[pgeorgi]

> since the practice is still fairly new

"in tech". The CoC we're discussing here exists - as CoC - for Millenia.

An even older example would be the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath, which might have been more appropriate as an example of a "code of work conduct", but "I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses" might rub some people the wrong way, including, in this case, sqlite's author.

[keldaris]

I'm specifically talking about open source communities. I think the context of these social structures (spontaneous organization, lack of traditional coercive motivators (money, enforcement mechanisms, social pressure), the fact that many people are pseudonymous, the fact that most projects are effectively tyrannies, etc.) makes them sufficiently distinct from the classical examples you list to make any direct comparison very difficult.