Hi,

A while back, Murray asked the board to pronounce itself on the code of conduct.

We have had several debates on the issue, both on the mailing list and on conference calls, and Murray asked me to relay the conclusions to the membership.

The feeling of the board (a majority opinion, rather than unanimous) is that the code of conduct would be more hurt than helped by being pushed by us. Its adoption really needs to be bottom-up.

The issue is divisive, even within the board, and I don't think that we can come out as a group and say "the board thinks we should do this" - even in an advisory role. Adoption of a code of conduct should be something that people in the community do as part of their daily work. Olav has been a shining example of this in Bugzilla.

If approval for a CoC comes from the top, that will endanger the bottom-up adoption by giving the impression the board imposing it on the community, which is an impression we wish to avoid.

Cheers, Dave.