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by paulvnickerson 259 days ago
They should take a cue from sqlite and just adopt the Rule of St Benedict.
3 comments

Here's the official document: https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
sqlite contributors are a closed group, while NixOS is a project open to contributors. It's a lot easier for 3 people to avoid conflict than 300.
From experience it seems that the best way to avoid conflict is to quickly ban anyone who demands a CoC
I thought so too at one point, but now I'm skeptical. The demanders will keep filtering in, and random people unacquainted with past stories of CoC abuse may feel uneasy.

So I think the best way is to: be a BDFL, proactively have a CoC that reflects your values (and to hell with any standard formulations), and make it explicit up front that anyone who wants changes to the CoC can go kick rocks (or, you know, fork the project). And that they're welcome to do so, and won't be interfered with outside of the project's own spaces.

And people who don't like an existing BDFL, rather than trying to take over or start drama in project discussion spaces, should just fork ASAP.

It's also easier for a small, closed group to keep their conflicts private.
Funny you should mention that. Meanwhile over in the Ruby camp, where they've been trying to gather signatures to run DHH out on a rail (pun intended), someone submitted a PR to replace the entire "open letter" with that document. (It was of course promptly rejected as a troll, which it was, but I was still amused.)