GCC Adopts A Code of Conduct

[Hafting]

This little imbecilic gob found on the second line, "Diversity is a huge strength" should be all you need to know about what's coming.

Diversity is not so good. I hope people incapable of debugging their contribution are severely underrepresented on any programming project. the same goes for not being able to code much. Ticking some diversity boxes instead wonˋt help. And no, it does not matter if an inability to code/debug is somehow tied to a diversity marker like, say, ethnicity. It is simply not interesting, either you can code, or you cannot.

[lowflyer]

First you deny that the USA has ratified the Geneva conventions to the effect that they don't have legal value in the USA.

Then you write this (about why having a verbatim copy of the civil rights in the CoC):

This is about having limited liability for USA Civil rights act offenses is why its the CoC. ...

After this you write:

That absolutely not what I wrote.

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You say "outflow laws" are legal, then you say this:

Overseas contributors at not at legal risk from the USA law from this being in the CoC.

And to the most fundamental point that is behind this whole discussion you say:

Wrong question.

Pardon oiaohm You are inconsistent. You refuse to talk about the issues that spark this discussion. You always divert the talk to fringe issues.

This is my last post to this thread.

[oiaohm]

First you deny that the USA has ratified the Geneva conventions to the effect that they don't have legal value in the USA.

USA laws have requirements for something to be classed as ratified. Yes when you check you find out that the USA steps required for Geneva conventions to be correctly ratified in the USA have not been done.

Then you write this (about why having a verbatim copy of the civil rights in the CoC):

Who is the limited Liability for. The USA entity running the project that is FSF/GNU in gcc case.

You say "outflow laws" are legal, then you say this:

As I said wrong point. This not outflow laws.

FSF/GNU running gcc project are required by USA law to uphold the USA laws because they are a USA entity. Without the CoC FSF/GNU should enforce USA the civil rights laws to the letter on all posts and so on not to be prosecuted..

With the USA civil right laws in the CoC means FSF/GNU can be sloppy with USA the civil rights laws enforcement and not end up prosecuted.

Yes if you were a USA citizen you with at legal risk from the civil rights laws with or without the CoC entries. As a non USA citizen long term without USA civil rights laws in the CoC you are at a greater risk of having your posts deleted and being removed from the project.

lowflyer basically you had it backwards. The USA civil rights laws have less power by being quoted in the CoC.

Lowflyer people talk about outflow of laws there is a inflow of laws. This is where companies are legally responsible for what parties overseas have done that their servers are hosting.

The inflow effect against FSF/GNU if the effects are not limited by USA law is that FSF/GNU could cease to exist. Yes even USA citizens breaking the civil rights laws with posts in gcc development without the bits in the CoC could see FSF/GNU prosecuted by the civil rights laws out of existence.

The USA civil rights laws being in the CoC does not grant them legal power. The USA civil rights laws always has legal power its now how can you reduce that power. CoC entries of the USA civil rights law is to reduce that power.

USA so much for the land of the free with free speech. You have civil rights laws that basically end up seeing you prosecuted for letting people have free speech unless you do some really weaselly things with terms of services/code of conducts/code of ethics to limit the power of the civil rights laws.

[fitzie]

I'm sorry, but I can't see how you could get that view from reading the FAQ you linked. I read it, but I am not convinced that you did. I think you are cherry-picking (I assume unintentionally) to strengthen the opinions and beliefs you hold from before. The phrase "Everything is politics" is inside quotation marks - it is an acknowledgement that some people (such as yourself, at least in this case) see politics in everything even when there are no politics involved. The FAQ repeatedly says it is non-political - it is not pushing a political agenda or any other agenda. It is not trying to push particular demographics into groups - it aims to remove pressure and bias, and let everyone feel safe and welcomed. And this is justified not through a sense of moral superiority (though I believe the majority of people find prejudice morally offensive), but simply because a safer, happier, and more diverse community is more effective.

I believe CoC is inherently political because of the scope of these rules, and the organized effort behind creating, updating and pushing these rules. Is there value in these CoC rules? Sure there is. But it is social engineering, it is supported by an effort to "solve representation", and it is pushed forward by activists. My strict objections to these CoC rules is that they strictly list attributes of people that are off limits. I think that does a huge disservice to the effort, by unnecessarily polarizing these rules, as well as minimizing most of the misbehavior that has nothing to do with with those subject areas. But again, since it's obvious to me that the CoC are pushed by the diversity crowd, they feel this language is super important.

[fitzie]

https://www.automicgroup.com.au/news/2021/09/14/social-media-liability-for-publications-of-third-parties/

This is 2021 and gets all the way into the high court in Australia.

Not all countries do you have liability protection.

fitzie is one of the funny things.
1) the website is not liable for the content the user posted due to USA 230 and equal being sent to end users.
2) The website is liable over that content for lack of due care if they did not provide location to report issue to possible have the content removed.
Yes this is the way the Australian ruling lands. When you look closer at the USA and UK laws the laws this ruling is based on is USA and UK law because it from common laws between the countries and this is why the snow ball starts.

CoC on projects get ahead of this issue. Yes the first party to push for open source projects to get CoC did find different cases where USA courts ruled against online sites due to lack of due care.

Yes that lack of due care is gets kind of stupid. Lets say you had a CoC email address and you only looked at 1 email out of there every 12 months and deleted all others that could meet the due care requirements because you are random-ally sampling to monitor what is going on. Its not having a contact at all that puts party on hook here.

I accept that there could be a legal motivation that is part of this. But I do think the "solve representation" is a much more provable motivation, give the activists that push for these rules. If there was a bunch of lawyers pushing for it, then i would be more inclined to accept this legal view being a major justification. I also think that a CoC that states that you will solve problems of human social interactions are doomed to failure in some circumstance, and that could lead to litigation the other way, e.g. you didn't adequately resolve this CoC issue. Where in the boilerplate does it say: "While we will make an attempt to resolve the issue, you may not be satisfied with the outcome, and you are free to leave the community and leave your contributions behind?"

Take githubs coc guide:

https://opensource.guide/code-of-conduct/

They don't talk about legal justification at all. Just healthy communities. I am totally for healthy communities, but I reject the promoted boilerplate as unnecessarily polarizing and I think there's plenty of toxic behavior coming from the people who push for extreme CoC enforcement.

[oiaohm]

Take githubs coc guide:

https://opensource.guide/code-of-conduct/

They don't talk about legal justification at all.

Of course they don't talk about legal justification. Giving advice how to avoid being legally punished is offense by itself. So lets say github did write you need to do X to avoid the Civil Rights Act in the USA fines this now would put github on the hook to enforce the Civil Right Act on every project that does not have a Code of Conduct.

There is lot of legal weasels at work here. That one by github is they did sell the idea of having a CoC to the person running a project there and if they did not set one up and something go wrong github will argue out that it was the project lead own choice not to have a CoC.

There is a bunch of lawyers pushing this stuff with very creative wording. It would be a lot better all round with the legal side of this if all parties could be straight up truthful.

Yes simple straight up truthful statement like:

This project is managed by a USA company/Host on USA servers so has to obey Civil Rights Act so the following behaviors items cannot be tolerated due to USA laws.
But no we cannot have something this simple. Yes so much for USA free speech right.

Yes code of conduct could nicely include a notice to say what legal jurisdiction the project is working to.

[rabcor]

No, people in the open source community do not love Linus Torvalds for "being bit of an asshole" - because he is not an "asshole". He sometimes uses very direct language, but that is not the same thing at all. Getting frustrated or angry on occasion is not the same as being a violent or crass individual, nor does he ever write things intending to hurt or upset people. He targets things people have done, not people - in all his famous rants, he has never been "a bit of an asshole". And none of his rants would run contrary to the GCC CoC. He has also made a point of being more diplomatic in his wording over the years, precisely because some people make the same mistake you do - they misinterpret him and think it means it is okay actually to be a "bit of an asshole"

You're the one misunderstanding here, being direct, being honest, saying things as they are, those ares synonymous with being an asshole today. That's what being an asshole has come to mean, and that is what I meant. In a way that's always what it has meant, it's just that today people are more sensitive than ever in human history so it takes a whole heap less of honesty to make people cry about you being an asshole than ever before. The difference between an asshole and a saintisn't even in what they think or say, it's just how they phrase things. You phrase things abrasively, directly, maybe even some would say mercilessly, you're an asshole. You phrase the exact same thing more gently, potentially by using more complicated, obscure and flowery words so that your meaning could be misinterpreted in as many ways as possible unless people really think twice about it, then you're no longer an asshole. That's how it is, so when I say Linus Torvalds is sometimes a bit of an asshole, that's what I already meant, you're just twisting my words to make false argument points without actually addressing anyhting I have said.

We are not asking everyone to be pleasant, cheerful and friendly - we are merely asking people not to be unpleasant. It's not hard for most people.

No, that is exactly what you are asking. You are asking people to do basically what I just said. Talk in circles around what they mean so nobody takes offense instead of saying it straight. To be pleasant, cheerful and friendly all the time. You are asking people to put on a stupid mask, to devote our mental and emotional energy to putting on an act for your peace of mind. I find this whole thing revolting.

Someone else said it a lot better than I could ever say it, codes of conduct in the open source community are ready made solutions looking for a problem that never really existed in the first place. Everyone has a right to be an asshole, and everyone has a right not to like those assholes, but no fancily worded paper can force people to be someone they're not. Not even if it had actual legal implications would it be able to.

[oiaohm]

Someone else said it a lot better than I could ever say it, codes of conduct in the open source community are ready made solutions looking for a problem that never really existed in the first place. Everyone has a right to be an asshole, and everyone has a right not to like those assholes, but no fancily worded paper can force people to be someone they're not. Not even if it had actual legal implications would it be able to.

This is not the truth that you have the right to be an asshole and that the problem.

https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1359&context=fac_articles

USA law reality you don't in fact have the right to be any form of asshole and its not new people have been in USA counts and punished for over half a century now. The items the code of conduct say you cannot do are the ones so you or the project don't end up in court.

No, that is exactly what you are asking. You are asking people to do basically what I just said. Talk in circles around what they mean so nobody takes offense instead of saying it straight. To be pleasant, cheerful and friendly all the time. You are asking people to put on a stupid mask, to devote our mental and emotional energy to putting on an act for your peace of mind. I find this whole thing revolting.

Yes what you describe here where you have to say stuff in way that person does not take offense is what is required by USA law in any workplace. Sorry to say USA rulings open source project is a workplace we have to get use to this.

Rabcor we have to get use to that the USA legal system is slowly but surely catching up with the internet so now their general workplace laws now apply to open source projects hosted in the USA. Now before you say stuff it we will host in the EU or some other countries their legal systems are catching up as well so very quickly you find self back in same boat.

The reality here is there are two forms of assholes. Legal assholes and illegal assholes. CoC basically just states you cannot be a illegal asshole. Yes there is ways to be polite, law/CoC following and a total asshole at the same time yes some that does require more thought on wording.

Linus of kernel.org has learnt how to be polite and very direct. So yes it possible to learn how to be a legal asshole. You can compare Linux kernel development when Linus was crossing over into illegal asshole vs when he took time off and learnt how to be legal asshole. Linux kernel runs a lot better after the training.

Lot of the things that CoC and law forbids non constructive. You can be quite a asshole with facts like stating exactly how many times X person has mad Y mistake this takes more effort than calling someone idiot or using some other form of insult but the person getting facts asshole response give them exactly where they need to improve.

Blunt constructive criticism and statements of true facts is not forbid by the CoC or by USA law. With enough nasty nature you can be quite asshole sticking to both.

Rabcor do note you said saying to straight. Lot of people that people think of as assholes when you look closer they are not saying it straight they are not using facts. The CoC list basic a list items that if you are thinking you are saying what he current status is and you running on the wrong side of it 99.99% of the time you are not saying to straight because the worst forms of personal biases will have come in. Yes for a project like gcc the 0.01 when CoC/Law would be breached would be off topic for GCC development.

This is something that is really simple to over look the GNU gcc mailing lists and forums exist to allow the development of the Gcc compiler they are not designed to be a facebook/social media forum instead they are to be a workplace.

[rabcor]

This is not the truth that you have the right to be an asshole and that the problem.

https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1359&context=fac_articles

USA law reality you don't in fact have the right to be any form of asshole and its not new people have been in USA counts and punished for over half a century now. The items the code of conduct say you cannot do are the ones so you or the project don't end up in court.



Yes what you describe here where you have to say stuff in way that person does not take offense is what is required by USA law in any workplace. Sorry to say USA rulings open source project is a workplace we have to get use to this.

That law article you linked is about racism, being an asshole doesn't mean you're a racist, though being a racist does mean you're an asshole, they're not entirely mutually inclusive my dude.

[oiaohm]

That law article you linked is about racism, being an asshole doesn't mean you're a racist, though being a racist does mean you're an asshole, they're not entirely mutually inclusive my dude.

That only one form of court case.

https://www.lowmanlawfirm.com/blog/libel-and-slander-laws

Would have paid to look closer. Those racist people are not punished under laws that don't apply to everyone. Yes CoC is mostly saying don't do things that would end with you or the project in court over libel and other offenses. Free speech is not a license to say anything.

There are levels of being asshole. Its very hard to be a asshole and be legal safe at the same time.

Lot of USA people should be in court for their behavior because their behavior is not legally allowed. Of course not helped that they had a president that totally broke the rules.