CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

No Code of Conduct

TL;DR: This project does NOT have a so called Code of Conduct, nor will it ever have one.

The Rant

The reasons are somewhat complicated and I'll try my best to document them here.

Ethical codes or rules come along like laws. But how is ethical or moral behavior defined? And who defines which behavior is ethical and which is not? Certainly not me.

Unless you live in a dictatorship (and more than half of the population of planet earth do as of this writing), laws come into existence by democratic procedures. Laws cover almost every aspect of live in a society. Laws allow and forbid behavior and laws sanction infringements.

A software project like this one on the other hand is not a society. There are not enough people involved to form democratic structures. And there will always be a minority of users who have the right to commit or reject code. How could any maintainer of a software project dare to decree rules upon others? Actually, am I, the current maintainer of this very project authorized to do so?

I think the anser to this question clearly is NO.

The issue is being complicated by the fact, that open source development these days happens on planetary scale. And this planet houses hundreds if not thousands of different cultures, philosophies, ideologies and worldviews. The answer to many ethical questions will in most cases vague and nebulous.

Ones joke will always be another ones insult.

Then there is the problem of language. I myself am not an english native, but I publish everyting using the english language. I am able to communicate with most people in the open source community because of that. But I am certainly not able to understand everything and everyone. There might be nuances to a sentence I don't sense, there might be sarcastic connotations I don't understand or references to historical figures, events or traditions I don't know and never have heard of.

Judging over other peoples online behavior looks like a titanic task to me. It is just not my job to judge others, I am not legitimized or authorized to do so and I am not interested in this kind of business.

Another huge problem with ethical rules is that you need to outline and enforce sanctions on those who violate the rules. But since I am not an elected authority how would I be able to do this? I don't know. And what happens if someone complains about myself? Shall I remove myself from my own project? Come on!

Last but not least there's the law. So, let's say someone in india says something insulting to some other developer in an issue. Of course german law does not apply to indian people. More, the insult might actually not be an insult in india. In the end, nothing would happen. Under normal circumstances, maintainers would delete the posting, ban the user or remove push privileges etc.

But then, is there a way for the offending user to defend himself? Of course not, since neither indian or german law alone applies. I cannot go to a german court and sue the guy and he cannot do the same in india. Or - we possibly could but the judges on both countries would just laugh and close the case.

That being said, I don't have the power nor the tools, nor the authority to enforce serious sanctions of any meaningful kind against others. Therefore I cannot outline any rules whatsoever.

And let's not even start talking about there undemocratic "comitees" many projects are forming to circumvent this problem. Some projects even include external entities like a lawer or some bureaucrat somewhere just to have the ability to complain against a comitee member. What a mess!

So, which are the ethical rules within this project then?

Well, there are none.

This project is about code, not society. It doesn't matter where you come from, how you look, how you think, what you believe, who your friends are, whay you said or did sometime in the past. I don't even care if you are a human being. You are an alien so bored that you need to submit code on github? Fine with me. You're a convicted criminal? I don't give a shit!

The only thing I am interested here is Code and only Code.

So if anyhing happens here I don't like or I am obliged by law to act on, I will decide on a case to case basis what to do. And unfortunately, since this is the nature of a github project, you cannot complain, object or protest. I am very sorry!

If you will, let's at least outline these:

• Please - just please - behave towards others as you'd expect others to behave towards yourself.

• Don't judge others for any reason.

• Only judge the code.

But these are not rules, only a friendly appeal to you as a developer and user.

Thanks a lot!