[Arm-netbook] Code of conduct?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

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crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 8:29 AM, pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)
<pelzflorian at pelzflorian.de> wrote:
> On 09/17/2016 04:08 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 9:06 PM, Sam Pablo Kuper
>> <sampablokuper at posteo.net> wrote:
>>> Does anyone else here think it would be, on balance, a good idea to
>>> adopt a Code of Conduct, perhaps based on the Contributor Covenant[0],
>>> for some combination of: this mailing list; the Rhombus Tech wiki?
>>
>> ok.  first thing that needs to be said: the wiki and the mailing list
>> are there as resources (run by me) whose sole purpose is to support
>> the goals of the EOMA initiative, for which (as the "Guardian of the
>> EOMA Standards") i and i alone am currently directly responsible.
>> "being nice" or "being inclusive" or "making people happy" is not a
>> direct target, or a direct or indirect measure of success, in any way,
>> as part of the responsibility of protecting the EOMA standards.
>>
>
> A code of conduct is only useful if there are multiple administrators
> who may disagree and decisions based on policy are needed. We have to
> trust Lkcl anyway.

 true *for now*...  in the future there will be more people involved.

>>> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918
>>> and
>>> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122
>>
>> i would be interested in an evaluation as to whether anyone feels that
>> esr's comments are compatible with the Bill of Ethics.  my feeling is
>> that they are, and that the "Contributor Covenant" most certainly is
>> not.
>>
>> l.
>>
>
> They seem to be constructive (bill of ethics 3.10), but the first one
> may also be a deliberate misunderstanding to convince others that
> sexism/racism/… is OK

 only if you choose to *make* such a deliberate misunderstanding.

> (limiting the contributions and thus creativity of
> affected people, see bill of rights 3.03).

 if there were any mention of the words "creed" or "colour" or any
other deliberately exclusionary terms, you would be absolutely
correct.  however there is not a single term or phrase in the entire
document which may be construed as being *remotely* of the type that
you fear.

 thus we can conclude that the perceived possibility of a
misunderstanding is merely that, and is not related to this document
in any way.

 remember: this document is designed to be applicable right down to
the smallest social club all the way up to Sovereign Nations.  acting
in self-defense in an *ethical* way is a really really vital part of
it.


> Accepting contributions
> regardless of gender/race/… does not mean accepting contributions
> regardless of quality.

 correct.  one of the things that i love about free software is that
most people are completely anonymous behind a wall of plain text.  we
don't give a fuck about people's gender, or race, or age, or size, or
any other fuckwit politically bullshit-orientated delusionary
attitudes.  if you have the self belief to step forward onto a public
mailing list and can speak with a rational and clear voice, chances
are that you'll do okay.

 if however you fear being victimised (for irrational or subconscious
traumatic childhood reasons or many other reasons too numerous to
list) that have absolutely nothing to do with the goal that everyone
else is focussing on, *or* if your background is sufficiently
technically lacking that you're unable to contribute usefully, chances
are high that it's not going to go well for you unless you're prepared
to overcome those fears or lack of technical knowledge in pursuit of
the goal.


> Criticism of meritocracy is mostly about
> meritocracies not being real meritocracies, e.g. by favoring the loudest
> over the silent, judging not on real merit but stereotypes, etc. (see [1]).

 bob's team's 20-year-long study shows that compared to *all* other
forms of decision-making, unanimous small groups 50-50 men and women
of between 7 and 9 people total is by far and above the most effective
means to achieve goals.  this is not a new discovery: it's a
rediscovery of something that's been shown to be highly effective
throughout human history, the more recent descriptions include the
book "The Mythical Man-Month" as well as "Agile Programming".

 anyway: you can probably tell that i don't think highly of
meritocracies.  this was one of the mistakes made by the Apache
Software Foundation with the introduction of their Charter, which
solely and exclusively required consideration of contributions based
on "technical merit".  back in 1998 or so i proposed that they
consider adding "strategic merit" to the Charter but this was not
taken up.



> I don’t think creativity is the perfect basis for ethics though.

 i do.  i instinctively get it, from my background in physics as well
as other training including some that's related to daoism, some in
christianity, and some related to the kaballah.  really long story
dating back over the last 28 years and counting.

 the clue is in the mention of the word "entropy".  bear in mind also
that bob's father was a famous theoretical physicist, and that bob
himself met paul dirac, years ago.  so like many physicists, bob is
aware that a vacuum is literally seething with unbelievable potential
energy to create absolutely any particle.

 if we wish to maintain a particular "state", we have to be aware of
ourselves and also aware of that state, otherwise it is impossible
(like the million monkeys typing shakespeare and then one of them
eating it) to achieve.  entropy being what it is, it requires *effort*
to both reach and then maintain a chosen "state".

 if the connection between ethics and creativity isn't clear, re-read
the definitions.   bob uses the terms "truth, love, awareness and
creativity" as synonyms for the same underlying concept, on the basis
that if you reduce any one of them, you reduce all the others as well.

 the bill of ethics is just the tip of the iceberg: a result of 30
years of work by some extraordinary people.  i've been investigating
their work for the past few months and am only beginning to scratch
the surface.

l.