Code of Conduct
Version 2.1, 13-December-2024
This document is designed for use by multiple projects, please change the following two lines as appropriate:
- The Project means the Post Open Project.
- Management means the Post Open Administration.
Preface
This code of conduct applies to the operation of Management and all meeting and discussion venues in which the Management has control. Participation in the Project requires adherence to this code of conduct.
We operate in a large and international community in which opinions significantly differ. There are broad differences between people, internationally, culturally, as well as differences in individual conduct. This code of conduct is intended to bring our community together and to resist the things that drive them apart.
Many Open Source projects have enacted a code of conduct. This one is different from those, perhaps radically different, in that it declares that the project will not take a position on many social issues that we hold dear, and that those issues will not be discussed within the project, but may be discussed in a "Free Speech Zone" which is distanced from the project and which we do not concern ourselves with other than supporting its manager in operating peaceful and safe discussions. This is necessary if all of our participants are to get along.
This code of conduct protects our participants activities on those issues outside of our project and encourages them to pursue political and social involvement outside of our project.
The Project has a separate process for admitting developers to the privilege of being able to check in submissions to our software archive. This is mainly based upon security. It may reference this code of conduct.
1. Tolerance is Important
Please be tolerant of accidents and failure to remember these requirements. Remind people _politely_ where necessary. If repeated conduct is clearly intentional, this will become evident and should be dealt with. However, we need to recognize that many participants are awkward, may be distracted, and have been socialized differently from us.
2. Prosecution
Violation of this code of conduct may result in penalties. These may include all or some of the following: denial of invitation to our next physical meeting, moderation or exclusion of the posting privilege from our online forums, and in extreme situations including threats and physical violence: exclusion from the project. Moderation is an expensive use of our time and thus exclusion of some form may be the only economical penalty.
Penalties should have a finite term and must be designed to facilitate reform of the offender and reintegration into full participation in the project, except in cases where multiple timed penalties have not resulted in remediation of behavior.
3. Physical Contact
All of our participants have a right to safety and sanctity of their person within our venues. Physical contact is, unfortunately, an area in which many people have differing sensitivities, and cultural norms differ significantly, along with concern regarding transmission of disease.
It's necessary for everyone to understand that some people just hate to be touched, and some will perceive your touch in a way that you do not intend. Unfortunately, rules that only prohibit "unwanted" physical contact are unworkable, as a person's wants may not be communicated.
To set a standard that accommodates varying sensitivity and clearly protects everyone, we request and require those who desire physical contact to refrain. We discourage but will not prosecute handshakes and fist-bumps, but know this: in any dispute brought by the recipient of physical contact, the initiator of the contact will be considered to be in the wrong, without adjudication of whether the contact was appropriate or wanted. Physical contact is anything that has a physical effect upon someone, such as blocking a person from going where they wish, blowing air, throwing an object or deliberately causing a door to hit someone.
The clarity we gain from not having to debate the nature and appropriateness of a physical contact helps us to protect everyone. As an alternative to physical contact, we suggest a wave, nod, or bow, or if you wish to be more fancy: the martial arts "rei", which symbolizes respect, strength moderated by restraint, and humility.
We recognize that some participants have been socialized in an environment where physical contact is the norm, and will find this emotionally difficult. Please do your best.
4. Civil Conduct
We require civil conduct of all participants. This includes polite and respectful dialogue at all times, and is not limited to speech: gestures and actions are also part of polite and respectful communication. You should behave as if you expect the best of everyone around you, and should be graceful and tolerant when others make unintentional social errors. Give them all the best conduct that you are capable of.
Although you may not be used to this outside of our events, at our physical events you should politely greet individuals whom you meet in any context where it is practical, whether or not you have been introduced. This acknowledges the presence of the other person and that they are someone who deserves your polite conduct, and reinforces that we insist on a standard of civility that is greater than the norm. This may be saying "good day" or "hello" to someone you pass in the hall, sit down next to, etc.
We recognize that there are some participants for whom severe shyness is a disability, eye contact is uncomfortable, or perception of social cues is impaired and communication may be socially awkward. Please be considerate and respectful of them.
5. Political and Social Discussions
To facilitate everyone getting along, we limit discussion strictly to the intended topic. An online discussion or meeting intended to be focused on a technical or administrative topic must stay on that topic.
Discussion of these topics are off-limits for any of our venues or events outside of the Free Speech Zone: religion, politics, war, social issues, gender issues, ethnic issues. You should also not wear or display logos or slogans regarding these issues at our physical events, in video conference or associated with our online discussions, for example an e-mail signature.
This does not prohibit, for example, an organization that would mentor women and minorities to participate in the Project. It only requires that they do so in their own organization, with their own budget and leadership, and use the Free Speech Zone or their own discussion channels. Our developers are free to spend their income on such organizations.
Outside of the rules on physical contact, or conduct incident to a Project venue, for example in a place frequented by attendees during such an event, the political and social conduct of a person outside of a Project venue or discussion should not be brought up within a Project venue or discussion. This protects our participants right to political expression.
Where it has been made clear to you that a person has a self-designated gender or no gender, your discussion will conform to that in the interest of politeness, regardless of how you feel about gender issues.
You may politely convey wishes with a holiday or religious context, for example wishing someone a merry Christmas or an easy fast, but the discussion should be limited to that and should not be conveyed in a way that excludes or is intended to annoy non-religionists.
6. Free Speech Zone
The Project may arrange for or permit a Free Speech Zone at its conferences and associated with its online discussions, in which topics prohibited by this code may be discussed. We will allow this zone to be operated by a third party, under their own rules, and we will not concern ourselves with activity in that zone except to appoint the operator and to support the operator in maintaining peaceful and safe discussions. The operator we appoint is expected to present us with their own rules, which should enforce civil and respectful discussion, a ban on threats, and may include a ban on topics which have little purpose other than to generate offense, for example those promoting violent conduct toward any party, racism and sexism, certain conduct toward minors, and obscenity for its sake. The operator's rules should not in general restrict discussion, however the operator is free to choose program topics and reject others arbitrarily due to restrictions on space and time.
The intent of this section is to support social initiatives that are being carried on outside of our organization, but free speech isn't always nice. If you find yourself easily offended, don't go there.
7. The Project Position on Political and Social Issues
The Project and its essential business affiliates, such as banks, insurers, and providers of contracted labor may be required by law to adopt certain social stances, for example we may be required not to discriminate in hiring. Where compliance with such rules is necessary, we will act in accordance with them.
It is recognized that this is complicated by the international nature of our activity and conflicts in law across borders.
Other than as required by law, THE PROJECT DOES NOT TAKE A POSITION on matters of religion, politics, war, social issues, gender issues, ethnic issues. We understand that many of you may feel that there is only one ethical stance on these things, that the failure to take a stance is just as bad as the wrong stance, and you strongly desire us to take it. All of us feel that. We could only take a stance at the cost of not having all of our participants get along. We are sorry for the emotional difficulty that this will cause some participants.
Outside of Project events and venues, we encourage you to be politically and socially active, and to take part in organizations that are active on these issues. We are sorry that we can't provide a venue for you to do so.
8. Dissent
It is important to cultivate and nurture dissent in discussions. Dissent should be on-topic and offered politely. Internal criticism is essential because it requires us to consider ideas and improve what we're doing. Please do not take the person who offers dissent as an enemy. Strive to understand their viewpoint.
9. No Secrets
Munitions export laws (ITAR and EAR in the US) mainly protect trade-secrets, and allow the export of information that would otherwise be prohibited for export as long as that information is in the "public domain", not in a copyright sense, but in the sense of information which is already publicly disclosed. Unfortunately many of our projects are dual-use (civilian and military) under export law and can be considered "munitions" and export-restricted. This includes projects related to high-performance computing, communications, cryptography, aviation, space and satellites. For example, there have been recent attacks by the US Congress on RISC-V and associated software (like language compilers) as it is taken up by nations they consider hostile.
Thus, it is essential that all parts of the Project operate in the open. Technical discussions must be made available to the public if at all practical. This does not mean that every informal phone call and email exchange must be published, but significant decisions must be, and the public should be able to read any online discussion even if the privilege of posting is controlled.
The Project does not have trade secrets, because the software and content is entirely disclosed. We understand that there may be secrets before developers decide to release software as part of the Project. At the moment of release, that work becomes publicly known.
Administrative proceedings must not be secret unless required by law, and even then the Project must act to make as much of a proceeding public as possible. This does not require publication of casual phone calls and emails, but decisions of import must be published.
10. Be Accommodating of Disabilities and Differences
While the onus of accommodating disabilities is mainly on Management, the conference committee, and the venue; every participant should be aware of disabilities and differences and should accommodate them appropriately. Please pitch in by helping wherever possible so that everyone, regardless of their differences, feels welcomed, wanted, and cared for.
A. Color Blindness
Presentations, publications and software user interfaces that use color for information should be made with awareness of the color blind, for example see https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/ . Where graphics are used to indicate the magnitude of something, the difference should be dependent on luminance, with an optional overlay of color tint, rather than chrominance alone. Where there are color designations for things, such as the "red room", the color name, "RED" in this example, should be superimposed over the color indication.
B. Blindness
Online presentations should have informative "alt text" for illustrations if the medium allows - the web definitely does. Consider the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Don't use overlays that are promoted to fix disability accommodation issues, they often get in the way of the disabled reader. Fix the original content.
C. Speech Issues
Conference operators should provide a standardized means of submitting questions without speech, to accommodate speech deficits, shyness, and fear of public speaking. This should use simple HTML as its user interface, to accommodate varying ways of interacting with it such as text-to-speech and braille readers, etc.
D. Hearing Issues
Perhaps a majority of people have a fear of public speaking, and one of the ways this manifests is a reluctance to use the microphone. But you might not have considered that the hard-of-hearing people in your audience won't hear you if you don't use the microphone. Please be respectful of them and use it.
Venues used for meetings should provide disability accommodations (ADA-compliant in USA) and presentation spaces should provide a hard-of-hearing listening system. or Auracast. The Project intends to standardize on Auracast as it arises at the retail level. Low-power transmitters are already <$100 at retail, and the BlueZ team is implementing it for Linux.
For the more severely deaf, many nations have legal requirements to provide assistance, often sign language interpretation. Even in the US, this is not necessarily American Sign Language, multiple different ones are used, including two different versions of Signing Exact English. There are more than 300 different versions of manual communication used worldwide.
F. Dietary
Participants are likely to have widely divergent dietary requirements, some physical, some religious. Please be respectful of them.
G. Religious
While religion is not a topic of discussion within our community, some participants must structure their time and actions to meet their personal religious commitments. Please be respectful of religious practices that differ from your own, including restrictions on meeting times, unexplained absences, inability to attend meetings on certain dates or at particular locations.
H. Other
Not all special needs are self-evident. A person presenting without issues might be able to walk short distances, but require a wheelchair for longer periods. A participant might require sleep, silence, or some other accommodation not immediately obvious. Take this into consideration when you interact with each other.
11. Weaponization
It is an unfortunate fact that any social code can be used to exclude people for reasons other than the intent of the code. The Project, in enforcing this code, must consider whether the motivation of an accuser is purely that of creating the desired environment for participants, or whether there could be another motivation.
12. What About My Right To Free Speech?
We have a right to Free Speech just as you do. That means that we have a right to control the speech at our events and discussions. Free speech laws do not obligate us to provide you with a venue for your speech, nor do they allow us to prevent you from finding such a venue, as long as it is one outside of our control. We may allow a Free Speech Zone just for that purpose, but even the Free Speech Zone has its own rules.
13. Operation of Enforcement
Enforcement will consider the Paradox of Tolerance which states:
If a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.
Discussion of issues prohibited above is permitted to any person or group participating in enforcement in the venue or discussion concerned with enforcement and in the context of discussion of violations of those prohibitions.
Topics which are subject to this code of conduct are permitted in a discussion group, online or physical, concerning development of the code of conduct itself and in the code of conduct text itself.
Although there are always uncomfortable social issues in discussion of code enforcement, the cost of secrecy is greater than that of the cost of such discussions being known. All deliberation regarding enforcement of this code must be made available to the public through full and accurate recordings or transcripts, if it is not made in a medium that is inherently available to the public.
The "No Secrets" issue is so important, because it could cause export prohibition to apply to some of our software, that severe or repeated violations may result in the exclusion of a violator from the Project entirely.
The code of conduct is also more important when applied to Management. Violations of this code by staff are grounds for remediation. Repeated violations of this code by staff after initial remediation should result in dismissal.
14. Credits
Bruce Perens created this code of conduct. Onno Benschop contributed many edits while the initial work was stabilizing.