SQLite Adopts 'Monastic' Code of Conduct (sqlite.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Undoubtedly in response to this politically motivated sort of claptrap, SQLite has released their own Code of Conduct. From the preamble:

Having been encouraged by clients to adopt a written code of conduct, the SQLite developers elected to govern their interactions with each other, with their clients, and with the larger SQLite user community in accordance with the "instruments of good works" from chapter 4 of The Rule of St. Benedict. This code of conduct has proven its mettle in thousands of diverse communities for over 1,500 years, and has served as a baseline for many civil law codes since the time of Charlemagne.

Not everyone has found SQLite's attempt informative or funny (though many did). A developer wrote, for instance, "So is the SQLite CoC thing a joke or not? If it's not a joke, f*ck this. If it is a joke, that's even worse. Your CoC should be taken seriously." A security researcher, chimed in, "This sort of stunt will make actual code of conduct discussions harder. It's not funny, helpful, or wise."

Comments

If someone tells you that a joke is not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

that tells you more about them than about the joke. Congrats to SQLite. That's one project that "gets it". Anyone who thinks that "this sort of stunt will make actual code of conduct discussions harder" hasn't even got the message (which coincidentally is one data point in favor of using more direct language...)

A useful shibboleth

[alvinrod]

This seems like a useful shibboleth. Anyone who's whining about this online is the kind of prat you probably don't want anywhere near your project. I think the first example is especially illustrative:

So is the SQLite CoC thing a joke or not? If it's not a joke, f*ck this. If it is a joke, that's even worse.

Here's the type of person that is likely to go out of their way to take umbrage over something relatively minor. The kind of person who's happy to shove a CoC down your throat as long its theirs, but will scream about having to follow some other set of rules that they don't like.

Re:A useful shibboleth

[mopower70]

A million upvotes to that truth bomb. I think the message is clear: the kind of people that need a CoC are the kind of people no one wants to work with.

Re:A useful shibboleth

[rl117]

With a few exceptions, every single project I've worked in over the course of two decades has been open and welcoming. No code of conduct was required or even on the radar. Do you know what we did if there was an incidence of bad behaviour? We sent them a private email asking them to stop. And if they continued, we sent a more strongly-worded email. And if it still continued we kicked them off the list. It worked. I can count the number of incidents like this across several dozen projects on one hand. They were a rarity. The vast majority of people you encounter are thoroughly decent. We join projects to collaborate on things of mutual interest with like-minded people, and do productive work, and maybe have some fun as well. If there are people who require a CoC to keep their behaviour in check, then these are the sort of people who you don't want on your project to begin with. They aren't going to result in increased productivity, and they will sap the fun out of it as well. You don't need an SJW CoC to curb bad behaviour.

The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[L_R_Shaw]

https://twitter.com/brionv/sta...

SJWs cannot abide mockery because it is a threat to their own self anointed moral authority.

Re:The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[pegdhcp]

I think what SJWs do not realise is that they are religious bigots, even while not adhering any religion. They believe not just in their righteousness but also evil in anybody even with a slightly different set of ideals.

Re:The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[UnknownSoldier]

ANY ideology taken to an extreme is (idiotic) fundamentalism.

--
cult, noun, any group of people who believe their (self appointed) way is the ONLY way.

Re:The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[Z80a]

Unlike some far right people might define, SJW is used by most people meaning a far left fanatic individual that will try by any means to force people to follow their increasingly absurd laws.
You can't have a "good SJW", because by definition is someone with quite evil or warped intents.
But it's quite easy to find the sane people in this mess. Just find the person being called a nazi by the far left and a SJW by the far right.

Re: The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[astrofurter]

No. He didn't try to use the coercive power of big capital and/or the state to force you to obey a bunch of rules he has no intention of obeying himself.

CoCs are religious documents

[rl117]

SJWs are religious. Marxism is their religion, and intersectionality their tenets of faith. They believe in righteousness, sin, and punishment of unbelievers and transgressors (anyone who criticises any aspect of SJW beliefs, including their own). It goes without saying that the beliefs and their behaviour are thoroughly toxic nonsense, which is what makes them so dangerous. So given the choice between an SJW CoC and this set of fairly sensible (albeit religious) rules about living life as a good thoughtful and compassionate person, I think I'd rather be judged by the Benedictines than blue-haired SJW harridans and their enablers. At least the Benedictines allow for the forgiveness of sins and loving their enemies. SJWs don't believe in that sort of compassion, preferring to act like a pack of hyenas around anyone who shows weakness, failing Rule 64 (Hate no one) and a good number of the other rules as well!

Re:Why even adopt it

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the point of the sarcastic SQLite CoC.

CoC's could also prevent projects from working together, like Software Licenses also do.

Project ABC adopts the Monastic/10 commandments style CoC.
Project XYZ adopts a SJW/LGB/LGBT/LGBTQ/LGBTTQQIAAP friendly CoC.

Now these two projects cannot work together.

Now like with sports, software developers arbitrarily become split along party lines.

WTF does a CoC have to do with software?

Re:But is it a bad code?

[L_R_Shaw]

> Seems like it might be a good choice for a CoC.

The other and more sinister reason is the massive attempt by SJWs to ram the toxic 'contributors covenant' by the vile Coraline Ada Ehmke and others is the creation of SJW thought police organization for all open source projects who are dumb enough to adopt it.

Essentially SJWs getting paid to sit at home combing through open source projects searching for cases of wrongthink and working behind the scenes in ideological star chambers to kick their ideological enemies.

Projects creating their own sane CoCs or even just mocking the push to adopt these toxic SJW CoCs infuriates them. They are trying to get every single open source project to adopt a single universal SJW CoC and place every project under ideological thought police.

Think this is all hyperbole, just look at the sickening attack by Coraline Ada Ehmke against Ruby's creator when he refused to bend the knee:

https://twitter.com/coralinead...

Re:But is it a bad code?

[lgw]

You could probably omit piety and chastity

I dunno, seems like a pretty firm way to shut down sexual harassment. "Nothing we do here has anything to do with sex, so don't go there".

See you in Kangaroo Court

[mileshigh]

Chastity is the only honest way to go. However, you'll notice that requirement seriously interferes with recruitment in the modern world.

All similar codes I've seen pretend to be something else by forbidding unwanted sexual advances. "Unwanted" sounds oh-so reasonable, but the problem is: how do you know if an advance is unwanted if you don't try your luck? Communication between people is fragile at best. If you advance is accepted, then it was desired. Otherwise, you're a posteriori guilty of an unwanted advance and are a creep because You Should Have Known Better.

Ergo, the only sane solution is to say that all advances are unwanted in that community, which is called chastity.

Either the community is a place where one of the side-benefits is the possibility of romance/sex and where related behavior is sanctioned, or sex and romance are 100% off the menu.

Re: Why even adopt it

[arglebargle_xiv]

So is the SQLite CoC thing a joke or not?

This is actually Poe's Law in real life: "Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism". The crap around CoC's has become so crazy that it's indistinguishable from parody.

Re:Why even adopt it

[arglebargle_xiv]

Actually you do need it. When a large, or even noticeable, percentage of your community expects you to do X (and by "X" I don't just mean a CoC, I mean be seen going to church/temple/the mosque at least once a week, greet people with "Heil Hitler", sing "Druze Tito" at the top of your voice, or whatever), you do it or face the consequences. Having a CoC is protective coloration, you do it to avoid trouble whether you believe in it or not.

Re: Why even adopt it

[Cmdln Daco]

Extremism is very much worth mocking, though. Because the ensuing meltdown is rewarding, has high entertainment value, and might destroy a few fucking ideologue nuts.

Actually its a decent list for conduct

[drnb]

Actually if you drop out the parts related to the practice of religion its a pretty good code of conduct for software development.

2 Love your neighbor as yourself. [ex test before commit]
3 You are not to kill, [ex crash your customers]
4 not to commit adultery; [ex don't f with your users]
5 you are not to steal [ex respect the software license]
6 nor to covet; [ex don't add a feature just because its in the commercial app you are cloning]
7 you are not to bear false witness. [ex admit it came from source forge]
8 You must honor everyone, [ex conform to the coding standard]
9 and never do to another what you do not want done to yourself. [ex replace tabs/spaces]
11 discipline your body; [ex proper ergonomics[
12 do not pamper yourself, [ex sorry, you only get one 4K monitor]
13 but love fasting. [ex sorry, only a midrange GPU]
14 You must relieve the lot of the poor, [ex contribute to open source]
15 clothe the naked, [ex comment your code]
16 visit the sick, [ex fix your bugs rather than just make them scrum tasks]
17 and bury the dead. [ex remove the dead code]
18 Go to help the troubled [ex when someone is stuck on a bug be their second set of eyes]
19 and console the sorrowing. [ex let the fanboy's PC dual boot]
20 Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; [ex cross platform is not all the MS windows variations]
22 You are not to act in anger [ex sorry, you can't tell customers to RTFM]
23 or nurse a grudge. [ex desktop Linux, get over it]
24 Rid your heart of all deceit. [ex stop telling people they will like emacs after a little while]
25 Never give a hollow greeting of peace [ex "why yes my core code will be cross platforms"]
26 or turn away when someone needs your love. [ex Target the Android platform too]
27 Bind yourself to no oath lest it prove false, [ex "I swear I tested all my changes"]
28 but speak the truth with heart and tongue. [ex run the regression test]
29 Do not repay one bad turn with another. [ex recommend perl because someone recommended it to you]
30 Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently. [ex re-run all tests after the merge but before the commit]
31 Love your enemies. [ex Target the Windows platform too]
32 If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead. [ex No flamewars on the dev thread]
33 Endure persecution for the sake of justice. [ex drink the company coffee rather than leave for starbucks when getting behind on things]
34 You must not be proud, [ex fix bugs outside your niche in the codebase]
35 nor be given to wine. [ex just dual boot or run a real emulator]
36 Refrain from too much eating [ex use CPU and RAM responsibly]
37 or sleeping, [ex don't make your code slow so you can use the currently hyped programming language]
38 and from laziness. [ex don't try to apply your favorite programming language to everything]
39 Do not grumble [ex Don't bitch in comments]
40 or speak ill of others. [ex Your preferred operating system is not always the best choice]
43 Be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge. [ex commit changes only under your login]
44 Live in fear of judgment day [ex launch day
45 and have a great horror of hell. [ex developer will have to do customer support immediately after launch]