Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

[Mukund Sivaraman <muks banu com>]

Hi Lucas

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 12:48:45PM +0000, Lucas Rocha wrote:
> The GNOME Code of Conduct[1] has been serving very well as an
> informal guideline for the community but we'd like to make it an
> official document that new Foundation members are expected to
> explicitly agree[2] with before being accepted.

I think this is taking it too far. The "Code of Conduct" being
presented as a set of guidelines is OK, but it is not wise to make it
policy.  The GNOME project is not a sect, to control what I can and
cannot say/do in public.

The current code of document[1] has some incredible guidelines such as
the advice against using "RTFM", which arguably has nothing to do with
bad behavior.  Also, instructions such as "Be patient and generous" are
vague by themselves. Your measure of patience may be quite different
from mine. These are OK as guidelines, but not as policy.

1. http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct

		Mukund