Gerrit etiquette

Dear coreboot community members,

Recently there was some unpleasant activity on Gerrit which violated the guidelines [1] regarding respectful conduct. Unfortunately this has directly caused a valued member of the community to withdraw from maintainership and has damaged relations with others as well.

After discussion and deliberation, the coreboot leadership has decided to revoke +2/-2 privileges for the provocateur and have asked him to fork the project to continue his work elsewhere, at least for the time being. This decision might be reconsidered at a later date if this person shows respectful behavior when working with community members in the future.

This is not the first time such situations have occurred and similar actions taken. It’s never an easy decision to make, however it is necessary to maintain a healthy and productive community. Even when only two people are directly involved in a conflict there are often others who are impacted. The cost of alienating developers and damage to the project is too high to tolerate any individual’s bad behavior.

We generally trust that developers acting in good faith and in a respectful manner can resolve conflicts on their own. However, we will continue to develop guidelines to help move things along when disagreements inevitably occur. In any case, it is always required that we treat others in a professional manner and communicate with respect, regardless of who is right or wrong on any issue.

[1] https://doc.coreboot.org/getting_started/gerrit_guidelines.html (https://doc.coreboot.org/getting_started/gerrit_guidelines.html)