Re: Patch submission should not imply agreement to policy (was Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?)

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@freenet.de>]

Thanks to Mark H Weaver for writing ... how to say .. the mirror 
perspective of what I wish I would have written as sole input so far :)


On 30/10/2018 14.28, Christopher Lemmer Webber wrote:

>>>> It used to be that you could pick a Free Software project and send a patch.
>>>>
>>>> Now sending a patch is supposed to imply agreeing to the equivalent of
>>>> an EULA? Everyone is expected to welcome that as progress?
> 
> The statement above makes it sound like the Code of Conduct is
> dramatically new.

It is based on the fact that there are many projects that existed for 
some time before adopting a CoC. The EULA comparison is only about CoCs 
with "covenant" and "we contributors pledge" type of language.

While benefiting from and accepting a copyleft license is pretty much a 
precondition for a patch, that is not the case for a CoC that tries to 
bind one on contribution.


> My claim here was that in both cases, there is a
> policy the community has adopted.  One is legal and copyleft, the other
> is behavioral and a code of conduct.  In both cases, your participation
> in this community is dependent on your willingness to agree to respect
> the policies and norms that the group upholds.

Submitting a patch might involve only the most minimal interaction with 
one maintainer. Staying within a very narrow subset of rules that a 
group might uphold should suffice to cause no harm to anyone while 
allowing people to benefit from the work.

The group is not clearly delineated. The actual norms are only shown in 
how the maintainers and regulars act.


> The code of conduct
> does not provide a legal enforcement mechanism, so the EULA comment in
> that sense does not hold up; this is just a codification of some of the
> norms that we have.  But someone made the EULA comment, and the extent
> that it *did* make sense (that there are policies, in some way), I
> wanted to reply to it.

What I had in mind is: Unpacking an old-school software that has a 
shrink-wrap EULA is meant to imply acceptance of the license.

Likewise, contributing to Guix is apparently meant to imply that one 
makes the pledge as outlined in that CoC.

In both cases, you are meant to not get one without the other. It 
happened that one could not read the EULA in advance and it happened 
that I contributed before reading the CoC carefully. I distrust it's 
origin and I'm not happy about a few details, though they most likely 
will never matter. So I could almost, but not quite make such a promise, 
but I cannot be made to make such a promise. Especially retroactively. 
Even less can I be made to make a promise that might change:

I assume that Ricardo and Ludovic want to have the option of editing the 
CoC without asking every single contributor. Well, people should better 
know what the current state of their pledge is.

Not that I think the two would introduce a nasty surprise, it's just 
that the "covenant" and "we as contributors ... pledge" language is 
dishonest.

Reject a contribution, talk to me, warn me, set an ultimatum, ban me if 
I did wrong by your norms as you see fit, that's all fine and expected 
with or without CoC anyway, but please don't try to make me say: those 
norms are mine (independent on whether they could be).

If I sound like a drama royal person ... so be it! ;)


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/