Re: Code Of Conduct

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

ons, 31 05 2006 kl. 20:38 +0100, skrev Bill Haneman:
> On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 19:25, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> 
> > Nobody will be driven away by that, people might be driven away by
> > us stating that "you now are part of a community with a code of conduct".

Actually if persons are driven away by not being able to accept rules of
good conduct or The GNOME Ethics as we might prefer to call them then so
be it. IMHO.

> I don't agree.  Every community has a code of conduct, implied or
> explicit, IMO.  Anyhow, there's no real enforcement mechanism, so I
> don't see this as a realistic concern.
> 
> ANY change or statement with a "policy" feel carries the risk of
> alienating *somebody*, but that doesn't mean that embracing anarchy is
> better.

I have personally had the feeling over the past couple of years that the
general atmosphere in the GNOME community has hardened. 

I joined the community in 2001 when I meet you all at GUADEC in
Copenhagen. 
My reason for doing so was that it was the kindest most helpful group of
people (although mostly white western males) that I had met in FLOSS.

I think that being inventive is not equal to being anarchistic.

Anarchistic is not a virtue in my book. 

Besides I find that it is not clever not to be able to accept the normal
way of defining a well functioning democracy for all.

Social rules and ethics will definitely be a competition parameter also
for peoples personal choice of software now and in the future. 

> As an aside, I think the gender issue is important, and probably does
> reflect some "cultural" issues within our community (GNOME and the FOSS
> community in general).  Members of a community rarely understand the
> aspects of their culture that cause others to be alienated or
> disinterested, even if they understand why they themselves feel included
> and motivated.

I fully agree with Bill and others here and I think we have to establish
a gender action plan within GNOME, Ubuntu etc.

We have got the opportunity to start this good trend!

I do not say this to start a new long debat in this tread. But it has
become obvious that the 1% participation of women in FLOSS is
embarrassing and we need to have a look at why this is the case and make
some cultural changes.

I know that the Computer Science Department at the University of
Gothenburg in Sweden has a gender action plan:
http://www.informatik.gu.se/dokument/dokument.xsp?group=jamstalldhet&menu=org

I think that many other universities and even GNOME and Ubuntu could get
a lot of inspiration here. (Provided it gets translated from Swedish
into a language you understand.) 

One of the purposes is to get more women in to research and teaching.

Changing the mono culture is a vital goal. 

But to summon up what has happened in this debate:

Most of the persons who has expressed themselves in this tread are
positive to Murrays suggestion.

So I think we should go for it.

We might call it GNOME Ethics if "rules" has a disturbing ring to it. 


Anne