[coreboot] coreboot code of conduct

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 16.01.2015 19:15, Marc Jones wrote:
> A coreboot code of conduct has been posted on the wiki.
>   - http://www.coreboot.org/Code_of_Conduct
>
> I have written a blog post about why we have a code of conduct.
>   - http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/01/16/coreboot-code-of-conduct/
>
> Feel free to give feedback on the policy and how else we can contribute to
> a welcoming and collaborative environment.

How do we handle a conflict between our own Code of Conduct and the Code
of Conduct of a conference where coreboot is participating? Will we
ignore our own CoC or will we simply not attend? Does it depend on
whether the CoC is similar in spirit or not?
Some conferences declare their own CoC as binding for everyone and
disallow participating projects from enforcing any project CoC. Other
conferences allow every participating project to declare the project CoC
as binding.


Having a Code of Conduct is no silver bullet against people criticizing
you on the internet: The FOSDEM conference has a CoC on every printed
conference programme, tells attendees to report concerns to any staff
member, and the contact phone number is of one of the female staff
members. FOSDEM staff+volunteers will do everything possible to make you
feel welcome at their conference. The number of reports of harassment
for FOSDEM apparently is zero, both for reports to the staff and reports
on the internet.
That didn't help them, though. A quick google search will find a few
people calling for a boycott of FOSDEM because they think the FOSDEM CoC
is "no proper code of conduct", others complaining that "zero reports is
not the same as zero occurrences" and claiming that if harassment
happens at other conferences it also must have happened at FOSDEM. Some
people even complained that FOSDEM allowed individual communities to
declare their own community CoC as binding for the community developer
rooms.


The Code of Conduct yes/no problem is a no-win situation with
ideological background. Regardless of what we do, someone will be
unhappy. It is fundamentally similar to the blob yes/no problem in
coreboot vs. libreboot. I sincerely hope this will not cause a community
split into a coreboot-be-nice and a coreboot-CoC camp.

Side note: Most advocates for a CoC on the internet seem to live in the
US and/or have visited conferences in the US. The harassment reports I
found online about tech conferences seem to have a statistical anomaly:
a disproportionately higher amount of complaints about US conferences.
Some female colleagues of mine prefer to visit conferences in the EU for
that reason. I would love to see a solid statistical study about this,
though. So far it's only a first impression for me.


Regards,
Carl-Daniel