Open Source: Why code of conduct matters

In order to have a kind, passionate, communicative and harassment-free environment between developers. We are now adopting a Code of Conduct to every open source project.

I’ve been recently reading about the impact of having a Code of Conduct, although we have “rules” on how to behave with co-workers and people around us, we actually and most of the time don’t do this when it comes to software.

How many of you have ever made a commit with a rude comment?, which may include bad words, thoughtless use of pronouns, sexual or cultural innapropiate language. Get the point?

Inspired by Coraline Ada Ehmke in order to address this problem, she created a Contributor Covenant — a small and simple code of conduct which can be added to any open source project. This way you encourage developers to pledge to be kind, open and welcoming to any contribution.

What about us?

As open source lovers and maintainers of several open source projects, we are going to be part of this.

We would love to see more individuals and companies start thinking about this and adopt it as part of their core values for open source projects.

Embrace it

Adding a Code of Conduct will help you build an environment where everyone is worrying for contributing in the most positive way they can.

It will make the developers around the project to be kind, open to criticism and better to communicate.

We encourage you to adopt the Code of Conduct that best fits your needs and embrace it.

Originally published at sudo.icalialabs.com.