Thread: Code of Conduct: Is it time?

Hello,

I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
conference that does not have a CoC".

Some of us may be saying, "Well we don't want those people". I can't
argue with some facts though. Ubuntu has had a CoC[1] since the
beginning of the project and they grew exceedingly quick. Having walls
in the hallway of interaction isn't always a bad thing.

In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what
behaviour we as a project already require, so why not document it and
use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project?

Sincerely,

JD


1. http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct
--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 01/05/2016 08:56 AM, Melvin Davidson wrote:
> Joshua,
>
> I have to agree that a COC is in order. But to add to that, I would like
> to see basic requirements when submitting a problem.
> IE: 1. Version of PostgreSQL
>       2.. O/S
>       3. Enough info to duplicate the problem EG: minimal schema & data

Although I agree with you. This is completely off topic for this thread.
Please create a new thread for those requests. I don't want to see this
thread hijacked.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 01/05/2016 08:47 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
> non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
> are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
> Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
> course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
> explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
> conference that does not have a CoC".

The Brendan Eich fiasco at Mozilla taught me all I need to know about
CoC's and their uselessness and un-enforceability.

>
> Some of us may be saying, "Well we don't want those people". I can't
> argue with some facts though. Ubuntu has had a CoC[1] since the
> beginning of the project and they grew exceedingly quick. Having walls
> in the hallway of interaction isn't always a bad thing.
>
> In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what
> behaviour we as a project already require, so why not document it and
> use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>
> 1. http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

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> In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what
> behaviour we as a project already require, so why not document it and
> use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project?

+1, been thinking about this same thing recently. I disagree that
it is a waste of time, but I'm happy if we get one, regardless
of different people's rationales for it.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 201601051213
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On 01/05/2016 09:06 AM, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> Brendan Eich fiasco

Has absolutely nothing to do with a CoC. At least from my understanding
of what happened.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On January 5, 2016 5:47:16 PM GMT+01:00, "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
>non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
>are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
>Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
>course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
>explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
>conference that does not have a CoC".

Do they give a rational for that?
>
>Some of us may be saying, "Well we don't want those people". I can't
>argue with some facts though. Ubuntu has had a CoC[1] since the
>beginning of the project and they grew exceedingly quick. Having walls
>in the hallway of interaction isn't always a bad thing.
>
>In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what
>behaviour we as a project already require, so why not document it and
>use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>JD
>
>
>1. http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct

On 01/05/2016 11:08 AM, Roland van Laar wrote:
>
>
> On January 5, 2016 5:47:16 PM GMT+01:00, "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
>> non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
>> are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
>> Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
>> course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
>> explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
>> conference that does not have a CoC".
>
> Do they give a rational for that?

I don't think I am a good person to rationalize their reasoning because
I don't like the idea of a CoC. That said, I think a lot of boils down
to perception, responsibility, accountability and the fact that a lot of
people are flat out jerks. I am not talking the ball busting type of
jerk but honest, just not nice people or people who vastly lack the
ability to integrate with larger society. Those people tend to need
guidelines for their jerkiness because they will say, "I didn't know I
couldn't do/say XYZ". Whether that is true or not, I have no idea.


JD



--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
> On 01/05/2016 11:08 AM, Roland van Laar wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On January 5, 2016 5:47:16 PM GMT+01:00, "Joshua D. Drake"
>> <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
>>> non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
>>> are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
>>> Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
>>> course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
>>> explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
>>> conference that does not have a CoC".
>>
>>
>> Do they give a rational for that?
>
>
> I don't think I am a good person to rationalize their reasoning because I
> don't like the idea of a CoC. That said, I think a lot of boils down to
> perception, responsibility, accountability and the fact that a lot of people
> are flat out jerks. I am not talking the ball busting type of jerk but
> honest, just not nice people or people who vastly lack the ability to
> integrate with larger society. Those people tend to need guidelines for
> their jerkiness because they will say, "I didn't know I couldn't do/say
> XYZ". Whether that is true or not, I have no idea.

CoC:
1: Use our code how you want
2: Don't sue us
3: Don't be a jerk

done.

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 6:09 AM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
> On 01/05/2016 11:08 AM, Roland van Laar wrote:
>> On January 5, 2016 5:47:16 PM GMT+01:00, "Joshua D. Drake"
>> <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>>> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
>>> non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if you
>>> are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
>>> Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
>>> course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
>>> explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
>>> conference that does not have a CoC".
>>
>>
>> Do they give a rational for that?
>
>
> I don't think I am a good person to rationalize their reasoning because I
> don't like the idea of a CoC. That said, I think a lot of boils down to
> perception, responsibility, accountability and the fact that a lot of people
> are flat out jerks. I am not talking the ball busting type of jerk but
> honest, just not nice people or people who vastly lack the ability to
> integrate with larger society. Those people tend to need guidelines for
> their jerkiness because they will say, "I didn't know I couldn't do/say
> XYZ". Whether that is true or not, I have no idea.

Being a jerk is not a problem that can be solved with a code of
conduct, just something that each individual should try to solve by
himself. And IMHO, this would just complicate the contribution flow
and the life of people who could potentially provide something useful.
Folks on the mailing lists here are really cool and it is possible to
have really nice and constructive conversations on many topics anyway,
the presence of a CoC is not going to change that, and that's what
matters.
--
Michael

On 1/5/16 6:32 PM, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>> I don't think I am a good person to rationalize their reasoning because I
>> >don't like the idea of a CoC. That said, I think a lot of boils down to
>> >perception, responsibility, accountability and the fact that a lot of people
>> >are flat out jerks. I am not talking the ball busting type of jerk but
>> >honest, just not nice people or people who vastly lack the ability to
>> >integrate with larger society. Those people tend to need guidelines for
>> >their jerkiness because they will say, "I didn't know I couldn't do/say
>> >XYZ". Whether that is true or not, I have no idea.
> CoC:
> 1: Use our code how you want
> 2: Don't sue us
> 3: Don't be a jerk

Well, that highlights that it's not just about a CoC, it's the things
that surround it. Especially what the conflict resolution policy is.

I suspect JD thought about this because of a recent Facebook thread[1]
about how the FreeBSD community just screwed this up big-time[2]. The
big screw-up was not having solid ways to deal with such complaints in
place. Sadly, as part of that thread, it comes to light that there is
some history of this in the Postgres project as well.

IMHO, the real problem here is not simply a CoC, it is that the Postgres
community doesn't focus on developing the community itself. The closest
we come to "focus" is occasional talk on -hackers about how we need more
developers. There is no formal discussion/leadership/coordination
towards actively building and strengthening our community. Until that
changes, I fear we will always have a lack of developers. More
importantly, we will continue to lack all the other ways that people
could contribute beyond writing code. IE: the talk shouldn't be about
needing more developers, it should be about needing people who want to
contribute time to growing the community.

I saw a great presentation about building a strong community by Joan
Touzet of CouchDB. The presentation link is currently down, but there's
a great interview with her at [3]. CouchDB didn't focus on community
building until they had a major problem to deal with. Now, they make
community one of their focal points. Just one example, this is the 3rd
paragraph on their home page:

"We welcome your contributions. CouchDB is an open source project.
Everything, from this website to the core of the database itself, has
been contributed by helpful individuals. The time and attention of our
contributors is our most precious resource, and we always need more of
it. Our primary goal is to build a welcoming, supporting, inclusive and
diverse community. We abide by Code of Conduct and a set of Project
Bylaws. Come join us!"

What I'd love to see is support and commitment from the Postgres
community to actively attract people who will focus not on the code but
on building the community itself. I know there are people in the
community that would be interested in doing that, but without active
support and some encouragement things aren't going to change.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/jon.erdman.jr/posts/10153828693183899
[2]
http://blog.randi.io/2015/12/31/the-developer-formerly-known-as-freebsdgirl/
[3] https://opensource.com/life/15/8/couchdb-community-apache-way
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

On 01/05/2016 05:31 PM, Jim Nasby wrote:

> Well, that highlights that it's not just about a CoC, it's the things
> that surround it. Especially what the conflict resolution policy is.
>
> I suspect JD thought about this because of a recent Facebook thread[1]
> about how the FreeBSD community just screwed this up big-time[2]. The
> big screw-up was not having solid ways to deal with such complaints in
> place. Sadly, as part of that thread, it comes to light that there is
> some history of this in the Postgres project as well.

The Facebook post was the secondary catalyst. The primary one was
discussions I have had on twitter about CoCs as well as continual work
with various conferences.

> What I'd love to see is support and commitment from the Postgres
> community to actively attract people who will focus not on the code but
> on building the community itself. I know there are people in the
> community that would be interested in doing that, but without active
> support and some encouragement things aren't going to change.

Since the first PostgreSQL Conference East in Maryland, I have requested
this. A good portion of the keynote was about this. For some reason our
community doesn't show a lot of interest.

Sincerely,

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 1/5/2016 5:31 PM, Jim Nasby wrote:
>
> IMHO, the real problem here is not simply a CoC, it is that the
> Postgres community doesn't focus on developing the community itself.
> The closest we come to "focus" is occasional talk on -hackers about
> how we need more developers. There is no formal
> discussion/leadership/coordination towards actively building and
> strengthening our community. Until that changes, I fear we will always
> have a lack of developers. More importantly, we will continue to lack
> all the other ways that people could contribute beyond writing code.
> IE: the talk shouldn't be about needing more developers, it should be
> about needing people who want to contribute time to growing the
> community.


That sounds like a bunch of modern marketing graduate mumbojumbo to
me.    The postgres community are the people who actually support it on
the email lists and IRC, as well as the core development teams, and
INMO, they are quite strong and effective.     when you start talking
about social marketing and facebook and twitter and stuff, thats just a
bunch of feelgood smoke and mirrors.    The project's output is what
supports it, not having people going out 'growing community', that is
just a bunch of hot air.   you actively 'grow community' when you're
pushing worthless products (soda pop, etc) based on slick marketing
plans rather than actually selling something useful.




--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On 1/5/16 10:03 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
> On 1/5/2016 5:31 PM, Jim Nasby wrote:
>> IMHO, the real problem here is not simply a CoC, it is that the
>> Postgres community doesn't focus on developing the community itself.
>> The closest we come to "focus" is occasional talk on -hackers about
>> how we need more developers. There is no formal
>> discussion/leadership/coordination towards actively building and
>> strengthening our community. Until that changes, I fear we will always
>> have a lack of developers. More importantly, we will continue to lack
>> all the other ways that people could contribute beyond writing code.
>> IE: the talk shouldn't be about needing more developers, it should be
>> about needing people who want to contribute time to growing the
>> community.
>
>
> That sounds like a bunch of modern marketing graduate mumbojumbo to
> me.    The postgres community are the people who actually support it on
> the email lists and IRC, as well as the core development teams, and
> INMO, they are quite strong and effective.     when you start talking
> about social marketing and facebook and twitter and stuff, thats just a
> bunch of feelgood smoke and mirrors.    The project's output is what
> supports it, not having people going out 'growing community', that is
> just a bunch of hot air.   you actively 'grow community' when you're
> pushing worthless products (soda pop, etc) based on slick marketing
> plans rather than actually selling something useful.

Then why is it that there is almost no contribution to the community
other than code and mailing list discussion?

Why is the infrastructure team composed entirely of highly experienced
code contributors, of which there are ~200 on the planet, when there are
literally 100s of thousands (if not millions) of people out there that
could do that work (and could probably do it better if it's what they do
for a living, no offense to the efforts of the infrastructure team).

Why is there a lack of developers? And a serious lack of code reviewers?
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

> On 6 Jan 2016, at 03:47, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>
> In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what behaviour we as a project already require, so why not
documentit and use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project? 

I fully agree with you. No one would question documenting (or advertising) any particular feature - indeed, the quality
ofdocumentation is a feature in itself. I'm reminded of this 2006 quote from Joss Whedon [1]: 

Q: So, why do you write these strong female characters?
A: Because you’re still asking me that question.

The Postgres community is also a great "feature", maybe the question we should be asking is - "why isn't it documented
yet?”?I don’t see a CoC as an end in itself, it’s merely an artefact of a community that is as proud of it’s workings
asit’s output. 

Regards,

Tony

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1018998-why-aren-t-you-asking-a-hundred-other-guys-why-they

On 1/5/16 10:03 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
> On 1/5/2016 5:31 PM, Jim Nasby wrote:
>> IMHO, the real problem here is not simply a CoC, it is that the
>> Postgres community doesn't focus on developing the community itself.
>> The closest we come to "focus" is occasional talk on -hackers about
>> how we need more developers. There is no formal
>> discussion/leadership/coordination towards actively building and
>> strengthening our community. Until that changes, I fear we will always
>> have a lack of developers. More importantly, we will continue to lack
>> all the other ways that people could contribute beyond writing code.
>> IE: the talk shouldn't be about needing more developers, it should be
>> about needing people who want to contribute time to growing the
>> community.
>
>
> That sounds like a bunch of modern marketing graduate mumbojumbo to
> me.    The postgres community are the people who actually support it on
> the email lists and IRC, as well as the core development teams, and
> INMO, they are quite strong and effective.     when you start talking
> about social marketing and facebook and twitter and stuff, thats just a
> bunch of feelgood smoke and mirrors.    The project's output is what
> supports it, not having people going out 'growing community', that is
> just a bunch of hot air.   you actively 'grow community' when you're
> pushing worthless products (soda pop, etc) based on slick marketing
> plans rather than actually selling something useful.

Then why is it that there is almost no contribution to the community 
other than code and mailing list discussion?

Why is the infrastructure team composed entirely of highly experienced 
code contributors, of which there are ~200 on the planet, when there are 
literally 100s of thousands (if not millions) of people out there that 
could do that work (and could probably do it better if it's what they do 
for a living, no offense to the efforts of the infrastructure team).

Why is there a lack of developers? And a serious lack of code reviewers?
-- 
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

On 1/5/2016 6:13 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On 01/05/2016 05:31 PM, Jim Nasby wrote:
>
>> Well, that highlights that it's not just about a CoC, it's the things
>> that surround it. Especially what the conflict resolution policy is.
>>
>> I suspect JD thought about this because of a recent Facebook thread[1]
>> about how the FreeBSD community just screwed this up big-time[2]. The
>> big screw-up was not having solid ways to deal with such complaints in
>> place. Sadly, as part of that thread, it comes to light that there is
>> some history of this in the Postgres project as well.
>
> The Facebook post was the secondary catalyst. The primary one was
> discussions I have had on twitter about CoCs as well as continual work
> with various conferences.
>
>> What I'd love to see is support and commitment from the Postgres
>> community to actively attract people who will focus not on the code but
>> on building the community itself. I know there are people in the
>> community that would be interested in doing that, but without active
>> support and some encouragement things aren't going to change.
>
> Since the first PostgreSQL Conference East in Maryland, I have
> requested this. A good portion of the keynote was about this. For some
> reason our community doesn't show a lot of interest.

I'm a relatively quiet observer of the lists (and user of Postgres off
and on).  Having organized a group of virtual discussion lists many
moons ago and to help manage the volume of new contributors forced a CoC
on them which both helped and hurt the community. I personally see no
problem with a CoC, but am experienced enough to be cautious about the
implementation.

You implied in your first post that you would attract more contributors
with a CoC.  Jim Nasby posted links which outline recent issues related
to harassment.  Other comments in this thread lead me to believe that
there are other potential perspectives ... Can I ask...

What specific problem or problems does the Postgres community currently
experience ?
What specific problem or problems might the Postgres community
experience (that you would like to avoid)?
   [ that has led you to believe having a CoC would solve?  ]


Roxanne
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>


--
[At other schools] I think the most common fault in general is to teach students how to pass exams instead of teaching
themthe science. 
Donald Knuth

> I agree with Jim, something is wrong, I see our developers community isn't growing and getting older.
> There is no formal problem to start contribute, but steep learning curve and
> lack of mentoring practice scare people.

The "Debian Med" Debian Blend has quite successfully used a
semi-structured mentoring effort to attract new package maintainers:

   https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM

For what it is worth...

Karsten Hilbert

 Hi All,

I just saw this thread.

I tend to agree with the general idea of having a code of conduct. If you are on a long distance journey then it will
helpto have road signs every now and then. Following your nose won't hurt but doesn't necessarily help either! LOL  

More seriously, on the point about making Postgresql a success. I think it is already a success and can become bigger
andbetter by having not just higher standards but also by having a business structure that allows larger number of
companiesmaking money out of it. This will draw more business towards the product. 

When the Sun Microsystem went bust and was taken over by Oracle. It was a clear evidence that open source doesn't work
commerciallynot even for an innovative company like Sun.  

Sun's experience demonstrates that commercial success is not just about better products. The business structure,
development,marketing and pricing are all very important. 

I am not in favour of massive price structures but that there should be $100-$200 costs for smallest version. Times
severalmillion products. This may allow postgresql to reduce its prices on its the top of the range products.  


Hope this helps.

Well done guys you are doing a great job.

Wish you all the best in 2016



Farjad Farid

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 11:22:17AM -0000, FarjadFarid(ChkNet) wrote:

> I am not in favour of massive price structures but that
> there should be $100-$200 costs for smallest version. Times
> several million products. This may allow postgresql to reduce
> its prices on its the top of the range products.

You may be mistaking the community version for any of the
commercially supported offerings ?

Regards,
Karsten
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

Hi Karsten,

> You may be mistaking the community version for any of the commercially
supported offerings ?

It is possible. Please fill in the figures.

What I am suggesting is that even for community version there should be a
charge.

But as I mentioned it is not just prices.

May be I wasn't very clear the most important factor is the business
structure then quality of products and marketing together with pricing.

As a further example consider how a very small company like ARM beat giants
like Intel and Samsung in the mobile phone industry.

It is their business model that is not profitable for Intel and Samsung to
emulate.

I am only providing some food for thought. For me we can all learn from
other people's successes and failures.

I for one think everyone on the team have done a great job bringing
postgresql to this stage.

Good luck



Farjad Fari




-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Karsten Hilbert
Sent: 06 January 2016 11:32
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 11:22:17AM -0000, FarjadFarid(ChkNet) wrote:

> I am not in favour of massive price structures but that there should
> be $100-$200 costs for smallest version. Times several million
> products. This may allow postgresql to reduce its prices on its the
> top of the range products.

You may be mistaking the community version for any of the commercially
supported offerings ?

Regards,
Karsten
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346


--
Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general

Hi Karsten,

> You may be mistaking the community version for any of the commercially
supported offerings ?

It is possible. Please fill in the figures.

What I am suggesting is that even for community version there should be a
charge.

But as I mentioned it is not just prices.

May be I wasn't very clear the most important factor is the business
structure then quality of products and marketing together with pricing.

As a further example consider how a very small company like ARM beat giants
like Intel and Samsung in the mobile phone industry.

It is their business model that is not profitable for Intel and Samsung to
emulate.

*Of course they have a great products. Equally importantly their business
model makes it realistic and profitable for other
companies to use their services.  *

I am only providing some food for thought. For me we can all learn from
other people's successes and failures.

I for one think everyone on the team have done a great job bringing
postgresql to this stage.

Good luck



Farjad Farid




-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Karsten Hilbert
Sent: 06 January 2016 11:32
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 11:22:17AM -0000, FarjadFarid(ChkNet) wrote:

> I am not in favour of massive price structures but that there should
> be $100-$200 costs for smallest version. Times several million
> products. This may allow postgresql to reduce its prices on its the
> top of the range products.

You may be mistaking the community version for any of the commercially
supported offerings ?

Regards,
Karsten
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> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch
to MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade to a fork.

> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and mysql)
>  means there is zero income.
Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer
support and coding. While I'm sure everyone would agree that developers
should be able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the
"The PostgreSQL Global Development Group" and being "The world's most
advanced open source database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial
support and consulting offerings are there to make the money. The rest
of us plebs just have to help each other out.

Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we would be having
a very different discussion (about a very different product, if it still
existed). As it stands, fundamentally shifting the goals, objectives, MO
of a libre and beer free software project to something other than that
is going to be met with a lot of resistance because it shifts how we as
users interact with something we've interacted with in a certain way and
with certain expectations for years.

> Emails are not the best medium for consulting about complex issues.
Emails are actually a decent medium because they allow one to express
themselves in a well thought out and clear way. It just has to be used
correctly (and I'm not insinuating I'm great at that).

I'm not sure who Farjad is; is this a serious proposal or "just
something someone said"? I feel religious about PostgreSQL as it really
has changed how I view databases in general (and you know what they say
about converts). Not that I matter, but I would feel a huge blow if I
could no longer tell people to use it.

Jim

Hi James,

I value your passion and commitment to postgresql. I am equally passionate about postgresql and am just like you
anotheruser but not pointing these on simple commercial practical bases.  
These are simple feedbacks.

Just one last example. Consider the music industry. For years Apple amongst others promoted low cost per unit downloads
andthen streaming. We all know the history.  

Once a thriving industry music industry has been decimated. Neither the musicians nor song writers receive proper
incomeany more.   
All the major players recognise its current state is unsustainable.

*I am sure neither of us want to see postgresql to falter.*

Of course the right balance needs to be struck but for me at least the idea of free lunch has had its day.

There can be a low enough charge that people don't feel too much of a pinch but enough to sustain the progress of
postgresql.

I genuinely don't like arguments over emails. These are complex issues.

Again I for one will continue to support postgresql team whatever their decision may be.




-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of James Keener
Sent: 06 January 2016 15:04
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch to MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade to
afork. 

> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and
> mysql)  means there is zero income.
Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer support and coding. While I'm sure everyone would
agreethat developers should be able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the "The PostgreSQL Global
DevelopmentGroup" and being "The world's most advanced open source database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial
supportand consulting offerings are there to make the money. The rest of us plebs just have to help each other out. 

Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we would be having a very different discussion (about a very
differentproduct, if it still existed). As it stands, fundamentally shifting the goals, objectives, MO of a libre and
beerfree software project to something other than that is going to be met with a lot of resistance because it shifts
howwe as users interact with something we've interacted with in a certain way and with certain expectations for years. 

> Emails are not the best medium for consulting about complex issues.
Emails are actually a decent medium because they allow one to express themselves in a well thought out and clear way.
Itjust has to be used correctly (and I'm not insinuating I'm great at that). 

I'm not sure who Farjad is; is this a serious proposal or "just something someone said"? I feel religious about
PostgreSQLas it really has changed how I view databases in general (and you know what they say about converts). Not
thatI matter, but I would feel a huge blow if I could no longer tell people to use it. 

Jim


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Hi James,

I value your passion and commitment to postgresql. I am equally passionate about postgresql and am just like you
anotheruser but pointing these on simple commercial practical bases.  
These are simple feedbacks.

Just one last example. Consider the music industry. For years Apple amongst others promoted low cost per unit downloads
andthen streaming. We all know the history.  

Once a thriving industry music industry has been decimated. Neither the musicians nor song writers receive proper
incomeany more.   
All the major players recognise its current state is unsustainable.

*I am sure neither of us want to see postgresql to falter.*

Of course the right balance needs to be struck but for me at least the idea of free lunch has had its day.

There can be a low enough charge that people don't feel too much of a pinch but enough to sustain the progress of
postgresql.

I genuinely don't like arguments over emails. These are complex issues.

Again I for one will continue to support postgresql team whatever their decision may be.




-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of James Keener
Sent: 06 January 2016 15:04
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch to MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade to
afork. 

> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and
> mysql)  means there is zero income.
Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer support and coding. While I'm sure everyone would
agreethat developers should be able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the "The PostgreSQL Global
DevelopmentGroup" and being "The world's most advanced open source database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial
supportand consulting offerings are there to make the money. The rest of us plebs just have to help each other out. 

Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we would be having a very different discussion (about a very
differentproduct, if it still existed). As it stands, fundamentally shifting the goals, objectives, MO of a libre and
beerfree software project to something other than that is going to be met with a lot of resistance because it shifts
howwe as users interact with something we've interacted with in a certain way and with certain expectations for years. 

> Emails are not the best medium for consulting about complex issues.
Emails are actually a decent medium because they allow one to express themselves in a well thought out and clear way.
Itjust has to be used correctly (and I'm not insinuating I'm great at that). 

I'm not sure who Farjad is; is this a serious proposal or "just something someone said"? I feel religious about
PostgreSQLas it really has changed how I view databases in general (and you know what they say about converts). Not
thatI matter, but I would feel a huge blow if I could no longer tell people to use it. 

Jim


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On 1/6/16 2:17 AM, Victor Yegorov wrote:
> Another very wanted change in the community is mentorship. Personally, I
> don't feel confident to ask endless questions I have when looking into
> the code, as I understand, that this might be a very basic (for
> PostgreSQL hackers) stuff. For me it'd be a great helper, if I could
> talk this over (via e-mail or any messenger) with experienced developer.
> Reminds me of what we do for the GSoC, where developers volunteer for
> mentoring students.
> Something similar would be handy in general, perhaps with a web
> interface similar to the CommitFest's one.

Please, ask your questions! The Postgres community really is one of the
most patient and helpful OSS communities out there, and there's plenty
of people that would be happy to explain things. Questions are also a
good way to show where things could possibly be better commented/documented.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

As Melvin mentioned, this belongs in a new thread.

> Just one last example. Consider the music industry. For years Apple amongst others promoted low cost per unit
downloadsand then streaming. We all know the history.  
>
> Once a thriving industry music industry has been decimated. Neither the musicians nor song writers receive proper
incomeany more.   
> All the major players recognise its current state is unsustainable.
So? In an odd twist of things, the developers here are either being paid
to work on PostgreSQL or are _volunteering_ their time. It would be
extremely rude to take their _volunteered_ time and profit from it.
Ditto for support, such as this forum and the IRC channel.

We can debate the music industry all day. My view is that it's
inefficient, corrupt, and poorly managed. A more streamlined system
would result in more money to the artists themselves. They are not a
good comparison to a F/OSS project.

> *I am sure neither of us want to see postgresql to falter.*
And I have no idea how you think charging for PostgreSQL won't make it
falter. People will move to other free databases or move to paid
offerings along the thought process of "no one was ever fired for buying
ibm"

> Of course the right balance needs to be struck but for me at least the idea of free lunch has had its day.
How does PostgreSQL being free affect you in a _negative_ way? This
"free lunch" is the reason we have the technology and world that we do.
I'm honestly curious why you have an issue with this. Not charging for
code has not prevented a plethora of other projects from having a
growing community. Those issues become moot when you force the community
to disappear. We need to understand what keeps new devs away and fix it
-- not simply force everyone away.

> There can be a low enough charge that people don't feel too much of a pinch but enough to sustain the progress of
postgresql.
No. There can't. Going from free to anything will decrease your user
base, especially when there are free alternatives and very large, and
(unfortunately) trusted names you can pay for a database. I've dealt
with this at many companies.

> I genuinely don't like arguments over emails. These are complex issues.
I personally find it easier than arguing in person. But to each his own.
If you don't like arguing then there is nothing that says you must argue.

> Again I for one will continue to support postgresql team whatever their decision may be.
That decision has already been made. Unless you can overcome the
_idealogical_
reason that PostgreSQL is F/OSS in the first place, then I'm not sure
this is an argument worth continuing.

Jim

>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of James Keener
> Sent: 06 January 2016 15:04
> To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?
>
>> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
> Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch to MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade
toa fork. 
>
>> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and
>> mysql)  means there is zero income.
> Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer support and coding. While I'm sure everyone
wouldagree that developers should be able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the "The PostgreSQL Global
DevelopmentGroup" and being "The world's most advanced open source database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial
supportand consulting offerings are there to make the money. The rest of us plebs just have to help each other out. 
>
> Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we would be having a very different discussion (about a very
differentproduct, if it still existed). As it stands, fundamentally shifting the goals, objectives, MO of a libre and
beerfree software project to something other than that is going to be met with a lot of resistance because it shifts
howwe as users interact with something we've interacted with in a certain way and with certain expectations for years. 
>
>> Emails are not the best medium for consulting about complex issues.
> Emails are actually a decent medium because they allow one to express themselves in a well thought out and clear way.
Itjust has to be used correctly (and I'm not insinuating I'm great at that). 
>
> I'm not sure who Farjad is; is this a serious proposal or "just something someone said"? I feel religious about
PostgreSQLas it really has changed how I view databases in general (and you know what they say about converts). Not
thatI matter, but I would feel a huge blow if I could no longer tell people to use it. 
>
> Jim
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

On 1/6/16 1:36 AM, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> The CoC doesn't solve it. We do on mature, stable, pretty complex
> code - use C (not JavaScript or Java).  This isn't hobby project or
> student project.

No, CoC by itself doesn't grow the community. That doesn't mean we
shouldn't have one.

Another weakness we have is the mentality that the only way to
contribute to the community is as a developer. There's tons of other
ways people could help, if we made an effort to engage them.
Infrastructure, website design, documentation, project management (ie:
CF manager), issue tracker wrangler (if we had one), advocacy. There's
probably some others. It wouldn't even take effort from the existing
community to attract those people; all we'd need to do is decide we
wanted non-developers to work on that stuff and find some volunteers to
go find them. But the big thing is, the existing community would have to
welcome that help. Part of that would mean some changes to how the
community currently operates, and the community can be very resistant to
that. (I suspect partly because it pays to be very conservative when
writting database software... :) )

> Taking new developers needs the hard individual work with any
> potential developer/student. I see as interesting one point -
> PostgreSQL extensibility - the less experienced developer can write
> extension, there can be interesting experimental extensions that can
> be supported without risk of unstability of core code. Can be nice to
> allow to write not only C language extensions. Then the Postgres can
> be used on universities and in some startup companies - and it can
> increase the number of active developers. My very talented colleague
> doesn't write to Postgres due C language. He like to write planner in
> lisp or erlang. Or like to play in these languages. C is barrier for
> younger people.

Agreed. I recently said something to that effect to a few others, using
Python as an example. If you look at the Python source, there are 380 .c
files and 2000 .py files. Postgres has 1200 .c, 2000 .h and only 652
.sql. Since there's 640 .out files most of the .sql is presumably tests.
I'm not suggesting we switch to Python; the point is we could do a
better job of "eating our own dog food". I think it would also be very
interesting if there were add-on frameworks that allowed things like a
planner written in another language (which with the planner hooks might
actually be possible).
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

> The coc sounds like a Washington politics play, but as long as the best
> still engage
> in this forum, I could care less. The list serves its purpose without
> overhead...a rare
> resource in today's flood of incoherent technical chatter.

Beyond "Hey! Look at us! We're telling people to play nice" What would a
Code of Conduct actually get the community? Is not having a formal "play
nice" document actually keeping developers away?

However, what happens if I break the CoC? Email addresses and IRC
handles are cheap. I can still continue to use PostgreSQL. If I say an
incredibly racist, sexist, or just plain rude thing, then what do I
loose? What do we do when someone harasses someone else in private?

That said, I would capitulate that a document stating the behavior we
expect of each other as a useful way in helping us tell people to stand
down. However, we have to accept that in-and-off itself it's a
meaningless document. Like the US Constitution, it only matters if
people execute and make it matter. (I guess the same idea applies
elsewhere, but hey, I'm a Pennsylvania.) However, unlike a government,
there is no force that we can use against each other.

_We_ as a community need to take the responsibility of telling each
other off when someone steps out of line. If a (short) document
explaining the goals, values, and precepts of the community will help us
do that, then by all means, let's do that!

We just have to figure out if it will. (As a cis-hetero white middle
class male) I'm not a "targeted" group and as such my views may not be
of the most use here.

Jim

On 1/6/16 9:48 AM, Melvin Davidson wrote:
> there is no way it can be enforced. So while I applaud Joshua Drake for
> his good intent, I there must therefore take the position of saying no
> to a CoC

A good CoC is not just a code, it is also a means of enforcement. To
wit, from the CouchDB CoC[1]:

"If you believe someone is violating this code of conduct, you may reply
to them and point out this code of conduct. Such messages may be in
public or in private, whatever is most appropriate. Assume good faith;
it is more likely that participants are unaware of their bad behaviour
than that they intentionally try to degrade the quality of the
discussion. Should there be difficulties in dealing with the situation,
you may report your compliance issues in confidence to
private@couchdb.apache.org.

"If the violation is in documentation or code, for example inappropriate
pronoun usage or word choice within official documentation, we ask that
people report these privately to the project at
private@couchdb.apache.org, and, if they have sufficient ability within
the project, to resolve or remove the concerning material, being mindful
of the perspective of the person originally reporting the issue."

Importantly, the code clearly states what is and isn't acceptable, in a
calm and rational manner, so that when an incident does occur -core or
whoever else can deal with it much more easily. Vague statements like
"don't be an ass" are useless for dealing with an actual situation.

(BTW, if your concern on enforcement is about control, not only can
people be removed from mailing lists and the like, but there actually is
a Postgres legal entity that could start legal proceedings if it ever
came to it.)

[1] http://couchdb.apache.org/conduct.html
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

Hi Jim/Melvin and all,

Music industry is a good example where too low charges has damaged it. People in the industry will tell you that not
enoughyoung talent are coming through the system. I do agree that there is some corruption but there is no escaping the
factthat the industry's turn over has seen a massive decline.   

Sun Microsystem is even a closer example and why Oracle has taken Google to court over java licenses. Basically they
needto make money to support product developments.  

Even the community version has costs associated with it.

Incidentally the original posting was hoping to replicate the success of Ubuntu and their use of code of conduct.

Hence my comments about issues that will help the success of PostgreSQL more directly.

I for one would not ignore code of conduct if there was one. Hopefully others would have the courtesy to do the same.

Hope this clarifies all the points.








-----Original Message-----
From: James Keener [mailto:jim@jimkeener.com]
Sent: 06 January 2016 15:54
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Charging for PostgreSQL

As Melvin mentioned, this belongs in a new thread.

> Just one last example. Consider the music industry. For years Apple amongst others promoted low cost per unit
downloadsand then streaming. We all know the history.  
>
> Once a thriving industry music industry has been decimated. Neither the musicians nor song writers receive proper
incomeany more.   
> All the major players recognise its current state is unsustainable.
So? In an odd twist of things, the developers here are either being paid to work on PostgreSQL or are _volunteering_
theirtime. It would be extremely rude to take their _volunteered_ time and profit from it. 
Ditto for support, such as this forum and the IRC channel.

We can debate the music industry all day. My view is that it's inefficient, corrupt, and poorly managed. A more
streamlinedsystem would result in more money to the artists themselves. They are not a good comparison to a F/OSS
project.

> *I am sure neither of us want to see postgresql to falter.*
And I have no idea how you think charging for PostgreSQL won't make it falter. People will move to other free databases
ormove to paid offerings along the thought process of "no one was ever fired for buying ibm" 

> Of course the right balance needs to be struck but for me at least the idea of free lunch has had its day.
How does PostgreSQL being free affect you in a _negative_ way? This "free lunch" is the reason we have the technology
andworld that we do. 
I'm honestly curious why you have an issue with this. Not charging for code has not prevented a plethora of other
projectsfrom having a growing community. Those issues become moot when you force the community to disappear. We need to
understandwhat keeps new devs away and fix it 
-- not simply force everyone away.

> There can be a low enough charge that people don't feel too much of a pinch but enough to sustain the progress of
postgresql.
No. There can't. Going from free to anything will decrease your user base, especially when there are free alternatives
andvery large, and 
(unfortunately) trusted names you can pay for a database. I've dealt with this at many companies.

> I genuinely don't like arguments over emails. These are complex issues.
I personally find it easier than arguing in person. But to each his own.
If you don't like arguing then there is nothing that says you must argue.

> Again I for one will continue to support postgresql team whatever their decision may be.
That decision has already been made. Unless you can overcome the _idealogical_ reason that PostgreSQL is F/OSS in the
firstplace, then I'm not sure this is an argument worth continuing. 

Jim

>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of James Keener
> Sent: 06 January 2016 15:04
> To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert';
> pgsql-general@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?
>
>> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
> Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch to MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade
toa fork. 
>
>> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and
>> mysql)  means there is zero income.
> Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer support and coding. While I'm sure everyone
wouldagree that developers should be able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the "The PostgreSQL Global
DevelopmentGroup" and being "The world's most advanced open source database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial
supportand consulting offerings are there to make the money. The rest of us plebs just have to help each other out. 
>
> Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we would be having a very different discussion (about a very
differentproduct, if it still existed). As it stands, fundamentally shifting the goals, objectives, MO of a libre and
beerfree software project to something other than that is going to be met with a lot of resistance because it shifts
howwe as users interact with something we've interacted with in a certain way and with certain expectations for years. 
>
>> Emails are not the best medium for consulting about complex issues.
> Emails are actually a decent medium because they allow one to express themselves in a well thought out and clear way.
Itjust has to be used correctly (and I'm not insinuating I'm great at that). 
>
> I'm not sure who Farjad is; is this a serious proposal or "just something someone said"? I feel religious about
PostgreSQLas it really has changed how I view databases in general (and you know what they say about converts). Not
thatI matter, but I would feel a huge blow if I could no longer tell people to use it. 
>
> Jim
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

> No, CoC by itself doesn't grow the community. That doesn't mean we
> shouldn't have one.
I'd agree with that. Thinking back over my previous points, it does make
sense to have one, if only to deal with people who represent the
community in some way, i.e. have some kind of commit or marketing access.

> Another weakness we have is the mentality that the only way to
> contribute to the community is as a developer.
Perhaps this is a separate issue from having a CoC.

Things like not having a bug tracker [1] prevent people from finding
issues to even be involved with, including the website, marketing, code,
tests, &c. That was 10 years ago and it's still the first result for
"Postgres bug tracker" on Google.

On 01/06/16 08:04, Jim Nasby wrote:
...
>> increase the number of active developers. My very talented colleague
>> doesn't write to Postgres due C language. He like to write planner in
>> lisp or erlang. Or like to play in these languages. C is barrier for
>> younger people.
>
...
> better job of "eating our own dog food". I think it would also be very
> interesting if there were add-on frameworks that allowed things like a
> planner written in another language (which with the planner hooks might
> actually be possible).

Amazing how stuff comes back.

A bit of history...  The very first Postgres planner was written in
Lisp.  Mostly this was to get the first usable system going quickly.
The problems with performance, garbage collection and memory use made a
rewrite a high priority.

IMO, most of this discussion is off track.  Sadly, a significant
percentage of highly capable programmers are not very good at personal
interaction.  At some point, poor people skills negate the value of
programming skills.  I do think that needs recognition and a willingness
to say goodbye to persons who bring disrepute to the effort of keeping
the Postgresql world moving forward.  The problem is codifying such
rules and that these same people who have the problem will likely argue
such rules to the death.  Maybe the present discussion is an example.

Jeff Anton

On 01/06/2016 08:11 AM, James Keener wrote:
>> The coc sounds like a Washington politics play, but as long as the best
>> still engage
>> in this forum, I could care less. The list serves its purpose without
>> overhead...a rare
>> resource in today's flood of incoherent technical chatter.
>
> Beyond "Hey! Look at us! We're telling people to play nice" What would a
> Code of Conduct actually get the community?

It provides a sense of confidence to those who are not confident that
they can come play in our playground and not be bullied. That is what
every single code of conduct is about. There are a lot of very talented
people in the FLOSS community that just don't like to work in areas that
don't have a code of conduct.

> Is not having a formal "play
> nice" document actually keeping developers away?
>
> However, what happens if I break the CoC? Email addresses and IRC
> handles are cheap. I can still continue to use PostgreSQL. If I say an
> incredibly racist, sexist, or just plain rude thing, then what do I
> loose? What do we do when someone harasses someone else in private?

It isn't about your ability to use PostgreSQL. It is about your ability
to contribute and be part of the community.

>
> That said, I would capitulate that a document stating the behavior we
> expect of each other as a useful way in helping us tell people to stand
> down.

This is a very good point. It serves as a throttle on heated
discussions. It shows we are serious about everyone respecting each
other even when they aren't getting along.

> However, we have to accept that in-and-off itself it's a
> meaningless document. Like the US Constitution, it only matters if
> people execute and make it matter.

Exactly and there are ways to do that.

>
> _We_ as a community need to take the responsibility of telling each
> other off when someone steps out of line. If a (short) document
> explaining the goals, values, and precepts of the community will help us
> do that, then by all means, let's do that!

Right. The creation of a CoC doesn't hurt anyone. There is no downside.

>
> We just have to figure out if it will. (As a cis-hetero white middle
> class male) I'm not a "targeted" group and as such my views may not be
> of the most use here.

Which is another very good point.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 01/06/2016 08:13 AM, Jim Nasby wrote:

> (BTW, if your concern on enforcement is about control, not only can
> people be removed from mailing lists and the like, but there actually is
> a Postgres legal entity that could start legal proceedings if it ever
> came to it.)

As a Director for 2 of the "legal" entities this idea is a rough road.
As a volunteer organization we would have a very hard time bringing
legal proceedings for a violation of a CoC. Realistically we are talking
about a person bringing legal proceedings against another person of whom
are contributors to the "PostgreSQL Project".

That said, there is no reason this can't be enforced.

A hacker who has code committed to the tree has a vested ID interest in
that code. It took time, heart, commitment, and tough skin. They may not
have been compensated for that time, if they had been compensated they
also have skin in the game with whoever compensated them.

Now change the first sentence to:

A community organizer who spends months organizing a postgresql event
has a vested ID interest in that event.

A pug leader who spends time every month organizing a postgresql meeting
has a vested ID interest in that meeting.

An extension writer ....

A speaker ....

A DBA who fought hard to get PostgreSQL into their DC.....

If the big yellow guillotine comes down on their ability to contribute
and stains the shirt red. It will matter.

Enforcement isn't that hard. It is just a committee who ultimately
answers to -core.

Sincerely,

JD






--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 06/01/2016 16:54, James Keener wrote:
> As Melvin mentioned, this belongs in a new thread.

And as such, it would have been really kind to actually start a new one.

(...)
--
Stéphane Schildknecht
Contact régional PostgreSQL pour l'Europe francophone
Loxodata - Conseil, expertise et formations
06.17.11.37.42

On 01/06/2016 08:50 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On 01/06/2016 08:11 AM, James Keener wrote:
>>> The coc sounds like a Washington politics play, but as long as the best
>>> still engage
>>> in this forum, I could care less. The list serves its purpose without
>>> overhead...a rare
>>> resource in today's flood of incoherent technical chatter.
>>
>> Beyond "Hey! Look at us! We're telling people to play nice" What would a
>> Code of Conduct actually get the community?
>
> It provides a sense of confidence to those who are not confident that
> they can come play in our playground and not be bullied. That is what
> every single code of conduct is about. There are a lot of very talented
> people in the FLOSS community that just don't like to work in areas that
> don't have a code of conduct.
>
>> Is not having a formal "play
>> nice" document actually keeping developers away?
>>
>> However, what happens if I break the CoC? Email addresses and IRC
>> handles are cheap. I can still continue to use PostgreSQL. If I say an
>> incredibly racist, sexist, or just plain rude thing, then what do I
>> loose? What do we do when someone harasses someone else in private?
>
> It isn't about your ability to use PostgreSQL. It is about your ability
> to contribute and be part of the community.
>
>>
>> That said, I would capitulate that a document stating the behavior we
>> expect of each other as a useful way in helping us tell people to stand
>> down.
>
> This is a very good point. It serves as a throttle on heated
> discussions. It shows we are serious about everyone respecting each
> other even when they aren't getting along.
>
>> However, we have to accept that in-and-off itself it's a
>> meaningless document. Like the US Constitution, it only matters if
>> people execute and make it matter.
>
> Exactly and there are ways to do that.
>
>>
>> _We_ as a community need to take the responsibility of telling each
>> other off when someone steps out of line. If a (short) document
>> explaining the goals, values, and precepts of the community will help us
>> do that, then by all means, let's do that!
>
> Right. The creation of a CoC doesn't hurt anyone. There is no downside.
>
>>
>> We just have to figure out if it will. (As a cis-hetero white middle
>> class male) I'm not a "targeted" group and as such my views may not be
>> of the most use here.
>
> Which is another very good point.

Except it is not true. Re: my previous post about Brendan Eich. He was
run out of office for crossing one of the 'targeted' groups who then
launched a cyberbully and harassment campaign that made his position
untenable. Mozilla admitted as much:

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/

Yet other then the politicians answer of we will look into it, nothing
was done.

>
> JD
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On 01/06/2016 09:20 AM, Adrian Klaver wrote:

>>> We just have to figure out if it will. (As a cis-hetero white middle
>>> class male) I'm not a "targeted" group and as such my views may not be
>>> of the most use here.
>>
>> Which is another very good point.
>
> Except it is not true. Re: my previous post about Brendan Eich. He was
> run out of office for crossing one of the 'targeted' groups who then
> launched a cyberbully and harassment campaign that made his position
> untenable. Mozilla admitted as much:
>
> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
>
>
> Yet other then the politicians answer of we will look into it, nothing
> was done.

Not our problem.

Our problem would be if those actions were happening "within" the
PostgreSQL community. What jerks (on either side) do outside the
community is not our concern. We are not Social Justice Warriors for the
world.

JD




--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Victor Yegorov wrote:

> Perhaps, this is a good project for a newby to do. Perhaps, it is
> worthwhile to create Developer's documentation, either as a section in
> the official docs or as a separate resource with structure and design
> similar to the official docs?

Here's an idea.  We have a wiki page titled "Developer FAQ", which
hasn't evolved very much and personally I didn't find it of much value
last time I looked at it.  Perhaps some freshman hacker would be
interested in revamping it --- they could ask questions here, and then
edit the responses in a way suitable to appear in that wiki page.

--
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for the posting. That was a good list of areas to cover. Specially about speakers/events/third party plugins
etc.

How would  you sum it up? Would it be right to summed up as anything that could affect the Postgresql as a brand should
beprotected? 

This is of course also an opportunity to include many more people within the community.

The only problem is that the list is getting to large to implement for *the first drop*. It could end up just as point
ofdiscussion.  

To kick start it. I hope someone will look at the primary issues that concerns the team the most. Including those you
andothers  
have mentioned and just get it out of the door. No doubt these will be reviewed and edited or added in due course.

How does that sound?

Good luck.


Farjad Farid





-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd@commandprompt.com]
Sent: 06 January 2016 17:01
To: Jim Nasby; Melvin Davidson; FarjadFarid(ChkNet)
Cc: James Keener; Karsten Hilbert; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

On 01/06/2016 08:13 AM, Jim Nasby wrote:

> (BTW, if your concern on enforcement is about control, not only can
> people be removed from mailing lists and the like, but there actually
> is a Postgres legal entity that could start legal proceedings if it
> ever came to it.)

As a Director for 2 of the "legal" entities this idea is a rough road.
As a volunteer organization we would have a very hard time bringing legal proceedings for a violation of a CoC.
Realisticallywe are talking about a person bringing legal proceedings against another person of whom are contributors
tothe "PostgreSQL Project". 

That said, there is no reason this can't be enforced.

A hacker who has code committed to the tree has a vested ID interest in that code. It took time, heart, commitment, and
toughskin. They may not have been compensated for that time, if they had been compensated they also have skin in the
gamewith whoever compensated them. 

Now change the first sentence to:

A community organizer who spends months organizing a postgresql event has a vested ID interest in that event.

A pug leader who spends time every month organizing a postgresql meeting has a vested ID interest in that meeting.

An extension writer ....

A speaker ....

A DBA who fought hard to get PostgreSQL into their DC.....

If the big yellow guillotine comes down on their ability to contribute and stains the shirt red. It will matter.

Enforcement isn't that hard. It is just a committee who ultimately answers to -core.

Sincerely,

JD






--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting
anddevelopment. 
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't control your own emotions, so everyone else should
doit for you. 

How does one "start a new thread"?

I wasn't aware that changing the subject wouldn't be enough. I tried :/

Jim

On January 6, 2016 12:17:54 PM EST, "Stéphane Schildknecht" <stephane.schildknecht@postgres.fr> wrote:

On 06/01/2016 16:54, James Keener wrote:
 As Melvin mentioned, this belongs in a new thread.

And as such, it would have been really kind to actually start a new one.

(...)

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Hi,

I'm not much of a contributor to the project any more, but I thought
perhaps some information about what some other communities do might be
helpful.  (For those of you who don't know me, I used to be somewhat
active in this community until I got heavily involved in the Intenet
Engineering Task Force or IETF.  Alas, these days I seem to be
spending all my time on Internet politics.  I clearly made a bad
trade.)  Anyway, here's some stuff on how the IETF does this, in case
it is helpful.  This is a little long.  As the saying goes, I didn't
have time to write a short letter.

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 08:50:40AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> It provides a sense of confidence to those who are not confident that they
> can come play in our playground and not be bullied. That is what every
> single code of conduct is about. There are a lot of very talented people in
> the FLOSS community that just don't like to work in areas that don't have a
> code of conduct.

I think there are a few different things that are coming together
under the rubric of "code of conduct", and it might be helpful to
separate them.

First, it's important to remember that many of the codes of conduct
actually arose from a problem that Postgres doesn't have.  Many
projects (Ubuntu is a good example) are actually communities that come
together around what is really a commercial enterprise (in Ubuntu's
case, Canonical).  So, some of the traditions of CoC happened because
companys' lawyers told them, "You need this in order to avoid getting
sued."  Because Postgres didn't grow up that way, it didn't have that
need traditionally.  But now that it is established practice, many
corporations won't allow their staff to participate in activities
without such a CoC, precisely because of the legal environment (this
is especially true in the US, of course).  Nevertheless, any project
with more than a handful of contributors pretty quickly develops norms
and generally enforces those, if only informally.

One kind of conduct is "acting in the community", which in virtual
communities like this one (and the IETF) mostly means mailing lists
and other such electronic exchanges.  Because of the way it's
organized (in working groups with chairs), the IETF has a way to deal
with misbehaviour of that sort: the chairs have the ability to
restrict someone's posting privileges on a WG's mailing list.  The
criteria are somewhat vague but it basically amounts to "stick to the
topic, don't be mean, and don't attack anyone personally."  In the
normal course off affairs, WG chairs enforce these things
(infrequently), and that's all there is to it.  Much of this is
codified in RFC 2418 and updates to it
(http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2418).  It's worth noting that, because
the IETF is made up of engineers, we have a lot of process documents.
Discussions around process tend to take a lot of engergy and sometimes
distract the IETF from its main work.  Some of us find this a little
vexing.

The overall acceptable conduct of participants is outlined in RFC 7154
(http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7154), from 2014, but the IETF adopted
its first such guidelines in 2001 (RFC 3184).

Sometimes we get people in the IETF who can't play nicely.  If it's a
problem across the IETF, we have a mechanism called "PR-Action" (for
posting rights).  It is outlined in RFC 3683
(http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3683).  We haven't had to use it very
often, but we have done and will probably have to do so again.  Also,
the main ietf@ietf.org mailing list has a sergeant-at-arms to try to
head off behaviour issues before they get out of hand.

Despite all those process documents, there have sometimes been worries
about harassment.  As a result, the IESG (basically, the managers of
the IETF) created an anti-harassment policy.  It's at
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/ietf-anti-harassment-policy.html.
Part of the need for that policy came from issues outside the
community: while there were concerns about some of the behaviour
around the IETF (which has a real problem with gender and cultural
diversity, but had a bigger problem in the past), there was an
especially bad example of misbehaviour at a conference of another (but
related) community one year.  It motivated people to write down some
rules before things got really out of hand.  (Note: some argue that
the reason things didn't get as bad at the IETF as those reports
suggested was just that we had so few women participating in the IETF
that the population didn't support the scale of misbehaviour.  I'm not
trying to minimise the social problems that the IETF had.)  The IETF
has also created an "ombudsteam" (what an awkward word!) to try to
deal with any misbehaviour that comes up.  (You contact them at
<ombuds@ietf.org>.)

This brings up another issue that Postgres doesn't really have: some
communities (including the IETF) have official community meetings of
this or that sort, and there is a different kind of conduct for which
one might need a policy when humans physically in the same room are
involved.  Because Postgres meetings of various kinds are not usually
"project" meetings, but rather meetings organized by some group but
open to the community, the "meetings" part is not something the
Postgres community needs to have consensus about.  Instead, those
meetings have their own CoC.  This seems normal to me: the organizer
of a meeting should have such a code, and since the Postgres project
is in general not the organizer the project doesn't need to have a set
of rules about such meetings.

Finally, and separate from all of that, the IETF has a lot of rules
around intellectual property.  This is mostly because the IETF is a
standards organization, and so it publishes documents, and copyright
can be tricky under such cirumstances.  The good news there, of
course, is that Postgres doesn't really have this problem either,
because of the way a code contribution (which automatically gets the
PGDG license) gets distributed.  The IETF does have a code about
disclosing patent claims, however, and it might be another thing for
the Postgres project to think about.  We have a lot of these rules,
but if you want to have a look at how they work together you should
probably start at
https://www.ietf.org/about/process-docs.html#rfc.section.2.3.

I don't really have an opinion about whether the Postgres project
needs a CoC, but I will say that having some of these rules has helped
the IETF not be dragged into contentious discussions of acceptable
behaviour on some occasions.  (Whether someone's behaviour fails to
conform to the process documents, of course, causes its own arguments.
We have an appeals process for this, which would be hard to graft onto
other organizations.)  The other thing I note is that the IETF got
most of these documents because someone thought the problem was
important enough to write a draft proposal first.  As I said in a
recent IETF plenary, the organization works partly because at the IETF
you don't need anyone's permission to try something; you don't even
need forgiveness.  The worst that can happen is that people reject the
proposal.  It always seemed to me that the Postgres project worked in
a similar way, so I'd encourage those who think there is a problem to
be solved to make a scratch proposal and see whether it flies.  It's
always easier to discuss a concrete proposal than to try to figure out
whether something is a good idea in the abstract.  The shorter and
easier to understand the proposal is, I think, the more useful it is
likely to be.

I hope this was useful.  If not, please delete and ignore :)

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@crankycanuck.ca

On 1/6/2016 8:50 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> It provides a sense of confidence to those who are not confident that
> they can come play in our playground and not be bullied. That is what
> every single code of conduct is about. There are a lot of very
> talented people in the FLOSS community that just don't like to work in
> areas that don't have a code of conduct.


Linus's lack of a personal CoC certainly hasn't kept people away from Linux.



--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On 1/6/2016 8:25 AM, FarjadFarid(ChkNet) wrote:
> Music industry is a good example where too low charges has damaged it. People in the industry will tell you that not
enoughyoung talent are coming through the system. I do agree that there is some corruption but there is no escaping the
factthat the industry's turn over has seen a massive decline. 


thats a terrible example.   'the music industry' are leaches on the
talent.    young talent has chosen to stay OUT of their 'industry'
because the industry sucks them dry.

there's TONS of young talent out there performing, its just not
mainstream commercial crap.   much of it is self produced, by extremely
talented musicians who have intentionally chosen to stay as far away
from the 'music industry' as possible, earning their income by touring
and direct CD and merchandise sales.





--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On 01/06/2016 02:50 PM, David Gibbons wrote:

>     On 1/6/2016 8:50 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>         It provides a sense of confidence to those who are not confident
>         that they can come play in our playground and not be bullied.
>         That is what every single code of conduct is about. There are a
>         lot of very talented people in the FLOSS community that just
>         don't like to work in areas that don't have a code of conduct.
>
>
>
>     Linus's lack of a personal CoC certainly hasn't kept people away
>     from Linux.


Yes actually it has, perhaps not use but contribution (which is what we
are talking about). There was just recently a very high profile exit due
to his inability not to be a jackass. I personally know people that
won't go anywhere near Kernel development because of the toxic
environment that surrounds it.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 1:48 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
> As I said in a
> recent IETF plenary, the organization works partly because at the IETF
> you don't need anyone's permission to try something; you don't even
> need forgiveness.  The worst that can happen is that people reject the
> proposal.  It always seemed to me that the Postgres project worked in
> a similar way, so I'd encourage those who think there is a problem to
> be solved to make a scratch proposal and see whether it flies.  It's
> always easier to discuss a concrete proposal than to try to figure out
> whether something is a good idea in the abstract.  The shorter and
> easier to understand the proposal is, I think, the more useful it is
> likely to be.

+1

Josh informed me you guys are thinking about a CoC.  Let me start off by
saying that I don't think you need one and in fact having one may be
dangerous.  I fear for your safety.

I think Roxanne mentioned some good points in an earlier thread that you
should itemize what you expect to achieve with a Coc.

Quoted from her note:
"You implied in your first post that you would attract more contributors
with a CoC."

Let me say -- I do not think you will attract more contributors.  You may
in fact attract parasites.

The FreeBSD thread that is often mentioned as reason why you need a Coc is
this from Randi Harper.
http://blog.randi.io/2015/12/31/the-developer-formerly-known-as-freebsdgirl/

Randi has just blocked me on twitter after I complimented her on her nice
shallow evidence - http://imgur.com/a/UVKfZ   Perhaps questioning her
harassment claims identifies me as a troll.

I have spoken to one of her victims Roberto Rosario.  A great loving man
from what I can tell, and she has truly tried to destroy his credibility
and harassed him beyond end.  I feel so horrible that a woman claiming to
watch out for minorities and women in tech is disingenuous and will
probably laugh pushing me down, because I'm not poor and have educated
parents.

So please whatever you do, if you really feel you need a Coc, do not
choose this one or anything that looks like it:

http://contributor-covenant.org/

I'm seeing social bullies going at every project demanding they adopt this
garbage.

Who knows what their intention is, I can only imagine.


Thanks Regina,
PostGIS PSC member

On 10/01/16 20:37, Regina Obe wrote:
> Josh informed me you guys are thinking about a CoC.  Let me start off by
> saying that I don't think you need one and in fact having one may be
> dangerous.  I fear for your safety.
>
> I think Roxanne mentioned some good points in an earlier thread that you
> should itemize what you expect to achieve with a Coc.
>
> Quoted from her note:
> "You implied in your first post that you would attract more contributors
> with a CoC."
>
> Let me say -- I do not think you will attract more contributors.  You may
> in fact attract parasites.
>
> The FreeBSD thread that is often mentioned as reason why you need a Coc is
> this from Randi Harper.
> http://blog.randi.io/2015/12/31/the-developer-formerly-known-as-freebsdgirl/
>
> Randi has just blocked me on twitter after I complimented her on her nice
> shallow evidence - http://imgur.com/a/UVKfZ   Perhaps questioning her
> harassment claims identifies me as a troll.
>
> I have spoken to one of her victims Roberto Rosario.  A great loving man
> from what I can tell, and she has truly tried to destroy his credibility
> and harassed him beyond end.  I feel so horrible that a woman claiming to
> watch out for minorities and women in tech is disingenuous and will
> probably laugh pushing me down, because I'm not poor and have educated
> parents.
>
> So please whatever you do, if you really feel you need a Coc, do not
> choose this one or anything that looks like it:
>
> http://contributor-covenant.org/
>
> I'm seeing social bullies going at every project demanding they adopt this
> garbage.
>
> Who knows what their intention is, I can only imagine.
>
>
> Thanks Regina,
> PostGIS PSC member
>
>
I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ),
when Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus
remained calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been
obviously annoyed within the first 5 minutes.  As backround see:

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2988850/opensource-subnet/linux-kernel-dev-sarah-sharp-quits-citing-brutal-communications-style.html

I think some people, unintentionally, set themselves up as a victim.

So I would agree that a Coc is likely only to lead to arguments. Take
something innocuous like 'do not offend people' - sounds good, now
politely  explain why someone's deeply held beliefs contradict reality!


Cheers,
Gavin

> I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ), when
Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus remained
calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been obviously
annoyed within the first 5 minutes.  As backround see:
>
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2988850/opensource-subnet/linux-kernel-d
ev-sarah-sharp-quits-citing-brutal-communications-style.html

> I think some people, unintentionally, set themselves up as a victim.

> So I would agree that a Coc is likely only to lead to arguments. Take
something innocuous like 'do not offend people' - sounds good, now politely
explain why someone's deeply held beliefs contradict reality!


> Cheers,
> Gavin


Sarah is my most favorite person in the world.  I made critical comments on
her blog once when she went crazy on Linus which she deleted. I must be a
troll. I see now she's into doing stats on the people she deleted comments
of.

http://sarah.thesharps.us/2016/01/07/metrics-of-haters/

Maybe we should suggest she should use PostgreSQL for that and demonstrate
our fancy stat functions.

She won Red Hat Woman of the Year Award -
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/women-in-open-source

Sarah Sharp
2015 Community Award winner

Am I the only one concerned about some of the women role models we have in
FOSS?

Thanks,
Regina

On 1/9/2016 11:37 PM, Regina Obe wrote:
> Josh informed me you guys are thinking about a CoC.  Let me start off by
> saying that I don't think you need one and in fact having one may be
> dangerous.  I fear for your safety.

indeed.  I think this man said it best.

https://youtu.be/PjVbypiUOHA?t=35s







--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On 1/9/2016 11:57 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:
> I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ),
> when Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus
> remained calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been
> obviously annoyed within the first 5 minutes.

(total outsider here, looking in)

some people are just toxic.   psychic vampires.  They can suck all the
energy out of something while contributing little or nothing.

OTOH, she seems to have done some seriously good work, hard stuff like
pioneering the linux framework for USB 3.0.

The more I read, the more I'm at least somewhat on her side, Linus does
not need to be as much of an a**hole as he comes off as.   For sure
dealing with an environment like that you need to be really thick
skinned.    At times when I read about Linus and the whole kernel
environment I think he's a vampire, but he's taking the power he's
sucking up and building something, so maybe thats excusable... does he
really need to be /that/ big of an ahole?  I dunno.


entirely on the other hand, I note that FreeBSD development has a whole
lot less drama, and at least in my opinion, the kernel is a whole lot
more stable.   hmmmmmmmm.


--
john r pierce, reusing bits in santa cruz

On 10/01/16 22:55, John R Pierce wrote:
> On 1/9/2016 11:57 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:
>> I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ),
>> when Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus
>> remained calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been
>> obviously annoyed within the first 5 minutes.
>
> (total outsider here, looking in)
>
> some people are just toxic.   psychic vampires.  They can suck all the
> energy out of something while contributing little or nothing.
>
> OTOH, she seems to have done some seriously good work, hard stuff like
> pioneering the linux framework for USB 3.0.
>
> The more I read, the more I'm at least somewhat on her side, Linus
> does not need to be as much of an a**hole as he comes off as. For sure
> dealing with an environment like that you need to be really thick
> skinned.    At times when I read about Linus and the whole kernel
> environment I think he's a vampire, but he's taking the power he's
> sucking up and building something, so maybe thats excusable... does he
> really need to be /that/ big of an ahole?  I dunno.
>
>
> entirely on the other hand, I note that FreeBSD development has a
> whole lot less drama, and at least in my opinion, the kernel is a
> whole lot more stable.   hmmmmmmmm.
>
>
I sometimes look at the kernel mailing list:
      https://lkml.org
Linus is normally very mild tempered, rarely do I see him lash out, but
I've only seen that against people who are competent, but doing/saying
something Linus strongly disagrees with.  Most times he disagrees in an
almost boringly mild way.

I would be quiet chuffed if Linus was rude to me - as that would mean
that I'd met a fairly high standard.  If I sent in a really stupid
patch, it would simply be ignored.  Though I must say, I've not, and
almost certainly never going to, send in a kernel patch!

In the early days, Linus would quite readily admit to doing something
stupid & suggest that he should wear a brown paper bag in shame!  He has
a wonderful sense of humour, especially apparent in the early days of
Linux - but his kernel release comments now appear far too professional!

Linus had said that one time he was too polite, and a developer
persisted wasting a lot of effort before Linus could get through to
him.  So Linus is now a lot more direct.

Sarah is an extremely brilliant and very productive kernel programmer,
out classes me many times over in all programming metrics of any value -
it is a grave pity that she takes comments as personal attacks.

I have immense respect for Linus, and I understand where he is coming from.

I unexpectedly had about a ten minute one-to-one conversation with him
at the 2015 conference.  He is aware that he is far from perfect.  I
would be very happy if I was at least 1% as he is, in terms of effective
ability and contributions.

I suspect that Linux is more capable and growing a lot faster than any
of the BSD's!!!  Though the BSD's may be more stable.


Cheers,
Gavin

Hey,

For the record, my thoughts on a CoC are something like:

1. Be excellent to each other
2. If you don't know what that means, leave
3. If someone isn't being excellent please contact: XYZ

With XYZ being a committee that determines the ABCs.

Or in other words something like this (without the profanity):

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/9e/95/2f/9e952f5fadae057840e549779f4309c7.jpg

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Sun, 10 Jan 2016 07:36:23 -0800
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:

> Hey,
>
> For the record, my thoughts on a CoC are something like:
>
> 1. Be excellent to each other
> 2. If you don't know what that means, leave
> 3. If someone isn't being excellent please contact: XYZ
>
> With XYZ being a committee that determines the ABCs.

In general, I agree; but there are problems with 1 and 2.

The definition of "being excellent" varies from individual
to individual; but more importantly, from culture to culture.
As a result, pretty much everyone would have to leave as a
result of #2, because very few people know what "being
excellent" means to everyone involved.

As a result, I would feel REALLY bad for XYZ, who would be
put in the unenviable place of trying to mitigate disputes
with no guidance whatsoever.

So, the purpose of a CoC is twofold:

A) Define what "being excellent" means to this particular
   community.
B) Provide a process for how to resolve things when "being
   excellent" doesn't happen.

Without #1, nobody will want to do #2, as it's basically a
job that can never be done correctly.

But defining #1 is the really difficult part, because no matter
how you define it, there will be some people who disagree with
said definition.

The fact that Postgres has not needed a CoC up till now is a
testiment to the quality of the people in the community. However,
if Postgres continues to be more popular, the number of people
involved is going to increase. Simply as a factor of statistics,
the project will be forced to deal with some unsavory people at
some point. Having a CoC is laying the foundation to ensure that
dealing with those people involves the least pain possible. It
will always involve _some_ pain, but less is better.

I've done the job of #3 with other groups, and 99% of the time
there was nothing to do. The one incident I had to handle was
terrible, but at least I had some guidance on how to deal with
it.

--
Bill Moran

On 01/10/2016 08:07 AM, Bill Moran wrote:

> So, the purpose of a CoC is twofold:
>
> A) Define what "being excellent" means to this particular
>     community.
> B) Provide a process for how to resolve things when "being
>     excellent" doesn't happen.
>
> Without #1, nobody will want to do #2, as it's basically a
> job that can never be done correctly.

I agree with you completely. That is actually why I included the link to
the graphic in the last post. My point was, I have no intention of
having a CoC that is full of drivel. I would want a clear, concise,
no-B.S. CoC.

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

> On 01/10/2016 08:07 AM, Bill Moran wrote:

>> So, the purpose of a CoC is twofold:
>>
>> A) Define what "being excellent" means to this particular
>>     community.
>> B) Provide a process for how to resolve things when "being
>>     excellent" doesn't happen.
>>
>> Without #1, nobody will want to do #2, as it's basically a
>> job that can never be done correctly.

> I agree with you completely. That is actually why I included the link to
> the graphic in the last post. My point was, I have no intention of
> having a CoC that is full of drivel. I would want a clear, concise,
> no-B.S. CoC.

> JD

This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
you

1) Are helpful when I ask a question
2) Stick to the topic
3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do

4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
preferred.

One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
Linux - problem solved
Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.

Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.

https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html

In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
they think they've said something mean-spirited
and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
person had no idea
their joke was mean.

My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
we change Master/Slave  to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.


Thanks,
Regina

On 10/01/16 18:44, Regina Obe wrote:
>
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you
>
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.
>
> One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
> user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
> Linux - problem solved
> Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.
>
> Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.
>
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html
>
> In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
> they think they've said something mean-spirited
> and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
> person had no idea
> their joke was mean.
>
> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave  to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina

+1

--
Tim Clarke

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 01:44:37PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.

That seems like a pretty good scratch CoC to me.  (See my other note
about how other communities deal with this.)  It's concrete, short, to
the point, and a useful thing to point to when some flamewar breaks
out over irrelevant stuff.  If people want a CoC, I think it should be
something like the above.

> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave  to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.

If someone did that, it would fall under (2), no?  (I note that a
recent RFC, of which I am a co-author, about DNS terminology did say
that "primary" and "secondary" were to be preferred over "master" and
"slave".  I didn't personally agree with the claim, but that's what
got consensus.)

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@crankycanuck.ca

On 11/01/16 07:44, Regina Obe wrote:
[...]
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you
>
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.
I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac.  They were so Mac
centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
thread.  I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were
accusing everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a
Mac, as though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!

So yes, I am sensitive to the O/S people are using, I will now avoid
helping people who don't use Linux.  As I may not understand their needs
properly, and I don't want to be accused of picking on them because they
not using the "RIGHT OPERATING SYSTEM"!  But I have neither the time nor
the expertise to even help everyone who uses Linux, even if they DO use
the "ONE TRUE LINUX DISTRIBUTION" (being very careful not to mention the
distribution I'm using - not wanting to start a flame war!!!).

I've twice been effective in supporting people with programs written in
BASIC, were the version of BASIC was unfamiliar to me and I could not
test my suggested change because they used a Microsoft O/S and I did not
have access to any Microsoft boxen for testing purposes (at the time).
In a recent project, I even ran a Microsoft O/S in a VM on my Linux box
to test something for a project I was leading.  So I don't have an
overriding religious type objections to helping people with other
operating systems!
>
> One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
> user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
> Linux - problem solved
> Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.
>
> Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.
>
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html
>
> In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
> they think they've said something mean-spirited
> and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
> person had no idea
> their joke was mean.
>
> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave  to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.

Comrades, we are all equal! So to set one program above another is an
anathema!  :-)
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
Chers,
Gavin

On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:

>> JD
>
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you

I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are
sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you allow your sexism to bleed
into the community.

In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal
beliefs may remain your own.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On 10/01/16 21:31, Regina Obe wrote:
>> I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ), when
> Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus remained
> calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been obviously
> annoyed within the first 5 minutes.  As backround see:
> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2988850/opensource-subnet/linux-kernel-d
> ev-sarah-sharp-quits-citing-brutal-communications-style.html
>
>> I think some people, unintentionally, set themselves up as a victim.
>> So I would agree that a Coc is likely only to lead to arguments. Take
> something innocuous like 'do not offend people' - sounds good, now politely
> explain why someone's deeply held beliefs contradict reality!
>
>
>> Cheers,
>> Gavin
>
> Sarah is my most favorite person in the world.  I made critical comments on
> her blog once when she went crazy on Linus which she deleted. I must be a
> troll. I see now she's into doing stats on the people she deleted comments
> of.
I initially heard about Sarah when I read an item about her being the
first to implement USB 3 support, and it was for Linux!  So I started
off having tremendous respect for her.  While I have programmed at the
assembly level for 3 different types of processors many years ago, I am
certain she is considerably more competent than I ever was technically.

>
> http://sarah.thesharps.us/2016/01/07/metrics-of-haters/
I had a look at this.

While there obviously were some comments that I and most others would
utterly condemn - there was no breakdown of other comments. So no way of
knowing if she considered all criticism of her as being hateful.

>
> Maybe we should suggest she should use PostgreSQL for that and demonstrate
> our fancy stat functions.
>
> She won Red Hat Woman of the Year Award -
> https://www.redhat.com/en/about/women-in-open-source
>
> Sarah Sharp
> 2015 Community Award winner
>
> Am I the only one concerned about some of the women role models we have in
> FOSS?
Am I, as a mere male, entitled to have an opinion on this?  :-)

It is very sad, that some people would answer the above question with a
resounding no!

>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>

>> She won Red Hat Woman of the Year Award -
>> https://www.redhat.com/en/about/women-in-open-source
>>
>> Sarah Sharp
>> 2015 Community Award winner
>>
>> Am I the only one concerned about some of the women role models we have
in
>> FOSS?
> Am I, as a mere male, entitled to have an opinion on this?  :-)

> It is very sad, that some people would answer the above question with a
> resounding no!

I think anybody who has a vested interest in FOSS and in a project has the
right to say
"I think we are sending the wrong message to the younger generation what it
takes to succeed in Open Source"

I personally feel that we are sending the message

1) Find the person who has contributed the most to a project,
2) Select some choice pieces out of the 10,000 emails they have written that
suggests they are a jerk
3) Show this to the world and say "You see, your hero is a big jerk"
4) Have your friends twit and blog the message until everyone thinks this
guy is a big jerk.
5) Write up a lengthy painful to read doctrine about how you are going to
bring peace to the project.
6) Broadcast how your doctrine has made the project a more civil place for
discuss

BTW - I rarely try to get into things like discussing Cocs and stuff, but
this time I am just fed up with having my concentration ruined
when I could be devoting precious time to my projects.

This is causing me severe emotional distress.

Thanks,
Regina

> On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:

>>> JD
>>
>> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor I
>> don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long
>> as you

> I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are
sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you allow your sexism to bleed into
the community.

> In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal
beliefs may remain your own.

> JD

Josh,

I read the image and thought, you meant you can't have a racist, sexist
thought in your body and I looked at myself and thought
"I have racist and sexist thoughts. I might be a racist sexist pig.  I am
not welcome here. Let me find another project."

I would remove the word professional.  I think people have used that word so
much to mean newspeak that people are now scared of the term.

So something like:

Try to be helpful and respectful when talking with people in the community.

Thanks,
Regina

On 1/10/16 10:07 AM, Bill Moran wrote:
> The fact that Postgres has not needed a CoC up till now is a
> testiment to the quality of the people in the community. However,
> if Postgres continues to be more popular, the number of people
> involved is going to increase. Simply as a factor of statistics,
> the project will be forced to deal with some unsavory people at
> some point. Having a CoC is laying the foundation to ensure that
> dealing with those people involves the least pain possible. It
> will always involve_some_  pain, but less is better.
>
> I've done the job of #3 with other groups, and 99% of the time
> there was nothing to do. The one incident I had to handle was
> terrible, but at least I had some guidance on how to deal with
> it.

Bingo.

To me, the CoC is as much about protecting Postgres itself as it is
about protecting contributors. Haters are going to hate, no matter what
you do... so how do you remove them and their toxicity as cleanly as
possible?

BTW, IMHO I think it was a mistake for the FreeBSD community to try and
keep things quiet. Sweeping stuff like this under the rug doesn't help
anyone. The problem is how to publicize things without scaring people
away from reporting. Also, not allowing your CoC to become a weapon that
someone can use offensively.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com

Gavin,
> I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac.  They were so Mac
centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
thread.  I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were accusing
> everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a Mac, as
though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!

I hear ya. I do the same thing setting up a Linux VM to try to help someone
on Ubuntu or CentOS.
My main point was if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say
anything at all.

I recall someone posting something earlier about on the lists we should have
a section like:

HELP US HELP YOU

That details the information anyone having a problem should provide to make
it easy for others to help them.
Can't find that item on mailing list.


Thanks,
Regina

On 01/10/2016 02:05 PM, Regina Obe wrote:
> Gavin,
>> I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac.  They were so Mac
> centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
> information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
> thread.  I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were accusing
>> everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a Mac, as
> though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!
>
> I hear ya. I do the same thing setting up a Linux VM to try to help someone
> on Ubuntu or CentOS.
> My main point was if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say
> anything at all.
>
> I recall someone posting something earlier about on the lists we should have
> a section like:
>
> HELP US HELP YOU
>
> That details the information anyone having a problem should provide to make
> it easy for others to help them.
> Can't find that item on mailing list.

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Guide_to_reporting_problems
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Oleg Bartunov <obartunov@gmail.com> wrote:
> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example, we
> in Russia are not really concern about this.

This depends on how the language is built. For example in French I
think it would matter (not living there for long though so perhaps my
perception is incorrect), and in Japanese it just doesn't matter,
there is no such concept.
--
Michael

On 11/01/16 19:13, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
[...]
>
> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for
> example, we in Russia are not really concern about this.
>
[...]

I started using 'Gender Appropriate' language long before this PC
nonsense started up. Back in those days the word 'he' in instructions
included the female gender, which I though was stupid. Back then, and
also these days, I see no point in mentioning gender unless it is relevant.

So I use: one, they, their, and them.  Which avoids the gender specific
problem, and also suggests (as is usually the case) that one or more
people are involved.

The problem with he/she is also that it is not totally politically
correct either, what about people who are a bit of both, and/or can't
decide?  Not to mention people with multiple personalities, not always
of the same gender (I spent a few years conversing with people in the
usenet group alt.sexual.abuse.recovery - long story, but I got into it
when I did a project on network traffic).  I also did some research when
I read an article that said about 10% of children born on an island
started life looking like girls, but changed into males at the time of
puberty, apparently about 0.5% (depending on precise definitions) of
children world wide are born not definitely of any particular gender.

Cheers,
Gavin

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:

> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example, we
> in Russia are not really concern about this.

Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

On 1/11/16, Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
>
>> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example,
>> we
>> in Russia are not really concern about this.
>
> Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?
>
> Karsten Hilbert

Yes, but I guess Oleg meant pronouns in documents.
In situations like 'When the user has to do something, firstly _he_
must do something else'.
In Russian pronouns have their own "gender" not necessarily connected
to a gender of real user who is reading the doc and in most cases such
pronouns are "masculine", that's why we don't concern to replace "he"
to "he/she" or somewhat else.
--
Best regards,
Vitaly Burovoy

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 01:50:50AM -0800, Vitaly Burovoy wrote:

> > On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
> >
> >> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example,
> >> we
> >> in Russia are not really concern about this.
> >
> > Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?
> >
> > Karsten Hilbert
>
> Yes, but I guess Oleg meant pronouns in documents.
> In situations like 'When the user has to do something, firstly _he_
> must do something else'.
> In Russian pronouns have their own "gender" not necessarily connected
> to a gender of real user who is reading the doc and in most cases such
> pronouns are "masculine", that's why we don't concern to replace "he"
> to "he/she" or somewhat else.

I understand. Thank you for the explanation.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

> On Jan 10, 2016, at 2:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>
> On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
>
>>> JD
>>
>> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
>> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
>> you
>
> I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you
allowyour sexism to bleed into the community. 
>
> In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal beliefs may remain your own.
>

My problem with all of this is when there is a demand for no tolerance.  People cannot comfortably live and work
withoutsome level of their essence (good or bad) bleeding into their work. 

I think Regina’s comment above is the most important comment I have read.  I want to work with Regina, right attitude,
rightfocus.  And if I did step over the line and Regina felt the need to address the issue I would very very much
respectit.  This is the attitude that a code of conduct should project, not all of the politically correct crap that is
normallywritten. 

It is important to protect the community from people who are on a mission to rid the world (or the community) of all
ass-holes,racists, sexists, etc.  That is never going to happen and their personal hate trip and lack of tolerance
shouldnot be in the community either. Certainly there is a line that should not be crossed from both extremes, but we
needto be tolerant while people are learning and adapting so the gap between the two lines needs to be as wide as
possible. The code of conduct IMO must address both extremes. 

Honestly, I would rather work with someone that offended me every day than someone that was so easily offended that I
hadto watch every word in our communications.  In managing projects, my experience is that more often that not, the
peoplethat focused on the style of the communications (politically correct, pleasing words, etc.) and were easily
offendedby style of communications had contributions that were much less valuable than people that were neutral or
rougharound the edges.  The community will make more progress if it can find a way to accept these ‘rough around the
edges’people, not because they are rough, but because roughness does not degrade value except at the extreme.  Often
someonethat is ‘rough around the edges’ has to be better at their work to make up for it.  These are good people to
keeparound if possible. 

Neil

Buford Tannen wrote:
> Regina Obe wrote:
>> Josh informed me you guys are thinking about a CoC.  Let me start off by
>> saying that I don't think you need one and in fact having one may be
>> dangerous. ...
>>
>> So please whatever you do, ... do not
>> choose this one or anything that looks like it:
>>
>> http://contributor-covenant.org/
>>
>> I'm seeing social bullies going at every project demanding they adopt
>> this...
>
>
> I wonder if "...unacceptable behavior by participants include: The use
> of sexualized language or imagery..." includes a ban on the use of
> things like makeup, eyeliner, earrings, excessively revealing or
> otherwise sexually suggestive and provocative attire and accoutrements
> designed to accentuate biological features for attractiveness.

Oh, and lipstick and died hair, too.

> We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same in a
> kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and the person
> didn't mean harm by it,
>
> simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues. If the person
> continues or they say something you feel is very offensive or degrading to
> another,
>
> tell a project maintainer preferably off-list and we will talk with the
> person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we determine
> behavior change is not possible.

I am concerned about this particular wording as it implicitly assumes
that the offended party is correct based on how they 'feel' and
requires punishment of/change by the 'offender' regardless of the
severity, or even validity of the claim.  I don't think that is the
intent, but that is how it reads (to me).

Brian,

>> We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same
>> in a kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and
>> the person didn't mean harm by it,
>>
>> simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues. If the person
>> continues or they say something you feel is very offensive or
>> degrading to another,
>
>> tell a project maintainer preferably off-list and we will talk with
>> the person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we
>> determine behavior change is not possible.

> I am concerned about this particular wording as it implicitly assumes that the offended party is correct based on how
they'feel' and requires punishment of/change by the 'offender' regardless of the severity, or even validity of the
claim. I don't think that is the intent, but that is how it reads (to me). 

Good point.  Rereading the last part,  sounds  like the victim is always right and is actually not needed since the
nextparagraph addresses it.  So how is this: 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same in a kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just
aminor offense and the person didn't mean harm by it,  
simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues.

If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable and you feel they are purposely antagonistic please notify the project
maintainergroup at ... with the specific occurrence and evidence that made you feel this way. 
We will judge if your complaints are valid and if we deem they are valid we will talk with the person to affect a
changein their behavior or kick them out if we determine behavior change is not possible. 


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks,
Regina

Hello,

A lot of good discussion has happened on this thread and as a whole I
think it has been determined that if done correctly, a CoC would not be
a bad idea. Of course we need to write one.

A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and
collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a
safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a
recipients response and usually because the recipient is more interested
in being a victim than moving forward.

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please
leave them there.

Josh,

If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.  I'm going to say something very sensitive here, so don't
thinkI am joking. 

When I was 5 I was raped by a next door neighbor. Everytime I here people talk about Cocs and how silencing they are I
thinkabout that. 

Thanks,
Regina

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd@commandprompt.com]
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 2:00 PM
To: Regina Obe <lr@pcorp.us>; 'Brian Dunavant' <brian@omniti.com>
Cc: 'Scott Mead' <scottm@openscg.com>; 'Adrian Klaver' <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com>; 'Gavin Flower'
<GavinFlower@archidevsys.co.nz>;'PostgreSQL General' <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> 
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

Hello,

A lot of good discussion has happened on this thread and as a whole I think it has been determined that if done
correctly,a CoC would not be a bad idea. Of course we need to write one. 

A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to
contributein a safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way. 

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a recipients response and usually because the
recipientis more interested in being a victim than moving forward. 

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/  503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting
anddevelopment. 
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please leave them there.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:

> HANDLING ISSUES

...

> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
> request you to change or leave.

May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

It seems a bit narrow ?

Thanks,
Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

On 01/11/2016 11:10 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
> Josh,
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.  I'm going to say something very sensitive here, so don't
thinkI am joking. 
>
> When I was 5 I was raped by a next door neighbor. Everytime I here people talk about Cocs and how silencing they are
Ithink about that. 

Regina,

Although I can appreciate your sensitivity to the terminology based on
your experience (and I am very sorry to read about that), I don't think
it is reasonable to change from an Industry Standard acronym on that basis.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please
leave them there.

> Regina,

> Although I can appreciate your sensitivity to the terminology based on your experience (and I am very sorry to read
aboutthat), I don't think it is reasonable to change from an Industry Standard acronym on that basis. 

> Sincerely,

> JD

Fair enough.

Sorry screwed up sending this email the first time.  Trying again:

> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:

>> HANDLING ISSUES

>...

>> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
>> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
>> request you to change or leave.

> May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

> It seems a bit narrow ?

> Thanks,
> Karsten Hilbert
> --
> GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
> E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

Karsten,

I'm not sure the best way to word this one.  I agree it needs more
clarity. The reason I put it in there is because of this:

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942

You see that guy strand.  From the way he talked, I thought he was a core
member of Opal and had contributed a lot.

On further inspection I discovered his only contribution was the
contributor code of conduct.

So the purpose is to try to prevent people who don't care about our
project from telling us how to run our project.

Thanks,
Regina

"Regina Obe" <lr@pcorp.us> writes:
> Sorry screwed up sending this email the first time.  Trying again:
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:
>>> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
>>> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
>>> request you to change or leave.

>> May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

> I'm not sure the best way to word this one.  I agree it needs more
> clarity. The reason I put it in there is because of this:
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942
> You see that guy strand.  From the way he talked, I thought he was a core
> member of Opal and had contributed a lot.
> On further inspection I discovered his only contribution was the
> contributor code of conduct.
> So the purpose is to try to prevent people who don't care about our
> project from telling us how to run our project.

Hmm.  I'm not sure that telling us that should amount to an offense;
such a person might even have a good idea from time to time.

Now, if the person is rude about it, that would be an offense, but
that should already be covered under other sections of the CoC no?

Another possibly offensive aspect of the example you're describing
is someone trying to pass themselves off as a major contributor when
they're not.  But I hesitate to try to draw guidelines for that either.

            regards, tom lane

> Hmm.  I'm not sure that telling us that should amount to an offense; such
a person might even have a good idea from time to time.

> Now, if the person is rude about it, that would be an offense, but that
should already be covered under other sections of the CoC no?

> Another possibly offensive aspect of the example you're describing is
someone trying to pass themselves off as a major contributor when they're
not.  But I hesitate to try to draw guidelines for that either.

>            regards, tom lane

Tom,
How would you feel about the original thread that started this.

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

I would dismiss her as a troll and kindly say, don't tell us who we can have
and who we can't.

Thanks,
Regina

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr@pcorp.us> wrote:

> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
find said speech or actions.

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Kevin Grittner wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr@pcorp.us> wrote:
>
> > How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
> >
> > https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
>
> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
> find said speech or actions.

I didn't look at this one either, but I looked at the "contributor
covenant" Regina linked to earlier (as an example of what not to do) and
was shocked to see that any random outsider can *demand* a project admin
to take action on harassment accusations, or have *the admin* be removed
from the project.  I found that totally backwards and I'd certainly be
against anything that contains such language.

--
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

I don't know about others.

But this whole thread has completely gone off the original track. With so many splinter topics. It has no hope of ever
completingwith any kind of resolution satisfying even 10% of contributors.  

Can be please stick to the core original topics? Whether we agree with them or not doesn't matter but let's have some
directionand closure so we can all move on and new ideas can be formed and be discussed.  

Thank you all.

On 01/11/2016 01:36 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Kevin Grittner wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr@pcorp.us> wrote:
>>
>>> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>>>
>>> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
>>
>> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
>> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
>> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
>> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
>> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
>> find said speech or actions.
>
> I didn't look at this one either, but I looked at the "contributor
> covenant" Regina linked to earlier (as an example of what not to do) and
> was shocked to see that any random outsider can *demand* a project admin
> to take action on harassment accusations, or have *the admin* be removed
> from the project.  I found that totally backwards and I'd certainly be
> against anything that contains such language.

You would never get me on board with that either. To iterate my thoughts
around a CoC are exactly this:

""" A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and
collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a
safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a
recipients response and usually because the recipient is more interested
in being a victim than moving forward. """

>


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:42 PM, FarjadFarid(ChkNet)
<farjad.farid@checknetworks.com> wrote:

Five days (and I don't know how many posts) ago, there was this:

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20160106184818.GT21041@crankycanuck.ca

Which said in part:

> The other thing I note is that the IETF got
> most of these documents because someone thought the problem was
> important enough to write a draft proposal first.  As I said in a
> recent IETF plenary, the organization works partly because at the IETF
> you don't need anyone's permission to try something; you don't even
> need forgiveness.  The worst that can happen is that people reject the
> proposal.  It always seemed to me that the Postgres project worked in
> a similar way, so I'd encourage those who think there is a problem to
> be solved to make a scratch proposal and see whether it flies.  It's
> always easier to discuss a concrete proposal than to try to figure out
> whether something is a good idea in the abstract.

I'm going to give this a belated +1, and ignore any further posts on
this thread.

If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
please start a new thread with a different subject line.

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Hello,

Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:

PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):

1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
collaborative way.

2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
interested in being a victim than moving forward.

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
appearance, body size or race.

4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists,
IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation
of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.

5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your
private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.

6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.


Sincerely,

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

"Regina Obe" <lr@pcorp.us> writes:
> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
> I would dismiss her as a troll and kindly say, don't tell us who we can have
> and who we can't.

Hm ... that thread makes me uncomfortable, because I can see both points
of view.  I really don't care for the idea that "you should throw this
longtime contributor off your project because he espoused some not-
politically-correct views in an unrelated forum".  On the other hand,
the argument that the person's actions might drive away potential
community members isn't without merit.

Also, does it really matter whether the complaint comes from someone
who's in the community already, or not?  It's going to be equally
messy either way.  Unless you choose to ignore the complaint simply
because a non-community-member made it, which seems to me to be a
bad idea.  A lot of the argument for having a CoC seems to be to help
draw new people in, and that approach won't do that.

This might be in the category of "hard cases make bad law".  Probably
an ideal outcome for the situation described there would have been for
the contributor to recognize that his actions didn't reflect well on
the community, and to *voluntarily* stop doing that.  Or at least,
stop posting divisive views from an account explicitly claiming a
close relationship to the opal community.  But should the community
have tried to force him to stop?  Dunno, but I doubt it would have
ended well if they had.

Moving on from the substance of the complaint, neither side of that
argument gets any points from me for being civil about how they went
about discussing it.  The complainant seems to have started out with
a public call for removal from the project, which is about as good
a way as I can think of for ensuring that the discussion will not
be pleasant or productive.  (Maybe there were some private contacts
beforehand, but I don't see any evidence of that; not that I had the
patience to read the entire thread.)   And the responses were not on
any higher level; which is unsurprising maybe, but they certainly did
nothing to defuse the situation.

In my admittedly-limited experience with dealing with such problems,
it's a lot easier to achieve positive results if you can discuss
issues in private, before people's positions harden.

In short, I wouldn't characterize that complainant as "a troll" for
the substance of her complaint, but maybe so for the way in which
she went about making it.  If we're to have a CoC, I'd really like
it (and any associated enforcement mechanism) to be designed to
discourage this sort of let's-begin-with-public-attacks approach to
problem resolution.  How we get to that exactly, I don't know.

            regards, tom lane

On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:
>
> PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):
>
> 1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
> a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
> who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
> collaborative way.
>
> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
> interested in being a victim than moving forward.
>
> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> appearance, body size or race.

Well that renders this thread:

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie

out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.


>
> 4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists,
> IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation
> of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.
>
> 5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your
> private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.
>
> 6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@gmail.com> writes:
> I'm going to give this a belated +1, and ignore any further posts on
> this thread.
> If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
> please start a new thread with a different subject line.

I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

            regards, tom lane

On 01/11/2016 02:08 PM, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:
>>
>> PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):
>>
>> 1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
>> a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
>> who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
>> collaborative way.
>>
>> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
>> purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
>> interested in being a victim than moving forward.
>>
>> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
>> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
>> appearance, body size or race.
>
> Well that renders this thread:
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie
>
> out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.

No it doesn't. That thread was clearly a technical question based on a
specific gender problem domain. That is perfectly within bounds.

That said there is an obvious typo in #3:

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
of comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
appearance, body size or race.

We could add the word inappropriate (I thought negative but that doesn't
work either because positive comments can be just as bad).

JD

P.S. please use new thread WIP: CoC

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Regina Obe wrote:
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.

> Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the
PoliticalCorrectness nonsense associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the aftermath of proposed
adoption.

> Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie

> It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist epithet. In fact that word and the one you are
thinkingof are completely unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common except, on the one hand, as you
imaginethe acronym might be pronounced, and on the other because there are six similar letters. 

Exactly.  That's why I added that section:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

USE OF TRIGGER TERMS

We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past trauma for some people.
While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort of changing long understood terminology and
thepsychological trauma  
such changes would cause for the large majority of people who are not as sensitive to the usage.
As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than we do of renaming old features.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all you have no proof whether I was raped or not, so you don't know if I'm just playing the "Poor woman was
raped,give her a break" card or if my sad luck story is genuine. 
In the end it's irrelevant, because as Josh apologetically explained to me  - Coc is standard in our vernacular so
wouldcause more damage to others if we change it.   

I have to learn to cope with my suffering when someone says Coc and it's not your problem that I was raped and I have
traumaticmemories everytime 
I hear someone say  "We have a Coc. I think that should make you feel safer."

Josh did the right thing.  If we had this Coc -- Josh could just point at this section and say

"I feel your pain, but according to our Code of Conduct, we can't change it."

Thanks,
Regina

Thanks Joshua for creating this list. Great starting point and hopefully points to focus on to conclude this thread.

Here are my humble comments on them.

I think point two is already covered by respecting other people's opinion. At times specially over email ,where we
don'tsee others reactions , people can unintentionally be more confrontational than normal. Therefore it is not just
therecipient.  

Perhaps Point 3 should read "free from".

Thanks again Joshua.

Best Regards


Farjad


-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd@commandprompt.com]
Sent: 11 January 2016 22:00
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Kevin Grittner'; 'Regina Obe'
Cc: 'Tom Lane'; 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time? (WIP CoC)

Hello,

Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:

PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):

1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing a safe, respectful, productive, and
collaborativeplace for any person who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way. 

2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a recipient response and usually the
offendedindividual is more interested in being a victim than moving forward. 

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free comments related to gender, sexual orientation,
disability,physical appearance, body size or race. 

4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists, IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be
construedas a violation of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee. 

5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your private and public lives outside of the
PostgreSQLcommunity are your own. 

6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.


Sincerely,

JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting
anddevelopment. 
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't control your own emotions, so everyone else should
doit for you. 

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr@pcorp.us> wrote:
>> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
> find said speech or actions.

FWIW, I did read some of that thread, and the point that seemed to me
to possibly bring that situation within reach of a CoC was that the
contributor was posting offensive-to-some views from an account that
explicitly identified him as a core opal contributor.  As such, it
wasn't totally unreasonable to see him as representing the project
in those statements.

(Note: I have not verified the facts of the matter, but this is what
was alleged in the thread.)

            regards, tom lane

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> appearance, body size or race.

... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...

Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical
Record data I fear I will need to be able to discuss schema
layout related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
physical appearance, body size, and race.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> >3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> >comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> >appearance, body size or race.
>
> Well that renders this thread:
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie
>
> out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.

How about this one
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20150825203743.2090.73356%40wrigleys.postgresql.org

--
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

ALL:

Please move comments to the new thread: WIP: CoC


--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@gmail.com> writes:

>> If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
>> please start a new thread with a different subject line.
>
> I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

Oh, are you referring to this:?

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/001201d14c96$fc26ed70$f474c850$@pcorp.us

For some reason that shows up as a quote of a quote in my gmail, so
I skipped over it without noticing it.  Apologies.

Even after finding it, formatting is mangled, and I see an
amendment was just posted.  Can we get this into a more readable
format somehow, where changes can be reflected without sequentially
scanning the thread?

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

> Oh, are you referring to this:?
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/001201d14c96$fc26ed70$f474c850$@pcorp.us
> For some reason that shows up as a quote of a quote in my gmail, so
> I skipped over it without noticing it.  Apologies.

> Even after finding it, formatting is mangled, and I see an
> amendment was just posted.  Can we get this into a more readable
> format somehow, where changes can be reflected without sequentially
> scanning the thread?

Also, since JD already took Kevin's advice to start a new thread,
Regina please post your latest into that thread not this one.

            regards, tom lane

On 12/01/16 11:21, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
>> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
>> appearance, body size or race.
> ... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...
>
> Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical
> Record data I fear I will need to be able to discuss schema
> layout related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
> physical appearance, body size, and race.
>
> Karsten Hilbert
And what about people who want to construct a database to help survivors
of sexual abuse, and/or doing research into sexual abuse?

Dear all,

Please let's not be pedantic  and expect absolute legalistic perfection in
the wordings that has been put forward.

No doubt we all understand the spirit and the purpose of the wording. Which
is when we are consulting in the community we
are not to  here to discuss other people's gender, sexuality etc.

Joshua can I put forward that two further points should be considered for
possible inclusion.

One is prejudices towards one's own religious persuasion and secondly age
related should not be part of discussions or reasoning.

We are effectively here to focus on helping each other and improving the
overall functioning of postgresql etc in a very practical manner.

Please let's move on.

Best Regards







-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Karsten Hilbert
Sent: 11 January 2016 22:21
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time? (WIP CoC)

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is
> free comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
> physical appearance, body size or race.

... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...

Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical Record data I
fear I will need to be able to discuss schema layout related to gender,
sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, and race.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD  4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346


--
Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general

Regina Obe wrote:
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.

Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is
exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness
nonsense associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the
aftermath of proposed adoption.

Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing
the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie

It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist
epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are
completely unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common
except, on the one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced,
and on the other because there are six similar letters.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 11:00:23 -0800
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:


> A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipients response and usually because the recipient is
> more interested in being a victim than moving forward.

I've seen text like the preceding in over 10 messages in this thread. I
could be interpreting them wrong, but they seem to be saying the
offended recipient is more interested in being a victim than moving
forward, or with some of the responses, the recipient is being a cry
baby.

In my opinion, this is a much easier position to take when it's the
other person regularly spoken of as "misinformed", "ignorant",
"neckbeard", or whatever. Much harder position when your technical
posts are regularly greeted by such personal insults, and few folks
rise to your defense.

Well, whatever, survival of the fittest. 90% of the time, the party
being personally insulted silently leaves, and is not missed. But
sometimes the community has something to lose. Let me tell you a story.

=============================================
=============================================
12 years ago, one guy in my LUG continually replied to me in
what I think most reasonable people would call an insulting
manner. Some of his posts called me "ignorant", "unprofessional", lack
of "checking my work", "committing libel", "lies and hypocracy", and
"reinventing history".

I called for the LUG's Executive Committee to reign in his rhetoric,
explaining that it had gotten to such a point that I could no longer
bring friends, or possible business associates into the LUG because
they would be hearing a constant barrage of anti-Litt rhetoric, and
some of it might stick. The Exec Committee told me I was being too
sensitive and I should just let it slide.

So I got a new domain name, started a new LUG, drew membership both
from the old LUG and from the greater area. Immediately those same
people who said I was being too sensitive begged me to cancel the new
LUG and they'd institute anti-personal-insult rules.

But it was too late: I'd already done it. Over the next several years,
the new LUG grew and still meets every month, maintaining an active
mailing list and IRC channel. Meanwhile, the old LUG lost membership,
lost their nonprofit corporate status, lost their mailing list, lost
their domain name, and their remnants hold an "installfest" once a
month in a venue with no Internet (it's BYOI).
=============================================
=============================================

Most of the time, chalking things up to "recipient is more interested
in being a victim" does the community no harm. But every once in a
while, the costs are considerable.

All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
valuing his/her victimhood.

About a CoC, here's what I want to know:

What *possible* value to a free software community could come of a
sentence structured like the following:

"You <something negative>"

What possible harm would it do to ban such sentences? What features do
such sentences introduce into the software? Why is it difficult to
discuss features instead of people on the mailing list? How many
potential contributors have silently left after seeing personal insults
to themselves or others?

My opinion: Whether you call it CoC or mailing list rules or anything
else, some degree of it is needed, because the community allowing a
wild west of personal insults fails to achieve its potential at best,
and disintegrates at worst.

SteveT

Steve Litt
January 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28

Steve,

Please see the new thread WIP: CoC V2

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/  503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Tom Lane wrote:
> In my admittedly-limited experience with dealing with such problems,
> it's a lot easier to achieve positive results if you can discuss
> issues in private, before people's positions harden.
> 
> In short, I wouldn't characterize that complainant as "a troll" for
> the substance of her complaint, but maybe so for the way in which
> she went about making it.  If we're to have a CoC, I'd really like
> it (and any associated enforcement mechanism) to be designed to
> discourage this sort of let's-begin-with-public-attacks approach to
> problem resolution.  How we get to that exactly, I don't know.

There's a time-tested idea in Mt 18, 15-17:

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just
between the two of you.  If they listen to you, you have won them over.
But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that
'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse
to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

"Take one or two others along" could be a CC.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

On Jan 12, 2016 9:48 AM, "Regina Obe" <lr@pcorp.us> wrote:
>>
>> Chris, 
>>
>> >> For a Coc – I think it should be light, but make it clear that we do not tolerate strangers coming into our group and demanding us to accept their code, cause we want to be welcoming and show we have at least 15% of code contributions from women.
>
>  
>
> > One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues which may or may not become real problems.  I think if we try to be clear on all of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general expectation of what we do expect.
>
> > So my question would be how do you turn this around and frame it as a positive value and direction? 
>
>  
>
> > I assume respecting the commons is insufficient.  Maybe a brief note about the fact that this is critical software and we have to maintain very high standards of code?
>>
>>  Well we could just explain what we already do but be terse about it.
>>
>> We accept contributions from everybody.  Because our code is used in critical software and of a complex nature, we generally prefer contributions from members familiar with our code base, especially in core areas.

>>
>> This generally means frequent contributors have a more likely chance of having their code accepted or accepted faster than newcomers.
>>
>> A member of our community will inspect your contribution and if it is unacceptable in its current state, we will make suggestions for improvement.
>>
>> In some cases, your contribution may not fit into our current code/documentation base.  In these cases, we will reject it and explain why it cannot be used.

I like that idea.
>>
>>  
>>
>> --- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> That feels long and wordy I know, but not sure how to make it shorter.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Regina

On 12 January 2016 at 09:25, Chris Travers <chris.travers@gmail.com> wrote:

> One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues which
> may or may not become real problems.  I think if we try to be clear on all
> of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general expectation of
> what we do expect.

Another consideration.

Last night I was thinking this issue over and then remembered that
normally very reasonable persons (which I count myself among) can
react quite poisonous when they are tired or stressed and people start
pushing their buttons. Those people probably would not be violating
any CoC rules, but can cause someone else to do so.

Moreover, some people are exceptionally good at pushing all the wrong
buttons, whether doing that willingly (out of malice) or not.
I'm a bit concerned that a CoC could give the malicious among those
the ammunition they need to push buttons of their victims. Now of
course, they could do that just as well without a CoC and I don't
recall any instances of this problem on this list.

To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set
it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I thought the word
"gross" came from the German "Grosshaft", which means quite the
opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with
a heartily meant "Gross!". And then you suddenly get angry mails from
all over the place without understanding how that happened. Oops.

Where I stand? I do not know whether a CoC for PG is a good idea or
not, I can't decide. Anyway, in my case it's nothing more than an
opinion anyway - my contributions are pretty much limited to offering
help on this ML.

--
If you can't see the forest for the trees,
Cut the trees and you'll see there is no forest.

On 05/01/2016 18:47, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time
andfrankly if you are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on  
> it. Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the course of the last year seen more and more
potentialusers very explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend  
> a conference that does not have a CoC".
>
> Some of us may be saying, "Well we don't want those people". I can't argue with some facts though. Ubuntu has had a
CoC[1]since the beginning of the project and they grew exceedingly quick. Having  
> walls in the hallway of interaction isn't always a bad thing.
>
> In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what behaviour we as a project already require, so why not
documentit and use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project? 
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>
> 1. http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct

Well, while I don't have an opinion, since after 16+ years I don't think I am going anywhere away from PostgreSQL, let
meshare my initial feelings about the community. 
It was back in 2003, having spent already 3 years with the database and just starting to implement our own hierarchical
solutionbased on postgresql arrays and intarray contrib module, and heavily  
hack DBMirror, when someone (high ranking) on -sql called me "newbie".
My immediate reaction was to start looking for alternatives. Obviously I failed (no OS DB was this good). Other times I
hadmy favorite OS (FreeBSD) being bashed by pgsql ppl, but held on, I am still  
here, and ppl at pgsql conferences now talk about a company who has deployed over 100 pgsql installations in the seven
seascommunicating over satellite by a hacked version of uucp and replicated via  
a heavily hacked version of DBmirror.

So while I think that a CoC might help beginners stay, I don't think that this is a major part, neither do I think that
theppl themselves will easily conform. 

--
Achilleas Mantzios
IT DEV Lead
IT DEPT
Dynacom Tankers Mgmt

> To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set
> it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I thought the word
> "gross" came from the German "Grosshaft", which means quite the
> opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with
> a heartily meant "Gross!".

Indeed, that German word would be "großartig!" (often spelled "grossartig"
especially in environments without easy access to the German "ß".

Responding "Gross!" would amount to saying "That's a great idea in that
it is all-encompassing and using a generic concept to nicely solve a
specific (class of) problem(s) and then some.". Entirely reasonable (if
a bit unusually worded) in German :-)

Karsten Hilbert

> On 12 January 2016 at 09:25, Chris Travers <chris.travers@gmail.com> wrote:

>> One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues
>> which may or may not become real problems.  I think if we try to be
>> clear on all of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general
>> expectation of what we do expect.

> Another consideration.

> Last night I was thinking this issue over and then remembered that normally very reasonable persons (which I count
myselfamong) can react quite poisonous when they are tired or stressed and people start pushing their buttons.  
> Those people probably would not be violating any CoC rules, but can cause someone else to do so.
I should add you can be very hurtful without meaning to and without violating Coc rules.  I'm sure Josh pushing his
agendawas not intentional.   
But I really felt slighted by it.

I think we are just going to have to accept that we are going to accidentally push each others buttons and that's okay
andacceptable.  If you don't know someone it's even easier to push their buttons. 


> Moreover, some people are exceptionally good at pushing all the wrong buttons, whether doing that willingly (out of
malice)or not. 
> I'm a bit concerned that a CoC could give the malicious among those the ammunition they need to push buttons of their
victims.Now of course, they could do that just as well without a CoC and I don't recall any instances of this problem
onthis list. 

Some  people - study their victims carefully and figure out where their buttons are so they can push them and everyone
canlaugh.  Considerate people study people in the community, figure out where their buttons are and try to avoid
pushingthem. 
It's more likely a malicious person is going to be someone who doesn't contribute much to the project.  Thus my need to
givecontributors preferential treatment in ambiguous disputes. 

> To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I
thoughtthe word "gross" came from the German "Grosshaft",  
> which means quite the opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with a heartily meant
"Gross!".And then you suddenly get angry mails from all over the place without understanding how that happened. Oops. 

It's not just non-native speakers, it's also American.  I'm from New York and we tend to be very blunt and make jokes
abouteverything. I'm half Nigerian and Nigerian's have more than their share of people with a sick sense of humor. 
Worse, my mother was a Medical Examiner (someone who does autopsies on murder victims) and so her humor was very death
centeredand I thus had this very sick humor that offended everyone I came across except other children  
Of medical examiners.  Those kids would make jokes when they broke their arm - "Go away dad, I want someone who works
onliving people.  I'm not dead yet." 
I won't even go into the jokes Medical Examiners tell to each other as I know few of you could see the humor in it.


> Where I stand? I do not know whether a CoC for PG is a good idea or not, I can't decide. Anyway, in my case it's
nothingmore than an opinion anyway - my contributions are pretty much limited to offering help on this ML. 
The only reason I think we need a Coc is if we are concerned that

a) Some people won't feel welcome if they don't see one
b) Malicious people will spread rumors about our project for not having one , but if we have one, it has to protect us
fromthem working within the rules, but pushing everyone's buttons. 

Thanks,
Regina

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
> valuing his/her victimhood.

+1

I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.

> On Jan 12, 2016, at 7:50 AM, Vick Khera <vivek@khera.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com> wrote:
>> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
>> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
>> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
>> valuing his/her victimhood.
>
> +1
>
> I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
> containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
> eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.
>

I don’t remember the “victimhood” line, but it is important to make sure people understand that the problem manifests
itselfboth by being to sensitive by the complainer and not being sensitive enough by the group. I do believe that in
anydocument it needs to be stated that everyone is expected to be tolerant of others.  A free society cannot exist
withoutsome level of tolerance. 

Neil

On 1/12/2016 5:42 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
> a) Some people won't feel welcome if they don't see one
> b) Malicious people will spread rumors about our project for not having one , but if we have one, it has to protect
usfrom them working within the rules, but pushing everyone's buttons. 

c) and if we DO have one, malicious people will try and either work
around perceived cracks in said CoC, or use the CoC against people in
malicious ways, just because they can.   Trolls be Trolls


--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On 1/12/2016 11:32 PM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
> One of the nice things about the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is that it
> focuses primarily on the positive.  It is long, perhaps overly
> verbose, but it does focus on what the community wants rather than
> what the community wants to avoid.
>
> It is easy to say "don't do these things."  But it is perhaps better
> to say "these are the values our community lives by. Please respect them."


+1, except for the overly verbose part.

--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On Tue, Jan  5, 2016 at 08:47:16AM -0800, Joshua Drake wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I had a hard time writing this email. I think Code of Conducts are
> non-essential, a waste of respectful people's time and frankly if
> you are going to be a jerk, our community will call you out on it.
> Unfortunately a lot of people don't agree with that. I have over the
> course of the last year seen more and more potential users very
> explicitly say, "I will not contribute to a project or attend a
> conference that does not have a CoC".
>
> Some of us may be saying, "Well we don't want those people". I can't
> argue with some facts though. Ubuntu has had a CoC[1] since the
> beginning of the project and they grew exceedingly quick. Having
> walls in the hallway of interaction isn't always a bad thing.
>
> In reflection, the only thing a CoC does is put in writing what
> behaviour we as a project already require, so why not document it
> and use it as a tool to encourage more contribution to our project?

Just to give some context, the core team has quietly handled discipline
issues for years.  In fact, it was so quiet that no one really knew it
was happening, unless you were one of those people that core had to
discipline.  This secrecy caused people who felt they needed help with
unfair treatment to try to deal with discipline themselves, rather than
come to core.  The recognition of this behavior caused the creation of a
core responsibilities web page:

    http://www.postgresql.org/developer/core/

I see a CoC as a way of codifying expected behavior in the same way the
"core responsibilities" document does.

It is also true that any document you create to try to fix bad behavior
can be abused, e.g. laws to compensate victims of carelessly unsafe
environments have yielded many unethical personal injury lawyers in the
USA.  Therefore, we need to be careful of negative CoC effects.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

+ As you are, so once was I. As I am, so you will be. +
+ Roman grave inscription                             +