SQLite: Code of Ethics

by zrkrlc • 5 years ago

37 20 5 years ago

adamrezich2• 5 years ago

That's pretty cool

Care to elaborate? I felt strongly the opposite. It makes me more eager to move away from SQLite. I'm very far from religious, and this seems to be very strongly suggesting atheism is synonymous with immorality.

xyzzy123• 5 years ago

No one is required to follow The Rule, to know The Rule, or even to think that The Rule is a good idea. The Founder of SQLite believes that anyone who follows The Rule will live a happier and more productive life, but individuals are free to dispute or ignore that advice if they wish.

pwgentleman• 5 years ago

Maybe that says more about you than about the document authors, or the document itself.

They have gone through the trouble of changing this from a Code of Conduct to a Code of Ethics, for the specific purpose of avoiding quarreling (their rule 66).

You want to move away from SQLite just because you heard some developers are religious.

I really prefer their attitude towards disagreement.

gerhardhaering• 5 years ago

This would not affect my decicion to use SQLite, which is still my choice for quick database setups. Not saying that they did it here, but the notion that atheism is synonymous with immorality would be absurd. It is usually quite the opposite, most orthodox religion leads to immorality due to the simple fact that it applies codes that might maybe have made sense centuries or millenia ago to modern day societies.

PhantomGremlin• 5 years ago

It makes me more eager to move away from SQLite.

Why?

On another page I find: SQLite Is Public Domain

All of the code and documentation in SQLite has been dedicated to the public domain by the authors. All code authors, and representatives of the companies they work for, have signed affidavits dedicating their contributions to the public domain https://sqlite.org/copyright.html

Given that I'm free to do absolutely whatever I want with the code, why should I be seriously concerned about their code of ethics?

lapinot3• 5 years ago

Some is nice, up until the gratuitous references to christian religion. Lots of asceticism and charity, which is very not social by nature. Importantly there is almost nothing on evilness of power structures (how surprising). My personal take on it:

  1. snip (cult)
  2. Then, love your neighbor as yourself.
  3. Do not murder.
  4. snip (patriarchy)
  5. Do not steal. [meh: unconditional private property is immoral quite often]
  6. Do not covet.
  7. Do not bear false witness.
  8. Honor all people.
  9. Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself.
  10. snip (cult)
  11. snip (cult)
  12. Do not become attached to pleasures. [meh: asceticism]
  13. Love fasting. [meh: asceticism]
  14. Relieve the poor. [meh: charity, what made them poor?]
  15. Clothe the naked. [meh: charity]
  16. Visit the sick. [meh: charity]
  17. Bury the dead. [meh: charity]
  18. Be a help in times of trouble.
  19. Console the sorrowing.
  20. Be a stranger to the world's ways. [meh: definitely not in the way intended]
  21. snip (cult)
  22. Do not give way to anger.
  23. Do not nurse a grudge.
  24. Do not entertain deceit in your heart.
  25. Do not give a false peace.
  26. Do not forsake charity.
  27. Do not swear, for fear of perjuring yourself.
  28. Utter only truth from heart and mouth.
  29. Do not return evil for evil.
  30. Do no wrong to anyone, and bear patiently wrongs done to yourself.
  31. Love your enemies.
  32. Do not curse those who curse you, but rather bless them.
  33. Bear persecution for justice's sake. [meh: martyr and asceticism]
  34. Be not proud.
  35. Be not addicted to wine. [meh: (social) disease]
  36. Be not a great eater. [meh: asceticism]
  37. Be not drowsy.
  38. Be not lazy.
  39. Be not a grumbler.
  40. Be not a detractor.
  41. snip (cult)
  42. snip (cult)
  43. Recognize always that evil is your own doing, and to impute it to yourself.
  44. snip (cult)
  45. snip (cult)
  46. snip (cult)
  47. Keep death daily before your eyes.
  48. Keep constant guard over the actions of your life.
  49. snip (cult)
  50. snip (cult)
  51. snip (cult)
  52. snip (cult)
  53. Do not love much talking.
  54. Speak no useless words or words that move to laughter.
  55. Do not love much or boisterous laughter.
  56. snip (cult)
  57. snip (cult)
  58. snip (cult)
  59. snip (chastity)
  60. snip (authority)
  61. snip (cult)
  62. snip (cult)
  63. snip (chastity)
  64. Hate no one.
  65. Be not jealous, nor harbor envy.
  66. Do not love quarreling.
  67. Shun arrogance.
  68. Respect your seniors. [meh: conservatism, authority]
  69. Love your juniors.
  70. snip (cult)
  71. Make peace with your adversary before the sun sets.
  72. snip (cult)

The good parts are imho pretty simple: be honest and transparent in your actions, loving of fellow sensible beings, forgo revenge, greed and manipulation and brutality, criticize yourself and pardon others (hello Postel!). As i said above, this is a moral philosophy for individuals and doesn't say much about social structures, which is a big shortcoming imho. Eg, "recognize groups of differing interests and negotiate with honesty and utilitarianism", "refuse to represent your peers unless they insist forcefully"...

cmacleod42• 5 years ago

You seem to feel that charity is to be deprecated because it excuses unjust social structures. I think this is a mistake and that charity often challenges such injustices.

lapinot3• 5 years ago

I do! I understand your position but i believe it's illusory. I would define charity by it's free-willingness and the fact it's done by the people of means towards the more helpless (i believe helping among your peers is self-help/solidarity and not charity). There is an inherant distance between the giver/given: the giver has profited (indirectly, as always!) from some structures, which have negatively affected the given (global north gives to global south, rich gives to poor, citizen gives to immigrant, etc). Charity may be necessary in an inegalitarian society, but as such i don't include it in my moral ideals, which themselves already mandate to eliminate such structures.

On a more practical level, charity is a plaster that contributes to the acceptability of domination: far-from-home wars are acceptable because we have NGOs, but the reason we are implicated far-from-home is because we have strategical interests there. Humanitarians orgs object to the means of domination, but they don't object the actual relationship. Another thing is that the individual and free-willing decision means that you will resort to unconsious decision making to apply it or not, since you won't be able individually to always apply it. Think about it: which kind of beggars do you actually (not) give to? mothers with children? drunk? young? proactives/prostrated? And as groups: towards which ones does the public opinion orient NGOs? There are always some patterns, it's always brutal and it always transpires the exact biases we are otherwise trying to fight.

EDIT: For a bit more legibility i should've added that the concept that replaces charity for me is solidarity. And given that moral guidelines as above are never fully applicable, in a situation of charity i try to act with solidarity in mind. In solidarity the difference in power inside some imperfect structure may still be present, but it is not the core. In fact you give not because the recipient has less means, but because you are peers in some other sense. Solidarity could also flow in the opposite direction since it's more than just a transaction.

Minor49er• 5 years ago

"Importantly there is almost nothing on evilness of power structures (how surprising)." Well of course not. You snipped out those parts!

lapinot3• 5 years ago

These parts being? I'm gonna need some more details to prove you wrong ;)

adamrezich2• 5 years ago

Why is it acceptable to refer to exactly only one of the world's major religions as a "cult?"

mrozbarry2• 5 years ago

I'm going to throw the unpopular opinion in the ring: I like their statement. I like that their team is able to have common beliefs among themselves, and can share those beliefs. There used to be an internet where people could share what they believe, and if you hated it, you just ignored it.

While I am a Christian, I don't agree with 100% of this set of rules. For a small sample,

Chastise the body.
Recognize always that evil is your own doing, and to impute it to yourself.
Daily in your prayers, with tears and sighs, confess your past sins to God, and amend them for the future.
Obey in all things the commands of those whom God has placed in authority over you even though they (which God forbid) should act otherwise, mindful of the Lord's precept, "Do what they say, but not what they do."

That is not biblical (well, those could be in the Catholic bible, not 100% sure) at all, but that's fine. Now we all know where they stand, and what they find important.

djsweet• 5 years ago

I think the comments here taking the religious references at face value are missing the point.

This document was [...] created for the purpose of filling in a box on "supplier registration" forms submitted to the SQLite developers by some clients.
[The developers of SQLite] have pledged to govern their interactions [...] in accordance with the "instruments of good works" from chapter 4 of The Rule of St. Benedict [...] This code of ethics has proven its mettle in thousands of diverse communities for over 1,500 years, and has served as a baseline for many civil law codes since the time of Charlemagne.

Of course, there’s a link to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict

The Rule of Saint Benedict (Latin: Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written [...] for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot.

The entirety of section 3 is literally a reproduction of chapter 4 of The Rule of Saint Benedict. Compare to https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50040/50040-h/50040-h.htm#ch...

The explicit purpose of the document is further clarified in the third paragraph.

This document continues to be used for its original purpose - providing a reference to fill in the "code of conduct" box on supplier registration forms.

SQLite: Code of Ethics

Related Stories