In the words of Malcolm Reynolds:
"A year from now, ten, they'll swing back to the belief that they can
make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running;
I aim to misbehave." - Malcolm Reynolds (Serenity/Firefly)
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 3:39 AM, crocket <crockabiscuit@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I can explain your confusion. That people have different opinions is
pretty much a given fact. nanomsg has existed for years before the CoC
was suggested. So, the nanomsg community attracted people who have
different implicit rules in mind. If the project actually started with
a CoC from the beginning, there wouldn't be any division like this.
The history of law says legislation on an existing community always
leads to unpredictability and political division.
In a community ruled by customs and precedents, but not by
legislation, this political division simply doesn't exist.
People are ok with making contracts with a set of laws before joining
a group, but they are not ok with someone else legislating written
laws on a community.
Therefore, I recommend that you rule the community by customs and
precedents or that you make a new project with a new set of rules so
that people make implicit contracts with the rules.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Garrett D'Amore <garrett@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I won't add the CoC because it appears its existence is divisive. I don't
understand why that is - particularly as I AM going to abide by those same
terms, but apparently people are afraid of the document.
Instead of creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment this creates
strife and anger. That's the opposite of what I was trying for.
And I don't understand it. The obvious fear and hatred of a document saying
we expect reasonable professional behavior is as unfathomable to me as the
insistence that such a document is necessary for a healthy community.
Perhaps even more so. What are you all so afraid of?
Are you so untrusting of the leadership to act reasonably? Do you really
believe the leadership of any organization EVER has felt somehow bound to
the terms of such a document because of the document? Or perhaps you are
afraid of your own inability to control your expression and conform to what
are basic standards of human civility?
I withdraw my proposal to add the document to the source repo. But please
do not take that to mean that I will tolerate the proscribed behaviors here.
I am honestly embarrassed and shocked by this community's response to my
proposal. I think I may need to reexamine my own assumptions around this
issue.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 5, 2016, at 11:22 PM, Gonzalo Diethelm <gonzalo.diethelm@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
[Sorry for any possible duplicates.]
For whatever it is worth, I am -1 on adding a CoC. Witness the length of
this very discussion...
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 6:46 AM, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
<xekoukou@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There are 2 types of projects, those run by an expert/s and those run by
the community.
The first type is useful for disruptive innovation. The second for the
sharing of use cases/experiences and thus improvements.
In both cases, a COC is good if the participants enforce it or just
supervise themselves.
In the first type, in the case of the expert or dictator, the COC is there
to say one thing. If you want to work with me, I want a certain standard of
good behavior.
In the second case, the community enforces it . It is a set of rules that
it finds important. After all, the code doesn't matter as much as the people
themselves.
We should't sacrifice our well being for a slightly better code. Always
prefer the people over an obnoxious good programmer.
That said, we should not supervise/check superficial manners and we should
get to the essence of things. I want to be able to call a black person a
nigger when I do not use it as an insult.
It is also up to the community to not use that power to shut some ideas
down. Quite the opposite.
Personally, I have been the target of such a misuse of power. So the fact
that I still agree in a CoC says a lot.
2016-01-06 5:48 GMT+02:00 crocket <crockabiscuit@xxxxxxxxx>:
I'm ok with your benevolent dictatorship, and I wouldn't propose
anything else for the community since it already works. Keep what
works. Experiment elsewhere.
I think the CoC you suggested will definitely work as long as bad guys
can't become maintainers. But, I don't know whether CoC is going to
help down the road.
Thus, I defer to Garret D'Amore's judgments.
By the way, I'd like to nitpick on some things for the reputation of
anarchy and polycentric law. Polycentric law is a variant of anarchy
and reduces contentions around concensus in the form of forking or
some other means. Any open source project that claims to mix anarchy
and concensus is probably neither polycentric nor anarchy but a
democracy that enforces a single set of rules upon groups that do not
agree with the rules.
Democracy left bad tastes in my mouth in the past.
As a private researcher of new political systems, I recently have been
designing a new system that lets polycentric legal system permeate
into projects, but it wouldn't be wise for anyone to try an early
theoretical effort for real projects. It might turn out to be rubbish
later.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Garrett D'Amore <garrett@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Ok, let me be clear. I’m *not* interested in changing to some other
form of
governance. Anarchy and consensus don’t work with open source projects
that
share a code repo. I’ve seen this fail hard first hand, and I’ve been
burned too badly by it to want to ever walk down that path again.
I’m the benevolent dictator — or so I perceive myself — of nanomsg. I
didn’t *ask* for this job, but its mine for now and I’m going to do the
best
I can at it. I don’t think shared leadership works, so I’m rejecting
that
notion. If however Martin decides he wants the job back, I’ll be happy
to
give it back to him, and then he can delegate others to govern or do so
himself. I kind of figuring I’m only standing-in for him anyway.
As you rightly point out, if you don’t like this situation, you can
fork.
If Martin doesn’t like it, he can take the name back (although as I
said, if
he wants it, I’ll return the mantle of leadership back to him with my
compliments and best wishes). A coup attempt would probably be
successful,
mostly because if the community doesn’t want my benevolent
dictatorship,
then I’m prepared to just walk way. Believe me, nanomsg has sucked far
more
of my life away than I’d ever desired.
So, I *can* institute a CoC if I so choose. In fact, let me be clear —
there is an effective one already — its pretty much the same as the
document
I pointed to, just implicit instead of explicit. I don’t need the
document
to exercise power to eject someone who I feel is destructive to the
project.
I will do so if I feel that’s appropriate. I hope it never comes
about,
because although I’m a “benevolent dictator”, I do believe a light hand
is
best, and I’m not looking for excuses to punish or find cause for
argument.
I believe most people here are adults and can operate without
supervision.
Supervision / moderation only becomes necessary in the rare event that
someone either doesn’t realize they are being an ass, or is
intentionally
and consistently doing so. In the former case a private email pointing
it
out is usually sufficient; the latter few are toxic persons where
banning is
appropriate, and generally doing so is noncontroversial because
*everyone*
recognizes the asshat for what they are.
I guess I’m more like nanomsg’s caring step-father than a dictator. I
will
do what I can, but I can always walk away if I feel that’s best for
either
myself or the community, but in the meantime its my house, my rules,
and I’m
trying to do the best I can for common good.
On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 5:41 PM, crocket <crockabiscuit@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
My current guess is that mixing a polycentric legal system similar to
the xeer(from somalia) and C4.1 in a project would be better at
protecting victims than a CoC imposed upon the rest by the central
authority of the official repository.
If the central authority is not corrupt, then CoC may still work well
enough, but the central authority would not be incentivized to behave
as much as now unless there are threats of forking.
The problem of the central authority occurs when a victim perceives
personal damage but the central authority doesn't consider it as a
damage. This is purely theoretical at this point, but it is a probable
scenario.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 10:23 AM, Michael Powell
<mwpowellhtx@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 8:17 PM, crocket <crockabiscuit@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
For example, you could implement polycentric legal order by
generating
multiple nanomsg repositories with its own judges and its own
rules.
How do we merge commits from multiple repositories into one? That's
problematic. It may not work, but it was a fun thought experiment.
I use Boost as an illustration of the perceived, at any rate,
molasses
that has happened as a result. Moves to Git / Github were supposed
to
help with that flow, but I haven't seen it; vetted patches and such
are left sitting in their repositories without seeing the light of
day. Probably the "problem" (or opportunity) was always there, just
more pronounced now. This is just one man's opinion outside looking
in, of course.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 7:15 AM, Garrett D'Amore
<garrett@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Normally I try to avoid getting mired into political debates, but
I’m
currently thinking of adding a standard CoC to the nanomsg source
repo.
Basically my proposal is to add this:
http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/3/0/code_of_conduct.md
to the nanomsg repo. (Updated with email addresses of course).
I do have my doubts about the efficacy of CoCs, and I don’t think
we
have a
problem — but if we did we might not know it — I suspect that all
the
current contributors are male.
The concept of setting a stake in the ground for the future, and
presenting
our “community” (are we even that big yet?) as welcoming and
inclusive, and
setting a standard tone for acceptable behavior, seems like
something
we
ought to embrace.
The cost to the project is low, at least at this point, since I
don’t
think
we have any of the toxicity that has plagued other open source
projects.
But the potential benefit of attracting additional contributors
seems
worth
it to me.
Additionally, doing this *now* is something that can be done
non-controversially (I hope). If we later have a problem and
don’t
have a
CoC, the consequences for the project may be worse (in several
dimensions).
That said, Martin has the trademark for nanomsg still. If he
strenuously
objects I’ll shelve the proposal. If anyone else has strenuous
objections
to this, please let me know privately, with specific rational
reasons
for
your concerns.
To be clear, there’s been no past need for any kind of enforcement
here, and
I hope such will never occur, and any kind of corrective response
to
any
future misbehavior is something I’d like to limit except in the
face
of
egregious toxicity.
And I hope the community will hold me to the same standard of
professionalism.
Thanks,
- Garrett
--
,
Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
--
Gonzalo Diethelm
gonzalo.diethelm@xxxxxxxxx
