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

Why even adopt it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do not know how to act like a responsible adult, perhaps you should try harder. It is your choice, but do not expect others to play along with your childish and rogue behavior. Correct the behavior or get locked out. But no one needs a silly code of conduct - this is like mission statements of the 80s and 90s. Largely forgotten and rarely achieved.

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:Why even adopt it

[ShanghaiBill]

The link to the CoC is in the summary, but here it is again: SQLite Code of Conduct.

It is OBVIOUSLY a joke. I don't find it particularly funny, but I don't see any harm either. It is clearly ridiculing some of the over-the-top CoCs, and in many cases that ridicule is well deserved.

The people taking this seriously need to eat more fish or, if they are vegan, some omega-3 supplements, to help their brains work better.

Re:Why even adopt it

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite simple: There's a lot of folks out there, unfortunately, who like to be cunts and then use the "But what's the rule against being a cunt?" canard when called out on it. These are the people who don't know how to fucking behave around their peers, much less their co-workers and colleagues and frankly, are the ones who ruin everything for everyone else. Treat people the way you want to be treated and life would be a much better place. Sounds great. Reading through the comments here is proof-positive that some folks can't fucking get it through their heads that they're cunts. So, here we are.

Re: Why even adopt it

[schure]

I think this is a very fine joke and people should be proud of whoever created it.

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.

Re: Why even adopt it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a joke? Why do other open source communities condone murder by not explicitly disallowing it in their CoCs?

Someone wants to work on ReiserFS?

But is it a bad code?

[lgw]

People are objecting, but is it a bad code of conduct? I can't find the text, but being monastic I'm guessing it values service to the community and forbids sexual harassment.

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

Re:But is it a bad code?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

People are objecting, but is it a bad code of conduct?

It's not bad. Rule 69 (ironic) is to "love the juniors". Which is a little offputting in the modern Catholic Church. But it's right after "respect the seniors" and is clearly trying to set up a mentor/mentee situation.

That said, there's a lot of pro-catholic theology in it that would be pretty offensive if it was explicitly added to a CoC. And it's anti-sexual harassment policy is "love chastity".

It's a really short read. 72 commands that are usually a sentence fragment.

I can't find the text

A public domain religious text? Let me help with that. Note, that's a link directly to chapter 4.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files...

Re:But is it a bad code?

[hey!]

You can find the Rule of St Benedict here, it is not specifically monastic, but rather outlines general Christian ethical ideals of piety, humility, charity, forbearance and chastity.

You could probably omit piety and chastity, but a lot of the rules do make sense for any community: not to nurse a grudge; to bear wrongs and insults patiently, don't be a grumbler or detractor, settle personal disputes quickly and peacefully, avoid mocking or depraved speech, and to keep a sense of perspective (see rule #47, chapter 4).

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?

[randomErr]

Overall no.The issue I think most people have is the Christian hierarchy that is enforced within the organization. They fear that it will force everyone who touches SQLite will have to take a religious stance they don't agree with. That CoC is just peace, pray, and work hard for what you believe. If they stay with this CoC I look for Google and the Mozillia foundation to remove SQLite for their browsers in the next major update just for political, not practical reasons.

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".

Re:But is it a bad code?

[mysidia]

The text is on SQLite's website: Code of Conduct.

It's actually a pretty decent code of conduct; if you ask only that developers govern their interactions with others according to the code.

I am guessing the objections are that the code contains religions admonitions such as:

Rule 1. First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole strength.

A majority of developers will likely be of some religion that can identify with that statement; However, the statement could disturb
atheists who might participate in the project, when the CoC references particular individual practices they disagree with.

On the other hand it's also true that the code doesn't mention any consequences for failing to follow specific rules on individual conduct.
it particularly says: .... 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" .... This rule is strict, and none are able to comply perfectly. Grace is readily granted for minor transgressions. All are encouraged to follow this rule closely, as in so doing they may expect to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. The entire rule is good and wholesome, and yet we make no enforcement of the more introspective aspects. ....

Re:But is it a bad code?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would have been very easy to edit down the core ideas into a purely secular and modern code, even if one chose to structure it similar to the original.

Maybe, but that would be missing the point. It's not ment to be a useful CoC for the SQLite project. It's a troll on the level of "it's okay to be white", except moreso: How the hell can you disagree with a 1500 year old dyed in the wool proven CoC? Well? Popcorn and watch the SJWs try.

Now to see if the project survives this hijink, which it still very much might not. I don't particularly like SQLite (and dislike its "we must have this!"-status with the likes of mozilla) so I have no strong attachment to the outcome either way. But they are playing a dangerous game. If someone has to do it, might as well be them, so kudos for doing the needful.

Re:But is it a bad code?

[goose-incarnated]

Sqlite is one of the most widely distributed and used libraries in all of software. It has larger penetration than Linux, is more ubiquitous than zlib.

I think they have the karma to burn on this.

Re:But is it a bad code?

[Cmdln Daco]

I clicked on the link and am wondering why Brion Vibber has a profile picture on twitter that looks like he's taking a difficult bowel movement.

Maybe it comes with the personality.

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

[alvinrod]

Shibboleths are things that are useful for identifying distinct groups of people. A good example is the bar scene in the Tarantino film Inglorious Bastards. One of the characters is an Englishman pretending to be a German Officer and he does an okay job, especially given the tense situation and everyone is fooled. However, the hand gesture he makes when ordering drinks is improper and immediately betrays him as a spy.

The word itself comes from an old Hebrew word that has an unrelated meaning to the present use, which springs from a Biblical story, where the word "Shibboleth" was used as a modern shibboleth because it was pronounced differently between two warring groups and could be used to tell if a person was a foe attempting to pass themselves off as a friend. There are plenty of other examples of this being employed throughout history. For example, if you're traveling in warn torn parts of the Middle East, you may want to memorize a few passages from the Quran as that's a common shibboleth used by militants to determine if someone is actually a Muslim since it's often impossible to know based on appearance alone.

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.

I think this is exactly the thing to do

[gweihir]

Wikipedia says about Chapter 4 "These are essentially the duties of every Christian and are mainly Scriptural either in letter or in spirit." This nicely points out that a CoC has nothing to do with the actual work being done and is all about some people wanting to control the forms of interaction allowed, impose the duty to follow some meaningless rituals, universally to the detriment of the project.

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

[lgw]

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

A religious war? In a tech community? Never heard of such a thing, which is why Captain Kirk using EMACS would be way better than Picard using VI!

Or is the complaint that the monks indented with tabs?

Re:The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[Austerity Empowers]

I mean Spock would use Vi, the guy goes around flashing V's with his hand for christ's sake.

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

[sconeu]

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

Q: How many SJWs does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

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.

Re:The SJWs Are Already Attacking The Project

[MrNiceguy_KS]

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

Q: How many SJWs does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

Does the lightbulb consent to the change? HOW DO YOU KNOW IT IDENTIFIES AS A LIGHTBULB??!

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!

BRILLIANT

[TimMD909]

Good job for SQLite! I like 19 (Console the sorrowing) the most. I also want to start a new project called "Sorrowing: The Console". It'd be like bash, but all the messages would be drenched in existential dread.

Re:BRILLIANT

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

You mean PowerShell?

Re:Be not Lazy?

[Sarten-X]

I specialize in automation. I do a lot of work trying to be lazy!

Don't try to get laid on the project mailing list

[raymorris]

Seen as guidelines for interaction *within the project* , chastity makes perfect sense to me. In other words "don't try to get laid on the project mailing list, hitting on another developer".

That's not the purpose of project communications, and nerds are notoriously awkward at flirting, often saying the wrong thing. To avoid saying the wrong thing while trying to hook up with the QA lady, just don't try to hook up with anyone on the project.

Wrong

[SuperKendall]

That is what happens to your fingers naturally after a lifetime of reaching for the Meta key in combination with other keystrokes.

He literally cannot put the fingers together anymore.

Emacs master.

Code_of_COMMANDMENTS

[HeckRuler]

Why not use something a little more updated:

I am the sysadmin, thy savior, which have brought thee out of th elands of paper, out of the house of bondage

1. Thou shalt have no other sysadmin before me
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any Gaben image
3. Thou shalt not email thy sysadmin in vain
4. Remember it's the weekend, keep it holy, don't call
5. Honour thy manager and thy HR
6. Thou shalt not kill -9
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery on company computers
8. Thou shalt not torrent
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness on thine tickets
10. Thou shalt not covet they neighbors hardware, nor his software, nor anything else.

Ye shall erect these memos which I command thee upon mount cubicle

Strange game

[WaffleMonster]

The only winning move is not to play

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.

This is not (very) new

[vakuona]

This code of conduct has been up for quite a while https://web.archive.org/web/20.... So clearly, all who were actually contributing to SQLite did not have a problem with it, as they would undoubtedly caused a stink at the time if they did.

Maybe this is a good way to weed out those who don't really want to contribute and should be ignored.

Besides, it is clear that is is partly tongue in cheek and partly just providing suggestions for how to build a community, particularly the bits like:

9. Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself.
22. Do not give way to anger.
23. Do not nurse a grudge.
24. Do not entertain deceit in your heart.
29. Do not return evil for evil.
66. Do not love quarreling.

Re: Nothing wrong with Contributor Covenant

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the Twitter feed of that Coraline person. It's full of stuff that is prohibited by the code of conduct she (it?) promotes:

The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances
Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
Public or private harassment

So that person is a hypocrite, definitely NOT an inclusive person, and definitely NOT the example anyone should follow.

All the things in that code of conduct are either common sense and are already in many other codes of conduct, or they are pure political bullshit and don't need to be in a code of conduct at all - like mentioning gender identity.

Open source is about the code so keep the conversation about the code, not people.

And people aren't perfect so interaction with people won't be perfect so if you can't handle that, maybe you need to contribute through a safety organization that will filter all communication to take out anything that triggers you. Maybe even replace it with compliments.

Definitely don't go to conferences because you will be shocked at how wild the real world is, or maybe go but wear a burka so nobody will recognize you or comment on your body parts they can't see.

There are ways to solve this problem without adopting political codes of conduct for open source projects, but those ways do not lead to more authority for the SJW so they are rejected.

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]

Actually its a decent list for conduct [cont]

[drnb]

... missed some ...

Desire eternal life with all the passion of the spirit. [ex. your former peers don't refactor you code away]
Keep death daily before your eyes. [ex. you refactor your own code]
Keep constant guard over the actions of your life. [ex. test your functions inputs for validity]
Know for certain that God sees you everywhere. [ex. source control will out you]
Disclose wrongful thoughts to your spiritual mentor. [ex. peer review]
Guard your tongue against evil and depraved speech. [ex. use readable names]
Do not love much talking. [ex. readable names are not necessarily complete sentences]
Speak no useless words or words that move to laughter. [ex. use libs, don't roll you own]
Do not love much or boisterous laughter. [ex. no, you shouldn't do that in javascript]
Listen willingly to holy reading. [ex. read your Knuth and Stroustrup]
Fulfill not the desires of the flesh; hate your own will. [ex. customers choose the target OS, not the devs]
Love chastity. [ex. you might as well get used to it]
Hate no one. [ex. they may one day work at the company you want to join]
Be not jealous, nor harbor envy. [ex. when the machine for the new hire arrives, don't swap out the GPU and HD with yours]
Do not love quarreling. [ex. Its OK if they want to run Windows]
Shun arrogance. [ex. tabs are wrong, get over it, use spaces]
Respect your seniors. [ex. college did not make you a great programmer]
Love your juniors. [ex. after all, they are doing all those tasks you despise]
Make peace with your adversary before the sun sets. [ex. the current build must be working in the morning]