"those who wish to participate" ... "are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that honors the overarching spirit of the rule, even if they disagree with specific details. Polite and professional discussion is always welcomed, from anyone."
In other words, calm down.
What if someone had a code of conduct that was clearly about people treating each other well...but started it with "First, you must acknowledge that there is no God." Or "First you must acknowledge that Mohammad is God's messenger." Or "First you must accept the mitzvot as binding." Or "Brahman is Truth and Reality."
None of these is promoting inclusion.
That said: I'm an observer here. I haven't chosen to participate or not participate in the SQLite community because of this. I simply think it's a strange place to promote one's religion, and it doesn't surprise me that non-Christians might find it unwelcoming.
In any case, western civ has deep roots in the christian tradition and I don't know any atheists that are so extremely fragile or sensitive that they are "offended" by simply seeing people repeating 1500+ year old fragments of it. Especially when they use the disclaimers that were used here.
If they want to try to be appealing to, say, 7/7ths of the developers out there, they might want to do something different.
I don’t consider myself Christians but I like CoC a lot. It even made me think why I only used sqlite when I had to.
To me the CoC doesn’t say I’m excluded. It says a couple of other things however, that author’s not ashamed of who he is, he’s sincere, and he knows about 1st amendment. I think all of these things are good.
Seriously i can't imagine the uproar and hate if he was a Muslim. Imagine how many tech leads would immediately start figuring out how to completely change their stack and replace sqlite with leveldb.
I see this 'code of conduct' as a literary form of pro-biotics [1], there to protect against invasion by harmful non-transcendental religions like intersectionality which have the capacity to sow discord and tear communities apart into warring factions. Even though I do not believe in transcendental gods I have no problems accepting the Rule as I see it for what it is, an abstraction of monastic life written to the benefit of medieval monks. I am under no vow of obedience or poverty and I am rarely in a situation where I have to bury the dead so I know I can skip those parts which are not applicable. In truth, I realise I can skip just about everything except the bit which tells me to treat others as I'd like to be treated myself.
[1] a mixture of safe bacteria which is supposed to colonise the gut to keep the bad ones out
It says 'love God'. It doesn't say 'acknowlege God exists'. The latter may be a prerequisite of the former, but the explicit rules are distinct, and have different flavors.
I think the SQLite's author is just trying to make a statement of "hey, there's us Christians out here, and this is actually what we believe in[1]".
1. Let's just avoid the reality that there are many people who call themselves Christians who don't follow those rules, and do many horrible things. Those people exist in virtually every demographic.
And you are the one to decide what server the Christ.
You cannot say this and believe that this CoC is inclusive then.
Something written, without the explicit goal of being enforced, or expected, whatsoever.
He could have equally written: "We expect those participating in the SQLite project to murder at least three people by Sunday - but if you don't do it, it is fine too"
Ah yes, "is there a god or not" is a specific detail, especially when it's in the context of a whole series of religiously motivated directives. /s
I hardly think that a repudiation of a set of CoC terms that I find directly exclusionary to me counts as warranting "calm down". I won't, thanks!
If the CoC started with "First of all, purge any God from your heart" you wouldn't have thought twice about condemning it.
But no, the atheists should just suck it up.
I think the Golden Rule is a wonderful Code of Conduct and it's how I try to live my life. If only more people followed that rule.
The author had a chance to make his CoC the golden rule. But instead he made a deeply religious statement. He has full right to do what he wants, but to also claim that this is somehow inclusive because you can close your eyes to things incompatible with you is nonsense, sorry.
All religions teach largely the same good things, but you generally won't see their devotees agreeing to any document that proclaims their love for a different God.
And yet atheists are expected to swallow that. No thanks.
By standing up for/against things like CoC as opposed to actual incidents, nothing is really achieved except - I believe the term is bike shedding?
Open source exists so that everyone can contribute their talents to something that benefits everybody. If Joseph Stalin or bin Laden wrote a great patch, I'd want it. We'd all be better for it. We can fight his ideas in a different arena. It doesn't have to be the SQLite mailing list. It is not a sensible place to have these other types of ideological battles.
Here in the third world life is hard. Business ethics are non existent, workplaces are dominated by obsession with job security. If you have to make a life for yourself, you have to do your work. I find perhaps the greatest "white privilege" as it seems to be called in the west, is having the luxury of debating CoCs instead of supporting yourself and your family.
And you will never understand it if you look at "the west" as a single organism. Its millions of people with different opinions. They don't have to be consistent with each other.
CoCs exist to promote desired (usually understood as "professional") communication and collaboration standards in open source projects. People who want to bring their political or religious agenda into those CoCs are indeed largely undesired even in "the west", that's why this particular CoC riled up so much attention.
> Why not just do your work and avoid drama?
I'd love that, and I'm doing that. But I'm not a "turn the other cheek" kind of person, and I'll call out bullshit when I see it. This here is bullshit.
> If Joseph Stalin or bin Laden wrote a great patch, I'd want it. We'd all be better for it.
That theoretical programmer-Bin-Laden would never contribute a patch to a project with SQLite's new CoC because it is incompatible with his faith. You said we would be better off if he did, so by your own logic such a religious CoC is detrimental to us, which is why it is a problem.
> It doesn't have to be the SQLite mailing list. It is not a sensible place to have these other types of ideological battles.
Indeed, it is not a sensible place because SQLite itself is not a sensible place for religion. But its author made it a place for religion, with very predictable consequences.
> Here in the third world life is hard.
> I find perhaps the greatest "white privilege" [...], is having the luxury of debating CoCs instead of supporting yourself and your family.
That's perhaps a bit of an overstatement, and definitely a false dichotomy. Moreover, here you are enjoying the same white privilege in the third world. A bit hypocritical to accuse others of something you yourself are engaging in, don't you think?
It isn't a single organism, this attitude is a very popular one in the west, that's all.
> That theoretical programmer-Bin-Laden would never contribute a patch to a project with SQLite's new CoC because it is incompatible with his faith. You said we would be better off if he did, so by your own logic such a religious CoC is detrimental to us, which is why it is a problem.
Is why I had Stalin in there too. I guess I can add David Duke as well, I'll add as many examples as required for the point to be made, which you have avoided.
> Indeed, it is not a sensible place because SQLite itself is not a sensible place for religion. But its author made it a place for religion, with very predictable consequences.
Many of these sacred cows like diversity, tolerance, political correctness, etc. are all religious ideas. By using religion, the author makes an excellent point, one that is sadly lost on many though.
As for me, I am stating my apathy towards CoCs and the communities behind whichever open source project I need, so no, I am not debating CoCs. Like I said, I would gladly use Joseph Stalin's library for my projects.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign...
David Duke on the other hand would happily contribute to this project. He would never contribute to a project that had a muslim CoC though.
...You demonstrated yet again that religious CoC are not inclusive, which is my point. I feel like you're just trolling at this point.