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This is just a more verbose "Be kind to each other", but without any commitment from the leadership of the project to actually maintain a kind, welcoming enviro

This is just a more verbose "Be kind to each other", but without any commitment from the leadership of the project to actually maintain a kind, welcoming environment. "Be kind, generous, and accepting, or there will be consequences!" is just a few steps removed from, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." The conundrum with linux, was that it was organized in a self-contradicting way. It's fine to have a meritocratic leader who is exacting and demanding, even harsh. You just don't mix that up with an ethos of accepting all contributors in public. Instead, there needs to be a public tier which is concerned more with outreach, and only once people are ready for the next level, should they be given access to the level where they have to stand and deliver.

joshuamorton 8y ago
See my longer comment[1]. At some point, with some hopefully small fraction of members, the maintainer will need to make a call between keeping the member and letting other people suffer, or kicking someone out of the project. Stallman even mentions this: >the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that. in his email, although leaves that out of the guidelines themselves. Why on earth is being forthright about the fact that abuse will lead to exclusion worse than being cagey about that fact? If the end result, you can be kicked out, is the same, why would you prefer that the circumstances be entirely up to each individual maintainer's discretion instead of a somewhat objective (and importantly, public and available!) set of criteria? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275994
- jf- 8y ago
  > why would you prefer that the circumstances be entirely up to each individual maintainer's discretion Exactly so that the same judgement isn’t applied everywhere. Different maintainers will end up having different audiences. I see that as acceptable, maybe even preferable.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    This makes sense for technical judgement, but what about kindness, respect, or good intent changes when I tab over from gcc to gnome?
    - jf- 8y ago
      Why should it be any different? If people have different sensibilities does it not make sense for them to have separate communities? Sure there should be some baseline, but as said elsewhere what one person may take as abuse another may take as a joke. Maybe these people just shouldn’t play together.

joshuamorton 8y ago

See my longer comment[1]. At some point, with some hopefully small fraction of members, the maintainer will need to make a call between keeping the member and letting other people suffer, or kicking someone out of the project. Stallman even mentions this: >the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that. in his email, although leaves that out of the guidelines themselves. Why on earth is being forthright about the fact that abuse will lead to exclusion worse than being cagey about that fact? If the end result, you can be kicked out, is the same, why would you prefer that the circumstances be entirely up to each individual maintainer's discretion instead of a somewhat objective (and importantly, public and available!) set of criteria? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18275994

jf- 8y ago
> why would you prefer that the circumstances be entirely up to each individual maintainer's discretion Exactly so that the same judgement isn’t applied everywhere. Different maintainers will end up having different audiences. I see that as acceptable, maybe even preferable.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  This makes sense for technical judgement, but what about kindness, respect, or good intent changes when I tab over from gcc to gnome?
  - jf- 8y ago
    Why should it be any different? If people have different sensibilities does it not make sense for them to have separate communities? Sure there should be some baseline, but as said elsewhere what one person may take as abuse another may take as a joke. Maybe these people just shouldn’t play together.