The founder of the world's most widely used database engine ignited a firestorm in the tech community after it was revealed that he had posted a code of conduct for users based on the teachings of the Bible and an ancient order of monks founded by Benedict of Nursia. ...
The website explained the controversy:
Activists from the feminist and LGBTQIA+ communities have been trying to force the Linux project to join the Contributor Covenant since at least 2015. The Contributor Covenant is an agreement to implement a special Code of Conduct (frequently CoC from now on) aimed at changing the predominantly white, straight, and male face of programming. CC’s Code of Conduct is controversial particularly because it allows anyone to be banned from contributing code for any reason, usually with no mechanism for oversight or accountability.
Some of their complaints include:
Insertion of the CoC into other projects has heralded witch hunts where good contributors are removed over trivial matters or even events that happened a long time ago.
The lack of proper definitions for punishments, time frames, and even what constitutes abuse or harassment leaves the Code of Conduct wide open for abuse (see 1).
It gives the people charged with enforcement omnipotent and unaccountable power.
It could force acceptance of contributions that wouldn’t make the cut if made by cis white males.
CC’s Code of Conduct is purely about power.
"My critics have often been harsh and intemperate," said Hipp. "But I am bound by my own CoC, which commands me to (29) not return evil for evil, (34) be not proud, (67) shun arrogance, and so forth." He hopes the "drama will soon die down and I can return to doing real work solving real problems."
Perhaps the controversy will die down and the SQLite community will go back to work and forget this whole episode. But unfortunately, as the Linux community and countless others have discovered in recent years, activists who want to impose their worldview on others are rarely satisfied with compromises. They want their views to dominate and all others to be obliterated. They smell blood in the water at SQLite and will likely come back for more compromises — and a demand for Hipp to repent from his former "regressive" Christian beliefs.
“A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, 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."
The thing I like about the Stallman and SQLite suggestions is that they try to define ideal interactions positively.
Those other victimology/grievance studies-based codes of conduct are "negative" rules.
In my opinion, rights should be declared "negatively" and rules or responsibilities should be declared "positively". For example:
* You should have a "right from unreasonable search and seizure" (a negative right). Granting this negative right assures to you a measure of liberty without taking liberty from anyone else. In contrast, a "right to housing" (a positive right) may grant you housing, but likely at the expense of others' liberties. (See: Ben Shapiro on positive and negative rights: www.youtube.com/embed/hIVj11JvpT4 )
* You should have a responsibility to care for your children, or a responsibility to honor your commitments (positive rules). Rulesets that define what you have the responsibility from (negative rules) aren't as good because they don't declare what you have the responsibility to do to complement and protect your rights, they merely define no go zones and penalties. Unlike positive rules, negative rules and penalties tend to multiply over the years, further constricting liberties.
Hats off to SQLite maintainers and Stallman for hosing down the intersectional grievance culture mob with positivity. Hats off to Shapiro for stating the issues of rights and responsibilities so succinctly.
More about Benedict himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia