Ubuntu Code of Conduct: omissions and suggestions

[Daniel Holbach]

Hello,

CCing the Community Council.

Have a great day,
 Daniel



On 05.04.2016 17:16, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> Hi folks
> 
> When Ubuntu’s Code of Conduct 
> <http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct> was published
> in 2005, it was groundbreaking. Few other open-source projects had
> one. It was far from perfect, but it had real benefits — most of
> all in establishing expectations, and rarely also in providing the
> authority to remove counterproductive project members.
> 
> The Code had a minor update in 2009, 
> <https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/updating-the-ubuntu-code-of-conduct>
>
> 
and a major revision in 2012. Since then, tens of thousands of other
> open-source projects have discussed and adopted their own codes of 
> conduct. So it’s no surprise that the state of the art has
> advanced.
> 
> By today’s standards, Ubuntu’s code of conduct falls short in four 
> notable areas, as identified on the Geek Feminism wiki: 
> <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct_evaluations>
> 
> 1.  No descriptions of common but unacceptable behavior. This
> means, for example, that the Ubuntu IRC Council has had to provide
> their own descriptions, even of things that don’t apply just to
> IRC. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/Guidelines>
> 
> 2.  No reporting instructions with contact information. This is
> perhaps the most glaring omission (and what motivated me to write
> today).
> 
> 3.  No information about enforcement. Version 1.0 said “the Ubuntu 
> Community Council will arbitrate in any dispute”, with 1.1 adding 
> “Ubuntu governance bodies”, but 2.0 removed both of these. 
> <https://launchpad.net/codeofconduct> Matthew Garrett made a start 
> on defining the enforcement process in 2007, but it didn’t go 
> anywhere. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CodeOfConductDisputeResolution> 
> The current process may be precise and well-known to the Community 
> team, but defining it in the Code itself would be much more 
> reassuring to potential reporters.
> 
> 4.  No clear demarcation between an anti-harassment policy and
> more general community guidelines. And more pertinently, no clear 
> anti-harassment policy at all.
> 
> I would add a fifth issue:
> 
> 5.  Needless bureaucracy of “signing” the Code. Firstly, this is 
> difficult to do: for example, step 1 is “Register an OpenPGP key”. 
> Secondly, it introduces weird questions about what happens if a 
> miscreant never signed the Code, or signed only an old version.
> And thirdly, it’s unnecessary: Ubuntu governing bodies should be
> able to sanction anyone using Ubuntu project forums or
> infrastructure whether they have signed a document or not. For
> example, I have never signed the Code (I tried once, but Launchpad
> lost my GPG keys), but I would expect to be held to it regardless,
> merely because I communicate on project channels and mailing
> lists.
> 
> Personally, I think the Ubuntu project would benefit from a
> revision that addressed these five issues.
> 
> Good reading on modern codes of conduct:
> 
> *   “Codes of conduct and the trade-offs of copyleft” by Sumana 
> Harihareswara 
> <http://crookedtimber.org/2015/04/10/codes-of-conduct-and-the-trade-offs-of-copyleft/>
>
>  *   The “Codes of Conduct” section from Karl Fogel’s “Producing
> open source software” 
> <http://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.html#code-of-conduct>
> 
> *   “HOWTO design a code of conduct for your community” by the Ada 
> Initiative 
> <http://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/>
>
>  *   “The complex reality of adopting a meaningful code of conduct”
> by Christie Koehler 
> <https://subfictional.com/2016/01/25/the-complex-reality-of-adopting-a-meaningful-code-of-conduct/>
>
> 
> 

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