Code of Conduct
Version 2.0, 26-November-2024

This document is designed for use by other projects, please change the following
two lines as appropriate:
The Project means the Post Open Project.
Management means the Post Open Administration.

Preface

This code of conduct applies to the operation of Management and
all meeting and discussion venues in which the Management has
control. Participation in the Project requires adherence to this code
of conduct.

We operate in a large and international community in which opinions
significantly differ. There are broad differences between people,
internationally, culturally, as well as differences in individual
conduct. This code of conduct is intended to bring our community
together and to resist the things that drive them apart.

Many Open Source projects have enacted a code of conduct. This one is
different from those, perhaps radically different, in that it declares
that the project will not take a position on many social issues that
we hold dear, and that those issues will not be discussed within the
project, but may be discussed in a "Free Speech Zone" which is distanced
from the project and which we do not concern ourselves with other than
supporting its manager in operating peaceful and safe discussions. 
This is necessary if all of our participants are to get along.

This code of conduct protects our participants activities on those issues
outside of our project and encourages them to pursue political and
social involvement outside of our project.

The Project has a separate process for admitting developers to the privilege
of being able to check in submissions to our software archive. This is
mainly based upon security. It may reference this code of conduct.


1. Tolerance is Important

Please be tolerant of accidents and failure to remember these
requirements. Remind people _politely_ where necessary. If repeated conduct
is clearly intentional, this will become evident and should be dealt
with. However, we need to recognize that many participants are awkward,
may be distracted, and have been socialized differently from us.


2. Prosecution

Violation of this code of conduct may result in penalties. These may
include all or some of the following: denial of invitation to our
next physical meeting, moderation or exclusion of the posting privilege
from our online forums, and in extreme situations including threats and
physical violence: exclusion from the project. Moderation is an expensive
use of our time and thus exclusion of some form may be the only economical
penalty.

Penalties should have a finite term and must be designed to facilitate
reform of the offender and reintegration into full participation in the
project, except in cases where multiple timed penalties have not resulted
in remediation of behavior.


3. Physical Contact

All of our participants have a right to safety and sanctity of their
person within our venues. Physical contact is, unfortunately, an area in
which many people have differing sensitivities, and cultural norms differ
significantly, along with concern regarding transmission of disease.

It's necessary for everyone to understand that some people just hate
to be touched, and some will perceive your touch in a way that you do
not intend. Unfortunately, rules that only prohibit "unwanted" physical
contact are unworkable, as a person's wants may not be communicated.

To set a standard that accommodates varying sensitivity and clearly
protects everyone, we request and require those who desire physical
contact to refrain. We discourage but will not prosecute handshakes and
fist-bumps, but know this: in any dispute brought by the recipient of
physical contact, the initiator of the contact will be considered to be in
the wrong, without adjudication of whether the contact was appropriate
or wanted. Physical contact is anything that has a physical effect upon
someone, such as blocking a person from going where they wish, blowing air,
throwing an object or deliberately causing a door to hit someone.

The clarity we gain from not having to debate the nature and appropriateness
of a physical contact helps us to protect everyone. As an alternative to
physical contact, we suggest a wave, nod, or bow, or if you wish to be more
fancy: the martial arts "rei", which symbolizes respect, strength moderated by
restraint, and humility.

We recognize that some participants have been socialized in an environment
where physical contact is the norm, and will find this emotionally
difficult. Please do your best.


4. Civil Conduct

We require civil conduct of all participants. This includes polite and
respectful dialogue at all times, and is not limited to speech: gestures and
actions are also part of polite and respectful communication. You should
behave as if you expect the best of everyone around you, and should
be graceful and tolerant when others make unintentional social errors.
Give them all the best conduct that you are capable of.

Although you may not be used to this outside of our events, at our
physical events you should politely greet individuals whom you meet
in any context where it is practical, whether or not you have been
introduced. This acknowledges the presence of the other person and that
they are someone who deserves your polite conduct, and reinforces that
we insist on a standard of civility that is greater than the norm. This
may be saying "good day" or "hello" to someone you pass in the hall,
sit down next to, etc.

We recognize that there are some participants for whom severe shyness
is a disability, eye contact is uncomfortable, or perception of social
cues is impaired and communication may be socially awkward. Please be
considerate and respectful of them.


5. Political and Social Discussions

To facilitate everyone getting along, we limit discussion strictly to
the intended topic. An online discussion or meeting intended to be focused
on a technical or administrative topic must stay on that topic.

Discussion of these topics are off-limits for any of our venues
or events outside of the Free Speech Zone: religion, politics, war,
social issues, gender issues, ethnic issues. You should also not wear or
display logos or slogans regarding these issues at our physical events,
in video conference or associated with our online discussions, for example
an e-mail signature.

This does not prohibit, for example, an organization that would mentor women
and minorities to participate in the Project. It only requires that they do so
in their own organization, with their own budget and leadership, and use the
Free Speech Zone or their own discussion channels. Our developers are free to
spend their income on such organizations.

Outside of the rules on physical contact, or conduct incident to a
Project venue, for example in a place frequented by attendees during such an
event, the political and social conduct of a person outside of a Project
venue or discussion should not be brought up within a Project venue or
discussion. This protects our participants right to political expression.

Where it has been made clear to you that a person has a self-designated
gender or no gender, your discussion will conform to that in the interest
of politeness, regardless of how you feel about gender issues.

You may politely convey wishes with a holiday or religious context,
for example wishing someone a merry Christmas or an easy fast, but the
discussion should be limited to that and should not be conveyed in a
way that excludes or is intended to annoy non-religionists.


6. Free Speech Zone

The Project may arrange for or permit a Free Speech Zone at its conferences
and associated with its online discussions, in which topics prohibited
by this code may be discussed. We will allow this zone to be operated by
a third party, under their own rules, and we will not concern ourselves
with activity in that zone except to appoint the operator and to support
the operator in maintaining peaceful and safe discussions. The operator
we appoint is expected to present us with their own rules, which should
enforce civil and respectful discussion, a ban on threats, and may include
a ban on topics which have little purpose other than to generate offense,
for example those promoting violent conduct toward any party, racism
and sexism, certain conduct toward minors, and obscenity for its sake.
The operator's rules should not in general restrict discussion, however
the operator is free to choose program topics and reject others arbitrarily
due to restrictions on space and time.

The intent of this section is to support social initiatives that are being
carried on outside of our organization, but free speech isn't always nice.
If you find yourself easily offended, don't go there.


7. The Project Position on Political and Social Issues

The Project and its essential business affiliates, such as banks, insurers, and
providers of contracted labor may be required by law to adopt certain social
stances, for example we may be required not to discriminate in hiring. Where
compliance with such rules is necessary, we will act in accordance with them.

It is recognized that this is complicated by the international nature of our
activity and conflicts in law across borders.

Other than as required by law, THE PROJECT DOES NOT TAKE A POSITION on
matters of religion, politics, war, social issues, gender issues, ethnic
issues. We understand that many of you may feel that there is only
one ethical stance on these things, that the failure to take a stance
is just as bad as the wrong stance, and you strongly desire us to take
it. All of us feel that. We could only take a stance at the cost of not
having all of our participants get along. We are sorry for the emotional
difficulty that this will cause some participants.

Outside of Project events and venues, we encourage you to be politically
and socially active, and to take part in organizations that are active on these
issues. We are sorry that we can't provide a venue for you to do so.


8. Dissent

It is important to cultivate and nurture dissent in discussions. Dissent
should be on-topic and offered politely. Internal criticism is
essential because it requires us to consider ideas and improve what
we're doing. Please do not take the person who offers dissent as an
enemy. Strive to understand their viewpoint.


9. No Secrets

Munitions export laws (ITAR and EAR in the US) mainly protect
trade-secrets, and allow the export of information that would otherwise
be prohibited for export as long as that information is in the "public
domain", not in a copyright sense, but in the sense of information which
is already publicly disclosed. Unfortunately many of our projects are
dual-use (civilian and military) under export law and can be considered
"munitions" and export-restricted, including projects related to
high-performance computing, communications, cryptography, aviation,
space and satellites, and there have been recent congressional attacks
on RISC-V and associated software (like language compilers) as it is
taken up by China.

Thus, it is essential that all parts of the Project operate in the
open. Technical discussions must be made available to the public if at
all practical. This does not mean that every informal phone call and
email exchange must be published, but significant decisions must be,
and the public should be able to read any online discussion even if the
privilege of posting is controlled.

The Project does not have trade secrets, because the software and content
is entirely disclosed. We understand that there may be secrets before
developers decide to release software as part of the Project.
At the moment of release, that work becomes publicly known.

Administrative proceedings must not be secret unless required by law, and even
then the Project must act to make as much of a proceeding public as possible. This
does not require publication of casual phone calls and emails, but decisions of
import must be published.


10. Be Accommodating of Disabilities and Differences

While the onus of accommodating disabilities is mainly on Management, the
conference committee, and the venue, every participant should be aware
of disabilities and differences. Please pitch in by helping wherever
possible so that everyone, regardless of their differences, feels
welcomed, wanted, and cared for.

A. Color Blindness

Presentations, publications and software user interfaces that use color
for information should be made with awareness of the color blind, for example
see https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/ . Where graphics are used to indicate
the magnitude of something, the difference should be dependent on luminance, with
an optional overlay of color tint, rather than chrominance alone. Where there are
color designations for things, such as the "red room", the color name, "RED" in
this example, should be superimposed over the color indication.

B. Blindness

Online presentations should have informative "alt text" for illustrations if the
medium allows - the web definitely does. Consider the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines. Don't use overlays that are promoted to fix disability accommodation
issues, they often get in the way of the disabled reader. Fix the original content.

C. Speech Issues

Conference operators should provide a standardized means of submitting questions
without speech, to accommodate speech deficits, shyness, and fear of public
speaking. This should use simple HTML as its user interface, to accommodate
varying ways of interacting with it such as text-to-speech and braille readers,
etc.

D. Hearing Issues

Perhaps a majority of people have a fear of public speaking, and one
of the ways this manifests is a reluctance to use the microphone. But
you might not have considered that the hard-of-hearing people in your
audience won't hear you if you don't use the microphone. Please be
respectful of them and use it.

Venues used for meetings should provide disability accommodations (ADA-compliant
in USA) and presentation spaces should provide a hard-of-hearing listening system.
or Auracast. The Project intends to standardize on Auracast as it arises at the retail
level. Low-power transmitters are already <$100 at retail, and the BlueZ team is
implementing it for Linux.

For the more severely deaf, in the US we have an ADA requirement to
provide assistance, and probably similar elsewhere. This is not always
American Sign Language. There are more than 300 different versions of
manual communication used worldwide and multiple different ones in the US.

F. Dietary

Participants are likely to have widely divergent dietary requirements, some
physical, some religious. Please be respectful of them.

G. Religious

While religion is not a topic of discussion within our community, some
participants must structure their time and actions to meet their personal
religious commitments. Please be respectful of religious practices that differ
from your own, including restrictions on meeting times, unexplained absences, 
inability to attend meetings on certain dates or at particular locations.

H. Other

Not all special needs are self-evident. A person presenting without issues
might be able to walk short distances, but require a wheelchair for longer
periods. A participant might require sleep, silence, or some other accommodation
not immediately obvious. Take this into consideration when you interact with
each other.


11. Weaponization

It is an unfortunate fact that any social code can be used to exclude
people for reasons other than the intent of the code. The Project, in
enforcing this code, must consider whether the motivation of an accuser
is purely that of creating the desired environment for participants,
or whether there could be another motivation.


12. What About My Right To Free Speech?

We have a right to Free Speech just as you do. That means that we have a right
to control the speech at our events and discussions. Free speech laws do not
obligate us to provide you with a venue for your speech, nor do they allow us
to prevent you from finding such a venue, as long as it is one outside of our
control. We may allow a Free Speech Zone just for that purpose, but even the
Free Speech Zone has its own rules.


13. Operation of Enforcement

Enforcement will consider the Paradox of Tolerance which states: 

If a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling
the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle
of tolerance.

Discussion of issues prohibited above is permitted to any person or group
participating in enforcement in the venue or discussion concerned with
enforcement and in the context of discussion of violations of those prohibitions.

Topics which are subject to this code of conduct are permitted in a discussion
group, online or physical, concerning development of the code of conduct itself
and in the code of conduct text itself.

Although there are always uncomfortable social issues in discussion of
code enforcement, the cost of secrecy is greater than that of the cost
of such discussions being known. All deliberation regarding enforcement
of this code must be made available to the public through full and
accurate recordings or transcripts, if it is not made in a medium that
is inherently available to the public.

The "No Secrets" issue is so important, because it could cause export prohibition
to apply to some of our software, that severe or repeated violations
may result in the exclusion of a violator from the Project entirely.

The code of conduct is also more important when applied to Management. Violations
of this code by staff are grounds for remediation. Repeated violations of this code
by staff after initial remediation should result in dismissal.