And people "know" not to steal. Yet we need to have laws so we agree on rules and boundaries. You can think of it like a list of rules agreed on early, so the project leaders don't have to go through the arguments about what's accepted after someone crosses one person's boundaries, but not another's.
The core principle of laws is that they are common and enforced equally onto every citizen. Laws and enforcement are transparent and has check and balances.
The most common objection to CoC is that they are not enforced equally. Different classes of people get treated differently and enjoy different rights. The enforcement have no transparency and no check and balances.
To take two recent well known examples, we had during the last year the stackoverlfow controversy over the new CoC, and wikipedia ban of an admin over CoC. In both cases there were major issue of transparency and selective enforcement. In the wikipedia case there was also problem with lack of check and balances. In the stackoverflow case there was also voices raised about other common rules now being unenforced in order to comply with the CoC creating a situation where different people get enforced by different rules.
Laws can be good. Rules and Boundaries can be a positive thing. They are not all good, not all positive. It depend. Without careful process and system for fairness it is very likely to turn bad as the above examples illustrates.
You're raising good points regarding consistent enforcement and transparency, but I think they're orthogonal to the existence of CoC. You can have transparent handling of issues without preexisting rules. You can have rules with bad/no implementation.
Sure, some CoC rules may be not great. But having some rules written down at least indicates leaders thought about the problem.
> Because reasonable people already know how /letting people use/modify/redistribute modifications is good for software/ and don't need a /license/ to tell them. I've never seen a case where a /copyleft license/ improved software.
* The use of sexualized language
* insulting or derogatory comments
* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting
Obviously on the face of it these are extremely reasonable. The problem is that they are also extremely vague. Is it ok to say "fuck" in a comment? Or is that "sexualized language"? Can I say "this code is stupid" or is that too insulting? What if it isn't directed at anyone?
The fear is that there is a certain kind of person who loves picking people up over these sort of inconsequential rule ("social justice warriors"). For some reason they like to get into positions of power and then enforce petty rules.
I don't think that happens 99% of the time, but it does seem like CoCs encourage it and I've never seen evidence that extensive CoCs help so why bother? Just put a comment in your readme like you suggested - "CoC: Thou shalt not be an asshole."
Even if we agree with everything in your comment, the question is "Is the <1% of the time this happens a good enough reason the reject every project with a CoC?". Personally, I would answer no to this.
CoC's are inherently political, they say something about the people you have to deal with when contributing to the project. If you like that kind of people you'd see a CoC as a positive, but if you don't like them then you'd avoid CoC's. I don't see why this is so hard to understand.
I'm confused now. Are you saying A) that OP doesn't have any know-how to contribute to the project, and you deduce that from their political views, or B) that, no matter how much OP may contribute on a technical level, it's meaningless if their political views don't align with yours?
In either case, I suggest you stop using the internet. It mostly runs on (GNU/)Linux servers, which were strongly influenced by RMS who you probably disagree with, so none of that can be any good for you.
Rather C) to keep people who think “treating those different from themselves with common courtesy and decency” is a political view, and that technical prowess exempts them from such from getting involved.
If you can’t contribute without being a dick, why would anyone want your contribution?
> If you can’t contribute without being a dick, why would anyone want your contribution?
I, for one, want it because it's a contribution to open source, and I am pissed at people who feel otherwise and try framing their dumb opinion as more than just that.
Why would you want their contribution? I don't know, it's not my problem, and you don't speak for me. You don't speak for many people. Maybe you speak for a majority of the community, maybe not even that.
At the end of the day, rejecting good code because someone else doesn't like the contributor, that's just dumb and it holds open source back.
> that technical prowess exempts them from such from getting involved
What does one have to do with the other? Just because someone behaves like an asshole doesn't mean they need to be excluded from everything. Assholes can open bank accounts too, does that mean banks somehow agree with them?
My hypothesis, and I have no way of proving this, is that a substantial part (at least 20%) of the people attacking someone elses "toxic behavior" in the programming community are just pissed that they're not as good. Sorry if I'm bursting anyones bubble, but some people just suck at programming. Some people just can't deal with how someone they really don't like is better than them at the skill they identify with.
Because code has no political or other opinion - it either works or it's trash. When one or two people in the world ban good code, everyone loses. Rather, those one or two people are problematic and could use psychological guidance to fit in better.
If by intended you mean driving away reasonable people that want to make software not get involved in politically motivated drama and moral panics then yes.
I like that we have a police and I've never committed a crime, but having a police around still makes me nervous since they have a lot of power. CoC's have the same effect, any reasonable person would understand this. They make contributing to a project feel more like a job and less like casual fun, and I don't really see why I would spend my free time doing a job for free.
How is that you're opposed to CoC _in general_?