SQLite Code of Ethics
sqlite.org83 points by zdgeier 3 days ago
83 points by zdgeier 3 days ago
One could probably argue that, if interpreted in a certain way, most of these laws/rules could be good. Even the god praising could be seen positively if one subtly transforms "god" into something like "that which is good," as many secular philosophers have done.
However, this rule cannot be shown to be universally good, regardless of interpretation:
"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.'"
It’s just not logical or empirically coherent. We could deconstruct this stupidity extensively, but it would not fit within the margin of this thread.
> if one subtly transforms "god" into something like "that which is good," as many secular philosophers have done.
It's the other way around. The word god describes "that which is good" a priori and then people discovered, that he is a person and not a principle.
> However, this rule cannot be shown to be universally good, regardless of interpretation
Subordinate yourself to those with authority in all things, except things that break or undermine any of the other rules.
“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.”
I believe it's adapted from the Rule of Saint Benedict[0] so regardless of your own objections to its practicality, communities of monks have been living by more-or-less these rules for centuries.
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."
― Steven Weinberg
4 years ago, 379 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31886687
My favorite bit about this is that it was adopted because the corporations buying sqlite insisted on having a code of conduct/ethics... And it's amazing that they'll check the box with this!
It's nice to see some humble people inside the tech space.
Too many of us believe we are gods as we command our machines to do our will. That was me once.
Regardless of my own view on these ethics, the quality of SQLite is for me a testament to the usefulness of truthfully adhering to a (sub)set of noble precepts.
Least harmful CoC
Every now and then someone in software communities brings this up and while I hate christians but use sqlite regardless because it's not that big of a deal that it's maintainers are christians, I do find it weird how this rarely gets brought up when conversations about politics in software development are had.
Just weird to me that nobody seems to care about that one when people complain about other less political but more politicized identities fairly often
52. Guard your tongue against evil and depraved speech.
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.
After so many variations of “don’t be evil” (but when it suits us we’ll just let that go) - I’m indifferent to these kinds of ethics statements.
excuse me, what
The people with commit bits to SQLite are a known, fixed, small set of individuals, all Christians. They decided to dispense with the usual Contributor Covenant derived code of conduct and adopt their own based on their shared value system. Unfortunately it doesn't actually meet the requirements for an open source code of conduct.
Whose requirements? for a code of conduct?
I would have thought its up to each project to decide on their requirements. There is no central authority that decides how to run an open source project.
Exactly. Even more true when contributions are not open: https://sqlite.org/copyright.html#:~:text=Open%2DSource%2C%2...
This gives me weird, cultish vibes. It has an uncomfortable US-American "forced-smileness" to it that I honestly find off-putting. But maybe I have been too much in a secular and non religious bubble the last few years and that made me hope that religion is finally leaving the science and IT space for good.
Unexpected to see one of the most widely used databases grounding its ethics in a 1,500-year-old framework. The longevity angle is interesting.
Uhhh, wasn't April 1st like a month and a half ago?
EDIT: Nevermind. Seems like this nonsense has been on their website since at least October 2018 (https://web.archive.org/web/20181024184950/https://sqlite.or...). How off putting.
As the first section notes, the only reason they posted this is to fulfill a checklist requirement for certain commercial users. The external requirement for a code of conduct, which requesters never read and don’t actually care about, is the actual nonsense here.
Hardly. It may be annoying for commercial users to require a checkboxy code of conduct from the software they choose to use, but taking that opportunity to shove religion down people's throats is very strange behaviour. It also makes me suspicious of SQLite: if they're that brazen, do I need to look out for potential implementations of these rules within the code? Will certain words, like "gay", cause queries to fail? I don't think so and I hope it never will. But this is a SQL database engine and they chose to publicly affiliate it with religion. That's concerning.
I've been considering switching to H2 for a while now to avoid depending on a fat-jar full of binaries. This nonsense has persuaded me to make that switch.
The source code is in the public domain. You can inspect it, fork it, and redistribute it as you like.
Nothing is being shoved down anyone’s throat.
I'd rather just not use the thing than maintain a fork just to monitor for the influence of its official religion in its code.
Good luck! It’s the most widely-deployed database software by far. I’m sure you have hundreds or thousands of SQLite files among devices you own.
I think you have vastly mistaken what I'm saying. You seem to have leapt from me merely switching away using SQLite in my own projects, to me attempting to purge SQLite from every machine and piece of software I own or something? How odd.
Even with their strange choice to give a SQL database engine an official religion, I'm under no illusion that they'd turn it into actual malware. The example concern I gave was about queries failing, not it rm-rfing my computer. Sheesh.
I don’t know, wouldn’t you be pissed if you tried to search your browser history for “gay” and nothing was found? After all, that’s the threat model you’re proposing that you’re worried about — the thinnest of excuses for your clear and deep bigotry.
When I wrote my example, I was more thinking of database and table names, the schema itself, rather than cell content. There are already various limitations on such things, usually in the form of reserved prefixes. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that a piece of software that officially affiliates itself with a particular religion might infuse that religion within itself. In fact, I find it suspicious that you seem to disregard this possibility entirely. Most explicitly religious software does this.
Instead, you attempt this weird switcheroo where I'm a bigot? Let's recap: a piece of software has officially affiliated itself with a religion that has made no secret of thinking we're evil and persecuting us for it for multiple millennia. I state that this is off putting and wish to switch to alternative software in my own projects. And you call me a bigot for it. Great job, Sherlock.