Forgive me for butting in - long time user, lurker and enjoyer of the project. I think I would like to echo Angels sentiments and questions overall. There are some great points raised by him.
development is very difficult and spending days squabbling over a tiny part
of a spec that we don't control (FSP in this case, but the same is true of SBI, TFA, UEFI, etc) is counterproductive.
On the contrary, robust discussion and points/counterpoints is often productive. It’s not uncommon that the folks who end up stepping in to parent can grow weary of it. But in the professional world, that’s just part of the leadership job. If we have a talented engineer who produces well, but can be a bit of a thorn in the side with their views, we don’t manage them out (or exclude them).
What caught the leadership team's attention was the introduction of
personal insults into the mix which made a heated debate between two individuals much worse. We expect better from everyone, especially senior members of the community.
It is rightly correct that personal insults are not good. However, I’m struggling to see the offending behaviour specifically in the gerrit link given? In the interests of transparency for the community, can you be more specific and point to a specific time/date of comment where this personal insults are? I think everyone reading these threads may be a little confused as to exactly what has crossed the line into unacceptable behaviour and I certainly (at least in my experience of managing communities and engineers for 25+ years) wasn’t able to find anything in the Gerrit link provided that made me go “yep, that deserves some form of serious ban of at least a year.”
Perhaps I’m just not finding it, could you please link to the exact comment that triggered this decision, as myself and others have asked? Without actually calling out the specific trigger behaviour, you are leaving doubt in peoples mind. I do see your point about an ongoing pattern of behaviour, and understand this is not something that happened in isolation - but to point to an event as the final straw to trigger some reaction, then that event needs to be substantial enough to be able to demonstrate clearly why it was the trigger event.
if your company's HR department responded to complaints of sexual
harassment
This is a reach of a comparison and, if I may, I don’t think you are doing yourself much favour here. Comparing some oppositional or combative language - which no one has actually clearly pointed out yet - to sexual harassment in the workplace is not a good look. That is two whole different kettles of fish and I would go as far to say a demeaning comparison to those who are victims of sexual harassment.
While the code of conduct does give the organisers the right to impart any action as a punishment for unacceptable behaviour, a whole year ban as the first punishment does not seem to jive with a reasonable consequence. I feel that others are trying to highlight this point as well. If the leaderships decision is that a ban is imparted, a whole year as a “first consequence” comes across as having a lot of personal emotion driving it, or some other undisclosed motive.
A year just seems, well..... wrong.