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The SQLite Code of Ethics

sqlite.org

321–330 of 408 posts

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#321
I don't know why a technology company needs a "code of conduct" or "ethics". The management embodies the ethics they desire to display and enforce. Has the institutional hierarchy lost the ability to govern and persuade their employees? Posting it for PR reasons is too close to virtue signalling.

Having a code of conduct and explicitly informing the world that you are Catholic and run the place in a Catholic manner, can be divisive. Not because Catholicism is a Big Bad™ or whatever current scandal, blah blah.

Because Catholics have a very distinct management style that excludes free flowing ideas and a two-way relationship with management, and focuses on nailing down perfect form. Sometimes it produces great results, other times not so much.

When it doesn't, it can be even more difficult to offer an alternative method, because of a strict CoC. For employees, the rules are sometimes used by management as an unintentional denial of different solutions.

People who know how this management style impacts their work life, may avoid the company. The internal environment becomes over-specialized towards one particular way of thinking and enacting technological change. Which is probably fine for SQLite to forever be the same as it was, which is all most people want out of the project anyway.

As a general trend though, it's concerning that otherwise solid companies are closing the front door to new ideas and opening the window so the non-CoC thinking can fly away.

The relationship everyone wants in the corporate world, is with the most skilled people at the best price. It doesn't necessarily correlate with perfect form or political CoCs.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a set of beliefs The elephant in the room in many current attempts to encourage "diversity" is that a genuinely diverse range of opinions and/or beliefs ends up being not welcome at all.

Let’s be blunt, when people complain about lack of a diversity of thought/opinion, it’s almost always a complaint that they can’t be a bigot. Of course nobody says that so directly- they use dog whistles so that people who are being attacked know to leave while the bigots retain a veinier of civility so they can radicalize others by saying “look how hostile and irrational that group got over my innocuous sounding sta…

This view “if you don’t agree with me 100% you’re a literal Nazi” is very common and very despicable.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#323
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's helpful when seeing the word "fascist" in 2022 to not take it literally. It now simply means "people to the right of me".

[flagged]

> Remember, that the other word “nazism” is a short for National Socialism, a purely left based ideology. The two (fascism and nazism) had a good run together as the best friends since they didn’t have a lot of topics to fight about.

This is a grossly inaccurate framing. Hitler and his allies found the socialist party a convenient ladder to power, however were not themselves not particularly leftist. For them the ethno nationalist project was the focus, and eventually Hitler would consolidate his control over the party by literally stabbing to death the leaders of the worker centric wing of the party.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah shit here we go again. Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is widely misunderstood to be a licence to be intolerant yourself. For the last time : it is not. Popper was talking about a very specific case, where the intolerant exploit the tolerance of a society to physically take over that society and enforce their views. Until and unless you have evidence of that plausibly happening, there is no Paradox of Tolerance. You…

> Popper was talking about a very specific case, where the intolerant exploit the tolerance of a society to physically take over that society and enforce their views. Where they pose a danger of it. If you let them do it before reacting, you've already lost, and that's the point. Anyhow, it's not widely misunderstood, AFAICT, since when it is invoked it is invariably with the strong implication, and usually the expli…

It’s usually invoked with the purpose of cancelling someone guilty of wrongthink, e.g. “Donglegate” or 100s of other examples of cancel culture.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the crypto-fascism conspiracy theory - or the blackshirt scare. There's fascists everywhere. They don't call themselves that, they don't organise under that label, and their views aren't particularly similar to historical fascism - but it's a serious threat! It's so powerful that they have to keep it a secret because they'll be cast out of polite society... At least McCarthy actually found people spying for t…

> They don't call themselves that, they don't organise under that label Why would they? Much of our current mythology is based around slaughtering fascists in WW2. Why would anyone identify with that? > their views aren't particularly similar to historical fascism Hence the appellation of neofascism. There is a direct thread of political genealogy from the alt-right to the OG fascists, through the European Nouvelle D…

No post body was provided.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#326
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's an argument monasteries gave birth to the modern European scientific tradition too

Or Ancient Greece (and later Rome), some 500 years before the monasteries.

Ancient Greeks did not send representatives to my country at least. The Church did however and brought with it a lot of knowledge.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> combined with a good faith enforcement which, of course, is the elephant in the room, isn't it. Good faith contributors don't need the code, because it was not written for them. It was written for the pathological cases. And systems designed around pathological cases are themselves pathological.

Good faith users don't need security policies because the security policies weren't written for them. They were written for the pathological cases. Good faith citizens don't need laws because the laws weren't written for them, etc. Systems designed around the pathological cases help keep those pathological cases at bay. They are a framework for allowing the good-faith people to continue to act in good faith without h…

Having safeguards, let alone against criminals, is a very different conversation to having a code of ethics.

Perhaps the fact that we as a society are so ready to associate codes of ethics with policing should be raising some red flags in how we think about this issue.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#328
So I am intrigued by the idea of the Axial Age transition - roughly 500BC and worlds big population centres (India China Persia) hit some kind of population tipping point, developed massive abusive slavery and wars and then developed much more restrictive religions as a means to control the larger populations.

The argument is tenuous but it reminds me a lot of the Shakespeare / Lope de Vega transition- sometimes population is dense enough to chnage something.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but notice the contrast with the popular, Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct, which makes it abundantly clear its aim to enforce a set of beliefs on its contributors, with no boundaries between professional and personal life.

That seems to be a blatant mischaracterization: > Scope: > This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces, and also applies when an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces. Examples of representing our community include using an official e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. https://w…

Up to version 1.3 the covenant didn't have a section limiting scope. 1.4 introduced it along with a loophole:

> Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

Eg, if you say something the maintainers don't like on your personal Twitter, all they need to say is "you're representing the project in a bad light" and it's fair game to ban you.

Then in version 2.0 the text you quote appears, but changes

> This Code of Conduct applies within all project spaces

to

> This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces

but never defines what community spaces are. Is your personal Twitter account a community space? Well, once again that's up to the maintainers to decide. It's the same loophole as 1.4 but more cleverly disguised.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#330
post #255
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that somewhat short-sighted. Let's use a different example. Imagine you live in a society that allows personal gun ownership. Obviously, in such a society you still don't want people running around shooting each other willy-nilly, so you make a law: shoot someone, go to jail. Now imagine someone pulls out a gun and shoots you. Result: you're dead, they go to jail. However, you'd really prefer not to be dead. S…

> EDIT: I see this is being downvoted FTFY > would anyone care to explain their reasoning? I think a lot of people on HN are just anti gun/very left wing, which may taint their judgement while your example was nice about the initiation of violence being the issue.

> anti gun/very left wing

FYI: contrary to popular belief, these are mutually exclusive.

"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -- Karl Marx

Anyone who advocates disarming the working class and leaving it entirely defenseless against capitalism and the state apparatus it inevitably begets is not leftist, and I'm personally rather tired of pretending otherwise. Gun control advocates might be "left" of the far-right, but that's a stunningly low bar.

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