The new Code of Conduct makes me feel threatened and uncomfortable

All the new code of conduct introduces the ability of the kafkatrap to be used as a weapon to alienate community members.

A code of conduct should be a bullet point list of offenses and the exact consequences for the violation. With the exact steps for removal or banning a member.

Their should be different levels of rules for different roles in the organization/project. Rules for general everyone, rules that extend to official representives for both private and public capacities. No one is above the rules.

projects should also consider trying to mimic a non profit organization in the terms of job roles. HR exists for a reason. Managers etc... where it applies or makes sense to the project.

Large projects like the Linux kernel should act like a non profit, that hires everyone who wants to join. Helps find them roles or task to do, fires those who break the defined rules.

Less is more, don’t break discrimination laws, no obscenity language at a person ( direct or indirect). F$&k it broke, why didn’t I catch that. Ok. Their shitty code wtf don’t they understand. Not ok. Dave is a dumb a$$hole. Not ok. ( sorry to all Dave’s in the world)

"The Linux kernel community is a place without office politics, without subtle subtexts, without primate dominance dynamics."

There's nothing subtle about the Linux kernel community, but the rest seriously makes me wonder how this could be meant sincerely. Yes, I did read the bit at the end about "irony" (which isn't irony) and "progressive" terminology (which has been mainstream for a couple of decades). To the extent that the email perpetuates stereotypes of people with Asperger's, and shows a very one-sided view of how a more comprehensive code of conduct might affect them (hint: it protects as well as restricts), it seems very unhelpful to that cause.

[EDIT] Considering that the author's other writings reveal a very anti-progressive agenda (e.g. pro-Trump, pro-Brexit, libertarian) I suspect this is more a deliberate act of obstruction than a genuine expression of concern.

I doubt the new CoC will provide any benefit, but it probably won't provide any significant harm either. In any case, the kernel community is one place where we are all truly free to vote with our feet.

He's right and it's not just about people with disabilities. If things like master/slave terminology are not allowed, it's time to look for other projects, hobbies, or even lines of work. That is just insane and the people pushing such politically correct bullshit are the ones that need to be pushed out of the community as they are not contributing to software development but instead disrupting the process for their own stupid non-software goals. If we don't push out these extreme political bike shedders, we may find that we will lose many talented software developers who are simply unwilling to put up with such stupidity and insanity.

There’s a lot to unpack in a relatively short blog post, but my primary takeaways are as follows.

First, this guy has a weirdly “romanticized” view of how things have been until now. I’m not sure if this can be chalked up to his particular experiences, his perceptions, or nostalgia. Whatever the case, it seems to fly in the face of reality.

Second, I’m not seeing what is actually making him feel threatened, or uncomfortable. I’m not clear that his concerns, or maybe complaints, rise to the level of either threat or discomfort. The former just seems absent, and the latter is entirely anticipated rather than realized.

Third, and to be blunt in a way that he claims to appreciate, his clinically significant social deficits are not and should not be the basis for how a major project is run. I’m sorry that he’s anticipating having a hard time, but the solution doesn’t seem to be “just leave everything the way he likes.” I’m sorry that his autism makes social interaction challenging, and I can’t claim to have any good advice in that regard. Complaining about a truly unremarkable code of conduct though, because it represents the “intrusion” of basic social norms into his world is not a sympathetic argument, if anything, his whole blog post seems like an argument for the necessity of such codes, when dealing with people who are so divorced from the reality everyone else is experiencing.

I mean, Linux, a community of gracefully accepted constructive criticism? Whaaaaat?!