Thanks to Mark H Weaver for writing ... how to say .. the mirror
perspective of what I wish I would have written as sole input so far :)
On 30/10/2018 14.28, Christopher Lemmer Webber wrote:
It used to be that you could pick a Free Software project and send a patch.
Now sending a patch is supposed to imply agreeing to the equivalent of
an EULA? Everyone is expected to welcome that as progress?
The statement above makes it sound like the Code of Conduct is
dramatically new.
It is based on the fact that there are many projects that existed for
some time before adopting a CoC. The EULA comparison is only about CoCs
with "covenant" and "we contributors pledge" type of language.
While benefiting from and accepting a copyleft license is pretty much a
precondition for a patch, that is not the case for a CoC that tries to
bind one on contribution.
My claim here was that in both cases, there is a
policy the community has adopted. One is legal and copyleft, the other
is behavioral and a code of conduct. In both cases, your participation
in this community is dependent on your willingness to agree to respect
the policies and norms that the group upholds.
Submitting a patch might involve only the most minimal interaction with
one maintainer. Staying within a very narrow subset of rules that a
group might uphold should suffice to cause no harm to anyone while
allowing people to benefit from the work.
The group is not clearly delineated. The actual norms are only shown in
how the maintainers and regulars act.
The code of conduct
does not provide a legal enforcement mechanism, so the EULA comment in
that sense does not hold up; this is just a codification of some of the
norms that we have. But someone made the EULA comment, and the extent
that it *did* make sense (that there are policies, in some way), I
wanted to reply to it.
What I had in mind is: Unpacking an old-school software that has a
shrink-wrap EULA is meant to imply acceptance of the license.
Likewise, contributing to Guix is apparently meant to imply that one
makes the pledge as outlined in that CoC.
In both cases, you are meant to not get one without the other. It
happened that one could not read the EULA in advance and it happened
that I contributed before reading the CoC carefully. I distrust it's
origin and I'm not happy about a few details, though they most likely
will never matter. So I could almost, but not quite make such a promise,
but I cannot be made to make such a promise. Especially retroactively.
Even less can I be made to make a promise that might change:
I assume that Ricardo and Ludovic want to have the option of editing the
CoC without asking every single contributor. Well, people should better
know what the current state of their pledge is.
Not that I think the two would introduce a nasty surprise, it's just
that the "covenant" and "we as contributors ... pledge" language is
dishonest.
Reject a contribution, talk to me, warn me, set an ultimatum, ban me if
I did wrong by your norms as you see fit, that's all fine and expected
with or without CoC anyway, but please don't try to make me say: those
norms are mine (independent on whether they could be).
If I sound like a drama royal person ... so be it! ;)
--
Thorsten Wilms
thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/
