Re: Debian's Code of Conduct, and our technical excellence
On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 04:23:02PM +0000, Matthew Vernon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> There have a few posts in recent discussions by people suggesting (or, at
> least, appearing to suggest) that there is a conflict between technical
> excellence and our Code of Conduct (or aiming to increase the diversity of
> our membership, or similar).
>
Yet, situations will arise in which the two goals may incidentally come
into conflict.
> I think there is no such conflict, and that the idea that there is is in
> itself harmful.
>
I think that the idea that there is not or cannot be such a conflict is
rather more harmful.
> In particular, "X does excellent technical work, so we should turn a blind
> eye when their violate our CoC otherwise the technical excellence of the
> project will suffer" is both wrong and harmful. If we want to achieve
> technical excellence, we will do so by having many talented people working
> together. If we restrict our talent pool to "people who are prepared to
> tolerate a toxic environment", then we are harming that goal.
>
Your statement right here is a clear prioritization of the two goals in
a situation where they may come into conflict. Only, you said a moment
ago that there is no such conflict.
> Our Code of Conduct is not an onerous restriction on behaviour, it's a tool
> to help us build the sort of environment in which excellent technical people
> will be able to do their best work.
>
I agree with this objective, just as I agree with objectives of the
Social Contract and the DFSG. It doesn't take much searching to find
instances where Debian as a project has had to prioritize one objective
over another.
In fact, one which arises frequently is the matter of freeness of a
piece of software. The Debian project seeks to create the best possible
operating system and collection of software. To that end, people
contribute what they believe to be the best possible components. Yet,
if a particular package, regardless of how technically excellent it is,
does not meet the DFSG then it is not accepted.
I will give another concrete example which I believe illustrates the
potential for a conflict of the objectives.
[note that the foregoing is a made up scenario, if this resembles
anybody's real life experience, it is only by coincidence]
Suppose for a moment that a project member has been sexually abused at
some point by a Catholic clergyman and so finds things related to the
Catholic church to be unpleasant because they call to mind many
traumatic memories. Suppose that another project member has a new child
and posts pictures of the christening taking place in a Catholic church
or perhaps marries and posts pictures of the wedding ceremony in a
Catholic church Some questions:
- If the first member were to request removal of the offending post,
would that request be acceptable to make?
- Would it make a difference if the request included information
regarding the past traumatic experience?
- If the first member were to say nothing but a third party were to make
the request (whether on behalf of the first member or not), would that
request be acceptable to make?
- If the second member refuses to take action (after all, they are just
pictures of a baby christening or a wedding), then is that wrong?
- How should the second member be penalized or what corrective action
should be taken?
- Would it be wrong or right to ask the first member to be more
accepting?
The point is that here I have presented a situation that is not too
dissimilar from real situations that are likley to occur in the project
in which two or more individuals with a shared common of technical
excellence relating to Debian have encountered a conflict in the goal of
inclusiveness. The first member is likely to feel excluded of they make
the aforementioned request and no action is taken, while the second
member is likely to feel excluded if they are requested to censor their
speech. At no point is it necessary or even right to consider, "how
much is this person's technical contribution worth?" Yet, the two
objectives are still found in conflict in the situation because either
path is the potential to result in diminished technical contribution to
Debian as a whole.
The reason I use the above example is because it is a difficult case to
handle. The cases where harm is clearly intended are comparitavely very
easy to deal with. Those in which harm may or may not have been
intended but in which harm may be perceived are more challenging.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Sánchez
Reply to: