Merge lp:~mako/ubuntu-codeofconduct/proposed-revision into lp:ubuntu-codeofconduct

[Benjamin Mako Hill]

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

review: Approve

[lp:~mako/ubuntu-codeofconduct/proposed-revision]

6. By Benjamin Mako Hill on 2009-06-23

merged in minor changes from Emma Jane Hogbin

7. By Benjamin Mako Hill on 2009-07-07

clarified release time mention (typo)

8. By Benjamin Mako Hill on 2009-10-18

merged in a series of minor changes from Mark Shuttleworth

=== modified file 'CodeOfConduct.txt'
--- CodeOfConduct.txt	2009-06-05 09:13:22 +0000
+++ CodeOfConduct.txt	2009-10-18 21:25:18 +0000
@@ -1,79 +1,82 @@
-= Ubuntu Code of Conduct =
+= Ubuntu Code of Conduct v1.1 =
 
-This Code of Conduct covers your behaviour as a member of the Ubuntu
+This Code of Conduct covers our behaviour as members of the Ubuntu
 Community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, web site, IRC channel,
-install-fest, public meeting or private correspondence. The Ubuntu
-Community Council will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a
-member of the community.
+install-fest, public meeting or private correspondence.  Ubuntu
+governance bodies are ultimately accountable to the Ubuntu Community
+Council and will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member
+of the community.
 
-      '''Be considerate.''' Your work will be used by other people,
-      and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision
-      you take will affect users and colleagues, and we expect you to
-      take those consequences into account when making decisions. For
-      example, when we are in a feature freeze, please don't upload
-      dramatically new versions of critical system software, as other
-      people will be testing the frozen system and will not be
-      expecting big changes.
+      '''Be considerate.''' Our work will be used by other people, and
+      we in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision we take
+      will affect users and colleagues, and we should take those
+      consequences into account when making decisions.  Ubuntu has
+      millions of users and thousands of contributors. Even if it's not
+      obvious at the time, our contributions to Ubuntu will impact the
+      work of others.  For example, changes to code, infrastructure,
+      policy, documentation, and translations during a release may
+      negatively impact others' work.
 
       '''Be respectful.''' The Ubuntu community and its members treat
       one another with respect. Everyone can make a valuable
-      contribution to Ubuntu. We may not always agree, but
-      disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor
-      manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then,
-      but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal
-      attack. It's important to remember that a community where people
-      feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We
-      expect members of the Ubuntu community to be respectful when
-      dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside
-      the Ubuntu project and with users of Ubuntu.
-
-      '''Be collaborative.''' Ubuntu and Free Software are about
-      collaboration and working together. Collaboration reduces
-      redundancy of work done in the Free Software world, and improves
-      the quality of the software produced. You should aim to
-      collaborate with other Ubuntu maintainers, as well as with the
-      upstream community that is interested in the work you do. Your
-      work should be done transparently and patches from Ubuntu should
-      be given back to the community when they are made, not just when
-      the distribution releases. If you wish to work on new code for
-      existing upstream projects, at least keep those projects
-      informed of your ideas and progress. It may not be possible to
-      get consensus from upstream or even from your colleagues about
-      the correct implementation of an idea, so don't feel obliged to
-      have that agreement before you begin, but at least keep the
-      outside world informed of your work, and publish your work in a
-      way that allows outsiders to test, discuss and contribute to
-      your efforts.
-
-      '''When you disagree,''' consult others. Disagreements, both
-      political and technical, happen all the time and the Ubuntu
-      community is no exception. The important goal is not to avoid
-      disagreements or differing views but to resolve them
-      constructively. You should turn to the community and to the
-      community process to seek advice and to resolve
-      disagreements. We have the Technical Board and the Community
-      Council, both of which will help to decide the right course for
-      Ubuntu. There are also several Project Teams and Team Leaders,
-      who may be able to help you figure out which direction will be
-      most acceptable. If you really want to go a different way, then
-      we encourage you to make a derivative distribution or
-      alternative set of packages available using the Ubuntu Package
-      Management framework, so that the community can try out your
-      changes and ideas for itself and contribute to the discussion.
-
-      '''When you are unsure,''' ask for help. Nobody knows
+      contribution to Ubuntu. We may not always agree, but disagreement
+      is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor manners. We might all
+      experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that
+      frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to
+      remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or
+      threatened is not a productive one. We expect members of the
+      Ubuntu community to be respectful when dealing with other
+      contributors as well as with people outside the Ubuntu project and
+      with users of Ubuntu.
+
+      '''Be collaborative.''' Collaboration is central to Ubuntu and to
+      the larger free software community.  This collaboration involves
+      individuals working with others in teams within Ubuntu, teams
+      working with each other within Ubuntu, and individuals and teams
+      within Ubuntu working with other projects outside. This
+      collaboration reduces redundancy, and improves the quality of our
+      work. Internally and externally, we should always be open to
+      collaboration. Wherever possible, we should work closely with
+      upstream projects and others in the free software community to
+      coordinate our technical, advocacy, documentation, and other work.
+      Our work should be done transparently and we should involve as
+      many interested parties as early as possible.  If we decide to
+      take a different approach than others, we will let them know early,
+      document our work and inform others regularly of our progress.
+
+      '''When we disagree, we consult others.''' Disagreements, both
+      social and technical, happen all the time and the Ubuntu
+      community is no exception. It is important that we resolve
+      disagreements and differing views constructively and with the help
+      of the community and community processes. We have the Technical
+      Board, the Community Council, and a series of other governance
+      bodies which help to decide the right course for Ubuntu. There are
+      also several Project Teams and Team Leaders, who may be able to
+      help us figure out the best direction for Ubuntu. When our goals
+      differ dramatically, we encourage the creation of alternative sets of
+      packages, or derivative distributions, using the Ubuntu Package
+      Management framework, so that the community can test new ideas and
+      contribute to the discussion.
+
+      '''When we are unsure, we ask for help.''' Nobody knows
       everything, and nobody is expected to be perfect in the Ubuntu
-      community (except of course the SABDFL). Asking questions avoids
-      many problems down the road, and so questions are
-      encouraged. Those who are asked should be responsive and
-      helpful. However, when asking a question, care must be taken to
-      do so in an appropriate forum. Off-topic questions, such as
-      requests for help on a development mailing list, detract from
-      productive discussion.
-
-      '''Step down considerately.''' Developers on every project come
-      and go and Ubuntu is no different. When you leave or disengage
-      from the project, in whole or in part, we ask that you do so in
-      a way that minimises disruption to the project. This means you
-      should tell people you are leaving and take the proper steps to
-      ensure that others can pick up where you leave off.
+      community. Asking questions avoids many problems down the road,
+      and so questions are encouraged. Those who are asked questions should
+      be responsive and helpful. However, when asking a question, care must
+      be taken to do so in an appropriate forum.
+
+      '''Step down considerately.''' Members of every project come and
+      go and Ubuntu is no different. When somebody leaves or disengages
+      from the project, in whole or in part, we ask that they do so in a
+      way that minimises disruption to the project. This means they
+      should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to
+      ensure that others can pick up where they left off.
+
+We pride ourselves on building a productive, happy and agile community
+that can welcome new ideas in a complex field, and foster collaboration
+between groups with very different needs, interests and goals. We hold
+our leaders to an even higher standard, in the Leadership Code of
+Conduct, and arrange the governance of the community to ensure that
+issues can be raised with leaders who are engaged, interested and
+competent to help resolve them.
+

=== added file 'rationale.txt'
--- rationale.txt	1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
+++ rationale.txt	2009-10-18 21:25:18 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+The Code of Conduct was written in a day by a single person and revised
+by only a handful of others before it was posted on the Ubuntu website.
+At the time, there was no Ubuntu community.
+
+With time, the code has taken up a more important role than any of its
+authors imagined. It is now explicitly agreed to by thousands of
+Launchpad account holders and by hundreds of Ubuntu Members as a condition
+of their franchise. It has become the central written pillar of the Ubuntu
+community and has provided the basis for dozens of similar codes in other
+communities. As a result, it is not lightly that we approach the task of
+creating the first revision of the code since its creation.
+
+But over the last 5 years, the Ubuntu community has grown in ways and to
+degrees that were unanticipated. The Code of conduct plays a very
+different -- and more important -- role that it did at first. In order
+to reflect these changes and to create a stronger and more appropriate
+Code of Conduct for the Ubuntu Community of today, we offer this
+proposed revision.  We have tried to keep changes as small as possible
+and to ensure that all proposed changes are fully in the spirit, if not
+the language, of the original code.
+
+== Goals with revision 1.1 ==
+
+Our primary goal in this version of the Code of Conduct was to remove
+what we saw as an overly technical focus. When the first Code of Conduct
+was written, Ubuntu was an entirely technical project. There were no
+users, no support systems, and very little in the way of non-technical
+contributions from anyone. That has changed. In fact, the vast majority
+of the Ubuntu community contributes to the Ubuntu project is ways other
+than through writing code and making packages. We want our code to
+reflect this and to speak to the reality of the Ubuntu community today.
+
+Additionally, several of our proposed changes are designed to reflect
+the growth of the Ubuntu governance system.  We changed several
+references to the CC and its power to make it clear that the CC's
+important role has now been delegated to a series of new governance
+boards (e.g., the Forums Council and the IRC Council).
+
+The original version of the Code of Conduct used the term "you" to refer
+to a description of how people should act. Since the code of conduct is
+(as we like to say) not a stick to be wielded, but rather a description
+of how we feel our community should act, we changed the language so
+that, where it is not too awkward, we use "we" instead of "you."
+
+== List of specific Changes ==
+
+Throughout the text, we:
+
+ - changed references from "you" to "we" and changed the text in other
+   minor ways to make this set of changes read more cleanly
+
+In the opening paragraph, we:
+
+ - changed the reference to the Community Council to refer to other
+   governance bodies as well the CC
+
+In the section on ''Be considerate'', we:
+
+ - changed the example used to be less focused on code changes around
+   release and tried to generalize the example to a variety of other
+   areas in Ubuntu
+
+In the section on ''Be collaborative'', we:
+
+ - rewrote the section to remove a strong technical focus and an
+   emphasis on inter-project and Ubuntu-upstream relationships, and
+   removed the examples around patch workflow
+   
+ - tried to most clearly emphasize the way that collaboration plays
+   important roles within teams, between teams, and between Ubuntu and
+   the larger free software community
+  
+ - generalised the types of work that Ubuntu community members do
+
+ - changed the reference from members to community members (membership
+   didn't exist with the CC was written)
+
+In the section on ''When we disagree'', we:
+
+ - mentioned governance bodies other than the CC
+
+ - we emphasized that working separately should only happen when
+   differences are dramatic
+
+In the section on ''When you are unsure'', we :
+
+ - have changed the reference to technical mailing lists to one that
+   incorporates of community venues within Ubuntu.
+
+ - removed the joking reference to SABDFL (there's nothing funny about
+   the SABDFL)
+
+In the section on ''Step down considerately.'', we:
+
+ - changed the reference from "Developers" to "Members"