyright and not the project, well, its kind of hard to argue you represent someone you're clearly not legally working for.