6 ms·

I must be missing something very obvious here. Why does my C compiler need a code of conduct?

by lopkeny12ko 3y ago

xdavidliu 3y ago
It's not the compiler itself, but the group of people working on the compiler. Those are different things.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Your C compiler is the result of a committee of hundreds, if not thousands of people; every line of code used is the result of collaboration, with the actual line of code being an implementation detail. You can't have a product like this without its community, and you can't have a community without rules.
- ozr 3y ago
  So prior to today, GCC didn't exist?
  - klodolph 3y ago
    Prior to today, the rules were unwritten, which means that any enforcement was somewhat arbitrary.
    - kbelder 3y ago
      Now, the arbitrariness has been codified, and moderators can be selective with the force of law.
      - klodolph 3y ago
        Do you have specific complaints about this CoC?
        modshatereality 3y ago
        Needs a rename to be taken seriously, It's vague (prohibits "unfriendliness"(what does that even mean?)), Not needed (gcc existed for over 30 years so far without one), allows anti-GPL companies (see latest RHEL upstream source portal incident) running the steering committee to decide what the vague language actually means without disclosing what financial interests are behind the decisions to shut down discussions.
        klodolph 3y ago
        > prohibits "unfriendliness" You’re inverting what is written in the CoC and reporting that here. The CoC does not prohibit unfriendliness. I am guessing that the reason “be friendly and patient” is in the CoC is because projects like GCC are having trouble attracting new maintainers. As far as I can tell, the project is in trouble—for a long time, GCC was the only game in town, and now that people could just as easily decide to contribute to LLVM/Clang instead, GCC needs to take some effort to make sure that it still has maintainers long-term. The idea that a CoC “not needed” doesn’t seem credible, I think you’d need to provide some kind of reasoning to support that argument. You haven’t provided any reasoning besides “GCC existed for 30 years without one”, and that argument doesn’t make any logical sense. The landscape has changed, there are competitors (LLVM), and some of GCC’s previous decisions at the highest level have made it somewhat hostile to contributors—something which the project can no longer afford to do. > allows anti-GPL companies (see latest RHEL upstream source portal incident) running the steering committee to decide what the vague language actually means without disclosing what financial interests are behind the decisions to shut down discussions. This seems like an unreasonable and invalid complaint to me. It hypothesizes that the CoC will be wielded as a weapon to achieve some kind of “anti-GPL” corporate goals, or something to that effect. If anything, I’ve only seen, in the GCC project, “pro-GPL” abuses, where Stallman has directed GCC developers to make technical decisions not based on technical merits, but based on the desire of Stallman to advance the FSF’s pro-GPL goals politically. I’m talking about stuff like having a serializable IR here—technical decisions which make a lot of sense, but which the politics of GCC quashed in order to support the pro-GPL mission. And here LLVM is, with its serializable IR, and pro-corporate licensing scheme, taking away mindshare from GCC. The CoC is not really a pro-corporate tool any more than it is a pro-GPL tool. It is a tool for fixing problems in a community, and the GCC project needs to put a lot of thought and care into how it runs its community, because the long-term viability of that community is now in jeopardy. The CoC is there to improve the community—and if you think CoCs should have more detail, that’s something that can be fixed over time—rules tend to get more detailed as they are modified and updated.
- lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  I would hope that the contributors to a core infrastructure project like gcc are able to do so because of their technical merits and not because they fit in with a set of arbitrary rules declared by a small, power-hungry group. As others have already pointed out, paradoxically, CoCs in OSS have done more net social harm than good. God forbid your project's top contributor use the word "guys" or "blacklist" else he'll be immediately ousted from the project.
- ok123456 3y ago
  Does the ISO have a CoC? What about ANSI?
  - estebank 3y ago
    https://www.ansi.org/resource-center/code-conduct https://www.ansi.org/resource-center/code-conduct https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100011.html https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100011.html
  - JonChesterfield 3y ago
    ISO does and it was adopted by WG21 (the C++ group). With debate and some people leaving the committee in response.
    - ok123456 3y ago
      WG21 should look at the mistakes of Rust and the Rust Foundation and learn from them.

I must be missing something very obvious here. Why does my C compiler need a code of conduct?

xdavidliu 3y ago

It's not the compiler itself, but the group of people working on the compiler. Those are different things.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Your C compiler is the result of a committee of hundreds, if not thousands of people; every line of code used is the result of collaboration, with the actual line of code being an implementation detail. You can't have a product like this without its community, and you can't have a community without rules.

ozr 3y ago
So prior to today, GCC didn't exist?
- klodolph 3y ago
  Prior to today, the rules were unwritten, which means that any enforcement was somewhat arbitrary.
  - kbelder 3y ago
    Now, the arbitrariness has been codified, and moderators can be selective with the force of law.
    - klodolph 3y ago
      Do you have specific complaints about this CoC?
      - modshatereality 3y ago
        Needs a rename to be taken seriously, It's vague (prohibits "unfriendliness"(what does that even mean?)), Not needed (gcc existed for over 30 years so far without one), allows anti-GPL companies (see latest RHEL upstream source portal incident) running the steering committee to decide what the vague language actually means without disclosing what financial interests are behind the decisions to shut down discussions.
        klodolph 3y ago
        > prohibits "unfriendliness" You’re inverting what is written in the CoC and reporting that here. The CoC does not prohibit unfriendliness. I am guessing that the reason “be friendly and patient” is in the CoC is because projects like GCC are having trouble attracting new maintainers. As far as I can tell, the project is in trouble—for a long time, GCC was the only game in town, and now that people could just as easily decide to contribute to LLVM/Clang instead, GCC needs to take some effort to make sure that it still has maintainers long-term. The idea that a CoC “not needed” doesn’t seem credible, I think you’d need to provide some kind of reasoning to support that argument. You haven’t provided any reasoning besides “GCC existed for 30 years without one”, and that argument doesn’t make any logical sense. The landscape has changed, there are competitors (LLVM), and some of GCC’s previous decisions at the highest level have made it somewhat hostile to contributors—something which the project can no longer afford to do. > allows anti-GPL companies (see latest RHEL upstream source portal incident) running the steering committee to decide what the vague language actually means without disclosing what financial interests are behind the decisions to shut down discussions. This seems like an unreasonable and invalid complaint to me. It hypothesizes that the CoC will be wielded as a weapon to achieve some kind of “anti-GPL” corporate goals, or something to that effect. If anything, I’ve only seen, in the GCC project, “pro-GPL” abuses, where Stallman has directed GCC developers to make technical decisions not based on technical merits, but based on the desire of Stallman to advance the FSF’s pro-GPL goals politically. I’m talking about stuff like having a serializable IR here—technical decisions which make a lot of sense, but which the politics of GCC quashed in order to support the pro-GPL mission. And here LLVM is, with its serializable IR, and pro-corporate licensing scheme, taking away mindshare from GCC. The CoC is not really a pro-corporate tool any more than it is a pro-GPL tool. It is a tool for fixing problems in a community, and the GCC project needs to put a lot of thought and care into how it runs its community, because the long-term viability of that community is now in jeopardy. The CoC is there to improve the community—and if you think CoCs should have more detail, that’s something that can be fixed over time—rules tend to get more detailed as they are modified and updated.
lopkeny12ko 3y ago
I would hope that the contributors to a core infrastructure project like gcc are able to do so because of their technical merits and not because they fit in with a set of arbitrary rules declared by a small, power-hungry group. As others have already pointed out, paradoxically, CoCs in OSS have done more net social harm than good. God forbid your project's top contributor use the word "guys" or "blacklist" else he'll be immediately ousted from the project.
ok123456 3y ago
Does the ISO have a CoC? What about ANSI?
- estebank 3y ago
  https://www.ansi.org/resource-center/code-conduct https://www.ansi.org/resource-center/code-conduct https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100011.html https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB100011.html
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  ISO does and it was adopted by WG21 (the C++ group). With debate and some people leaving the committee in response.
  - ok123456 3y ago
    WG21 should look at the mistakes of Rust and the Rust Foundation and learn from them.