Thank you for the feedback and questions regarding the proposed LLVM policy changes. After more discussion amongst experts and the LLVM Foundation Board, we have decided to take a slightly different approach that we feel will address many of the concerns and also keep our community safe.
First, we will be keeping the age requirement to participate in the various parts of our project. For reference, GitHub has this requirement already and we should use the same requirement for all project infrastructure to be consistent. The age restrictions are due to The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Second, given that the LLVM project is a world-wide project, it is incredibly hard to get the right wording for restricting those who have committed sexual crimes and are on a sex offender registry. We have decided to instead make the LLVM Code of Conduct much clearer about behavior that occurs outside of LLVM spaces that we feel impact the safety of our community members. Therefore, we would like to make the following changes (in bold) to the LLVM Code of Conduct:
[LLVM Code of Conduct snippet]
This isn’t an exhaustive list of things that you can’t do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it’s intended - a guide to make it easier to communicate and participate in the community.
If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing conduct@llvm.org. For more details please see the Reporting Guide.
- Be friendly and patient.
- … [snip]
This code of conduct applies to all spaces managed by the LLVM project or The LLVM Foundation. This includes IRC channels, mailing lists, bug trackers, LLVM events such as the developer meetings and socials, and any other forums created by the project that the community uses for communication. It applies to all of your communication and conduct in these spaces, including emails, chats, things you say, slides, videos, posters, signs, or even t-shirts you display in these spaces.
In rare cases, violations of this code outside of these spaces may affect a person’s ability to participate within these spaces. Important examples include sexual and gender-based violence, hate crimes, and hate speech. We do not conduct proactive research, but we have an obligation to respond to any reported concerns. We are not interested in evaluating severity, responding punitively, or holding people accountable. Both the relevance and our response is instead focused on how a person’s continued participation impacts the community’s safety, wellbeing, and inclusivity. We specifically prioritize remaining a welcoming community to victims as well as groups subjected to systemic marginalization or underrepresentation.
We feel that these changes will meet the original goals of our proposed policy changes. We would like to thank Chandler Carruth for proposing these changes.
We appreciate continued feedback on this plan. If this is the right approach, our goal is to install these changes to the Code of Conduct on September 1, 2022, providing time for discussion and feedback but making sure we also make forward progress ahead of the LLVM Developers’ Meeting.
We will continue to update on all the proposed policy changes (terms of service, attendance policy, CoC point of contact, privacy policy etc) as we sort through the details.
The LLVM Foundation Board of Directors