Consider making the Covenant more protective of Global South cultures

[einhverfr]

The current wording of the Covenant seems to pick sides in Western culture war topics and insist on global adherence even where the cultural context may have shfited. I discussed the problem in 2016 at https://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-commons-should-not-have-ideological.html

My proposal would be to add a clear protections against harassment on the basis of cultural perspectives as well. This would mean that, for example trying to push Indonesia to change cultural perspectives on Western culture war topics would be a violation of the covenant and would clearly protect people from post-colonial cultures in their rights to find their own solutions to culturally difficult problems.

I believe this is necessary to remove the systemic racism inherent in largely White Western countries trying to tell the rest of the world what is socially just. As Martin Luther King said, “The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.” (Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence).

The thing is there are going to be many perspectives around the world on things like filial duty, whether people should want a society where they retire with their children (and hence whether people should want a society where the expectation is to get married and have their own children to support them when they grow older). Perspectives on other hot button topics like abortion are also often culturally scoped (the issue is very different in Singapore than it is in Indonesia or Malaysia for family-structure reasons).

As an American living in the Global South I can say these issues are going to crop up more and more as engineering know-how in places like Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, and Vietnam start coming into open source projects. Their perspectives on topics like homosexuality may not fit well into Western rhetorical categories and this will create problems, especially in societies which deprioritise equality in favor of common good. That doesn't mean they fit Western ideas of homophobia but that doesn't mean they would be supportive of Western agendas on these topics either. And so nuance is necessary in working in international projects, and it is important to create a safe atmosphere for everyone.

[einhverfr]

I want to note I assume you won't be interested in this but I wanted to brign it up first and hope to work to get the major concerns I have with this so I could use it in some projects. If not, I will look at alternatives like the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

[CoralineAda]

Thank you for raising the issue. It's a delicate balance for sure in a global context. I have spoken in the past about open source's export of meritocratic ideals as a form of colonialism. We are currently developing a major revision of Contributor Covenant, and we will definitely be considering issues like these in the work.