Re: Code of Conduct

[David Kastrup]

Han-Wen Nienhuys <address@hidden> writes:

> A couple of people (me, Janek, Werner),  want to add a CoC to the LilyPond
> project, and there were some questions about why we would want to do that:
>
> There is a definite advantage to having a community with gentle
> interactions and without flames and personal attacks. It makes being part
> of the community more fun and rewarding, which in turn helps us attract and
> retain contributors. For almost all of us, working on LilyPond competes
> with other things in life, and if participating is net drain of emotional
> energy, those other activities will end up winning, and we'll see
> contributors leave.
>
> Having a CoC gives us a set of guidelines, a process and a set of
> corrective actions to take to help keep things nice. They are not an
> iron-clad guarantee that bad things won't happen, just as laws cannot
> prevent dictators from taking control always, but at the same time, most
> people prefer to live in societies that do have laws and means to enforce
> them.
>
> In open source projects, the BDFL model is pretty common, but if there is
> no process around how things work, the model falls apart if the BDFL
> departs. As a former Benevolent Dictator, I have been guilty of this too.
> Instituting a CoC is a tool to manage the community atmosphere that can
> outlive individuals responsible for doing so, and that spells out what the
> community can expect from those individuals.

For better or worse, a substantial part of the discussion is now on
<https://codereview.appspot.com/575620043/> where the original proposal
as an addition to the LilyPond development source tree has been posted.

-- 
David Kastrup