Codes of conduct

Over the last year and a half, I've watched with growing horror as “vibe coding” and similar practices have grown from niche to widespread, especially within Free Software communities. (This is only one facet of the concerted push by moneyed and powerful people to normalize LLM products like “generative AI” and their use. [1])

There are a few kinds of responses that are notable:

1. People eagerly drinking the Kool-Aid.
2. Those who've had a sip or gulp, but have expressed regret and stopped using the products. (See one recent example.)
3. People and groups making strong statements against the use of LLM products, for instance here.

(3) in particular have spoken to me because they include positive statements about what is good, valuable, and rewarding about both programming as a solo pursuit, and participation in Free Software projects and the communities that surround them. Many of these have resonated. On the individual side, in 2021 I named a project ‘genno’ after a Japanese type of hammer. This was a nod to the Acorn to Arabella project to build a wooden boat from scratch, whose videos helped me through many days of long COVID-19 lockdowns, and helped me appreciate the joy of focused and patient work, whether carpentry or coding. [2] On the collective side, my work developing research software has increasingly been driven by a desire to serve other researchers, especially those without the privileges I've enjoyed. Developing and maintaining research tools for (and with!) these people—rather than for well-resourced people and organizations—guides many of my choices. It's also immensely rewarding per se.

As lovely as it is to see expressions of these shared values, there are still too many people in category (1), and they are inflicting severe and growing harms on Free Software projects both small and large. At least until the ‘AI’ bubble pops—and still then—it's clear that defensive measures are necessary to prevent unthinking or wilful behaviour [3] from undermining the labour I and we have done and want to be doing.

To this end I took a stab at drafting a Code of Conduct (CoC), one that I'll adopt for my own repositories and in cases where I am sole or lead maintainer with authority to make that change. In the text, I try to make clear the human values motivating what I do, which should also motivate anyone who I'd be happy to collaborate with. Refusal of LLM usage and users then comes as a direct and simple consequence of these values. I like this ordering because it starts with principles that should be stable, and then interprets how these apply to the current malaise, which may (one hopes) dissipate, but may also metastatize, or linger. [4] The values can remain stable even if the context does not. The list of references includes examples from other projects that were inspiring.

I'm mulling further steps, like moving more fully to Codeberg, Sourcehut, or self-hosting of code and infrastructure. Creating this CoC was a more basic step, and can help signal the ‘why’ and guide the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the next ones.

I'll insist that contributors to my projects read it, but would also be grateful to anyone else who may want to share constructive comments or ideas.

[1]	This post isn't about the broader phenomenon, but you might check out Dan McQuillan's 2022 book “Resisting AI: An anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence” (yes, that's pre-ChatGPT; it holds up) or this essay by S.K. Winnicki titled “I would be so ashamed to use generative AI, here's why”.

[2]	Software Carpentry is an organization whose name made this association explicit back in 1998.

[3]	Bad, even rancid, vibes, if you will.

[4]	The same folks who pushed crypto and NFTs before moving on to ‘AI’ will, unless stopped, certainly find another mechanism for their aims of extraction and amassing power.