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Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 23:17:37 +0000
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To: Matt Prelude <me@mprelu.de>
Cc: "internals@lists.php.net" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Contributor Guidelines, and Updates to Code of
 Conduct progress
From: padraic.brady@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?P=C3=A1draic_Brady?=)

Hi!

On 9 February 2016 at 13:56, Matt Prelude <me@mprelu.de> wrote:
> I feel that the CoC has a much greater chance of achieving consensus if we
> don't
> try to impose a 'court of law' alongside it, especially considering that
> most
> proposals for a 'court' have been secretive and focused on privacy rather
> than
> on transparency (the opposite of all well-functioning legal systems).

Just to provide a counterpoint to one argument herein - the focus on
privacy is literally transcribed into law for employee->employer
relationships throughout a lot of EU law. I can't comment on any other
laws. There's a certain collision of opinions as to whether the COC
for an open source project must perfectly emulate a legal system or a
project->participant (employer->employee style) system of discipline.
The latter is obviously more accurate in terms of describing the
nature of an open source project. Indeed, many of us are already in
this scenario beyond the walls of this project.

On that basis, the actual legal recommendation under my local laws
(for whatever they're worth) is NOT to open disciplinary procedures to
public examination, insofar as it can be realistically avoided.
Indeed, publicly stating conclusions as fact is likely a potential
landmine. The RFC calls for certain amounts of publicity as a
requirement to apply the most extreme of punishments only.

The "court of law" argument regularly stated in the wild is simply
non-applicable here. It's aspirational, which is to the good, but not
a legal requirement in any nation that I've ever heard of. Quite the
opposite! The PHP project is NOT a court. It SHOULD be focused on
privacy and confidentiality. Taken to complete extremes, not being
private and preserving confidentiality (particularly of the potential
victim) would actually open an employer to liability when taken to a
real court because they've utterly failed at that point to implement
an effective policy leaving them culpable.

I am not a lawyer of course - so chuck a couple of handfuls of salt
around ;). I do think it's an accurate assessment of where a COC
should go to remain on a safe course for all concerned.

Paddy