Theodore Ts'o writes ("Re: Code of Conduct complaint about Linus's comments at DC14"):
> I will note that others felt the same way as you, while others felt
> clearly that it was not an CoC violation. We could say that this was
> a situation that "was" close, except that there were a number of
> people, even excluding you and I, that felt that it was obviously a
> CoC violation, and others that it was obviously *not* a CoC violation.
> There was a very strong diversity of opinion, and if it happens that a
> random set of people on some team gets to decide what clearly had a
> strong diversity of opinions, with a resulting potentially very severe
> penalty, then maybe the CoC is unfortunately vague.
I think this is indeed unfortunate, but I'm happy to tolerate some
unfortunate randomness in CoC decisions like this one. You are right
that such a decision can be difficult not just because it's `close'
but also because of radically divergent views in our community. But I
still think we need to be able to make such decisions - even if some
people will find the decision clearly wrong while others find the same
decision unarguably correct.
That's not to say that clarity and consistency couldn't be improved.
I suggested on -project that we should have a set of examples of
behaviours with suggested levels of response. That would include
examples of controversial but non-violating expressions of opinion.
It would also allow us to have the conversation about acceptable
boundaries in the abstract and in advance. Having that conversation
ad hoc, after a specific event, is very difficult.
> So if it's Debian's position that they don't want to have any possible
> controversial discussion that might possibly lead to an uncomfortable
> situation, that's fine. I'm observing that it would be a good idea to
> say so _explicitly_. And if not, then maybe the CoC should be
> clarified in the other direction.
My problem was not that Linus put forward unpalatable views. For
example, I found his views on public mailing list conduct unpalatable
- more so than his vehement dislike of the FSF - but they were
expressed decently and the proper way to challenge them was to respond
(as I and others did[1]). As others have pointed out, Zack's plenary
talk had some views in which might be unpalatable to some.
My problem was with the _way Linus expressed_ his views of the FSF.
So that's what I complained about. But, I know that other people have
a different opinion, both about what the real problem with Linus's
comments was, and indeed whether there is was problem at all. That
difference of opinion has been explored at some length and I don't
really want to add to it any more than absolutely essential.
[1] In future it would perhaps be better to structure interactions
with a controversial speaker in a way that makes it easier to
challenge them. The Q&A format, with a single speaker and a question
queue, made that rather more difficult than ideal. For example, in
this case, a panel discussion might have worked better.
With the FSF, we had a `cooperation with the FSF' BOF which worked
very well. (Although I felt there was rather too much of Debian's
various internal factions grinding their own axes using John Sullivan
as a proxy or punchbag, that was a collective failure of us as
attendees, not a problem resulting from the structure of the item.)
Thanks,
Ian.
--
Please respect the privacy of this mailing list. Some posts may be declassified
3 years after posting as per http://www.debian.org/vote/2005/vote_002
Archive: file://master.debian.org/~debian/archive/debian-private/
To UNSUBSCRIBE, use the web form at <http://db.debian.org/>.
|
|
