[arch-dev-public] Formal Objection to Adopting the Code of Conduct

[Giancarlo Razzolini]

Em setembro 4, 2021 9:36 Allan McRae via arch-dev-public escreveu:
> We appear to be reaching the point where a formal code of conduct will
> be officially adopted.
>

Hmm, it was a long time ago. It's pointed out on all the support channels.

> What is that I hear you say?  We have had a Code of Conduct for a long
> time?  And you are incorrect.
>

Not really.

> The history of the Code of Conduct is poorly documented.  But it started
> out as a forum guidelines written by one of the forum admins. As far as
> I can ascertain, this document had no input from the project leadership.
> At some stage this was moved to the wiki and became titled as a Code of
> Conduct as more general points were added to cover aspects of Arch
> beyond the forums.
>

As far as I know both Aaron, which was the leader when the CoC was introduced,
and Levente, not only knew about the CoC, but were fine with it.

> At no point has this code of conduct ever been formally adopted by the
> distribution.  In fact, our distribution has no constitution detailing
> what the purpose of this distribution is and how it will be governed.
> So there is no formal process for officially adopting a Code of Conduct.
>

The CoC was adopted by all the support channels.

> Why does this matter now?  The Code of Conduct is moving from being a
> random wiki page, to a "binding" document that users must agree to in
> order to access our services. Before this can happen, Arch Linux needs
> to adopt a formal governance structure in order to approve such a
> binding change.
>

Why it needs "formal governance"?

> Take a look at other distributions governance structures and constitutions:
> https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/council/
>

Both Debian and Fedora have thousands of contributors, we have about a hundred
formal staff, plus many volunteers that help on the support channels. I'm not
saying we shouldn't have formal documents (we're headed that way), just saying
I don't think we need a constitution, yet.

> I formally object to adopting a formal Code of Conduct until we have a
> clear governance structure who can develop the policies and procedures
> that are formally needed to enforce a Code of Conduct.  Currently the
> Code of Conduct states the Project Leader is responsible for
> enforcement, although that is not listed as one of their duties as
> approved when developing the Project Leader election procedure:
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DeveloperWiki:Project_Leader
> This once again demonstrate the lack of formal governance within the
> distribution. We can not proceed with a Code of Conduct (or the Terms of
> Service and Privacy Policy), until a formal governance structure and
> procedures are developed to approve such documents.
>

Again with the assertion that we cannot proceed without governance. The "why"
is missing. Don't get me wrong, I think we will inevitably have some sort of
council. But I don't see the need for one *right now*. Nor do I think we should
block everything until we do.

> Again, until such a governance structure has been developed, I formally
> object to the official adoption of the Code of Conduct.
>

Again, it was adopted for a long time now.

Regards,
Giancarlo Razzolini
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