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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

> But the purpose of such a code is not to threaten anybody; indeed, it is the opposite. It is a statement that we all have the right to be who we are and participate in the community as equals without having to contend with bullying, abuse, and worse.

The creator of the CoC does regularly threaten and bully people though (Opal, Matz...). The double standard is one of the issues I have with putting a CoC in place. When the slightest mistake is punished for some people, while others are free to spew vitriol, it seems like we have a real problem.

I'm sad this got adopted into the kernel and is now likely to be pushed elsewhere.

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> That said, the chances are that what will emerge from the dust will be something that looks like the same kernel community that has achieved so much in the last 27 years. Only hopefully it will be a bit friendlier, a bit more diverse, and much stronger. This could indeed be one of those inflection points mentioned by Torvalds in his announcement; the kernel has always emerged from those episodes stronger than ever. It is hard to see any reasons why this time should be different.

Is the message to take away here, not some alt-agenda anti-CoC message.

Just please, for one moment, consider that this isn’t the end of roman imperialism. Its just a general, welcome, already in progress, change towards more professional conduct.

But it's not. It's a power grab and like any power grab it is welcomed by ideological and other kinds of supporters, but not by others. Take diversity for example. What does it have to do with professional conduct? Nothing, of course, it's a purely ideological thing. Why is it there and talked about?

> Take diversity for example. What does it have to do with professional conduct?

If someone is acting racist towards others for example, or displaying sexist attitudes, then that will absolutely hurt diversity because the people at the receiving end will not want to stick around.

The problem comes from the re-defining of sexism and racism. Mainly that you can't be sexist toward men or racist toward white people. The same people that crafted the CoC hold those views.

They are not the people enforcing it in the kernel community, so their opinion doesn't matter that much for this use.

Has the Linux kernel project ever had a real problem with that? Linus is not racist or sexist, and nobody is saying he is. Just that he loses his temper and yells at people when he shouldn't.

It appears that Linus' temper problem has been used to slip in "more diverse and stronger" to something apparently unrelated to diversity. This is the sort of thing that gives what should be trivial and uncontroversial (A code of conduct) a terrible reputation for being the first sign of entryism by extremists who try to destroy communities from the inside.

The kernel doesn't need a CoC. All it needs is for Linus to say he's going to chill out a bit and for others to hold him to it. But now he's been convinced/pressured/bullied into adopting this deeply ideological document, it's probably only a matter of time before the kernel community is twisting itself into a pulp.

An abusive atmosphere attracts people who also engage in abusive behavior, and drives away that simply don’t want be abused. This hurts diversity and recruitment.

There is no mention of diversity in the code of conduct.

What power is transferred from whom to whom by Linux adopting this CoC?

There is absolutely nothing professional about the conduct displayed by the creators of the CoC. Just take a look on Twitter if you doubt me.

Keep our ad-hominem attacks to yourself.

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